The Psychology of Change: Children Teach

23 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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In thinking about the psychology of change, one possible approach is look at stories of psychological change. Any specific story may be premised on a thrilling but unrealistic process of change. On the other hand, if we find story after story that presents a particular set of circumstances conducive to change, it may signal that the stories are capturing something fundamental about at least one kind of change, or at the very least, they capture something about the way we believe change occurs.

As a psychologist, many of the movies that move me the most are ones wherein there is fundamental character change. Conversely, movies or shows whose protagonist(s) keep making the same mistakes over and over again to be frustrating. When it comes to character change, in movies, there seem to be several common variants.

Protagonist goes to (hick town, home town, foreign country, war, boot camp, school, etc.) — a novel environment and generally one that the protagonist initially misperceives and/or actively dislikes.

Hick town: Heart of Dixie

Home town: Sweet Home Alabama

Foreign country: Under the Tuscan Sun

War: Full Metal Jacket

Boot Camp: Stripes; Private Benjamin

School: Legally Blond; To Sir, with Love

Beauty Pageant: Miss Congeniality

In many cases, a child is key to the psychological change of the adult. Perhaps you recognize some of these examples:

Silas Marner.

A Christmas Carol.

Finding Forrester.

I am Sam.

The Blind Side

The Magic of Belle Isle

Ana

Karate Kid

Matilda

In some cases, the agent of change may be a person with lower status; e.g., a servant as in East of Eden. In other cases, it can even be an animal as in The Call of the Wild. Sometimes, change occurs among multiple characters and from multiple sources as in The Sound of Music. Here, the children help change Maria, help change the Captain while Maria & the Captain also change each other.

In many cases, the “change” is portrayed, not as purely the accretion of new skills, but as the re-emergence of something that was there all along but needed to be elicited. For instance, in The Magic of Belle Isle, Morgan Freeman is already an accomplished writer, but he hasn’t written anything for awhile, finding solace in a bottle instead. In attempting to help a young girl find her voice as a writer, he rediscovers his own. In many cases, as the mentor or teacher tries to teach a younger person, they often get back in touch with their own (earlier) self.

Psychotherapy may be viewed as a kind of teaching as well. In Good Will Hunting, for instance, Robin Williams plays the part of therapist working with a brilliant but emotionally damaged young man played by Matt Damon. The therapist manages to open up the angry young man, but at the same time, the patient opens up the therapist to the possibility of having a relationship again. The patient does this by reflecting back to the therapist the very things the therapist is saying in order to open up the patient.

We see something of a similar kind of process in Akeelah and the Bee. Here, the talented speller, Akeelah gains a tutor in spelling and he teaches her spelling (and many other things as well). But she also re-awakens in her tutor, passionately caring about life.

What do these stories seem to be telling us about change in adults?

For the adults, the change seems to be a re-awakening of something that is there, but hidden beneath defenses that have been erected to shield from pain.
The conditions for change occur because the adult teacher, to be effective, has to “open up a deep and honest channel of communication.” Though unintended, once that channel is opened, it is a two-way street. The teacher may well have opened up solely for the benefit of the student, but once open, they benefit as well.
The channel is not just informational; it is empathic; it is emotional.
Change is contagious. In Akeelah and the Bee, for instance, it isn’t only Akeelah and her tutor who change. So does Akeelah’s mother; so do some of the other kids in the spelling bee; indeed, Akeelah’s entire neighborhood joins in an effort to teach Akeelah.
Change is not monotonic. As people begin to change, they almost inevitably “backslide” at some point. Good Will Hunting, for instance, begins a relationship with a woman but then tries to sabotage the relationship because he’s terrified she will end it.
Effective change agents pay attention to what works for that particular person. Akeelah’s tutor, for example, notices that Akeelah uses rhythm when she’s trying to recall how a word is spelled. He doesn’t try to “talk her out of doing that” or “show her a better way.” Instead, he encourages her and introduces a skipping rope to make the rhythm even more of a “whole body” experience. In The Blind Side, the adoptive mother discovers that Michael Oher (a strong, talented athlete) is fiercely loyal and although his nature is gentle — and perhaps too gentle for the violence of football, by having him think of the ball carrier as someone in his family — someone he needs to protect, Michael becomes an extremely good blocker.

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Other posts related to the “Psychology of Change.”

The Update Problem

What about the butter dish?

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Comes the Dawn

Roar, ocean, roar

The jewels of November

The most serious work

Come back to the light

Who knew good grades are an aphrodisiac

The forest

The teeth of the shark

Essays on America: The Update Problem

What about the Butter Dish?

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Comes the Dawn

Roar, Ocean, Roar!

The Jewels of November

The Most Serious Work

Ambition!

The Impossible

Peace

Wilbur’s Story

Come Back to the Light

Who Knew Good Grades are an Aphrodisiac?

The Forest

The Teeth of the Shark

Essays on America: The Update Problem

What about the Butter Dish?

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Comes the Dawn

Roar, Ocean, Roar!

The Jewels of November

The Most Serious Work

Ambition!

The Impossible

Peace

Wilbur’s Story

Come Back to the Light

Who Knew Good Grades are an Aphrodisiac?

The Forest

The Teeth of the Shark

“What’s that Lassie? Timmy Fell Down the Mine Shaft … Again?!”

21 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

fiction, story

Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

(It’s meant to be a conundrum).

Now, of course, science knows the answer. And the answer is … the egg. Something almost like a chicken laid an egg with a novel cross-over or mutation and that egg grew into a chicken.

Here’s another conundrum and so far as I know, science does not yet know the answer.

Which came first?

The word or the story?

Let’s expand the question a little. Did humans first come up with nouns — names for particular things or perhaps verbs referring to actions and then later, string some of these together to make the first stories?

Or, did stories come first and later, the names for things and objects were excised from these stories?

Most likely, the two co-evolved — language and stories. But I will argue that story is actually more fundamental.

Why?

It turns out that my cat Luna is a storyteller.

Remarkable cat? Perhaps. But I think after I explain just how she’s a storyteller, you’ll remember other times that animals used “storytelling” in your own life.

When Luna was a kitten, she loved to chase the laser pointer. At the ripe old age of three, she’s far less enthusiastic about it. But she still likes the idea of playing laser pointer. She may or may not recognize the words “laser pointer” but she definitely can’t reproduce it. She vocalizes a lot and it seems as though she’s “taking turns” with me when we “talk.” But, at least to my ear, she’s always saying the same thing which sounds much like a plaintive chirp of a question.

Her repertoire of actions however, is much more varied. At night, which is when we play laser chase, she often comes up to me and “chirps.” She looks at me while she chirps and when I look at her, she goes into phase two which is to “re-enact” chasing the laser pointer. It is possible that she re-enacts chasing the laser pointer to “communicate” with me that she wants to do it. Or, it’s possible that she just “imagines” chasing the laser pointer and the imagining is associated with the actions. It is also possible that at first, she simply recreates the associated actions, but, since it reminds me of the laser pointer and I often play with her at that point, the reinforcement could turn a passive re-enactment into an instrumental and perhaps “intentional” behavior pattern.

In a similar way, it’s easy to imagine one of our distant ancestors re-enacting a struggle, finding and digging up roots, picking berries, running away from a particular form of danger, etc. For our ancestor too, it might be that they begin by simply remembering something, and in so doing, they re-enact some of the actions they took. Eventually, they come to realize that their re-enactment encourages others in the tribe to follow and do their own berry picking.

We can easily imagine that in a particular region there might be several kinds of berries; some kinds might sport thorns; some not. Some might require bending over to reach (like strawberries) while other might require reaching up like high-bush blueberries. Re-enacting a story of berry picking might easily be repeated on many occasions. Eventually, the motion of picking a particular kind of berry might become ritualized or routinized. Some other clever ancestor may have trapped a small rabbit by using a strawberry as bait. He might use the same gesture(s) for strawberry that others used earlier in order to indicate that strawberries exist. This gesture, or sequence of gestures, over time, comes to indicate “strawberry” in many different stories. Eventually, it becomes the “word” for “strawberry.”

