The Going Forth

Nothing but stars as I look out into the blackness from my second-floor porch. It's like looking into the gulf between galaxies, into the chill deeps of space where there is nothing but a random molecule or a fragment of rock that escaped from some pack of rogue asteroids. I read that somewhere, probably Terry Pratchett. What I was actually gazing into was the stellar depths of cafe lights that line the streets of Southport and that nearby galaxy was the location of tonight's filming of Under the Dome.

I woke around midnight to the sound of total quiet. It's loud, total quiet is. Back home in the SoDu, I would associate it with someone who is intentionally making no noise outside my bedroom door. Here, at the southeastern end of North Carolina--on a clear day, we can see all the way to Morocco--it's just the sound that's left when the sea breezes blow the creaks and goons of the fishing fleet up the Cape Fear River to Wilmington.

Standing at the porch railing, the cool breeze on my face, I feel an ancient call--the call to come into the darkness and see the world in a different light. Walking the streets under the boughs of ancient oaks is not the same experience in the dark that it is each morning and evening when I take my constitutional. It's just a little spooky. They do ghost tours here as they do in all colonial-era communities.

I dressed quickly but not carelessly because it would be an insult to startle another night visitor, encountered by chance on my outing if I were badly dressed. My outfit is dark gray, the most stealthy color for the night. Never wear black if you want to remain unseen because the night isn't black, it's a collage of dark grays. If being discovered badly dressed is insulting to another visitor, or homeowner for that matter, it would be embarrassing to be questioned by an officer of the law and this is something to take into consideration when planning to survey the filming of a TV program from the rooftops of a coastal village.

As far as I know, and I haven't made an exhaustive search, but as far as I know, it isn't unlawful to traverse the rooftops. Ms. Wonder would know but I hesitate to ask because what I do is traditional with me and I love tradition.

It is more than tradition that compels me to climb and look down upon, for I have come to Southport to find answers to questions to puzzling questions. Questions like why have tortoises never developed a philosophy and why do I feel like one of the sacrificial goats when it comes to religion and why didn't my vet talk to me about feline idiopathic chronic cystitis? If you wonder why Southport then I'm afraid you have me in deep waters there. I don't understand it myself but Wonder assures me that if I can find the answers anywhere, I will find them here. It is perhaps this promise that keeps sleep away tonight.

So this is it. The first night in Southport. Dressed in my dark gray qigong clothes, I lift one leg over the railing and grab the support post to descend to street level. I prefer using downspouts for this maneuver but the house I'm in has none. When I began my rooftop explorations years ago, many of the buildings still had waterspouts made of tile. Those pipes would support an elephant. Those were the good old days.

Once on the ground, I moved quickly through the shadows, ever vigilant for late-night dog walkers. They do exist. A half-block from the High Street, I found what I was looking for, a sturdy drainpipe that led to a flat roof overlooking the riverfront park where the film crew is busy. Eureka! The principle of displacement.

There was a real breeze now, as refreshing as a cool shower and I was encouraged to quicken my pace. It was quite dark, not black but almost, but I didn't hesitate--I went straight to my work, hand over hand, foot over foot until I reached the end of the pipe only to realize that it wasn't all there. In the darkness, I grabbed air and the follow-through almost loosened my grip completely.

Ms. Wonder has early and often pointed out the difference between improbable and impossible and she has remarked just as often that it is unwise to confuse the two. I found no reason to disagree with the honest woman. A close brush with critical injury and worse is accompanied by the quick flash before the mind's eye of past lives and the life that flashed before mine was of the French naval officer, captured and held by the British in a high tower isolated in a forest. That officer made his escape by shinnying down the downspout. Perhaps that's why I feel compelled to make my escapes down the water pipe when the situation calls for leaving without stopping to pack.

It's well-known that bumping elbows with disaster sharpens the senses to excruciating awareness of detail and so it was with me. When my hand grasped empty air and I felt myself falling back into the same, I became intensely aware of my surroundings. And when I had regained my balance and placed my foot back on solid ground, I gazed above me first at the lights ringing the top of the building, and then I scanned the branches of live oaks that shadowed me, feeling once more the cool breeze on my face. But it wasn't the same.

Something else I've read came to mind, something like, "this most excellent canopy, the air, this brave overhanging firmament, this majestical roof greeted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." It wasn't just the near stinker from falling off the drainpipe. The film crew had finished long ago and the breeze from the fishing fleet downriver smelled of dead fish.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow. It will be different tomorrow.

