The Diamond Island

Finally getting a handle on the mess from the wave of water. Sorting it out psychologically has been exhausting. The last week has been a crashing surf on my head as I head into June. It looks to be such a busy month as I meet obligations, run errands, and struggle to stay current on the chores that keep me somewhat sane.

Been looking over the things my Bad Ronald leaves on my nightstand to read. One day he leaves a rough sketch of a mermaid dwelling contentedly in the burned out ruins of a shipwreck, surrounded by treasure. And bones. She sleeps happily, colored in such a fashion as to be clearly supernatural.

My friend Xtine shared with me a dream about the magical Melusine many months back. I didn’t know what to make of her dream then, but now I find myself looking up anything I can find on the internets on this magical being. Sensor readings, come to me!

Many tales tell of the blessings bestowed upon human beings in their interactions with supernatural beings, and the loss of those blessings when the human breaks some taboo. Human weakness always puts a fly in the soup it seems, and you don’t get a second chance to make it right.

There are also tales of the “happily ever after” variety, where faith is kept and both live on in harmony. The tale of Melusine isn’t one of those. But I don’t think myths and legends are static things, they change as people change.

Perhaps the mermaid is a vehicle for the energies of the unconscious, a means for us to interact with the unknown. Vehicle seems too impersonal even though there’s an impersonal element to these beings.

See, there’s this huge loch in the backyard of this here haunted house. And on really rainy days the waves wash close to the foundations of the house. The beastie that lives in the loch (are they even separate elements?) has been known to do all sorts of mischief. And here I am with a handful of clues and a calling to investigate.

Okay mermaid, it’s on. Ready or not, here I come.

Rainfall this Tuesday was intense.  Ordinarily I’d be thrilled at the heavy rainfall and the loud thunder, but in a haunted house things can get weird.  Wouldn’t you know it, I wake up to take my shower and find the basement window starting to look like an aquarium.  Water is spilling through the cracks onto the carpet, and then red alert in my brain goes off.

Then it’s practical, practical, practical on emergency warp drive.  Save the stuff, the furniture and get some towels on the flow stat.  K is out of action recovering from food poisoning or a psychic attack, I can’t be sure.  But I can’t leave the sector for patrol duties until the situation is under control.  Breakfast, coffee, shower—out the window!

Got enough projects in the hopper, errands, chores, and all that ego-we-go-go stuff.  But man, here’s the unconscious reminding me that I got some serious mermaid work to do still.  Okay, okay and a lot more besides.  Monsters, monsters everywhere is still on the menu.  That was a heck of a tail thresh from the big critter out there in the depths.

It’s coming in, those sonar readings.  This is the boat I got, time to go deep sea diving again!

For a long while, I stare at the gaping hole in the wall.  My Bad Ronald has always been able to use his secret doors to come and go in my brain’s main corridors.  So the irrational fear in my gut that he will escape and attack me like the evil baby in It’s Alive is the fear I feel everyday about being alive.  Will Bad Ronald pull my strings?

In a strange way, I’ve busted out of the prison my Bad Ronald found himself in for him, sparing him the tragic and sad ending at the end of the Bad Ronald movie.  But in a sense that makes me a Bad Ronald.  I’ve willingly participated in the drama of a part I normally wouldn’t want to associate myself with.

I don’t think I can expect him to show himself just yet, even though I sense him lurking just out of sight like a black shirted, human sized leprechaun in black pants I once dreamt about.

Time to let myself be drawn back in.  Candle in one hand, slapstick in the other, its time to get busy.  I don’t think this is over yet.

There are these stony stairs in the between-brain hallways that weren’t there before.  I hear a repulsive, but beautiful voice singing in echoes through a deep, watery cavern below the halls.  I swear I can smell and hear the sea.

A peculiar rage comes over me, and an unbearable hunger, as if my stomach were running on empty for hours.  My ears begin to itch furiously.  For a moment I’m too out of my mind to take in the surroundings I find myself in.

I hear a deep, resounding noise out in the faraway ocean.  I realize something out there is answering the singing in the cavern.  My Bad Ronald sings in dark caves, and ocean creatures, maybe even sea serpents, talk back to him.

I listen, and lose myself in the mysterious between-brain below-hall cavern near the sea.  My Bad Ronald ain’t so bad.