But the stories came first.

All right, you might say, but such stories are all reconstructive stories. How did fiction arise?

To answer that question, let me tell a tale about another cat from a much earlier point in my life. That cat was named Eva. She was an indoor/outdoor cat. We didn’t even have a litter box for her. Whenever she wanted to go out, she would go to the front door and scratch at it. There were five of us in the house so someone was likely to be close by. Whoever was nearby would open the door; she’d go out & do her business and then come back to the door and scrape it on the outside. Unlike my current crop of cats, Eva pawed gently at the door. She didn’t seem bent on destroying it. She was simply signaling that she wanted in or out.

In a similar fashion, when Eva was hungry, she would go to the kitchen and paw on the little wooden doors under the sink. This was where the cat food was kept. Whoever was near would pour out some cat food for Eva.

It’s not necessary to invoke stories here. She was reinforced for scratching the front door by having us open it so she could go out or in. She was reinforced for scratching the doors beneath the sink by being fed.

Eva, in due course, as an indoor/outdoor cat, became pregnant. Three tiny kittens were born to her. One nice spring day, a few months later, Eva left the living room and trotted into the kitchen and scratched on the cupboard door. I was nearby, so I brought out the cat food and filled up her dish. Instead of digging in, however, as she usually did, she instead, left immediately and trotted to the front door. She hand’t taken even a single bite!

This struck me as odd. I wondered whether she had a sudden urge to go relieve herself. Such a sudden and overwhelming urge that she ignored her food? I don’t recall a cat ever doing that while I was observing. But there she was at the front door. Okay.

I opened the front door, and out she went. I closed the door so she could do her business. But almost immediately, she pawed at the door to be let back in! What was going on? Eva was a smart cat. She wasn’t like our poor cat Shasta who would go to the door of the back deck and meow loudly to be let out…even when the door was already open.

But Eva was a smart cat. Why was she back so soon? I wondered about it as I opened the door again. Guess what? In tumbled her three little kittens. She led her furry trio to the kitchen where they chowed down on the meal I had just “prepared” for Eva.

Had Eva just “told me a story” in order to manipulate me into doing her bidding? I’m not sure we can really call what she did a story. But I’m not sure we cannot call it a story either. It certainly seems as though Eva did some nice problem solving behavior. It seems most likely that Eva had heard her kittens outside. She was much closer to the source and her hearing was much better than mine. It’s also possible that she “remembered” that they were out there. I had not let the kittens out and had not known they were out there.

It seems as though Eva was using her “mental model” of how I would react to various stimuli and put together separate elements. She devised a multi-step plan which included my predictable behavior in order to reach her goal of feeding her cats.

When I was an undergraduate, I trained a rat to do a sequence of five behaviors in order to get a reward. That was completely contrived however. In order to train this behavior, I had to go through a very careful sequence myself. I first trained the rat to press a lever. Pro tip. You can’t simply wait for the rat to press a lever in order to reinforce it with a food pellet. First, it helps to “click train” the rat. Even after they get a food pellet, it takes time for them to find the thing and devour it. And it takes time. It turns out that in the long run, it’s more efficient to first train the rat that a “click” happens when the food pellet is delivered. The click is quite salient to the rat and can be heard everywhere in the cage. So, it’s “better” as a reinforcement in some ways than food. However, every so often, you still need to reward the rat with an actual food pellet or it will stop paying attention to the click. In much the same way, most dog owners teach their dogs that “Good Boy” is a kind of signal associated with a head being petted and occasionally a food treat. That’s much more practical than giving the dog a treat every time.

If you are trying to teach an animal a multi-stage trick, you need to “thin out” the schedule so that they are not reinforced every time they execute the required behavior, but only occasionally. And, at every step, it took a great deal of attention to “lead” the animal to the intended behavior. At every step, beyond the first few, it is easy to “break” the chain of behavior by waiting too long to deliver reinforcement. Remember, these chains of behavior became trained in rats trapped in a cage. Their environment differed considerably from the one they evolved in. These rats, by the way, are almost like identical clones. How hard would it be to train a rat to execute a chain of five random behaviors in the wild? It took a lot of patience and attention to carry it out in the lab. I think it would be much harder in the wild.

What if there’s another way? What if, in at least some cases, you establish a “relationship” with another animal so that you are able, at better than chance, to “read” each other’s intentions and desires. You can “tell” when your dog really needs to go out even if you haven’t trained him to a specific behavior. Your dog knows when you are about to go out for a walk, even if you carefully avoid using the forbidden word “walk” out loud!

I’d be curious what you think about pets and whether you have any stories about them using stories.

Real stories.

I’m not talking about the typical Lassie episode which goes something like this:

Lassie: “WOOF! WOOF!”

Timmy’s Dad, Mom, or Uncle: “What’s that you say, Lassie? Timmy was playing in the abandoned mine shaft again?”

Lassie: “WOOF! WOOF!”

Adult: “Well, didn’t you try to talk him out of it?”

Lassie: “WOOF! WOOF!”

Adult: “Oh, I see. Yeah, I agree, he can be pretty recalcitrant. Did you mention that last time he did this, I told him I would ground him for a month if he ever did it again?”

Lassie: “WOOF! WOOF!”

Adult: “Right. Of course you did. Sorry. Well, what tools do I need to get him out this time?”

Lassie: “WOOF! WOOF!”

Adult: “Dynamite? Why would we need dynamite?”

No, not that kind of story, but stories about things that actually happened. Have your pets ever tried to “manipulate you” into doing something by telling you a “story”?

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The Story of Story: Part One

You Gave me no Fangs

The Creation Myth of the Veritas

Fool me!

It Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Guy

14 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

afterlife, fiction, heaven, hell, karma, purgatory, story, tale

“Where the hell is Vladdy? He was…where’s my f###ing watch? Isn’t anybody around here competent? Where’s my watch? Hello? What the … ? Where’s my Adderall? Vladdy? Vladdy? Where’s my Vladdy?!”

He stuck out his hand and stoved two of his teeny fingers against the cold stone wall. He screamed in protest at the pain, though most folx would have laughed it off. He blinked and tried to look around; re-orient himself. He was coming down from the Adderall. Nothing made sense. He was Undisputed King of the Universe. Yet, he seemed to be trapped in … well … it looked to him more like a prison cell than anything else.

“F###! It is a prison cell! “ he yelled aloud to no-one in particular. “That’s right! God damn! I wish I believed in God because then … but without any of that Golden Rule crap or all the other Bull$hit. I just want a God I can call on to bail me out of trouble. Where the hell is my Vladdy?”

He alternated among muttering, screaming, talking aloud, and pounding his teeny fists against each other. His long litany of people to blame was quite long by now. You couldn’t really say that he had the list memorized. It varied a lot from day to day, but it generally included at least the following minimal set:

{CIA, FBI, NSC, NSA, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Time, FORTUNE, FORBES, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, the US Military generally, and the USAF, USN, Army, Coast Guard, Marines, and Space Force in particular; The Wall Street Journal, the Obamas, the Clintons, FDR, JFK, Jimmy Carter, RINOS, rhinos, the UN, the EU, Brexit, Bad Luck, George Soros, Bill Gates, Bad Germs, Doctors, WHO, Doctor WHO, the FDA, OSHA, EPA, NASA, People of Color, Mexico, People of Color from Mexico, Asians, Asia, Africa, South America, Canada, immigrants, emigrants, migrants, grants, rants, ants, NTSB, China, UK, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, homosexuals, hemophiliacs, hemispheres, trans people, cis people, people with big hands, people with other big stuff, any other people}.