Grand Theory of Everything

We couldn't enter the wizarding realms in a normal car so Spring, Glady's agent, picked us up in her yellow Volkswagen Beatle for the short trip to Kadabra where we had an appointment to discuss the disappearance before it became headline news. I refer to the disappearance of Gladys, not Spring, who as far as I'm aware is still among those present.

If you follow this journal with any regularity, then you remember that the Witch of Woodcroft went missing soon after agreeing to help me with a travel article I'm writing for the Carolina Roads e-magazine. Spring, being her agent, was the only person I could think of who might have a clue to her whereabouts. People become anxious when they hear that wizards are missing and it's just the kind of stuff that network TV loves to strew about.

To get to Kadabra from Chadsford Hall, you travel south and as soon as you cross the narrow ribbon of Interstate 40, which technically belongs to the Kingdom of the United States, you re-enter the SoDu at Highway 54. We soon came to our destination, which was hidden behind a mountain of mulch, and when the driveway ended, Ms. Wonder said, "Why, this is Parkwood!"

"To the uninitiated, it is," said Spring.

The Volkswagen decanted us onto the lawn and Spring led us onto the porch where two wizards were waiting. The one lying on the railing welcomed us with a wide yawn and a good, long stretch. It made me want to stretch too and I did a little. The other was asleep in a chair.

"You will sit there," said Spring indicating the chair with the sleeping wizard, which she picked up and pressed her face into his tummy. There was a sound like a jack of clubs that had been clothes-pined to a bicycle spoke. I assumed the sound came from Spring. I've never heard a wizard make that sound.

"And you will sit there," she said to Wonder.

I explained to Wonder that Spring was what is known as a pre-cog and often has glimpses of the future. This skill of hers is the reason I'd sought her out to help me find Gladys.

No sooner had we taken our places at the table, than a door opened off stage and a head appeared above a black tee bearing the words Duck Dynasty.

"Can I offer you cereal?" said the head.

"I'm good," I said, "I cerealed before leaving home."

Ms. Wonder said nothing but directed her headlights, open-mouthed, at the talking head. I thought it must be the tee but Spring, who is much more attuned to these matters, immediately recognized the cause of the imitation of Lot's wife by the usually unshakable Wonder.

"It's quite all right," she said to Wonder, "perfectly harmless. A pussycat really."

The Wonder seemed to have gotten her tongue entangled with her tonsils for she said something like, "Mfjfhhg."

"He's the Higgs Boson," said Spring. "Pay him no mind."

"Higgs Boston?" said the Wonder after getting the vocal instruments working again.

"Boson. Higgs Boson. The particle at the end of the universe. It's quite the rage in particle physicist circles. All of them are searching for it."

"Why," said the Wonder and I must admit to feelings that were somewhat in harmony with hers. Why indeed? is what I asked myself.

"You have me there," said Spring. "It has something to do with the Unified Theory, whatever that is. I believe it's expected to connect the quantum field with the Newtonian world.

"Ah," I declared as if that explained things perfectly. I looked at the Boson who nodded and smiled in agreement.

"Of course," Spring went on to say, "they've been searching for forty years but they haven't found it yet because the mind refuses to see anything that doesn't fit with its notion of reality. I've seen the Boson walk through a crowded room and no one pays any attention to him at all."

"That's odd," said Wonder. "So why do they think it exists at all?"

"Mathematical hunch," said Spring.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, they have been trying to prove its existence mathematically but they have only been able to get so close. It's as though the formulas have a gut feeling that it's there somewhere."

"A mathematical sixth sense," I ventured.

"Something like that," said Spring.

"I'm being bitten by mosquitoes," Wonder said.

"Yeah, there is that," said the Boson, "and I'm afraid I can't help you find Gladys either. I don't have a clue where she is."

"Oh hell," I said. "It's going to be another one of those days. Just one damned thing after another."

"Have you thought of getting the Mysterious X to help?" said the Boson.

"I'm not familiar with that one," I said. "What does he specialize in?" I said.

"Yeah well, that's the mystery too I guess," said the Boson, "but I happen to know he's hard up for cash. Inexplicable entities have to eat too."

"I'll give it some thought," I said.

When Spring dropped us off at home, she asked, "What's that article about anyway?"

"Southport," I said. "We're going to be there for a few days. I'll work on my book and Wonder plans to work on her song, but that should still leave plenty of time for a travel story too."

"Ms. Wonder is writing on a song?"

"Yeah, she's reading a book called Songwriting: The Essential Guide to lyric form and structure. It's a little scary."

"Oh goody, she said. "Ms. Wonder may be inspired to do one of those Russian compositions like Stravinsky's Petrushka--you know sawdust puppets coming to life and whatnot."

