The Ancient Persian Ring

((1000 B.C.)(Amiash Culture))

A Bronze finger ring with a large circular bezel decorated with scrolling and raised pellets, representing a shield was found, and given to the author, and with what little insight the author had, and was given, he formed its history…

He was one of those multitudes of young soldiers, a soldier—whose name never appeared with gilded letters on any buildings, or walls; in death he simple was one who helped employ much literature for the historical-fiction writers of the past and present. To which good or bad cause it may have been, but whatever the case may be, he had contributed—nonetheless, his life to it, to soldiering, with only a rough bronze ring to account for his life, containing some shield, to tell us his life story, if one is to follow its path: perhaps within his mind, a thought, a fancy among his men, his brethren, to what depth of feeling, no one will ever know—what this ring meant to him: together with this old writer’s abundance of words. But there are a few things I do know, from whence the ring came from, where it was found, how old it is, and so forth, plus I own it: which is my advantage this is my tale.

Imbued with Persian mysticism, where among the varied, and buried fame of the man who wore this ring, three-thousand years ago, in his assemblage of men—not improbable, but a creditable attempt I will now make: the young soldier was forthright, obedient, and when it was time to rest and sleep, surely went with full and comforting spirits, and felt he had good fortune to possess himself with such a ring, and dreams, yes he had dreams, connecting this with higher rank, his task was done, he was to remain a soldier, die a soldier, it was a death-warrant, but it was the life he chose, he drank childishly, as all young soldiers do, as all young men and some older men do, more often than not do, do when they especially have a tendency to admire one another in battle, or talk about their battles—making the little fish a whale.

The ring did not glitter like that of a little star; it was a tinge on the rustic side possessed of worldly prospect. Surely many a night he catch a glimpse of the evil spirit that seemingly was attached to it—all war is impious; that red blood that was stained on it was in more cases than not, someone else’s blood, nevertheless, his noble manner testified how slight it was—for he survived.

When I got the ring it was in perfect shape, I had worn it a number of times myself, being a soldier of a war, and it broke in two places, I had it repaired, to keep the soul in it, before it got lost, its residue from the soldier’s finger.

This I do know: the mother of the soldier’s name was Diotima (I suppose it could have been his: wife or sister, or daughter—likewise, but something tells me it was his mother: call it, instinct or perception, or even second sight), for the name was imprinted inside the ring. And we know she lived in Uruk, and we already know the ring has a date of 1000 B.C., and we know the soldier’s ring was from Persia, not that he had to be Persian. We invariably learn the importance of what we lack, but what we seek and what we don’t know: if we remove the ring from his finger of the soldier, we still have the solider and his location of birth, and the site were it was found (although we can make more speculations, but I’m trying to negate the most obvious of the histories of this indiscernible man).

Great was the power of the King of Uruk, for there was built, at this time a great city, and it gleamed with glazed bricks, this soldier’s ring was found on the left bank of the Euphrates, evidently he witnessed the illuminated barges go up and down the river, perhaps heard the echoing, ripples of the music being played by rowing boats, among the high temples looming into the night. The city being built either by this king or one before him to the point of where it was evident of such a life style…

And most likely he lived long enough to say this: “In a little time I die,” for he must have been old to listen to the sounds of life, smelling the sweet scent of the flowers, over looking the river.

#899 ((April 4, 2012) (10:30 a.m.)) Inspirit by the actual ring

Sorrows of Sheol

Sea-Slough

(Dialogue of the Devils)

The dead in one of the chambers were playing dirty tricks on one another.

Here it was a world passed: one of no moonlight, hours moving at high

speed: uncounted tombs and stones and shriveled lilies,

Cradles of acid-dew air, here and there—everywhere.

Lo! What words can I say? How shall I describe this desolate land before

you?

Oh, perhaps: the ‘Sorrows of Sheol.’

The Dead were hoping they would be persuasive enough—in this dark to

dark, zone to zone madhouse!...

Persuasive enough to mar Eva?

Ere, the thought was blind, but they wanted from her, to hear,

a word of testament: a few syllables making up a word or two

Saying “Okay, I’ll stay,’ or just ‘Okay,’ might do,

and would be forever bound.

(Nature she thought…the thought misplaced, her eyes shifted, just for a minute she thought she saw old Ronda lying beside a chucking beast, her mindless charred body moved as if in a sea-slough mesh—yes, yes, it was Old Ronda the Seer).

Sea-slough mesh, she was like the fly to a spider, caught in their web, her

endowed web.

“We hunger for life and because we hunger for life, we call on you but in

this case, in you case, you called on us,” said

some passionate form, bent, hunched behind the Noyllopa

(the wild-blooded green demon).