A strange sensation envelops me.  For a moment, I think I’ve been bushwhacked by the Space Chiller.  My back slides against the wall as I shine the candle about, slapstick at the ready.  All I see is an old poster for the Jaws rip-off Tentacles, which features a giant octopus.

A memory at the back of my head stirs, but I can’t quite place it.  There’s another movie, before this one, which is important somehow.  For now, I visualize the poster for Tentacles, which is an image of a woman screaming as a gigantic octopus head creeps up behind her.

It dawns on me.  This monster, this Space Chiller, is really a gigantic space octopus captured by my Bad Ronald when she was smaller, the way he captured those people in the movie Bad Ronald.  He was keeping them in the basement because he didn’t know how to integrate the real people with his own disturbed fantasy life.  That realization was probably what caused him to burst his bonds in the movie, despite the cost.

That’s why I can’t find this darn monster; she’s trapped inside the between-brain hallways.  She’s grown too large to escape the way she was brought in.  I got to pry open some floorboards and smash down the weak wallpapered drywall junk.  This giant space octopus has got to go back into the wild.

And my Bad Ronald has bitten off more than he can chew.  This Space Chiller has gotten the better of him, chasing him about.  It’s a sick, twisted arrangement that needs me to settle up accounts.

I wander into the prison-like halls and look about.  That Space Chiller is hiding in there somewhere, having broken free but still trapped.  She’s a big girl now.  I get her to chase me—what giant space octopus doesn’t like eating a human being down to the skeleton?  I keep those whirling tentacles away with the slapstick and move quickly back towards the poster.

I start kicking at the wall, which gives way rather easily.  I hate to ruin the poster, but what the heck.  I ruined many a cool movie poster my folks got me back in the day.  You have to bust lose and take the blows sometimes.

It’s a weird dance, beating back tentacles trying to drag me into the beak from hell for tasty morsel goodness, while I kick aside rotten boards and moldy wallpaper.  I push my way through and back into the lighted (if still spooky) halls of the haunted house proper.  The space octopus, being flexible, squeezes through after me, its tough hide not taking a scratch from the still jutting splinters and rusty nails.

I run to the front door and open it up.  I suppose I could look for a giant vacuum particle aquarium in here, but I’m taking the guess that this strange gal wants to take off.  Sure enough, she changes into a whirling vortex of hypnotic psychological energy and flies through the front door.

Should I have let this thing loose into the world?  I think things will work out.  I’ve also got a big hole in the wall now.  I don’t know how my Bad Ronald will react.  This is a breach in the separation between us, which I don’t think can be undone.

K and I get back from a grocery raid.  As I am opening the door, with Frankie’s Lazor-eyes recognizing me as friendly, we hear the sound of loud bongos being played somewhere down the street.  We’re both a little flummoxed.  I mean bagpipes are one thing, but now bongos?  What’s next on the phantom music soundtrack?

Still pondering that rascal sneaking about in the secret spaces of my brain.  Somebody’s been listening to old tapes of eighties tunes at night and eating our snacks.  The faucet being left on makes sense now.  When you’re thirsty you got to have a drink!  At least I know now there’s a kid in the psychic drywall.

There’s that darn monster that won’t show itself.  I’m thinking that I’m going to have to seek this thing’s lair out and confront the thing directly.  Maybe this thing is roaming the secret spaces also, and driving my Bad Ronald boy away.  In which case, I am duty bound to take care of business!

This monster has a certain psychic connection with me somehow.  It keeps popping up in daydreams, forcing me to consider it even as I find myself unable to come to any conclusions about it.  Premonitions of a struggle with a devouring force?  I’m wondering if I’m supposed to be the bait for this thing, or the ten-foot pole as you might fathom.

Okay, I’m going back to my fear of icky girl power series here.  I think this nasty monster might just want to have fun.  When I was growing up, there were these kissing-girls in the neighborhood that used to chase boys around.  What could be worse than girl cooties when you’re that age?  Yuck!  Pretty scary stuff.

Slapstick?  Check.  Candle?  Check.  Okay, time to enter the space between!

As I head into the apogee of my life, things become clear that were not clear before.  I’m thinking about how I’ve been trying to prepare for my life ahead of me.  Now I’m meditating on how to prepare for my death ahead of me.

Mind you, barring accidents or violence I ought to make it to the next round.  I might be acting premature considering how medical science and circumstance might conspire to extend my span.  But I think it’s a healthy pursuit to consider my mid-life transformation and what it means.