"Now that would be dramatic," I said as she drove away. Wonder was already inside so I walked up the steps to the front door thinking about St. Petersburg. Gladys would have to wait.

Where is Gladys

Back in Shakespeare's day things didn't change much. Fairly uniform from day to day without a lot of ups and downs. If you were born a serf, it was a pretty safe bet that you'd serf until retirement. If you thought of owning a condo in West Palm Beach, you'd need to catch a talking fish or flush a jinn from a lamp.

artist--Michael Parkes

Today everything changes and without warning. It seems only yesterday the atmosphere in Native Grounds was quiet, meditative, serene. Then the foundations of hell started shaking and I wouldn't have been surprised if the Recording Angel had appeared taking names. I have moved in time and space to a new morning launch pad. I partake of a cup of steaming earlier in the day and I start a few furlongs further up Fayetteville Road at Sutton Station.

Coffee was over by 7:00 this morning and the guests of Dulce had scattered to their morning occupations. Some were texting on Interstate 40, some were jogging the American Tobacco Trail (it's a Durham thing), and some were serving and protecting. I was walking meditatively along the Woodcroft Walking Trail. I was alone.

It is a sad but indisputable fact that in this imperfect world the Genome is doomed to walk alone--if the earthier members of the community see him coming in time to duck. Not one of the horde of coffee hounds had shown any disposition to qigong with me. One regrets this.

Except for a slight bias toward exaggeration, which leads me to embellish almost everything that's not nailed down, the Genome's is an admirable character and, oddly enough, it's toward the noble side of my nature that most people object. Of the manic Genome, they know little if anything; it is the Genome who espouses compassion for all, realistic optimism, immersing the self slowing and deliberately in his environment, and a fierce determination to never eat pine needles; this is the Genome everyone avoids.

Still, on this fine morning, strolling under a shady canopy of oak and holly, the Genome was  not sorry to be alone, not entirely: for there was something on the mind calling for solitary thinking. The matter engaging the attention was the problem of what on earth had happened to Gladys, the Witch of Woodcroft. Two days had passed, or was it three, since I left her in Dulce uploading her latest poems to Ketchum's Korner for final testing of that new site on the Web. And since that moment, she has not been seen nor heard from and I was at a loss.

Perhaps not entirely a loss because I have a dark suspicion that this has something to do with recent cosmic events. You are surely aware that the Summer Solstice put in an appearance some few days ago and immediately after, the Supper Moon popped up on the horizon. 'So,' you may ask yourself, 'what about it?' Well, I'll tell you what about it.

Have you ever noticed that there is a tendency in the public announcements to get it base over apex? Take the weather for instance. I've already mentioned that this very morning was the picture of clemency, if that's the word I want--light, bright, blue, all the trimmings. And yet, this same morning was accused by the National Weather Service, of being surly and a little unruly. See what I mean?

Now consider Y2K, if you can remember that far back. On New Year's Day, 2000, the world was supposed to shut down. Armageddon in some form or fashion. Before that there was harmonic convergence, when planets lined up and the resulting effect on gravity would put wrinkles in Joan Rivers' brow. Ms. Rivers, however, still bears her youthful countenance. Only a year or so ago, we had two predictions for the End of It All, in the same year. And I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that most of us Survived the Mayan Apocalypse. 'So,' you are still asking yourself, 'where is the Genome going with this?'

Throw your mind back to that Solstice and Supper Moon. It's not that hard. It's only been a few days. Well, I heard a Cosmic Scientist interviewed on NPR and that CS assured everyone that there was no need to worry. There would be no brown outs, no Internet interruptions, no visitors from other realms. I know! How scary is that?

The mind of a man who has undertaken a mission as delicate as saving the world from total destruction is necessarily alert. Ever since I heard that scientist telling us, as it were, to remain calm and move in an orderly fashion to the exits, I knew the final adventure was started. This calm announcement, although startling to me, did not deprive me of my faculties. On the contrary, it quickened them. My first action was to meet with Gladys to discuss what was to be done. She agreed to move in her mysterious ways wonders to perform and report back to me with a plan. But since that day, she has vanished completely.

Her non-appearance was all the more galling in that the superb mental faculties of the Genome had just completed in every detail a scheme for propping up the Universal status quo and I was desperate for her critique. Her absence left me feeling like one of those Civil War generals who comes out of the command tent with a plan of battle all mapped out and finds that his army has strolled down to the riverbank and joined in a pig-picking. You will understand now when I say that the Genome's map was sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.

Moving through the arched recesses of the oaks that line Woodcroft Parkway, I was deep in contemplation of the mysterious disappearance of this Gladys, when a voice suddenly addressed me.