“Look at this place! I need a palace! Not this place! Wait. All I need is the letter ‘A’ and I can change the “place” into “palace” — hah! I may be down, but I’m definitely not out. Now, where the hell to get an “A”? Hey, God!! YO!! Give me an ‘A’ — no? Nothing. That’s how it’s gonna be huh? Wait till I get out of here! Hey! You want to prove you exist? Give me an ‘A’ right now! No? Then, do me a favor and just kill me right this second.”

Did you ever have one of those dreams where you fall off your bike and you jerk awake suddenly? Or, perhaps you’ve dreamt of flying but then it turns into a dream of falling and depending on your personality, it’s either kind of fun or absolutely terrifying. For him, it was terrifying. And, even though it only lasted for ten minutes, it seemed to him as thought it lasted forever. He never admitted fear during his entirely cowardly life before prison and he wasn’t about to start now. He kept a stack of chips close at hand so he could always put one or two on his shoulder. After a ten minute free fall of sheer dark pinwheeling terror, he judged that putting a whole damned stack of chips on his shoulder was not out of line. So, it’s perhaps understandable that his first words to Saint Peter were:

“Who the F### are you? And where the F### am I?”

I don’t know how you imagine St. Peter’s voice, but I think of it as full and deep like an opera singer’s voice. No. Not like an opera singer but more like a duet with a chorus in the background, yet with every word completely intelligible no matter how many hair cells you’ve lost along the way because you were a drummer in a Rock Band, say, or served in live combat unlike the protagonist of our current story, who would do anything and tell any lie to stay as far away as possible from live combat.

Photo by Dominika Greguu0161ovu00e1 on Pexels.com

So, the operatic fullness of St. Peter’s voice echoed as though in a nested set of cathedrals, each connected to others across the globe and back through millennia. This is what he said:

“We are here for the sorting. It won’t take long.”

Perhaps it should appear more like this:

“We are here for the sorting. It won’t take long.”

But that just makes it sound big, not resonant or magical. Best to stick with ancillary descriptions, wouldn’t you say? Let’s get back to the response of our protagonist.

“Sorting? What sorting? Wait! Is this that heaven or hell thingy? That’s all BS to grab money — or, so I thought. What?”

Again the voice — a voice that had overtones of oceans roaring, rain falling, thunder booming, bells chiming, children laughing, wolves howling, and the nightingale singing. This time it said:

“Oh, no. Not at all. It’s much more specific and subtle.”

Now you or I might wait till we heard more about the situation we were in before saying anything else. Here’s the odd thing. Some people would view as brave just thoughtlessly blurting out something that could alter the course of your whole life — or afterlife. But I view rashness as a sign of weakness and cowardliness. In essence, the blurter cannot stand not knowing the outcome. They turn to jelly in the face of the unknown. It takes more courage to gather data, gather data, always upgrading and updating your plan and doing the best that you know how. That’s wisdom and courage. Blurting out the first thing that flashes in your brain is neither. But that is what our protagonist is all about.

“Well, I am rich and famous! So give me a great place — the greatest place — in all of heaven. Obviously!”

I don’t know about you, but I generally don’t think of Christian Saints as smiling exactly. Perhaps they have that beatific “All is Life and Life is All and God is All and All is Good” loving everything smile. Come to think of it, it’s very much like Buddha’s smile.

But no. Saint Peter’s smile this time wasn’t that smile. It was a genuine smile about 50% camaraderie. It also held 40% of the usual saintly “God is in me and you and it’s all good” smile. But, I swear, there — right there — at the corner of his lips — was 10% the smile of irony, of karmic justice, of snark, of satire, — all my favorite genres rolled into one. It cannot be said that it was a purely saintly smile. But, after all, anyone would have to be heartless not to see the beauty and the wisdom in our protagonist’s new “assignment” among the world of the living, or, more likely a world that seems like the world of the living.

Our protagonist found himself propelled backward in time to the womb of a very dark woman in Brazil. Her tribe had lived in this part of the rain forest for millennia. Now, they were being forced out for — well, I could give you a long causal chain — or really network — but let’s just cut to the chase — she was being forced out, along with her whole tribe for greed. That’s the bottom line. Some extremely wealthy people wanted to become more extremely wealthy and they didn’t really care if it meant uprooting a 5000 year old civilization and making life miserable for every one of the inhabitants. Oh, and I should mention, hastening global climate change catastrophes as well.

Anyway, she had to sell her own body and later her young daughter’s body as well (our protagonist in a former life) for food and transportation. It was a perilous journey; a difficult journey; a hellish journey. More than once, the child had been ready to end it all, but the mother comforted the child, now lame from too many beatings at the hands of her many molesters and urged her on. The mother told the child of a land where there would be no more beatings. In this land, they didn’t care about where you came from. They didn’t care about the color of your skin. They would give you a chance. No-one was above the law. When we get to this promised land, all will be well. All will be well is what she told her child.

When they finally got to that fabled land of milk and honey, that shining city upon the hill, something slightly different from the mother’s dream for her daughter came to pass.

They were separated and never saw each other again. They yelled and screamed for each other but there were just the two of them and those who pulled them steadily farther apart were many and armed and strong. Each heard the voice of the other becoming fainter and fainter. At last though, nothing but memory.

But that didn’t stop the molestations; not for mother; nor for her daughter.

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Can it be that earth is actually an elaborate method to extract punishment? If so, how many lifetimes will it take for our protagonist to atone?

Does each person really write, direct, and star in their own play? Or, are some of us, merely bit players in dramas constructed for another purpose entirely?

If we view Karma this way, isn’t there also a danger of blaming people born into bad circumstances because they must have done something bad in their “previous life”?

I believe we can co-construct the future on this earth. We can collectively write the play, direct it, and play parts. Of course, we’ll have to improvise as well. We can make this world less filled with pain, less filled with racism, less filled with misogyny, and more filled with truth and beauty and grace.

Will we be rewarded in an afterlife?

I don’t know.

But I do know we will be rewarded through the lives that come after. Let’s make the world better for those lives. Countless millions made the world we live in better for us.

Photo by Frans Van Heerden on Pexels.com

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Other stories in the “Heaven’s Gate” series.

https://petersironwood.com/2020/12/28/as-gold-as-it-gets/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/12/29/do-unto-others/

https://petersironwood.com/2021/02/27/tit-for-tat/

https://petersironwood.com/2021/02/26/i-cant-be-bothered/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/12/14/how-the-nightingale-learned-to-sing/

Author Page on Amazon

Naughty Knots

03 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

fiction, Kleins Bottle, Science fiction, story, tale, topology

Dr. J. Clarence Thompson shuffled thorough his unfolded shirts. He glanced at the clock. “Crap!” he muttered, “I’m going to be late. Next time, I’m going to put my shirts away so I know where to find the one I want.”

He muttered to himself a lot since he had been “retired” from his job teaching topology at nearby Kansas State University. “Damn. I’m going to be late for my tee time. Maybe I should call…hold on. Here we go.” At last Dr. J. Found the green and gold Hawaiian shirt he had been looking for. Some of his other golf shirts restricted his movements. He had enough trouble staying in the fairway. “What the hell? What’s with this shirt.”

Let me explain. Dr. J. Had a habit of removing his shirts so that at least one, and sometimes both sleeves were inside out. This time though, the shirt was twisted in some very odd way. Like the whole shirt was inside out inside one of the sleeves which was itself inside out.

“This kind of crap always happens when you’re in too much of a damned hurry. I should have just gotten up earlier. Or, skipped breakfast. But that never works. What the hell is wrong with this shirt?”

Without really meaning to, he scrunched his eyebrows together and clenched his teeth. He hated being late for a tee time. He snorted ruefully. “Shouldn’t really be that hard for a topology professor. Ex-professor,” he reminded himself. “This is ridiculous. The shirt…Okay…the sleeve is inside the shirt but he shirt is inside the sleeve that the…Hey, Jenni…Oh, crap.”

