somewhere distant
there’s a song, that a woman sings
a piano that softly plays
it’s a place I want to be

I have no way of knowing
what it is I need
this feeling is all I’ve ever had
of life’s fatal attraction

many times I’ve thought that I had it
what a cosmic hallucination
it’s always turned out to be
a magic kingdom from within

and on a journey without a conclusion
I can only find a mystery, shy an answer
to why a mind seeks to discover
what stares back from the mirror

Want to play a game?

Okay - I have one.

THE GAME

3 word story ----- I will post a comment to this blog (this will start the story) and I will number it ----------"NUMBER 1" ----- "my comment will consist of three words". Somebody, anybody, whoever, will post "NUMBER 2",(NOTE: be sure to put the number in your comment, i.e. "NUMBER 2" or "NUMBER 3" and so on.)

And then somebody will post "NUMBER 3" ---------now here's where you have to listen carefully, can you hear me? If you do (hear me) I would advise making an appointment with some "pointy head doctor" in the morning, but, now where was I, yes, yes, "read the following very carefully.

The "idea" here is that I will start our "story" with a 3 word post, and someone else will add 3 words, and someone else will add 3 words, and so on, and we will build a story......

"ONE AND ONLY RULE TO THIS GAME--- "if there are 2 or more posts, labeled Number 2 (for example), we must take the "Number 2" that got there first. So, either me or the blogger that sent the "too late" addition (blog comment) will have to "delete" it - otherwise "it will be a ZOO"!!!!!!!! It might be anyway, cause I've not thought this out real well, anyway here goes, as soon as I post this I will make the first comment.

OOPS... RULE NUMBER 2 - "posts can only be 3 (THREE) words, no more than 3 words... got it? gee, I wonder if this is going to work?

OOPS... RULE NUMBER 3 ---"please no 'double" posts; you can post more than once, but don't post two in a row. Damn! too many rules, this is going to be a "friggggggggggggggging mess!!!!!!! No, no, it'll be ok. It's work out, sure, you bet..

OOPS ... RULE NUMBER 4 --- Damn! More rules than the frigging U.S. Army!!!!!! anyway... this is not really a rule. we are just going to try and have fun with this, you can be "suggestive" but.. let's keep it "fairly clean" -- ok. And for God's sake, try to be rational and keep the thought of the story going. Crap! I better leave the wine and other stuff alone...man, this is going to be a mess, more rules than you can shake a stick at, man, this is going to be a frigging mess.....

DISCLAIMER - Being not in my right mind, and farther from "sane" than water on a desert, I hereby take no blame, or nothing else, for this, if it turns into a mess, or worse yet, it doesn't get off the ground at all. But, if it's a success and we have a little fun with it, then I take all the credit. Ice

p.s. I'm confident this will work... I think

In the end, her eyes glanced my way, and as we looked at each other,
she walked straight toward me, “startling” guys on both sides, thinking for a second, she was headed their way.

For me - time – rewound, and I was at “Ptha’s Place”, where I’d first met her. “Ptha’s” was named for the owner, a weird little guy, who claimed to of been “run out of Memphis” by the local police for not furnishing some of his whores, “free gratis”, for a cop’s Bachelor Party.

Ptha also had a “God Delusion”, and told everyone that he was named after an “Egyptian God” or Priest, something like that anyway. I didn’t really care, I was there to see his latest girlfriend, the one I had been hearing about from my friends. At just under 6 foot, nobody thought of me as tall, but I did have the “dark and handsome part down, which for me was like a double edge sword, as it was constantly getting me in trouble, usually with ladies that I knew, who got to know each other.

Turning 31 a couple of months ago, I’d never married, never came close to it. But, I wasn’t the typical “wolf” or “Casanova”, that ran to love, then ran from it, I’d simply never been in love with anyone.

On the day of my birth, all five of my aunties declared me; “the most beautiful baby they’d ever seen”, and I grew up being told “that”, over and over again, until I believed it myself. At least until the “Jr/Sr Prom”, when Marianne Henning, who I thought would “lick my drool” if I asked her to the Prom, told me she already had a date with my little brother.

Seems my aunties had told him the same “most beautiful baby” story, but in his case he "was" tall, dark and handsome, and then some, according to Marianne. They were married while I was in Vietnam, and named their first baby after me, “Terry Dan Roman”, but would call him “Terry” instead of “Dan” so nobody would get confused. Turned out, I was the only one “confused” about the whole thing, never understanding exactly why they did that. Once, when in a “fully drunken state”, I had the depressing thought that my brother had named his kid after me, in case I got killed in Nam.

Anyway, my brother won the “most beautiful baby award” that year, and I ended up going to my Senior Prom – “stag”, mostly because after being rejected by Marianne, none of the other girls wanted to be “second choice”.