"Hey!"

I started violently. Wouldn't you?

"Anyone about?" said the voice.

A pale face surrounded by dark hair full of twigs and leaves was protruding from the a near-by camellia bush. If memory serves, it was a candy-stripe. The camellia I mean. I drew closer, breathing heavily. The symptoms were those of the missing Gladys--long hair braided, draped around the upper torso and thrown casually over the left shoulder. But that was as far as the semblance got. We Genomes are quick to get the picture and I saw what this apparition was up to immediately.

"You pie-faced gazooni!" I said with some heat. Not great, but it was spur of the moment. "Where do you get this stuff, popping out of the shrubbery and yelling at people when they're in deep thought. Is this wise? Is this the procedure? Is this a system?"

"Sorry," said the head. "I just wanted to get your attention so we could discuss the fate of the world and all that. You know?"

"And who are you supposed to be?" I asked already sure of the answer.

"I'm Gladys," said the head.

"Ah," I said, "Gladys. Then perhaps you can tell me the meaning of 'a pale parabola of joy'."

The head was silent.

"Or, perhaps," I continued, "you might elaborate on 'the silibant, scented silence'."

Somewhere in the depths of the forest a squirrel chirruped.

"No more imposture," I said wagging a finger. "I am a friend of this Gladys and had a long conversation with her only a few days ago. You will get no cooperation from this mortal."

"Oh Hell," said the voice. "What are you going to do now?"

"Do?"

"Now that I've appeared willingly, I must remain on this side until you give me your leave."

"Oh yes, I remember something about that. The rules of engagement for natural and supernatural and all that. Well, I have no need of your services, so I don't intend to delay you. Leg it now is my suggestion."

"You mean that?"

"Certainly."

"You don't want three wishes?"

"Three wishes!" I said and I may have chuckled when I said it. "I don't need anything from the supernatural realm. I'm set. I have Catherine the Great. I have the cats, Uma, Empress of Chadsford, and I have Beignet, Sagi Mtessi, Abbie Hoffman--no, not that Abbie Hoffman--and I have Eddy Spaghetti. Supporting the whole thing on either end is Comrade Jenny and Dr. Kate. What more could I ask?"

"You are well stacked," said the head. "I probably shouldn't tell you this but your resolve causes a lot of concern in the Underworld."

"And well it should, Maalika, if you don't mind my using the informal."

"Oh, I can't tell you my name," she said, "against all protocol."

"Of course," I said. "Well, off you go then."

"Thanks," she said, "you're an ace."

"Oh, hush," I said.

Disconcerting as the whole thing was, my thoughts turned immediately to the whereabouts of Gladys. Where in the realm of the Rogue Star might she be. Time is short and growing shorter each day. If anyone has any information about the location of the Woodcroft Witch, please leave a comment on this post. Anonymity will be safeguarded except when the interest of national security is jeopardized.

Dark Plottings

I stood at the open bedroom, gazing out over the lawns and gardens. And if I drooped like a wet sock what of it? I am doing the best I can under the circumstances--as happy as a fluffy-minded man with excellent physical health and no income can be.

It was a lovely morning and the air was fragrant with gentle scents of summer and redolent with birdsong. Yet in my eyes there was the look of melancholy and I'm sure my brow was furrowed. How could it not? And the mouth was more than a little peevish, if peevish is the word I want; I've never looked it up but I'm pretty sure it means sullen, morose, or petulant. Those who know me best will be thinking that this is all exceedingly strange for in the early hours of morning, I am normally announcing larks and snails and thrones.

The Genome is a master of fierce qigong and, as such, nothing has the power to touch him. Even the Princess Amy, that moody little drama critic of the limbic system,  can only do it occasionally. Yet I was sad and, not to make a mystery of it any longer, the reason for this sorrow is the fact that I have recenlty lost a gazelle, as the poet said. But then if you follow these missives, you know all about Native Grounds and the dark happenings in that hallowed space.

I was keenly aware of the sunshine pouring down on the gardens, and I yearned to pop out and potter among the flowers but no man, pop he never so wisely, can hope to potter with good effect if he is separated from his pals at the caffeine den.

"Morning," I said for something moved behind me like a galleon under full sail and I turned to see Ms. Wonder, daughter of the Volga, shimmer up beside me. She peered down into the camelias searching, I'm sure, for the feral Siamese kittens that breakfast there. I was not looking for kittens. Kittens have a much different appeal for the man who gets up at 5:30 in the morning to feed them.