“We cry, God pity us,” said Noyllopa, “but he has lost the key to his eardrums,

and hears not a word. He sees and hears nothing; it is as if his eyes are “corroded.”

(Old Ronda came into view again, she sat up, and it was her, confirmed: white eyes no pupils, the voice beside her said: ‘She has only been down here for 160-years’ then the voice lifted, it was of Noge—a bisexual, lust demon— he cried out once more: ‘What are you among the living? Here among the dead, you are like Lilith, Queen!’)

Ronda pushed her hair off her shoulders, laid against a rock, looked at

Eva as if to say:

‘You’d be the luckier’

But what did that mean?

Luckier if she got out of there (but were she God Almighty, she might have up and left, just like that…so

she pondered, she might have done that; but would she? For there she was…)

Or stay with them, would she stay with them (for there she was).

Then Ronda fell like a rag doll onto the stones beside her.

‘Was she the living dead?’ pondered in Eva’s mind.

To displease the eyeballs of Sheol, she kept a flat affect on her face in her Posture.

Here tongue-less beasts ran by—from corridor to corridor!

Silent vampires flew by, all crouching like dogs…

Roots, rats, dead cats, and parts from the new breed,

hanging from their lips

It all was chaos in this ungodly creation.

No, a Godly creation, one matching them and their immemorial powers!

Ronda, she was different from the others, thought Eva

So was her thinking, in vacant wonder

Just an old stray mare for the taking, by the idiot lips of the many beasts

and creatures…herewith in

“Why don’t you speak?” asked Agaliarept.

“What can I say,” responded Eva, “I love my brother (but she didn’t say

what she meant, ‘she had once loved her brother’)

And Tyr, the idiot, clapped and chuckled like a child.

The Hours

“How long have I been here” asked Eva?

It seemed an hour or so, but they had walked quite a distance, with long

periods of silence.

“Nothing, and I mean nothing,” said Noge, “is quite the same here. Two

days, you’ve been here twenty-hours.”

She had been daydreaming, trivially daydreaming:

Mice chopping on mice, scarping scorpions, had all taken her attention

away from the ongoing dialogue!...

Down a side corridor, a squad of twelve helmeted soldiers with torches,

Passed.

“Kiss me, oh kiss me,” said Noyllopa.

Eva became breathless in fear they would soon force her again to their

desires.

But they wanted her cooperation—a word tying her forevermore to their

domain, domicile, their Sheol, her one or two words of acceptance.

And they were using up their time: in the art of persuasion,

As often they did, and were famous for—

all under the umbrella of manipulation….

Eva felt as if she was under a shell of imbecility;

This wanting to have seen her brother no matter what, was now silly—

Especially knowing he was here…God forbid, what kind of thinking was

this?

((Eva thought for a moment: ‘…will I awake from this sleep, and this will prove to be a dream, a nightmare. What if I will not wake up? Oh, but when I do it will all fade, of course it will: no it will not—will I keep clear memories…?)(And there stood now in front of Eva, just for a moment—the Wingless Archangels, for they wanted to see her: unbelieving, one would prefer to step into the heart of Sheol, to have a last look at her brother—how inane. These Wingless Archangels, were the infamous Angelic Renegades, that lived before the Great Flood: these were the beings that were wise with the secrets of eternity, they stood in defiance of God, and now they stood with changing fear in front of the entreasured woman, Eva, who had they their choice would take her, but they saw something of old, they would have blown her to bleak oblivion, but they saw something of old, and they simply left, for it was the sin that had sent them to their doom, so long ago—cohabitation with the living, and she was still part of the living, now these beings no more than malignant hags, but powerful nonetheless, wished not to lose what little they had.))

A loud cry was heard “You runaway she-dog, I want your joy of your dirty body!”

the voice of: Noyllopa.

“You already took it,” said Eva, with an insulting tone, fearing now she may

have, altered the situation.

“What of it,” replied Agaliarept? “I will tell you a secret, maybe two.

“We have many famous people down here, I will tell you of some, and my

secret of you, if you lay with me willingly and say a word or two…”

He was now fearful; she might not be persuaded to give up her right to

salvation, she was becoming testy, and the demonic forces, were not playing their part well, she was

now scorched—dry as a bone—from loving him to such a depth.

“We have Clark Ashton Smith here, your brother’s idol, and we have Poe,

and we have Robinson Jeffers, and we have H.P. Lovecraft, all idols of

Your brother and perhaps yours as well: should I call them forth?”

“Do you have George Sterling?” asked Eva, a poet.

“Perhaps,” said Agaliarept, but did not say he’d produce him.