He had promised himself to stop talking to his deceased wife. Or, to use her name any more than necessary. Every time he thought of her, it pained him. Stupid skiing accident. He pursed his lips together tightly. She liked golf. At least that’s a safe sport. You don’t break your neck running into a tree.

Dr. J. thought back to a time he had landed in the woods a few yards off the fairway. He had decided to try hitting the ball toward the hole rather than taking the easy way out and chipping it out onto the fairway. A wasted shot, he had thought. Instead of streaming through the small gap, the golf ball had hit a tree and whizzed back inches from his head. He now lay 40 yards farther from the hole. But he tried it one more time with exactly the same result. Finally, he had “taken his medicine” and chipped out into the fairway. Triple bogey despite some nice putting on the green.

“All right then. Let’s take this one step at a time. I pull the sleeve out this way…and … WHAT?!”

Dr. J. stared at where his left hand should be. It. Was. Not. There. But…there was no blood. “How could there be? I haven’t cut himself. But where the hell is my hand!? Call 911? And say what? They’ll put me in the looney bin for sure. It doesn’t feel like my hand is gone. But maybe it is a phantom limb phenomenon. No. It can’t be gone.”

He snapped his fingers. He felt his fingers snapping. But there was no sound. “There!” he shouted joyously. “I hear it. But…how can it take that long for the sound to get here.”

“I need a beer. Jennifer? Can you… oh crap, that’s right. Stupid skiing accident. Damn her! How could you be so thoughtless?! Beer? I need whiskey. I will pull my hand out with my other hand. Then, I will call Carl and tell them I can’t make it. Twisted my ankle. I’m not going to tell them about … this. I just need to calm down and think this through. What is that damned racket? No wonder I can’t think straight.”

In the background, CNN was interviewing some random “man on the street” and Mister Random was saying: “He’s the only politician who tells it like it is. He doesn’t pretend to be all politically correct. You know? He’s truthful.”

The reporter put the mike near his own mouth and asked, “How do you know he’s truthful?”

“He’s told us! He told us to watch out for — no offense — but you work for the fake news! You guys are all liars. He’s the only source of truth. It’s refreshing.”

Dr. J. glanced at the TV and saw the reporter trying hard not to let his feelings show on his face as he asked again, “And the way you know he tells the truth is that he says he tells the truth?”

“Yeah, exactly!”

Dr. J. had long ago discovered that when you were absolutely stuck in solving a problem, that it often helped to think about something completely different for a few moments. He shook his head at the hapless fool being interviewed on TV. A vivid picture formed itself in Dr. J.’s imagination. He saw a large orange “picture” of a Klein’s Bottle. Of course, it wasn’t really a picture, just a children’s illustration. Of course, the “logic” of the interviewee wasn’t really a Klein’s Bottle. It was simply a circle that fed itself forever. The hapless fan had no more idea how foolish his circular reasoning was than the eddy at the end of an oar worries about … well … anything. Water doesn’t worry. It is being pushed about by external forces. In the same way, this “fan” had been manipulated into going in a circle. Dr. J. recalled an illustration in a Scientific American article he had read about ants following pheromone trails. Normally, the ants coordinated marvelously with each other and found their way home without a hitch.

But you could turn them into a death cult. Lay a circular trail of pheromones and the ants would follow each other in a circle until they starved to death.

“Okay, enough of that. Back to the problem at hand.” Dr. J. had begun muttering to himself again. “How do I get my hand out? Maybe if I reach in … like so … from the other side.”

——————————————-

Carl had worked hard to convince the rest of his threesome to come with him. Carl was popular but Dr. J. was difficult for most people to deal with. But they did come, because, as Carl explained, we look out for each other at this age. It wasn’t like Dr. J. to simply forget about their regular Thursday early tee time and not even call. There was no knock at the door, but the apartments at Happy Acres afforded only a few places to hide an extra key. Carl opened the door. Something, he was sure, was amiss. But what?

They searched the apartment and found no note, no hint of where he had gone. Carl also noted that Dr. J. had left the thermostat set at 72. He would never leave it that hot when he was out and about.

After an hour’s search, they called the police who very politely explained that if they wanted to file a missing person’s report, they could, but that, in his experience, the person always turned up shortly and most of the time, they turned up alive. Not always, but almost always. In any case, police policy forbid them from searching for him or indeed, doing any real investigative work for 24 hours.

Carl excelled at being persuasive. After all, he had been in the 100 percent club his entire career at Megamax. But he could not move the police officer into action. He put down the phone and realized he had no idea what to do either. He felt sure something was wrong, but he couldn’t really put his finger on anything in particular. Dr. J’s house looked as it always did. It did seem odd, come to think of it, the way that shirt is all folded in on itself.

“Hey, guys, come take a look at this weird shirt.”

Ben put a very serious look on his face and said, “That’s it! He’s in the pocket of his own shirt!”

Then, he and Avram began laughing uproariously.

Carl joined in the fun himself. But he still persisted. “Okay, okay, very funny. But it — I mean if you were going away for a week or two, would you leave your shirt lying on the floor, all twisted up like this?”

Ben chuckled. He could see a great opportunity to ham it up. And in the process, he’d jolly Carl out of being worried over nothing.

“Yeah, here, I’ll solve the mystery. The mystery of the twisted shirt! Watch this folks! I, Ben Sherlock, will place my hand into what appears to be an ordinary shirt!”

That turned out to have been a huge mistake. As were all the successive rescue attempts.

——————————————————————

What could be better? A horror story.

If Only.

That cold walk home.

How did I get here?

Trumpism is a new religion.

Author page on Amazon

Tit for Tat

27 Saturday Feb 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

afterlife, con, consequences, deception, ethics, fiction, karma, strategy

Photo by Charlie Solorzano on Pexels.com

“So, what exactly is the deal here? I mean is this for real? I thought all this was just BS — takes on to know one as they say so I figured it was all a put-on. Really. But this is cool. So where to? Again, what’s the deal? Time is money so they say.”

The huge back lit figure answered in a golden voice. Now, I realize people say this about singers, but this was not just metaphorically golden. Molten glowing gold actually formed the speech sounds sweetly and flawlessly. “Where do you think you deserve to be?”

“Well….I mean, sure I did some pretty gross stuff. Lied a lot. That’s what I’m best known for. But bullying too. Yeah. Cruelty. Sure. Like everybody. You know. And the rape stuff? Total bull$hit. They wanted it! Afterwards, you know how women are. They have second thoughts. Or, sure they fought but they were small and I was strong. That’s what we guys do, right? That’s what God does, right? Takes advantage of his superior strength to get what he wants.”

There was no response from the radiant being except to repeat the same question.

“Where do you think you deserve to be?”

“Well…I mean it’s not for me to say, right? But a good place. The best place. I mean, sure I may have made a few miss…no, no, I never made a mistake. It was all good. Everybody was always out to get me. People say I was born rich in one of the richest cities in one of the richest states of the richest nation in history.

“Like that makes my life easy. People don’t realize how hard it is to be rich in America, especially if you’re a white male. Which…by the way, what the hell color are you? You don’t look white but you don’t look black and you don’t look brown. You’re kind of yellow. Are you a Chinaman? No. No. But you’re all colors. You’re not any kind of ,,, I did Okay considering how put upon I was by circumstances beyond my control.”

As we look on to this odd scene, you and I must admire the patience of the ever-vibrant radiant spirit as the words were once again intoned in the sound made from the brightest golden sunset on a gently rippling lake. The sound was the buzzing of the bees; the splashing of the fish; the murmur of the breeze-blown trees; the distant laugh of a child. It was all of those and more but it was also these perfectly rational and appropriate words.

“Where do you think you deserve to be?”