I did have a few things going for me, with more of my “great-grandfather’s 100 per cent Kiowa Indian blood in me than in any of my siblings, I had a perpetual tan during the winter months that turned bronze in the summer, thanks to being a “Life Guard” at the City Swimming Pool. Ah, that Life Guard job was like having a “master key” to all the locks in town. Add in a nice smile, a reasonably good build, and playing QB on the football team, and I’d done all right for myself,

And for the past decade, since returning “intact” both physically and mentally from Nam, I had developed a thick “little black book” of phone numbers that many guys envied. So, I wasn’t exactly in awe of this “new girlfriend” of Ptha’s, but always up to a challenge, I’d decided to cruise through and see what she looked like. I guess I was more bored that night than anything, and I had always heard that “the cure for boredom was curiosity”, What I had never heard, or paid attention to was the second part of that quote, “there is no cure for curiosity”.

If it had been a movie I would’ve laughed. Me sitting at the bar wondering how many drinks it would take - for me - to call a cab?

Then, she walked in.

Or should I say she and about 33 pairs of eyes, belonging to every man in the bar, including the guy mopping the floor behind the band stage. I didn’t come close to “falling off my stool” or anything like that, but the world did “tilt” just a bit, when I saw her.

The night that was beginning with a coincidence, “me and her in the same room together”, had been preceded by another night with another coincidence, although I wouldn’t realize it till now, as I watched her strolling in, literally “gods gift to mankind.” “Fuck” I said, “out loud”, though none of the guys that heard me, paid a bit of attention.

She was wearing a pair of faded jeans, and a white blouse, sans bra of course, don't know about shoes, none of us were looking at her feet.

Brandi was a “knockout”, hell I knew that, but three factors came into play that night,

One, it was a large bar, bigger than you typical nightclub, and with just under forty people counting the bartenders, and waitresses, the place seemed deserted. Stick on the fact that the band hadn’t even started, and you can see how a woman like I just described, would bring everybody around to her, even the waitresses.

I was busy checking everyone; “including the waitresses”, to see if I could spot “him or her”, cause, since Brandi was coming in “single” that meant she was meeting someone, cause she never had to “cruise” for partners, they were always “around her”, always. And, like I said, with Brandi, it could be a woman or a man. Brandi didn’t give a shit what people thought, and for her - “bi-sexual” was just a descriptive phrase, and, if any man had a problem with that, “screw him” – not, as we used to say back in High School.

Two, there was only two female customers in the bar, and they had been holding a quite obviously, “intimate conversation”, in a dark corner, as far away as they could get from the bar – crowded with men like myself; “unattached”.

Three, Nobody had ever seen this blond tigress before, except, of course me, and I, like the rest, could not take my eyes from her, albeit for different reasons.

It had been exactly 1 year since I’d seen Brandi; tonight was the anniversary of the night she had told me "we were done". Just like that – I had become nothing to her, and she was moving out and moving on. In fact, she took the last load out of my apartment at about 11:00 that night. That was the last time I’d seen her, till now.

The city I live in, is a major metro area, there are literally hundreds of nightclubs in the city, not counting those in the outlaying areas. The fact that I had not seen her in a year was not unusual, since she lived in the NW section of the city, and also worked there, while I live in a small suburb about 10 miles south of the city. When I worked it was hardly ever in the city, and I rarely went into town for any reason, except, of course, for the bars, and nightclubs.

What was unusual for me, and soon to be for “us”, even to the point of “eerie”, was that it had been “exactly a year” since we had seen each other. As I thought this thought, I also wondered for just a “sliver of a second”, whether she would know what day it was, but that errant thought limped slowly away, almost run over by the instantaneous realization that she would of course “know”. She would be thinking the same thing as I; talk about a coincidence. Our anniversary of "my life being ruined", and we end up in the same frigging club.

So, that was coincidence number one for us, and for me coincidence number two had happened the night before, when bored with trying to run certain lady acquaintances of mine “to ground”, and probably bummed out because I knew what day “tomorrow” was; I had rented a movie, lit some smoke, and was drinking “Crown Royal” straight from the bottle. I fixed myself a bowl of tuna salad, between large swigs from my favorite “light brown bottle”, and even boiled the egg myself, which was a feat for me - me with only rudimentary cooking skills at best. The movie I had rented was a “Bogie movie” and for you poor souls who don’t know who Humphrey Bogart “is” – not - “was”, well let’s just say you’re missing something here, if you don’t give the “bogieman” a chance.

It (the movie) was “Casablanca”, and though older guys had probably seen it hundreds of times, I, at the tender age of 32, had only watched it a couple of times, so, I was looking forward to my night of good food, good drink, good smoke, and a good movie. Fuck all the women.