She had been trying to repair what she had destroyed, she did not want to

be, gang rapped again, and figured she’d listen to him, he was a boastful, talkative aspiration, to rebuild, and buy for time:

“Hemingway, Faulkner, Anderson, Stein, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking,

he’s coming—it is all time and space related: so is John Lange,

“I Mean MC, and Capote in a few more years, all your friends and your

brother’s heroes, and Woolf, and Mary Renault, and Stephen King, “And Ginsberg, Jack K., and Burroughs, you know the bunch, all those

poets and story writers: woops, I left out: Elvis is on his way, and so “Is Elton John, and Obama—he’s far-off in the future though,

“And G. Johnson, that old Vietnam president,

“All believers in Molloy the Devil, more than the Almighty, we’ve done a

lot of work down here: if you know what I mean.

“Those who don’t believe ride dreams, enkindling dreams;

“They listen to our voices, act in haste and make webs of death, for: fame,

fortune and war against one another, we get them so busy they never Rest.

“We get them all fighting over God; everyone wants a pound of flesh from

him. He is the silver veil over everyone’s heart, He is the twist in “Everyone’s mind, and we down here in Hell are aglow with hot malign

when we can confuse the living about this omnipotent entity.”

Agaliarept’s Lecture

To gain more time to think, Eva asked, the most arrogant and talkative one of

the demonic forces to explain demonic energy, and of course it was Agaliarept, Henchman of Hell, again, that took the lead by saying:

Demonic Energy: Electrical and magnetic forces are related, thus, a moving magnet causes a force on electrical charges, That is to say, demons are moving magnetic forces, expressed more simply, they are in themselves an electric current, and could create a magnetic field; this field produces an electric current.

An example might be light, polarized light. So to move an object, let’s say demonic forces, something has to come in contact with it: this being the space between Sheol, or earth and the Moon.

These demons are in essence, invisible tubes you might say, doing the pushing and pulling. As the moon does when it gets closer to the earth, as the tides rise and sink.

Thus, we have an unseen magnetic power here (a force field), stretching from one point to another (this is called: electromagnetism).

Now you take the manifestations of a physical entity, a demon for example, me for a better example, and the magnetic field: you witnessed how fast I got here: what do we have: a wave in space and the speed of the wave, in this case, in the case of a full powered demonic force, me—my speed is that of light, ‘the speed of light.’

You see light itself is an electromagnetic wave. So we have here a demon absorbing light, energy, There are other waves demonic forces are transferred from here to there with, such as by radio waves, microwaves, X-ray machines, television, the sun,

You must remember, the moon is only 250,000 miles away the earth only 25,000 mile around, a demon in such cases can outrun a light wave that my friend is fast.

So he can be with you one minute, and in hell the next, and on the moon, shortly after.

And when the demon is said to have the Fifth Moon within him, he has dragged—in effect, altered time, it is not as it may seem to be to the earthling observers, Earth has its own clock, and demonic forces do not, especially do not, when they are not on the surface of the earth, nor in Sheol or Hell.

The Demonic forces live according to space-time—more often than not—which includes a forth dimension. Gravity, and gravity is distorted by the mass and energy in it, this is what the demon holds on to. Meaning they do not have to travel in a straight line, but can curve if it is to their advantage, and they do. This is called, gravitational waves; each demonic force can have its own intensity as in quantum theories would avow. I do not with to get into this area, simple because then we are talking about atoms and molecules.

Then a strange creature came out—seemingly out of nowhere—by the name of: Belgorod the Mediocre, a

creature that looked like a lion, with a human head!

“If you break a promise, no one can save you, down here.”

With that, Agaliarept, Noyllopa, and even Noge, all looked at Belgorod: he had

let the cat out of the bag, he had told her in essence, there was a way out.

“Eh,” said Eva. No more than that, and no more than that had to be said.

She thought now, ‘He told me the secret.’

Belgorod’s yellow teeth showed as he stupidly smiled at one and all.

“I mean, I’m sorry Agaliarept, I slipped…”

Eva made no answer, and the silence, was the response they didn’t want

because they knew she was thinking, and she could see Agaliarept’s Scalp tighten, his veins in his temples protrude.

The Twenty-fifth Hour…

Agaliarept’s Last Monologue

“God has no pity,” said Agaliarept, Henchman of Hell;

“it is better you join us now than later, should you arrive later, we will Be more harsh on you!”

“Blasphemy,” she cried.

“No, this is the truth,” said Agaliarept.