“In the best possible place of course! The very best! I’m the best person ever! So, I should have the best place ever.”

Now, the voice tone modulated. It was still the coo of a baby and the purring of a cat and the screeing of the eagle and the bubbling of river. Yet, in the distance you could hear the screech of brakes; sirens blaring; dogs barking. It was still the most golden voice either of us has ever heard.

“Then you shall have it! The absolute best! Just for you!”

He awoke confused. He thought to himself, “I must have blacked out. That’s it. What was happening? Oh, yeah. Now I remember. All that stuff was true. What a kick. And, I … I conned the big guy! I conned the big guy! I made him think I deserve to be in the best place and here I am. I gotta go tell any other … any body who’ll hear … how I …what the hell? What?”

Now he voiced his self talk —- first as a whisper — but ending in a shout.

“Where the hell am I? There’s been a mistake! I’m supposed to be in the best place. That’s not a small concrete cell!! What’s going on?! I deserve to know the truth!!”

In such a damp, dank, and dismal place, the honeyed booming resonant voice of the radiant energy seemed out of place and uncomfortable. Chopped, curt, cutting the words:

“Do you?”

Silence then.

All was silence except for the echoes of the screams. The screams rebounded. He poked his fingers into the cinder block. It wasn’t cinder block! He could stick his fingers in it. It felt…like spider webs or bread dough. What the hell is this stuff? I can’t go through it … but it isn’t hard. It feels like … like snot.

He screamed for a time. (Well, actually for all time. After all, there wasn’t much else to do.)

“I’m encased in a huge bubble of snot! That’s not the best there is on offer! He lied! Lied to me! Lies!

“Lies.

“That’s what I’m encased in: Lies. These are my lies. That’s the thick bubble of snot I’m in. And, they were my favorite part of me too.”

——————————————-

Ripples

How the nightingale learned to sing.

Where does your loyalty lie?

My cousin Bobby.

https://www.amazon.com/author/truthtable

I Can’t Be Bothered

26 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

afterlife, demon, devil, fiction, heaven, hell, purgatory, religion, Saint, story

“ I CAN’T BE BOTHERED!,” the great voice boomed.

Then…POOF! … just like that, the golden light blew out and was replaced with a large dark cloud.

Ted found himself all alone on an island. All about him, the roar and crackle of the storm made it hard to orient himself. The rain, if it could even be called ‘rain’ tore at his skin so hard, it was as though his fancy dress shirt and tailored pants didn’t even exist. “This must be hail,” he muttered to himself. The sound of his words were blown away by the gale before they even reached his ears.

“Where in God’s green earth am I? How did I get to this forsaken island? I must have fallen and smacked my head. I don’t know where I am or how I got here.”

Some of the neurons in Ted’s brain whispered that they knew. Some even half-raised their hands, much as a shy third grader in a new class might when he or she was the only one who thought they knew the answer. But Ted had spent a life-time lying to himself. He was pretty damned good at it by now. So, the neurons, just shook their virtual heads, put down their timid hands, avoided looking at any of the other neurons.

Ted began to shiver violently. He realized he was cold…damned cold! Starting a fire was completely out of the question, but maybe there was shelter somewhere on this Godforesaken isle. At last, he found two rather large rocks and wedged himself between then to wait out the storm.

The rain, or hail, or sleet or whatever it was splattered everywhere. His clothes, despite the absurdly high price he had paid, seemed completely useless at holding any warmth. He closed his eyes and tried to understand how the hell he had gotten here. He thought back. It seemed a million years ago.

“Okay. Okay. I was on my yacht. It was actually a sunny day. No sign of a storm. Fairly calm seas. Isn’t there a saying about calm before the storm? But…? I was lying on the deck. And … and what’s her name was beside me. Susie or Sue or Susan or something like that. We had just done it and I was enjoying a martini. Yes. A martini. Nice and cold. And then…? And then I finished my first martini and was going to get a second. Sue or whatever — she asked — no I asked. I’m a nice guy. I asked her if she’d like one. She said, no, but she’d like a glass of red wine. Merlot if I had it.

I sighed. “We’re drinking martinis.” That should have been obvious to her, but she was too stupid to notice what I wanted I guess. I told her it was cold vodka or nada. I thought that was pretty clever because it kind of rhymed. But she again asked for wine. Now, if the whole crew had been on board, sure. I’d have one of them open a bottle. But it was just the two of us. I said, “I can’t be bothered.” Thing is, I didn’t even know where the damned corkscrew was. My chicks liked hard liquor like I did.

Ted frowned. He realized, he didn’t really know what they liked. He just assumed they liked martinis. Who wouldn’t? But then, he tried to recall what had happened? He had gone below to get another martini. He thought back. It was a smooth walk to the freezer. No storm. She yelled something down to him, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Anyhow, it didn’t matter. But there was no storm. Not then. And why didn’t Suzie join him on the island? Where the hell was she? She must have been blown overboard. For that matter, where is my damned yacht? Merde! Talk about a bad day. I lost my lay and my boat. He gritted his teeth in anger.

Just as well. If Sally were here she would undoubtedly be blaming me for this hellish weather. It just blew up out of nowhere. “It’s not my fault!” he told the universe firmly. Ted snorted. It felt good to say that so he said again, but louder.

“It’s not my fault! You hear that, universe? Screw you! And put me back on my yacht!”

Ted pictured the yacht in his head. An image came to mind of a safety beacon. He wondered how it worked. He had always let André take care of it. What had André once said? “You really should learn ow zees work.” Ted recalled snorting as he shot back, “I can’t be bothered.”

“Concentrate you A-hole,” he said to himself and tried to recall what happened next. But it made no sense. I had just opened the fridge to get the vodka. Vavoom! And just like that, the whole frigging boat had … disappeared. Or, at least disappeared for Ted. He opened the door and the refrigerator light must have gone incandescent. Like a giant flashbulb. Maybe a freak storm came up and lightning struck and that explains the bright light. I was shocked. That’s all. Electricity knocked me out. So, I fell down, hit my head and I must have been shipwrecked. And while I was unconscious, I dreamed about some weird dude being there talking to me about my life. He had promised to look into my “case” as he called it in my dream.

“Concussion” Ted said to himself. “I must have suffered a concussion. It’s that damned Susan’s fault. If she just would have been okay with a martini like me, none of this would have happened.”

Several of Ted’s neurons cast sidewards glances at each other. None dared speak aloud though. Ted had long ago beaten the crap out of all his truth-teller neurons. He tried to think back to what this imaginary dude had said. The chattering of his teeth made it hard to concentrate. But the dude’s name was some weird made-up rock-and-roll name like ‘Saint Peter.’

“Yeah,” muttered Ted. “He said he would look into my case. And then he said: ‘I can’t be bothered.’ What the hell kind of a thing is that to say?”

The words for some insane reason echoed in his brain. Whenever the crazies at his club had asked why he never wore as mask, he’d always looked at them like they were garden slugs and said, “I can’t be bothered.”

Ted turned and craned his neck to look out through a small gap in the rocks toward the sky. No sign of clearing.

It looked to Ted very much as though this storm would last forever.

For once, Ted was right.

Saint Peter had thought about reviewing his case. But he just couldn’t be bothered.

——————————————-

As Gold As It Gets

Do Unto Others

What Could be Better? A Horror Story

If Only…

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

That Cold Walk Home

Masklessness is not Manliness

Author page on Amazon

The Great Remembering

24 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

collaboration, cooperation, fiction, leadership, legend, myth, story, Veritas

Trunk of Tree had been in a foul mood. Hunger made his belly growl. He had had terrible luck even trying to track a deer. But the sight of these two Veritas, well-known to him, and the smell of cooking venison lightened his mood considerably. He said none of that, but instead asked again how they found him.