In other words, it is perfectly right and good to think about what I am going to leave behind and how I might best leave things for those who will come after me.  There is a tarot card from the Medieval Scapini deck, the Six of Cups I believe, where various versions of old age are considered for the viewer.

I always liked the figure that acted as a Santa Claus and gave presents to the community.  I think that would be a decent way to go out, dispensing presents.  I think a certain amount of the Krampus would be involved in that.  I’m not 100% good, nor do I think seeking to be perfectly good is a healthy goal.

Hexe tosses that all out the window for a moment and gives me a super duper deluxe present for my birthday.  She totally does a random and throws me for a loop.  Back when I was carrying a pass from my Mirage, I never figured I’d actually get to hold a physical manifestation.  But there you are, front and back.

This isn’t the first time something in my dreams or visions has appeared in real life.  But I have to say, this is the most intense version of events to date.  I hadn’t considered the pass having two sides, a light and a dark (moon) side.  The fact that it does makes this all the more meaningful.

Let me state for the record that Hexe knows the DEAL, and ain’t fooling around.  People might say yeah sure Paul, ha-ha ovens, and all that.  She does collage nonsense and weird artistic whatever, who cares?  I read a derailed train of thought from people making statements about what artists like Xtine do for a living.  It’s a familiar, if automated dodge to the need to construct meaning.  These people don’t know how serious this interplay is!

It is not a joke.  Unless the joke is on you!  Hope your insurance is paid up.

For me, wrapped as it is in an envelope of triple strength caring, I’m reeling from the transformational revealing.  I look at the genius clues in my hand and put a palm to my chin.  The great living spirit is shining behind someone’s work as a multi-faceted and unusual vision of what’s what.

I mean, that pass, which was just a fancy in the imagination.  Here it is, in physical form like the Imperial Seal of the Empress smack dab on the bloody forehead of a disbelieving retainer too late figuring out what time it is.

Hexe couldn’t have touched me in a kore personal place.  See the misspelling I made?  Right into me, where I hide my personal space.  If the shoe fits, I place it on my Pisces feet and walk the dancy ka-boom.

My Aquarian friend holds a mirror up to me.  See that face?  In the oven I’m cooked, silly walking in a coil of serpentine ways back and back, marking and re-marking walls until I put the shards together.

I still have Hexe’s picture of the numinous tree, which I am meditating on, and trying to form a clue inventory on.

Meanwhile, the pass has become real, and there are messages rising up from the depths towards me.  Hexe’s strange and unexpected knowledge from her magic microscope slime their way into my pond, my circle with the weird unexpectedness of a total surprise.

The other day she asked if she had surprised me, and like a dope I thought she meant just now.  So I said no.  But maybe I ought to have just said yes, because I’m still surprised!

My friends are so cool.

Time to go searching under the baseboards.  A lyric from a song I’ve been listening to a lot lately has been running in my mind.  Listen for the things you haven’t heard. My friend Xtine has been calling me “listener”, which is a title I couldn’t claim for myself even if I recognized and understood it as being true.  You really do need other people to call you on your crap, both good and bad.

Pisces modesty holds me back sometimes.  Maybe that Aquarian scrutiny of my friends Hexe and Alexi, with a touch of that raw, firey spirit of my Aries friend Xtine will give me the strength and the wisdom to look in the mirror long enough to do something that matters.

“Do without doing, and the doing gets done.”  There’s that crazy rune message again.  I keep thinking I have to do something.  Twelve years ago, a wise person I knew said, “People don’t need to do anything Paul, they shouldn’t have to do anything.  They’re already together.”  I thought she was nuts, nuts, nuts at the time.  She said, “Your best friend will call and you know you’ll come back to him.”

I thought she was full of it at the time.  Except for that weird crawly feeling at the back of my spine that told me I didn’t know squatle-dee-doo.

I mean, one miracle’s enough, right?  If you lose the best part of you and it is restored to you, when you thought it was gone forever — well hey I don’t know squatle-dee-doo, but I’d say that’s a pretty good day.

Xtine always said there’s a bonus round.  Hell, she IS a bonus round.

Stuff happens without us knowing the how and the why.  Dogs and cats, living together without warning, that sort of thing.  I was super fortunate to meet and know a best friend forever in this life.  I might forget the fun of playtime that reaches the height of consciousness in this life, but can any of that be undone?