“Everyday, 160,000-people die on earth, and out of them, we get 155,000. There has been in my lifetime, which is over 10,000-years, 105-billion

births on earth, out of them we have 460-wars, from the wars we lost Over one billion lives, which would have produced, another 10- billion

souls to deal with, you see we have done God a favor—taken in most all of them—minus that little percentage—and He has had no Pity on us.”

Eva was no longer listening…

#901 (4-6-2012)

Cave Moonlight (A terrible account)

Prologue by the Author: There really are no accounts of Shannon O’Day as a young boy, and so the author—me—, I have decided to provide one for the reader, although it is not the most pleasing of his youthful days, therefore I advise the young reader (s) not to read the following story—it would be—if it was a movie— ‘R Rated’ for horror, although nowadays, maybe it is better I recommend the opposite, let the young reader, read it, and the grownups be Restricted, or bypass it: it would appear nowadays, they have been better equipped with stronger stomachs, and cooler nerves than us old folks: thus, more mentally able to endure it, from my observations anyhow:

As told by Mabel O’Day (1929)

Perhaps this wouldn’t have happened had Shannon O’Day had adults with him, or advising him at the time, or his brother Gus, ten-years his senior, had he been with him, or simply had peers with him, but he didn’t, so that’s all speculation anyhow. The truth being, it might have taken place no matter what, knowing Shannon O’Day, who did per near what he always wanted to do anyway.

He had this new friend, Guy August, with him, a new kid from a nearby farm by Gus’ farm—a mile north of Gus’ farm, the same age as him: sixteen.

It was an evening in fall, I am talking about, near evening that is, there was a cursed wind “The damn thing blasted about the whole meadows: howling like long-range voices of drowning cats, all the way from the St. Croix River, over there by Stillwater Township, some twelve miles away, an evil wind!” Shannon told me.

I had been married to Gus going on a year or so, not long, it must have been 1929 he talked to me about it; anyhow, the account took place in 1916.

Guy and Shannon caught in this wind storm of sorts and Guy had heard of a strange cave that was haunted, and he said they were pretty close to, so he figured, and why not look for it, visit it, stay the night. They had been ten-miles or so north of Guy’s farmhouse. I can’t remember precisely, but thereabouts Gus told me. It was a weekend. The cave was said to be pretty well closed in, a small entrance, not all that large inside either, with a deep, deep abyss, that lead to the river nearby. Shannon knew of it, but never had visited it, nor cared to. But Guy liked fossils, and those kinds of things, and figured perhaps there was some hidden treasure in there, something well preserved for the taking.

“Well,” Shannon told me, “we arrived at the shallow entrance of the cave, about a mile off shore from the River; Guy was excited, I really didn’t care one way or the other, actually I was kind of hungry, and all we had was beef jerky, and not much of that. Guy was an odd kind of kid, liked gadgets, fixed his car up with all these gadgets, lights here and there, it looked like the inside of a plane, but his car didn’t run, he was working on the motor, and between that and this, and whatever else he was into, he was getting his license to drive I know, and fossils as I’ve already mentioned: God knows what was on his mind when he went inside that cave. Anyhow as I was saying, he was excited, and I really didn’t care, but he had made up his mind to stay and explore the cave, to sleep in it overnight if possible, he had a flashlight. I aimed to sleep outside the cave by moonlight, on the ground, it was a full moon, a green twilight, and early stars, and no evening voices: built a fire from some long branches by the nearby woods, I figured if I need one I could use it as a torch. I liked Guy an awful lot so I stayed, but I really didn’t care to. He would have stayed had I left, and I knew that. So as I said, I stayed. Although thinking back perhaps I should have tried to persuade him to leave, but that’s all hindsight.

“Guy said to me, ‘I wish you’d explore inside the cave with me,’ and I said, ‘I’d rather not.”’

It was Gus who arrived at dawn to find Shannon walking aimlessly as if in shock in the skirt of the woods, perhaps a hundred yards from the cave entrance, the boy, Guy dead, nude to a skeleton, unrecognizable, frightfully mutilated; Shannon, a slight mad; a month later Shannon would tell of the account, to the best of his recollection, to the Sheriff and a Court of Inquiry.