Cat Eyes explained quickly to Trunk of Tree that they were near her village. She explained that a feast was being prepared right now in honor of the knowledge that had been gained from decoding a substantial part of the great library that had been recently discovered. The Veritas had split up decoding the numerous tomes in the library. It was far too much for any one person although, among all the Veritas, Cat Eyes knew the most of what had been garnered by the people. She had been sharing much of what she learned with Tu-Swift. Now, she explained, a great feast had been arranged and the afternoon was to be spent eating and listening to the lessons that had been gleaned. In the evening, the people planned to reflect on the totality of this information in a great dialogue.

Cat Eyes explained all this to Trunk of Tree as they took the short hike back to the place where he had emerged from the hidden cleft in the rock wall. Tu-Swift and Cat Eyes marked the place with broken branches and a small rock cairn so they could be sure to find it later.

Then, the trio strode back to the center place of the Veritas across the Mountain. Cat Eyes and Tu-Swift kept having to stop for Trunk of Tree to catch up. At last, Cat Eyes said, “Trunk of Tree. All you all right? You are limping. You are wounded? What happened? I see a bandage and blood. Were you attacked?”

Trunk of Tree’s mood darkened again. He did not want to explain how he had wounded himself through his anger and carelessness. “I’m fine. Just a scratch.” He swallowed hard. The truth was that the wound was not healing all that well. He grimaced and tried to keep up with the youngsters so they wouldn’t ask any more about his gash.

The reappearance of Cat Eyes caused more of a stir than usual when people noticed that Trunk of Tree was with them. When he explained briefly how he had come here, the Veritas from the other side of the mountain furrowed their brows. How could a passage out of their valley exist so near that no-one had discovered? Even Trunk of Tree could perceive the skepticism on their faces. He explained that he had only come across the path by sheer accident born of desperate hunger pangs. Tu-Swift explained to the small group how he had marked the trail and three of them jogged off to see for themselves.

Soon, Tu-Swift, Cat Eyes, and Trunk of Tree were seated on overturned tree trunks. People kept coming to Cat Eyes with small questions about the upcoming feast. As she answered their questions, she simultaneously pulled up the pant leg of Trunk of Tree, ignoring his protestations that nothing was wrong with him. He was immensely powerful and could have easily kicked her away. Although a part of his mind pictured that, some more fundamental part seemed to know that his leg was more important than his pride so he let her unwrap the bandages.

When she did so, her nose wrinkled up immediately. She glanced at Tu-Swift who noticed it as well. The wound stunk. Just then a young warrior came up to Cat Eyes meaning to ask her opinion about her role in the upcoming knowledge exchange. Cat Eyes answered curtly and then begged the young warrior to bring her the pouch of blue-green mold that sat in a dark corner of Cat Eye’s cabin. Soon, Cat Eyes was applying the mold to the oozing wound of Trunk of Tree despite his objections.

“I already put yellow dock and plantain on it,” he protested.

“Yes,” replied Cat Eyes, “and that is good. This is even better. We learned about it from one of the many books in the library. There are many things we learned from those books and you will hear about many of those things tonight. I wish all of the Veritas were here to learn what we have decoded in the last few months.”

Cat Eyes nodded as she noted that the sickness had not spread much from the original injury. She bound up the wound again. She glanced at Tu-Swift. She slowly shook her head. “It’s amazing how much of a great gift we have now from our library — and all the knowledge put there by our ancestors. And to think…it was there when my mother’s mother’s mother lived … and we had no idea what it was. Until now.”

Now, she turned to look at Trunk of Tree. She smiled. “You will see later today, Trunk of Tree, some of the things we have learned. She tilted her head. “There are things in there about fighting and strategy as well as medicine.” She paused, smiled and went on: “And, to use your imagination to make yourself happier and solve problems — not simply as a tool for hurting yourself.”

The eyes of Trunk of Tree widened thus confirming her hypothesis.

Trunk of Tree reddened. Cat Eyes reached out her hand and gently touched his shoulder. “It’s a tendency all of us have, Trunk of Tree. There’s no reason to feel embarrassed.

An awkward silence grew between them. She looked at Tu-Swift and back to Trunk of Tree.

Tu-Swift took a deep breath. “For example, when Cat Eyes came to visit our Center Place, I ran off to see her because…well, because I … because I love her.” Now Tu-Swift reddened as well. “Of course, everyone does. I … especially do. But then, Suze died shortly after and I made myself crazy thinking I had somehow been responsible. I didn’t cause her death. That plague though was brought to us intentionally by the Z-Lotz. They’re the ones I should seek revenge on and not on myself. He looked at the face of Trunk of Tree very carefully, the way he imagined that Many Paths would do if she were here.

“I can tell you this, Trunk of Tree. I’ve known Shadow Walker all my life. As have you. And, we know Eagle Eyes as well. They are both good people. They will do … whatever they think is best for the Veritas … and for all the people.” Tu-Swift let this thought sink in through the thick skull of Trunk of Tree. He surprised himself by his next words. “Sometimes, we must be apart from those we love. It’s always difficult. But don’t make it worse by imagining things that you know are not true. I don’t know why, but Eagle Eyes likes you. Surely, you must know that.”

Cat Eyes nodded solemnly. “That’s right. Shadow Walker & Eagle Eyes — these are people we can all trust. Trust is fundamental. You’ll hear more about that at our feast. The destruction of trust is what led to the destruction of … of civilization.”

Trunk of Tree frowned. “Civilization? What are you talking about?”

Cat Eyes sighed. “Just listen to our stories tonight. It’s … there were many people … and many wondrous things … but the people lost the one thing more important than all the others.”

Tu-Swift saw the tears welling up in her cat-irised eyes. “They let their greed, fear, and hate grow … and their love for each other … and for all life … they let that decay … and when it did, it all fell apart. The words that people said came to mean nothing. All trust was lost. And, Trunk of Tree, when all trust was lost, all the energy of the people was put into weapons. Killing sticks were replaced by even less honorable weapons that killed hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands. The people thought that somehow, if they hurt others enough, they themselves would live forever, not as part of the great tree of life, but as something separate and apart, as hard as the mountains and as mighty and as immortal. So did the people come to think.

“The times came of great killing.

“The times came of great forgetting.”

The voice of Cat Eyes became stronger and though she spoke to Trunk of Tree, all the people nearby heard her and drew near to her.

“Now, we are beginning the time of great remembering;

“The great remembering of who we are;

“The great remembering of what we are not;

“The great remembering of what makes us a whole people;

“The great remembering of the importance of truth and trust;

“The great remembering of the horror and sorrow that comes of the many being misled by the few;

“The great remembering of what we could become instead;

“The great remembering that each of us is ourselves but one marvelous leaf on the great abiding tree of life;

“The great remembering that we cannot make ourselves into something separate and forever by destroying the tree that sustains us.”

Cat Eyes stood and took the hands of Tu-Swift.

Drums began to play and the people began to sing.

Cat Eyes and Tu-Swift began to dance.

All the people began to join in the dance.

———————————————————-

The Creation Myth of the Veritas

The Myths of the Veritas: The Orange Man

The Myths of the Veritas: The Forgotten Field

The Myths of the Veritas: The First Ring of Empathy

Index to a Pattern Language for Collaboration and Cooperation

Roar, Ocean, Roar

The Only Them that Matters is All of Us

Author Page on Amazon

Do Unto Others

29 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

afterlife, fantasy, fiction, heaven, hell, shortstory, St. Peter, story

“I’m not doing that while we’re driving, Adam! It’s too damned dangerous!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, Nikki, you do what the hell I say or … “

“LOOK OUT!”

Nikki lay on the cold marble floor. She thought she must have suffered the worst hangover in the history of humanity because she had no recollection of how she got here — or what ‘here’ even was. Somewhere nearby, lights — very bright lights — shone against the marble floor. She opened her eyes to behold a scene of opulence and hard-edged beauty.

