Saturday, October 23, 2021

"Four Words to go Forward or Four More to Drop Back" by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara

Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara is so busy working on his second novel (buy his first one here and my Irish genealogy here) and sending me excerpts that he's stopped sending blog posts for the time being - and who can blame him?

He's also now a full-fledged member of WriteOn Joliet and read this piece to the group last Thursday evening. 

For a sneak peek of where Ed's mind (and writing) is heading, read on. 


  Four Words to go Forward or Four More to Drop Back

              Who are you and what do you want? Whatever it is, now is not a good time. You see, I’m dropping into my imagination right now, which is trickery than it might be for you. To me, imagining is like waking from a deep, disturbing, desolate, dream to find myself in the middle of something that should be important but doesn’t feel that way because of the incomplete transition. The sounds are sharper, the colors more vibrant and the consequence more enduring, but the facts confuse me and I’m unsure which concerns are from the dream, and which are of my compulsory imaginary life.

              Right now, I’m in an office of some type and everyone is angry, which is why you should go. I can feel your disembodied presence lurking in my mind. I believe you can perceive my conscious thoughts as clearly as if I said them aloud, but I can’t hear your thoughts at all but rather I can guess at what you might be feeling. I can’t tell your gender or specie, but I do know, without knowing how that you’re here for some sort of story. You’re not going to leave until it’s told, are you?

              But enough about you. Let’s talk about me.

              As always when I’m waking from reality, it takes me awhile to reckon much and I need clues to reinforce my memory. Still, I can always remember five things that give me a starting point to fill in the details.

              First, I am the famous, one and only, Ed Calkins. Really? You’ve never heard of me? I am the soul and creation of the most prolific novelist of all time, and thou that author, the Goddess, never realized it, I am the true meaning of her work. True, I did exist before she wrote about me, but my existence was just a bad excuse for unrealized dreams of world domination. Once the series was written, world domination seemed unworthy of my greatest.

 I won’t judge you as an ignorant person. I chose to focus on how courageous and honest you’re being by admitting that. Clearly, you’ve never read any of the novels written by the Goddess who crafted the ‘Bryony’ series; something you should be doing now instead of haunting a mixed up mind. That, or you read only the later of her books and totally missed the point. Perhaps you’re from an earlier time? Lesser folk might judge you and name you, ‘Ignorant’ or ‘Caveman’, or other such insulting nick names. I shall think of you as ‘Cah’ the first letters of ‘Courageous and Honest’. But really, Cah, you should leave.

              The second thing is that I am ruthless. In saying so, I left out the word ‘very’ which belongs before the word ‘ruthless’ and should be repeated a varying number of times depending on the various variances that my mind will verify, which is way I left the word ‘very’ and all its forms out of my statement. Are you as confused as I am? Yet right now instead of wondering how best to clarify my thoughts I am wondering who would trouble with the English language and not read the Goddess’s novels? To put it plainly. ‘Ed Calkins’ equals ‘ruthless’ times ‘very’ raised to the nth power where n is the variable representing ‘situation’. By rights, I should name that variable ‘s’, but I don’t want to come across as a nerd.

              The third thing is simple but center to my existence. Newspaper delivery is important. If it weren’t for the need for newspapers to find their customers, I would simply not exist. Don’t waste too much time I that as I’ll circle back to it.

              Fourth and final is that I have many wives all over the times and places of the planet and will continue to marry more; many without their knowledge. I’m allowed this as marrying Ed Calkins is painless and easy as the word ‘yes’. However, I can only bed one being who is my eternal lover. This is known as the pink machete rule. Relax! I’ll circle back to that one too.

              You’re still here.

              Please try to understand. This meeting seems very important and judging from the fact that everyone else is situated around the large oak desk, and I’m the only one behind it, I’m supposed to be leading this anger…or at least answering to it. The meeting seems to have short middle aged men on one side and attractive young women on the other. Maybe by suppling you with that detail you’ll forget that I forgot the fifth thing.

              Dang! It’s hard to deceive someone intruding in your stream of consciousness. Believe me, Cah, this is no time for a story.

              Ok, I give up. Go ahead with your story.

              Wait.

You’re the silent one. I’m supposed to tell this story? Well, as much as I’d do anything to make you happy, my telling a story is impossible as it requires me to know a story. I’m sure it you hang around long enough for my memory to come back I’ll be able to come up with something. Hey, here’s a better idea. Go to the library and look under ‘Author’ for ‘Goddess’. You’re not going to do that, are you. Ok, I remember Goldilocks and the Three Bears…most of it. I don’t remember how it starts.

              Maybe I supposed to tell the story that’s happening in my imagination now…just tell it as it happens? Bad idea. Why is the fifth thing I always remember that I just forgot. The fifth thing is four little details so less important than the other four that it’s easy to forget but it makes story narratives a really bad idea. I’m a dyslexic, psychotic, time traveling, vampire. Cah, none of this is good for you.

              The vampire thing…that can be fatal. Forget about biting. Vampires, especially long enduring ones, are often literally bored to death, and I am the longest enduring vampire in history. While its truth that those other four things that I never forget mitigates some of that boredom, empathizing with me might bore you to death. Time travel is very confusing, and dyslexic makes a mess of the order of words and numbers, not to mention when words sound similar (remember the ‘very’ thing) Don’t even get me started on the psychotic thing which will drive you crazy.

              Cah, if you want me to do this, I’ll try, but damn it would be so much better if you used your library card.

              Let me start by describing the room a little better. It would be a good guess that I’m in Ireland right now…or at least as I imagine it. The two parties, which seem to be as angry with the other as they are with me, are leprechauns and merrows.

              Stop!

              Cah, put the damn digital dictionary down!

              I told you I was dyslexic, which means, if I’m to tell the story with my thoughts, I have to do it the way I’ve learned to think. I can’t just give you the background, I have to map it out first. That means I’m going to say things you can possibly understand, use words you might not be familiar with or even don’t exist. But I’ll circle back to all of it and explain it better when you have more contexts. That way, it won’t matter if I forget a detail or two, or even mix up the order. You’ll have some of the answers to put it right in your own mind. Besides that, you’ll have perspective of the other narrating characters to form your own sense of the plot. In that way, you might come to know the story as well as I do, or even better. You might disagree with me on what happened. What fun that would be!

              Think of it this way. When I was young and as confused as I am right now, my future self appeared before me and insisted that I memorize forty words; made me repeat them until I said them all without any mistakes; and disappeared without explaining any of it. The forty words made no sense, and some were words I never heard before. Try as I did to remember all of them, I started forgetting some as I practiced in my head on my way to wherever I was compelled to go. I found myself in a classroom where final exams where happening. I had no memory of ever taking a class on the subject, but when the test appeared on my desk, I realized those words were the answers to the forty questions. Even the words I thought I forget, when prompted with the question, I was able to recall. Not everything made complete sense, but I did know a lot more about forty words. I still flunked, however, as I knew how to say the words, but didn’t have a clue how to spell them.

              Cah, you are in the same position here, expect instead of forty words, you have four. If you wish to understand the story, you need remember only four words…Ed Calkins, ruthless, newspapers, wives (or the pink machete rule if you prefer.) If you want reasons not to understand the story, the four words change to dyslexic, psychotic, time travel, vampire. Either way, the answers are before you. The point is, don’t give up just because you don’t understand, I don’t understand half the stuff I’m thinking either, but I am mapping it out, and it will all make sense in the end.

              But you wanted to know about merrows. For now, I’ll just ask you to think of them as Irish mermaids with legs.

              Together, we’ll look for the next clue, which might be this letter on my desk.




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