Shannon explained: “At first it was very peaceful, I even built a little fire that is perhaps what saved me. Guy wandered around inside the cave for a long time, so it seemed, maybe forty-five minutes to an hour, not sure why, it didn’t look that large, I mean, I glanced inside it with a lit burning end of a branch. I remember it was after twilight, not sure how long, but a little after dusk, I spread my jacket on the ground to lay on it, the fire was warm—it was crackling, I even remember the images I seemed to imagine come from the waving fire, and the smell soaked into my pores, I was daydreaming I think, a full moon, yes it was a full moon that night, I could see a light in the far-off distance, not sure what it was. Then I heard Guy, he was screaming and when I turned about to look at the cave entrance, he was crawling out of it on his hands and knees, and trying to get onto his feet, from the cave entrance to about fifty-yards from the woods: claws, icy dart-like claws were being dug deep into his flesh, the huge rats hanging on to him, enormous reddish-brown rats, they were pulling at him, he was dragging them along, and they were leaping on him with tarring teeth, a dozen or more until he dropped to the ground, and then they started dragging him back towards the entrance of the cave, then tried to drag him into the way-in of the cave into the cave itself—they couldn’t pull him through the small opening though, I had a fiery stick in my hand, and I fought three of them off, one fell into the fire, and I ran, I ran and ran and ran, I think in circles and when I stopped running, and I’m not sure when I stopped running, I couldn’t hear the screams anymore. That’s all I remember, and then Gus found me wandering about the woods in a daze like condition. I guess I sat in a stupor for month on the porch, or walked about on the promenade here on the farm, Gus’ farm never speaking until one day I just woke up, and said to Gus, ‘What day is it?’”.

#905 (4-15-2012)

Chapter Two of Two

Into the Mustardseed Sun (The present, 1966)

Shannon O’Day is in his bed in his apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota: a knock is heard at his door—: it is 1966; Shannon O’Day’s half asleep having a reverie…!

There was a knock on the door, Shannon tossed over his covers to one side of the bed, tossed himself forward, heard a voice, a voice from the past: looked out the window saw into the mustardseed sun, pungent it was, his eyelids flickered like a runaway blinking stoplight: squinting and trying to adjust to the morning tilt of the sun, it was to him like unfermented wine; inside his room it appeared to be olive brown from the rays of the sun: “Youall a-wake in there?” said the familiar voice.

“I got some news fer you Shannon!”

Slowly Shannon found his feet, and pushed them over and onto the floor—they were not doing what he told them to do by themselves, move, therefore he had to push them some—the linen on the bed looked like claw tracks of hawks—he looked out the window again, it was a clutching sky, in his slant, he put on his slippers, grabbed his robe, it was 10:00 a.m., he slept late nowadays, took a cavernous swing onto his sixty-six year old feet of his: then he pulled him self up from a bent over position, and out of bed he flopped

“Sounds like Otis Wilder Mather?” answered Shannon in a hoarse like voice.

“Yessum, it be me all right, let me in.”

“Dear God, it is…!” said Shannon, stirred by his voice to the door, unbolting the door, then opening it ever so gently, “Otis Wilde Mather, what the heck are you doing in town, thought you were down in Ozark?”

“Jes’ thought I’d stop on by have a drink with Youall, and give you the good news, Edward Morrill, committed suicide in prison.”

“You disrupted my dream, for that quack, I was dreaming of wishbones of wild geese…”

“What in tar nation youall trying to say,” said Otis?

“I guess I’m not all that sorry about that guy, and perhaps not all that surprised. How did you find out? I mean he done raped my cousin Dana, not sure how he got those extra years, but…glad he did. ”

“My third cousin done called me up and told me. He’s in fer life.”

“Hum…m, sounds a bit suspicious to me, like he was keeping an eye on him for you.”

“I heard you talking in your sleep some, getting those damn nightmares again, or whatever Youall call dhem things—nowadays?”

“Nightmares is good enough Otis: shellshock is what they used to call them, just plain old nightmares is what I call them, or recollections; sit on down here a spell and let’s chew the fat some, I got us some good old corn whisky, if you got the time? This old body of mine burns and raves in the morning and evenings, it’s like the wind blowing my bones out of a hill. Living old, is a lot of work,” and he chuckled.

“Yessum, jes’ like de old days dhat waht I like ‘bout yaw-all Shannon, you never change.”

(Shannon O’Day was the cause Edward Morrill had been sentence to five-years in prison for his affair with a minor, Dana Stanley, during the fall of 1958, and it was now December, 1961. He had served a little over two years, with good behavior, he was to get out in another year 1963, September, and was going up for a board hearing and hopefully be placed on parole, thus, at this point and time he had a parole hearing come September of 1962, one year from this date, and he had told his roommate, he was going to kill the person who put him in this prison when he got out, and the person he told (kidding or not), was Otis Wilde Mather’s third cousin, and when his name came up: Shannon O’Day’s, Oscar Lewis Charleston, had written Otis concerning this in a slight manner saying , to come and visit him and he’d explain, saying it was urgent. And he did just that, and gave Otis the unkind information of his roommate, or so called, inmate friend, and Otis gave Oscar enough chewing tobacco to last him the whole year out. But now something needed to be done to stop this potential hazard in the making.