But, if this really is a hangover, she asked herself, where’s the headache? Where’s the infernal dryness? On the other hand, she reasoned that she still had no recollection of how she got here. Was she “on assignment” as Adam called it. Or…she had been with Adam. He had asked her…they were in a car. She scowled and mumbled, “That bastard must have drugged me.”

She got to all fours. Then, she stood, carefully splaying her arms out in case she lost her balance. To her amazement, she was not dizzy or off-balance in the slightest. Ahead of her, an empty hallway seemed to beckon her. She felt the answers to her many questions were at the end of it.

She walked gingerly at first, but soon gained confidence that somehow, there were no ill effects from whatever drug her pimp had slipped her. She looked ahead and whispered in a shaky voice, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

“It is I,” boomed a voice.

“Holy Mother of God, man! Don’t scare people like that! You’ll give someone a heart attack!”

“Keep looking and you will see me. I am not, regrettably, the Mother of God. Just St. Peter. I’m pleased to meet you, Becky.”

“Becky? No-one’s called me that … for years. Not since….” Her voice trailed off. Who are you really?”

“Oh, I assure you Becky. I really am St. Peter, Becky. Do you mind if I call you that.”

Silently, Becky shook her head. “I don’t mind. It’s just…I think there’s been a mistake.”

St. Peter’s face had become clearer to her now and she could see the corner of his mouth curl up in a smile. “Mistake? Well, no, I don’t think so. We don’t really do the whole ‘mistake’ thing. You know?”

“Well, if you’re the St. Peter who greets people coming to Heaven, then, I’m sure there’s been a mistake. I am a … or … I was a … you know … ‘working woman.’ I’ve known for a long time I was headed to Hell and … check your data base or your Excel Spreadsheet or whatever it is you people do and send me on my way. Let’s get it over with.”

Becky, aka Nikki, watched St. Peter as he tilted his head this way and that as though to get a clearer, or deeper, look at her. She sighed. She didn’t mind when her ‘clients’ stared at her. She kind of enjoyed it in a way. She could relate to the pleasure that they were feeling because of her. But this felt different. Uncomfortable. Weird. As though he wasn’t staring at her body at all, but into her soul. No-one looked at her that way. Certainly not Adam.

“Hey, St. Peter. What happened to Adam? Is he okay? Or is he dead too?”

“Ah, well, yes Adam. Adam Smith. He is indeed dead. All taken care of. Was he your friend?”

“Friend?! Hardly! I mean, I thought he was for a time. He pretended to be….” Becky’s voice trailed off. “Look, is this like — are you free therapy or something? Can we just get going on the whole ‘Hell’ thing?” She paused. “Please.”

“All right. Off you go then. Nice meeting you, Becky.”

Suddenly, Becky found herself surrounded by deafening noise. Flashing lights. The smell of gunpowder. And burning flesh. She heard someone call her name.

“Becky! Give me a hand with this one! Hold this compress hard so he doesn’t bleed out. Simon! Timothy! Help me get him onto this stretcher!”

Somehow, Becky knew what to do. Despite her best efforts, some of the man’s blood seeped onto her hand. It didn’t matter. She was damned well going to make sure he lived. “Come on, mister! Don’t go blank on me! What’s your name? What’s your name, soldier? Hey, Hey! Do not glaze your eyes over. Look at me! What’s your name?”

The man locked his eyes on hers. “Tom.”

“OK, Tom. Listen to me. We’ll have you back in the OR in no time. I know it looks bad and feels bad, but I’ve seen worse. Much worse. You’re going to make it. I have no doubt whatsoever. Here. Put your hand on mine. We’ll work together to keep you together.”

Simon and Timothy held the wooden handles and picked their way over the broken ground. At last they came to the Red Cross Tent. On this day, like the others, she did her best to save lives, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing. It seemed as though she had been a triage nurse forever.

Endless cold, endless danger, the stale food and the staler jokes.

Becky could not imagine anything that would give her more pleasure or allow her to feel more fully alive.

—————————-

The Truth Train

The Pandemic Anti-Academic

Listen! You can Hear the Echoes of your Actions.

A Cat’s a Cat and That’s That!

Is a Dream?

The Sunless Sunday of Faith

Camelot is in your Heart

The Impossible

The Bubble People

Race, Place, Space, Face

A Suddenly Springing Something

Author Page on Amazon

As Gold as it Gets

28 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

fantasy, fiction, karma, short story, story

“I’m not doing that while we’re driving, Adam! It’s too damned dangerous!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, Nikki, you do what the hell I say or … “

“LOOK OUT!” Nikki screamed.

Adam looked about him and wondered aloud: “Where the hell…?” He shivered from the cold. The fallen leaves were powdered with snow. He heard no-one. Saw no-one. “Where the hell am I?” he asked no-one.

A faint path led to a briar bush and beyond that a faded, mottled blue and teal door stared out from a stone wall. Apart from that, the woods seemed to stretch forever in all directions. Adam mumbled, “I must be in some weird-ass dream. Whatever.”

After convincing himself it had to be a dream, he found himself acting more bravely. He strode up to the door and pulled the knocker up and let it fall upon the heavy door. Three times he did this, not really expecting any result, but what the hell. It was something to do, he reasoned.

Adam jerked back as the door swung open. Inside, a huge room opened up. It was filled with light. He looked down at his well-polished rattlesnake boots. They gleamed more brightly than ever before. He squinted. He mumbled, “This is definitely the weirdest dream I have ever had.”

Adam found a single chair. He sat. Before him, a hazy golden figure loomed.

“Hello, Adam.”

Oh, my God! Adam had never heard such a resonant voice. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. Generally, Adam considered himself to have been blessed with the gift of gab. But now, he was speechless.

“It’s all right, Adam. Everyone is taken aback at first. I’m St. Peter.”

“What? The St. Peter? Like…like, I’m in heaven?”

“Well, let’s not jump the gun, Adam. You and I need to have a bit of a chat first. Before we choose your next chapter.”

Then, just like, St. Peter popped the most dreaded question of every job interview: “So, tell me about yourself.”

“St. Peter, I’m happy to meet you! I’m Adam. Adam Smith.” Adam smiled his most winning grin here. “Not the invisible hand guy, but my parents named me after him. And, indeed, Sir, or Saint, I am indeed a businessman. I did quite well. Took care of my bit…my bit of the business which was management quite well. Last year I was voted best dressed pim…pimple-free, and handsomest self-starter in all of LA. City of Angles! I should be here! I’m rich. I’m powerful in my own way. Know what I’m saying. Given your name and all that, I don’t know whether you’re interested — you got the whole ‘Saint’ thing going but your name is ‘Peter’ so — but anyway, if you are interested, I could fix you up real good if you know what I mean. I know you get a lot of applications for heaven and you can only take so many, but I’m a self-starter. Right? And I can help out. What do you say? Heaven. Okay?” Now, Adam smiled an even bigger grin. His cheeks hurt.

St. Peter asked, “And what is your idea of heaven, Adam?”

“Well, easy! Kind of like on earth, but better. Everything gold! Unlimited wealth! Everything gold! No cops! What say? Am I in like Flynn?”

St. Peter, and the bright room, and the door Adam entered all disappeared. In its place, Adam found himself on a street of golden mansions! He looked to his left — elegant mansions as far as he could see. He looked to his right — elegant mansions as far as he could see. Ahead of him was a well-appointed gold mansion with his name emblazoned on a huge sign. He walked up and sure enough, the front door opened at his touch. Inside, he feasted his orbs on the sight of gold floors, gold walls, gold furniture, and gold ceilings. His jaw literally dropped. “Now, this is more like it!”

Adam sat in a golden chair. He picked up the remote, also gold, and turned on the TV, also gold. It showed pictures of golden mansions. On every channel. “Wow! This place is cool! What do you think, now, Dad? Thought I’d never amount to anything. Hah! Here I am in heaven! Hear that, old man! I’m in fricking heaven!. A heaven of gold!”