I dunno, but it can be made into a living hell while you’re still alive.  You can be ground into the dirt and lose everything, and know it as long as you’re alive.  The glory of living at a high level of existence can be taken away from you at any time.

I never accepted that.  If it was granted, and taken away I screamed and raged until I didn’t know my own name.  I just didn’t know the cycle of being lost and returning, of finding and losing.  Someone was trying to make a point, that I just didn’t get it.  It wasn’t one thing or the other, it was both.

Part of me the last few months had been saying the other thing, but I wasn’t hearing it.  “This is how it goes down.”  Yeah, but how could it go down like that?  It makes no sense!  “Because it will.  You don’t know squatle-dee-doo, remember?”  I couldn’t hear what my instincts were saying.  Yeah, I think they’re right, but I haven’t a clue how it could happen.  I know nothing.  I got beat down, remember?

“You aren’t beat down anymore.  Answer the call.”

The phone was ringing, so I picked up.  Somebody wanted to talk.  I never thought in a year and a day they would.  But my wise friend was right.  All of a sudden I realized I was okay, and I could see clearly now.  A piece of my soul restored, as mysteriously as it had been removed.  How does that happen?  A bonus miracle, just in case I missed the importance of the first.  Judgment Day dude, you are waking up.  As many miracles as you need.

I follow that snapping, crackling, dancing Goob-a-loo all around the house and back to my folk’s home again.  Slowly, a large number of objects are considered and their fates decided.  Trash, donation or storage in brand new containers suitable for ease of access.  My folks and I exchange a few boxes of old keepsakes and papers that need going through.

I spend several exhausting days tossing 90% of my papers into the recycle bag as outdated, unimportant junk.  My schedule goes topsy-turvy, with odd hours of sleep until that Goob-a-loo feels like the King Mahar of all Goob-a-loos.

Then I have a dream.  There’s this lake out in the woods and I’m on a roofed pier on the edge.  I’m trying to write down important notes for people on the end of the pier’s wall with a Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph pen.  There’s something enormous and frightening in the lake.  I can feel it swimming towards the pier and I have to flee back to land before it sees me.  I run back to shore as turbulence starts rocking the pier.

I half wake up and this whole message goes off in my head (you know, of the Hek-mail kind).  Mother Mary dropped by and left me a note, saying that I’m not ready for the lake yet, that I have to get right with my body and learn how to know myself better.  She says she will train me in her style of Kung Fu.  I scribble this all down on the notepad before the Goob-a-loo notices I’m awake and starts up again.

Once it’s on paper, I feel like its all been turned into the physical.  Oh wait, the Goob-a-loo is right there next to me!  He’s been hanging out all this time, but he’s quiet like the vacuum after a loud pop.  Then he’s gone and I notice a scrap of paper calling to me in the papers pile.  I scramble over in a daze and see it has the words “haunted house – trainwreck?” written on it.

I remember now!  There was this vinyl record with haunted house sounds on it that I used to have and was trying to remember something of.  I didn’t have the power of the internets back then, but now I do!  A sensor sweep and five minutes later I have it:  Disney’s Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House.  The title wasn’t trainwreck, it was shipwreck (though now that I’ve heard it again through the magic of the internets it does sound like a train crashing).

I think I understand.  Now that I’ve cleared up a lot of psychic space, the Goob-a-loo is satisfied.  This is his way of showing me how things that were blocked can come through when you clear out the junk.  The dream and the message from Mother Mary must be letting me know new energy is available for use.  All these clues, I’m going to have to do some more work.

In the meantime, here come more monsters!

Unexpectedly, my folks have been activated. They are going through their museum of a townhouse and stirring things up. All my old toys, high school and college artifacts, and forgotten keepsakes. They are trying to identify objects, group together related items, and either toss/donate unwanted things or put them away in new containers.Needless to say, such a psychological task stirs up more than dust. The ghosts of Paulie past are not amused, nor are the secret monsters dwelling in the crevices. And the only person who can name the pieces is me.

My folks have adopted certain superstitious taboos while going through their motions of digging up and accommodation. Only during daylight. Only when both of them are together. Always have a drink in hand. I can emphasize. When I am with them, they are able to make substantial progress.