My eyes continued to roam the lawns, gardens and messuages that were singularly beautiful in the unexpected morning sunshine. Chadsford Hall stands on a knoll of rising ground at the  norhern end of Chadsfordshire. Away to the west, wooded berms and swales cradle the duck pond that lays gleaming like a polished mirror, while up from the water, rolling park land dotted with crepe myrtle, surges in a green wave breaking upon the cypress alee before sloping, gently, down to the provence of Fred, the Dutch gardener who maintains all the grounds that border Chadsford Estate.

The day being mid-summer's day, it's almost the high-tide of summer flowers, the immediate neighborhood is ablaze with roses, day lilies, black-eyed susans, blue-eyed grass, southern magnolia and a multitude of other blooms that only Fred could have named.

Something beside me flashed in the sun and I realized that Ms. Wonder was still beside me wearing the spectacles she uses only until locating her contact lenses. She looks very efficient in those glasses--professionally efficient. Seeing her at close range with the glamour of those sparkling lenses establishes, clearly and unambiguously, her credentials.

"What's wrong?" she said.

"Hmmm?" I said, requireing a moment to come to the surface. "Oh, you know, that Native Grounds thing."

"You've made the right decision," she said. "Everything will work out as it should. A solution will present itself."

"That's simply a kinder way of saying, 'Nothing to do about it. Get over it.'", I said.

"You may be right," she said. "But until you do find the solution, you might try having coffee at Dulce."

"What? Where?"

"You know, it used to be Deja Vu."

"Oh, I remember now. Nice place." She nodded. I wasn't looking at her but the lenses flashed in a vertical plane. "Lots of tables on two sides and a cafe bar in the window. You know how much I like sitting at a high table in the window. Great coffee as I remember and pastries, a breakfast and lunch menu and gelato. Yes, maybe I will wander there after qigong this morning."

"Remember," she said, "the American Tobacco Trail runs by there leading to the Woodcroft hiking trails. You could qigong on the trail."

"You can walk all the way downtown on that trail," I said, "right by the Bulls baseball park and DPAC."

"And the Woodcroft trail runs for miles. You may be able to talk the Secret Three into meeting you there each morning instead of Native Grounds."

"Poopsie?"

"Yes?"

"What size hat do you wear?"

"A six. Why?"

"I should have thought at least an eight. You should donate that brain of yours to science when you have no more need of it."

"Thank you," she said.

"Not at all."

Early Morning

The emotions of a man who has gone out onto the back lawn to feed the outside cats at the hour of 5:15 in the am, and then finds himself locked out are necessarily chaotic but on one point I was perfectly clear, that if I could not get Ms. Wonder's attention, I would have a lot of time on my hands. The morning seemed to stretch before me endlessly.

By way of getting through it, I began a tour of the grounds, taking care to keep away from the first-floor windows where any noise might awaken the Gin. Noises that occur outside visiting hours are considered by the Gin to be the calling card of burglars and any person or persons who chance to be the cause of the noise will come to regret it.

At length, I came to the spot in the garden below Wonder's bedroom window and I sat down among the roses to review my position and assess my chances of ever seeing the girl I love again. That Fate was up and about seeking those whom she may devour was made apparent in the next few minutes when Poopsie appeared in the window and immediately disappeared like something in a cuckoo clock. She had not seen the Genome. But the Genomes are quick thinkers, something I may have mentioned before, and I marked the spot where she appeared and went off in search of a ladder.

That my mind had turned to ladders will not be surprising to those familiar with the story of Romeo who would have done the same in my place. And if my father's analysis of Great-uncle Luther is correct, so would he have searched for ladders for he was a man who thought on his feet where the alternate sex was concerned. The first impulse of every lover on seeing the object of his adoration in an upper window is to climb up and join her. Simply natural.

One thing that can be placed on the credit side of the ledger for Chadsford Estates is that if you search for a ladder, you can generally find one and so I did. I found mine propped up against a tree where someone seemed to be doing some pruning. Had there been an innocent bystander, which there wasn't at this hour, the strength of my desire to be inside the house would have been most evident because, even though the ladder was no small burden, I made nothing of it. I might have been swinging an ivory-studded walking cane.

I placed the ladder against the wall and to shinny up the thing to Wonder's window was with me the work on an instant. Just as I was about to rap the secret code on the pane to bring her to my rescue, my attention was diverted by the sound of my next-door neighbor's voice. It gave me quite a start. Gabriel's horn would not stir me more. When I got my heart back in place, I descended the ladder and moved toward the sound of the squawking.

Truth, it is said, is stranger than fiction and today I readily admit to subscribing to the notion. Who would expect neighbors, no matter how close-by, to be pruning trees before 6:00 in the morning?