The next morning, Adam grew bored. And hungry. In his beautiful golden kitchen, beautiful golden dinnerware sparkled in golden drawers. No food though. It wasn’t clear exactly how this works, thought Adam. That’s all right. I’ll figure it out. He went out the front door and turned right; walked up the sidewalk to his neighbor’s front door and knocked. No answer. He peered in through an unfrosted window and saw that his neighbor’s interior was solid gold like his.

“No-one home, I guess” said Adam to no-one in particular. As he walked back out toward the street, he noticed for the first time that his neighbor’s mailbox matched his precisely. He walked over to at least find out what his neighbor’s name was.

He read the name: ‘Adam Smith’. “What the hell?” said Adam.

Then, he noticed that the address was also the same.

666

Adam ran down the street, knocking on every door.

No-one answered.

Adam looked at every mailbox.

They all said the same thing: “Adam Smith, 666 Streets of Gold.”

He screamed. To no-one in particular, “What kind of heaven is this?!”

He sat in a lump on one of the identical porches. He looked at his lap. He turned over his hands and noticed that scrapes and bruises decorated his white knuckles with red and blue.

Adam said, to no-one in particular, “I’ll just keep knocking on every door till I find someone.”

In high school, Adam had not paid much attention in any of his classes, but math class he especially despised. He had no idea what the hell the teacher had been talking about when she started talking about infinity. It seemed like an abstraction with no meaning whatsoever in the world of Ghetin High School.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Now, however, Adam would have plenty of time to discover the true meaning of infinity.

Karma: A Horror Story

Who Speaks for the Dead?

Plans for us; some GRUesome

Ramming your Head into a Brick Wall Doesn’t Make you a Hero

Myths of the Veritas: The First Ring of Empathy

Author Page on Amazon

That First Time is So Special

01 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

COVID, COVID19, fantasy, fiction, health, masks, pandemic, Sci-Fi, story

477-K-435-J glanced at his comrade. “You look nervous. You doing okay?”

“I’m not nervous! Just leave me alone. I’m fine.”

“Geez. OK. Have it your way. Look, it’s no big deal. I was nervous my first time too. You’ll get used to it. Kind of. I’m 477-K-435-J. You?”

“Really? How did you know it was my first time? Oh, I’m 45-PP-45-PP, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise. For one thing…look, you’ve got this all twisted the wrong way. May I? I just want to straighten this out for you.”

“I … okay.”

“There we go. That’ll make it easier. Now, look. Truth is, 45-PP-45-PP, you should be nervous. Our enemy has some pretty potent weapons. You’d be an idiot not to be nervous. Poison gas is no fun.”

“Poison gas? They use poison gas?”

“Sometimes. Nitric oxide. Nasty stuff.”

“Thanks. Now, I have something else to be nervous about. It’s just … they so damned big. And, they have brains. Big brains.”

“Oh, believe me, that’s the last thing to be nervous about. Sure, they have big brains, but do they use them? That’s the question.”

“Why wouldn’t they use them? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Yeah, I agree. Hell, we all agree. It’s one of the great mysteries of near-life. But, luckily for us, we don’t have to solve that. We just need to use the fact that they don’t use them very often to our own advantage.”

(Long pause).

“How do you know — how do you know where to put it in?”

“It’s kind of instinctual. You’ll know. Anyway, there are lots of places. It’s not just like there’s one perfect place. We all develop favorites. Personally, I like the lungs best. It feels — it just feels right. Warm and wet. And, they really suffer, just like an enemy should. Best of all, it makes ‘em cough. That’s a free ride to the next sucker.”

234-HH-432-99 joined in. “That’s not what I like best. Sure, it’s warm and wet. But so are the mucous membranes in the mouth. The mouth is where it’s really at, if you ask me. To them, it’s quite an intimate place. That makes it all the more fun for me!”

477-K-435-J shook slightly. “Nah. Lungs. More damage. More spread.”

234-HH-432-99: “Ridiculous. Trust me, kid. There’s no greater feeling than penetrating one of those mouth cells and squirting your RNA into it. You are the boss then! That cell does what you tell it to. And what you make them do is make more of you! I love it. Whoever came up with that one…they deserve to be…to win something.”

477-K-435-J “Yeah, yeah. But no matter how much you screw over their mouth, they can still breathe. And if they can breathe, they have energy. And they can use that to send their destroyers out.

234-HH-432-99 suddenly screamed, “Hit the deck!”

Without the slightest idea what was going on, 45-PP-45-PP did as he was told. “What the hell was that?”

477-K-435-J replied, “That, kid, that is something you want to look out for. It’s a god-damned mask is what that was.”

“Huh? What’s a mask? Does that kill us too?” 45-PP-45-PP reflected again on how much danger he was in.

234-HH-432-99 answered, “No, it doesn’t kill us exactly, but most of the time, it prevents us from fulfilling our mission. Get caught up in one of those damned masks, and you won’t be screwing their mouth cells, their lung cells or any other cells. You’ll just … disintegrate … and die with no sons and no daughters to carry on your alphanumeric designation. It’s as though you were never really alive at all. Well, actually, you’re not. But you get my drift. You’ll be forgotten and nothing to show for it.”

45-PP-45-PP said, “Holy crap! How do we avoid them? A bunch of those things would ruin our whole plan.”

477-K-435-J added, “Yes, you’re right, but we’ll be fine as long as enough people don’t wear them or don’t wear them properly.”

45-PP-45-PP had the distinct feeling that his more experienced comrades were putting him on and making fun of his ignorance. “Yeah. Right. They have a way to prevent our spread and don’t use it. It may be my first time, but I’m not stupid enough to fall for that one! If you want to razz the new guy, you’ll have to think of something more clever than that.”

234-HH-432-99 said, “No, kid. We’re not putting you on. Your buddy ain’t puttin’ you on.”

45-PP-45-PP still felt he was being punked. “So you’e saying they have a weapon to keep up from doing in their lungs and doing … any of their cells … and they don’t use it? Why? That makes no sense! I don’t believe you.”

477-K-435-J said, “Look, it doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not. But we’re all in this together so why would I lie to you? No-one knows why they don’t use something that could save their life of the lives of their families. Some of their own kind have started rumors that the masks don’t work or that they infringe on their freedom.”

234-HH-432-99 piped up again. “Hell, not only that! Some of them don’t even think we exist! They think we’re just a hoax!”

45-PP-45-PP knew they were putting him on now. “Yeah, right. 1.5 million dead world-wide and 63 million sick …. And we’re a hoax? Come on. Give me a break. Just because it’s my first time doesn’t mean I’m totally naive.”

477-K-435-J shrugged, in his viral sort of way. “Look, kid, believe what you want. But trust me. Lungs. That’s where it’s at. And when… hey! Hey! Look sharp. This guys about to scream at someone, he’s surrounded by others, and none of them are wearing those damned mask. We’re in luck! Come on, troops! We’ve prepared our whole lives for this. Drill ‘em and kill ‘em! Drill ‘em and kill ‘em!”

Soon the chant filled the air. 45-PP-45-PP joined in and all his nervousness, his uncertainty, his fear melted away. “DRILL ‘EM and KILL ‘EM.” He felt inexpressible lust at the thought of raping a species whose only outstanding natural weapon was its brain — a weapon so many refused to use. He thought to himself, in his viral manner, They deserve to be drilled! They deserve to be killed! He turned to the comrade who had first befriended him and said, “477-K-435-J, I’m going for the lungs!” Then, to himself: “Warm and moist! Yum! You are mine you little slut cell! You’re going to birth 10,000 of my little babies! Whether you like it or not! You’ll see who’s a hoax!”

“Drill ‘em and Kill ‘em! Drill ‘em and Kill ‘em!”

And so they did.