It is as if I can name the secret creatures that lurk under the depths of existence. I emphasize with their desire to clear the field, for I too wish the dark corners of my past to be cleansed. I want to move forward and let go of anything that holds me back from living life.

I’m nostalgic, sentimental, and romantic. K has been telling me I need to focus more on the here and now, not so much in the past. I agree. I want harmony and balance. How much can I hold onto my Star Wars figures or my Ocean Adventure sets without regressing to a childhood I no longer have a right to? A new perspective is required.

My folks begin to dig up all sorts of things. It feels good to throw away notebooks of Algebra and World History that I will never return to in that form. Also, the sense that I am putting away valuable toys for the future makes me happy. I haven’t played with my Navarone Gun set in so long it feels like I’m looking at an alien puzzle when I put away the accessories for the Allied forces.

And the countless comic books, both in the standard size and the magazine and supersize designation. My folks get their hands on plastic bags and cardboard backing galore so they can archive the finds, before putting them away for a suitable storage. I never knew I had so many Richie Rich comics, or Shazam specials. It totally blows me away.

Digging up the corpses of my life, that’s what it amounts to. Weirdness. But it feels good to excavate this long, large detritus pile up. I sense this is timely, and necessary. But what is responsible for this sudden digging up of my life? What has changed that I should go over my life and set things in order for a change of outlook?

Unfamiliar, or forgotten aspects of my being must be at work. Newly revealed parts of myself that I’m only now making sense of.

Wait, what is that gigantic shambling thing in my old room? How is it that this magnetic electric spirit of blazing titanic fire can be in two places at once? Why, it’s the Goob-a-loo throwing a fanatic fit over all the junk people carry around with them. It builds up nothing but dust bunnies, which charge up the capacitors and wreck havoc with the Goob-a-loo’s allergies!

The only solution is to diffuse the build-up of psychic debris by disconnecting the memorial junk accumulators from the items held in unconscious repose for storage. This means getting into the piles of objects and separating the wheat from the chaff. Anything not likely to be consciously considered and handled must be removed to a disposal array – clothes in a bag to AmVets for example.

We’re holding on to too much stuff that has served it’s purpose, and the Goob-a-loo will dance on our heads until we ease the psychic continuum down to a less radioactive level of possessiveness. Goob-a-loos only want to stand still and coast on the ambient energy of household operations. Don’t we know they’re being made miserable existing in human object dumping grounds?

Hek-yeah, I’m on it.

I have guests in the haunted house who need attending to. The spookiness and the odd happenings continue. Weird sounds (what was that sound of someone landing in the wall?), strange smells (who’s cooking?), and sudden movements (the faucet turned itself on again). The floor warps and curls in odd places. K and I can hardly maintain a sense of propriety in the face of it all. But it doesn’t scare me, and that’s such a natural but unexpected feeling. It scared me so bad I couldn’t sleep before. Now I accept it as normal, that supernatural occurrences are a part of life.

And then my friends. I never knew I had so many. I scarce know what to make of it, because for so long I’ve been a jerk out of touch with myself. I’ve been displaced from my nature and didn’t even know it. My friends have faults, and so do I, so I hesitate to call this a massive hug session. It’s as if I see people in a darker shade, with the light coming from an unknown source. I know we will all make mistakes again. Somehow, it’s okay because I’m seeing in a different way that I can’t quite explain. Almost as if the mistakes and the screw ups lead to better things and I can’t wait for the discomfort, because that’s where the life is.

I let a good friend read my book. She read it so fast I was surprised. Lots of great suggestions from her. I really trust her instincts, so it’s nice to feel that I’m on the right track with my craft. And my editor asked to see the whole thing, which took me by surprise. She’s so unpredictable I can hardly comprehend what she’ll say. Not as if I have a lot of work to do, because I do.

The cover sketches are proving difficult – I’d forgotten how hard it can be to get tools to behave, and I’m still working out the rust of ages. Plus, I am considering the idea of illustrations to go with the book, one for each chapter. My editor has some really mind-bending ideas!

Oh yeah, back to the haunted house. All the ghosts and monsters have been coming up to me with requests. Suddenly I find myself having to find solutions to supernatural problems I hardly expected. And the killer bees are getting active again, despite the winter season. Yes, the year is in full effect and I’m the one who has to come up with ideas and work out the real world maneuvers.

Oh crumbs, here they come!