Most adults have heard of Humphrey Bogart, and, although I cannot speak for my generation entirely, most have seen Casablanca, a love story with Bogart falling in love with the beautiful woman, followed by the necessary ditching of him, by said beautiful woman. “Time passes”, and then one night she shows up in the bar that he owns, called "Rick's", after the character Bogart plays in the movie.

You can watch the movie to find out the rest, in the wild chance you’ve never seen it, but “That”, my friend was Coincidence number two for me. That I had watched that movie, just last night, and frizzled by booze, and mellowed with smoke, I had finally, for the first time in a year, felt sorry for another man, instead of myself,

Now, as I stared at her, almost trance like, all I could think of was that line, in the movie, when Bogart, shortly after seeing her and talking to her, had uttered these words....

“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she had to walk into mine”.

And, that is where I am now.

Funny feelings. Strange feelings. Getting slapped, hard. Feeling pain, while looking at a strange looking woman, or man? I don’t know. Face, white as paper, kind of a slight body, with skintight clothes of some sort. Machine black eyes with tiny white irises…

“Wake up”! --- blasting into my newfound consciousness, as I try to talk while remembering my past all at once. And the last thing of that past was my “dieing.” I’m lying on the pavement, looking up; I see blood, splattered against the whiteness of the car door, as if on an easel of sorts. I notice eerily so, tiny, black, tar spots that intermingles with the blood, and I’m wondering; “who the hell just shot me, and how come it doesn’t hurt”?

Even now I don’t know. Like the lights went out and the next thing I know I’m getting “slapped around” by some strange looking human, and then, suddenly I know that I am not by myself.

Sure, there is this strange looking human in front of me, but there is someone else here too, and though I cannot see her, I can feel her. Emotions, feelings, and questions, I sense them as they soak me like a cold rain. How do I know she is a she, I wonder? And, where is she?

“He seems intent on provoking a statement or something, from us, you know”?

“Who are you”, I say, or think, “which is it”, as I scan the room, devoid of anyone except “elder”. “Elder”, is that this strange creature’s name? And who is talking, and why do I sense the words but not the voice?

“Where are you”?

How do I know - it is not he - talking to me?

I don’t know who I am, she says, but I know who I was, just as you do, but I’ve been aware longer than you, so I will let you grieve first, then after you understand we will start”. All this from a woman I can't see. At least I think she is a woman, how do you know if you can't see, I wonder? And, what does she mean by grieve?

Grieve? For what?

Suddenly I know...... Sherry! Denton! Mom, Dad, Larry….jesus! They are all gone. All dead. No! I know who is dead here, it’s me, but no, I’m not dead, but then what am I?

“What you are, and I am, has yet to be determined”

“It’s telepathy right”? ”I’m not talking, I’m thinking”.

“Probably, or something similar, she responds”.

“Where are you”?

“Do you see the guy who keeps slapping us”?

“Yes, and I’m hearing things now, and smelling”….

“Yeah I know”.

Us?

“Move your arms”.

“What”?

“Your arms just move them up, you’ll see”.

Moving both arms upward I see what she means. I am in a body; it looks identical to his, though mine is lying on a table. Now, it’s, me, it’s rising up, though not from any effort on my part. I’ve gotten up now, and am sitting on the side of the table. What a strange sensation; to see your body from the outside, moving without a thought from yourself to do so.

And then I know everything all at once

“Then, if you know everything, what’s your name”?

Elder is looking at me, waiting for an answer.

But I am reeling now; through the corridors of my mind, realizing that though I know and understand much, I cannot answer his query, as two thoughts pulsate through my mind; “I’m not dead! I’m not dead!” Followed by “I’m alive! I’m alive!”

Suddenly I am off the table, walking around the room, no longer viewing my body from the outside, I am seeing from within. It’s a small room, all white, with the table I’ve been laying on, the only piece of furniture. I feel the floor beneath my feet; it feels rubbery. I breathe in and exhale. I’m alive. But where am I? And what am I? And who is this strange creature, now known to me as “elder,” who wants me to tell him my name?

And, who is this woman, who communicates with me, but I can’t see?

“Sit down please, and I will tell you” she says, or thinks, I really don't know which.

I stare at the elder, and as I watch – my body sits on the side of the table. This constant shift between the outside of my body and the inside is confusing, but he, the elder, is talking. But not really for his lips are not moving. Doesn’t matter I know what he’s saying.

“You are a child of the 3rd level”, he says, “and you’ve entered into a new world”. “A world much the same as from where you’ve come, but with many differences too”.

“Oh yes, I say”, I understand much now”.

“Then you know your name”?

“Sure”, I say, “my name is Debunkem and you’re someone called ”Elder”.

“And, pipes up the woman”, do you know my name”?

“Sure do”, “how you doing Glorious”..

“Fine, Fine, Mr. Debunkem”, by the way did you ever see a movie called “All of Me”, it had Steve Martin in it…......