And Otis’ plan was two fold: get him a new sentence, another five or ten years would do, or do him in. Whichever one was favorable, under whatever circumstances prevailed, in accordance to the time period; and the less people that knew, the better off, to include Shannon O’Day himself.)

Japanese Domain ((Japan) (summer of 1999))

(Arrival—Tokyo: July 5^th, 1999) Most Japanese people appear polite, but once you’re in their country and a little less than a tourist, at least for me, being a guest more than a tourist, an American Caucasian: engaged to a Japanese woman five years my senior, it was quite the opposite; I was in their domain, I was in the land of the ancient warriors with long swords— and they wanted me to know it; prior to this, she had visited Minnesota three times within the past three years, and she wanted me to see her homeland.

Anyhow the story really starts in 1996, when I met Kikue with several of her girlfriends, waiting at the airport in Istanbul to go back home and we talked and exchanged addresses and became pen pals, and as I said, she visited me in Minnesota, then I was asked to come to Japan to visit her. And I did, the summer of 1999, for six-days, on my way to Java.

When I arrived in Japan, she was waiting there at the airport, it was near evening, and I was hungry, so we went to a restaurant, all the waitresses and host were wearing kimonos, and all the other necessities that make Japanese figures, Japanese. Everything very colorful and the food was not really all that tasty, but just being in Tokyo, Japan, gave a certain acceptable flavor to it. It was a full restaurant and many foreigners like I—a few of my fellow-countrymen here and there. After we ate we found our way out of the corridor outside of the bistro, and on our way out to the everlasting hysteric lifestyle of trains, trains packed to the rim with bodies: herds and herds of bodies being smashed into those opening and closing doors. All hanging onto rails, some sitting, and half the bodies were closed eyed as if sleeping.

It would be, the relationship with Kikue, my Japanese girlfriend, be a shrieking and not very promising one, by the end of my sixth day in Japan, I hate to say this so early on in the story but, there are reasons for this—I am not Marlon Brando, and I was not making a movie called “Sayonara,” by James Michener, so truth be told, I was not in their eyes of the same blood, and therefore, imperfect, even though we were their conquerors.

But as I was saying, little hands and big bellies and sweat, we were all jammed into these train cars, from one point to another, which for Japan, and certainly for Tokyo, is commonplace and cumbersome.

As we walked downtown, there were more massage parlors than cafes: Kikue told me, they were quite prevalent, like wings on a bird, everybody needed a rubdown from all the stress, and strain of the city life, and I could now see why just by taking one train ride, which really was several, connecting.

(Tama City—July 5^th & 6^th) Finally we came to what was called Tama City, Kikue’s domain, a district of Tokyo, one used by the U.S. Air Force, with a beautiful golf course. From what I understood a rather newer enterprise, than the city we’d visit in a few days, called Nagoya and Kyoto. There in Tama City, I would meet three of her girlfriends, one that owned a small café, and we all talked there, had coffee, and rice cakes and so forth, and they gave me hand made postcards, and they giggled a lot, the Japanese women are famous for that I guess, perhaps releases stress, and they were perhaps the friendliest of all the Japanese people I would meet while in Japan.

I took a few photographs, and went to a small apartment she had rented for our visit. Desirous, the Japanese do not mind being photographed, actually they seem to like it, so I had no trouble, innocently minded, and shot pictures when and wherever I wanted to.

The next day I was to meet her whole family, this was to be the Devil’s own time assembling, they didn’t take to me, no one smiled, there was perhaps ten of them at this restaurant, and only Kikue and her sister could speak English, actually her younger sister could speak better English than Kikue, who perhaps had a vocabulary of fifty to seventy-five words.

By they way they treated me at the table, eating, then every other minute someone asking questions, and so forth, it would have appeared to an onlooker as if they were interrogating me, grabbing the opportunity to degrade their enemy at the same time, their conqueror. Her sister who sat by me, put her hand on my thigh, and fumbled about, and I took it off, “Just checking to see what you’d do,” she said: meaning if I was serious about her sister I suppose: never reporting her facts to the family of course, and I let it be, surely she would have denied it, and impersonated the perfect sister.

All in all, the local scene was touchy, and I got to the point I could not take anymore and stood up and said in a near vulgar way, “You people are plainly rude, I’m your guest, even if I’m your disappointment, or your daughter’s disappointment to you: cozy as you look you’re a bunch of hypocrites.” And I walked out into the open air. And Kikue gasped, jumped up and followed, and the family members, the mother in particular, was saying, trying to say anyhow, “Oh, oh we are so sorry…!” which was a lie. She was sorry I could figure out what she was up to, that I confronted her and was bold enough to do so.

We did stay for her sister’s show of art, at this nearby gallery, and her sister gave me a water painting she did, one I liked, and we were back to being friends, no more brawling.

That evening I had acupuncture, from a friend of Kikue’s, and when I got on the bus to go back to our apartment, I collapsed. My body couldn’t take the acupuncture.

We went back to the room; it was mostly furnished with a sturdy bed, Japanese décor, outside was two food machines, where you could buy a cold drink or a candy bar—and we waited for morning, where we had breakfast at McDonald’s (way over prices); made a phone call to Minnesota, not sure what for, perhaps business I had a few apartments then; and caught a train to Nagoya, which was really a stopover on our way to Kyoto. It was morning, but while waiting for the train, her sister showed up, an even younger one than the artist, I of course was incapable of replying to her grinning face, and they were talking about me: from what Kikue said and from what she didn’t say, with an icy cold look at me, it wasn’t good, I gathered she felt her Western-style selection of boyfriend was not to the Japanese taste, yet everything per near in Tokyo was bent towards the West. I tried to interrupt several times what they were saying, because everything was just getting gloomy, everything under a gloomy glare, and people walking by. Her face went into cruel and gaudy colors, as I lazily passed the 400-square foot platform, enclosed between two doors.

(Nagoya—July 7^th) From Tokyo to Nagoya was perhaps two-hundred miles, and from there to Kyoto, would be a bus ride—perhaps another forty miles or so: anyhow, here we were in Nagoya in time for the events Kikue had planned: she had put heart and soul into this visit of mine, and with enthusiasm I equaled it, and the first thing we saw was the Japanese Castle, with its waving like gables, in place of towers. Below it, it had a great wall and dark green bushes below that, and then the sidewalk. But the most exciting thing of the city was that there was a Sumo event going on. And I got to go to it, an international competition, people from around the world, and the old Champion who was from Hawaii, was present. I actually got to meet three of them, and was told in a light but dramatic way, I should not approach them, but heck, why not, surely that person was exaggerating, and so I did, no problem, they liked their picture being taken.

After all this we caught a bus to Kyoto…

(Kyoto—July 7 & 8^th) I was wondering how broke I would become if I lived here in Japan, everything was high, higher priced than Alaska, Iceland, and Paris, the three places I though were out of space with prices: I could include New York City also, but it would come in 5^th or 6^th place, but here in Japan they were somewhere in the Dark Galaxy. On another note, it seemed to me the Japanese people were indifferent—walking around in a trance: if not at times giving out some kind of pitying expression, as if it was some sphere of enlightenment, I mean here was a people who prided themselves in a pure blood race, but their ancestry was that of South East Asian, Korean, and Chinese, even their writings were mixed with the Chinese, and they avowed to be a pure race, the Japanese race; I thought how silly can they be, their blood was thicker with older races than they wanted to acknowledge, they were no accident, they were puffed, that’s all.

Anyhow, once we got to Kyoto, we didn’t go to a hotel, we went to a Ryokan, a traditional wooden Inn, built in 1603; this was July, 1999. It was simple I thought, but expensive, we had to take off our shoes to enter it, had slippers, a phone on a lowly built table, and everything was half size from what I was used to, or so it seemed, and I had a robe they provided with a black belt. Kikue had made all these arrangements, her character was now more tender, and it was nice of her to have put so much into this visit, I was surprised, even some flowers, red roses were in a vase behind me, or next to the wall.

As I walked about the place, a door was open to one of the rooms, I saw a man and woman making love on that thin mattress they leave in the room for a bed, it was as if they wanted spectators, she smiled as the guy on top of her never stopped to turn about and grin, his forehead bobbing back and forth, I just kept conservatively walking. Making my way back to my room, then Kikue and I went to visit the pigeons at one of the Kyoto Temples, then down to this Underwater Bridge, of sorts, I even participated in a Buddhist prayer or devotions, a meeting of some sort; the monks were very gracious.

That evening we went to the Kyoto Tower, it reminded me of the tower in Cairo: very high and not all that much design to it. It was closed but we snuck up the stairway to it anyway, I had to say I was there I guess, my taste in attire was still western, and no one paid me all that much attention, other than someone saying, “It’s closed,” and I went with a grin anyhow.

Well, we couldn’t eat there so we went to this other restaurant, closer to our Ryokan, and ate there, very expensive, and again the food, wasn’t all that great, but I did enjoy the duck, the slim pieces of duck I got—they have several dishes to every meal.

Throughout my stay in Japan I was seriously sober, they drink a good portion of sake I understood (I believe it to be a rice wine I drank it while in Vietnam, 1971), I didn’t drink anymore, nor did I ever like sake even while in Vietnam, nor did I smoke any longer, and although I didn’t see that many Japanese people drinking, they did like to smoke—a real-life counterpart to Americans, or Europeans I would think.

It was now getting late and I was fading out, tired, we walked back and Kikue started talking about me staying in Japan, and here I had arrangements to go to Guam in a few days, and on to Java. It kind of struck me as peculiar, this produced an argument, and I ended up fighting with her, but to calm things down I maintained a convent-like existence there in Kyoto, or tried to. I would have liked to have bid her forlornly sayonara, but I left well enough alone, perhaps this was just her peaceful annoyance underneath the romance not wanting me to leave—but the longer I stayed, it seemed as if it was more planned than abruptly staged, or at least so I assumed.

In the afternoon the next day we went to Geon, there I met a Geisha, and found a house where they served foods and drinks, and it was in essence a Geisha house, the proprietor told me it was one of the oldest in Japan, and you could see all these old pictures on the walls, I think Kikue was getting a little jealous, but she was a good diplomat in that she got me a tour of the place, then we left, and I found a Geisha walking about, and I got a picture with her, and believe it or not, when I got back to Minnesota, I noticed she was in one of the books I was reading about Geon; anyhow, right after that, we caught to a location near Mount Fuji, where a bus was waiting, and a group of people.

(Mt. Fuji—July 9 & 10^th) It was the second week of July, we went to Mount Fuji, in one way I had never been happier on a sightseeing trip, but not necessary with the company I was with, Kikue. She was bringing up to me staying in Japan more and more. I tried to concentrate on the background of this trip, went up 9500-feet of Mt. Fuji, it was above the clouds.

I realized the Sumo event was $500-dollars a seat, she paid for it, and the trip to Mt. Fuji, was per near double that, per person, and she paid for that also, so I said I’d pay the tip for the bus driver and guide, I asked how much, and she said: “One hundred dollars should cover it.”

I had a business, and I was doing quite well, but a tip for one hundred dollars, I was not Frank Sinatra, whom I heard gave $100-dollar tips. Nonetheless, I gave it, and bite my tongue.

For the most part it was a great trip I thought, and it was now noon when we got to the lakeside restaurant, provided by the tour company, she starts up with the same old argument, staying in Japan when I had tickets to Guam and Java, hotels paid for and tours paid for and all that kind of rot. I had bought a necklace for her, I had it in my hands and ripped it apart, threw it in the lake, and stomped my feet, snorted like bull, and then tried to pull myself back together, as she kept saying: “I paid for the dinner, we got to eat it,” over and over, and I was hungry, and so we got to the restaurant, and ate the leftovers.

In any case, Mt. Fuji was a sight worthy of seeing, and looking down into its cloudy mist, and its bluish-green sky. And below not all that far away were beautiful gardens.

On the train ride back to Tokyo, I kept looking out at the sunset, and at Mt. Fuji, it was a beautiful sight from the train.

(Back in Tokyo: July 10 and 11^th) At this point I was very tired of trying to smooth things out, walking on eggshells with Kikue. The subject of me staying longer came up again, and my plane was leaving tomorrow evening. We fought over that again and almost to the point of her leaving me in the hotel room alone, for me to find my own directions to wherever. I knew I had the ability to find my way to the airport, but why leave like this, it was an eerie night, not much said.

In the morning we went to the Tokyo Tower, it was built in 1957; we went to the top of it, I had been to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the Tokyo was built similar to that, although taller, matter of fact I had been to the restaurant at the Eiffel Tower trying to make reservations—it’s not easy.

It was a nice ending to a short visit to Japan; harmony seemed to take place as now she figured, once I left: what then? I’m sure that was on her mind. And she would have been right; I couldn’t say Sayonara, quick enough. I saw her from the plane looking out the glass window, estranged it all seemed. I figured I’d never see her again, I had made up my mind, our lives would just be in disharmony, and there was only inability within her family to try and balance East with West. It was a month later that her mother called me in Minnesota, and said she was sorry—she had learned some English evidently, it was clear. Anyhow she repeated that several times, and added how bad she felt about it. I knew though, people don’t change in a month, she was playing a game, perhaps she would have tried to interlace her feelings with the west for the sake of her daughter, even hang her old Japanese pictures alongside an American’s, who’s to say, but she was no more than a puppeteer and the puppet—as far as I figured it, and I had let go, and was not going to try and work out something that was unworkable.

#907 (4-16-2012)