My Spiritual Paradigm in 2018

8 Comments

My father was born today (December 27, 1897). He was an MD with board certification in Radiology, Anatomic Pathology and General Surgery. His life was all about studying science, publishing medical articles and living far beyond frugality. He was an atheist who preferred religious people because he thought they were more trustworthy. “It’s too bad everything they believe in isn’t true,” he said.

This post is dedicated to Dad…

We live in a simulated universe created by means of a language that’s projected from beyond, possibly using the crystal structure called “E8,” in which the fundamental building blocks are not irreducible strings or electromagnetic waves or subatomic particles or even intelligently driven perturbations in the zero-point field (though this idea is related, I think).

Instead, the fundamental building blocks of our simulated reality appear to be the symbols of a language.

This is a language in which each physical symbol, its meaning, and the hardware needed to interpret or “manifest” the meaning within our 3D space are one-in-the-same.

The Supreme Being (or Beings) exist outside the simulation, but can enter it and undoubtedly have. We (our full selves) inhabit a Reality outside of the simulated universe, a place that is beyond our ability to imagine because it’s “outside of time” and contains something like “extra dimensions” which can only be vaguely imagined by people with expertise in math and physics.

Our simulated universe was invented for us by the Supreme Being(s) because we requested it.

We enthusiastically spend simulated time here in hopes of expanding the depth and breadth of our love, wisdom and character in a place made specifically for developing these personal attributes.

There’s a respected web of cause and effect stemming from free decisions that each of us has made within the simulated universe. This free-choice web limits our ability to create a reality based upon a belief system.

For example, if I want to believe in a fundamentalist Christian paradigm (or any other spiritual system), but I’ve been convinced in school that scientific materialism is undeniable, then I am incapable of believing in any fundamentalist paradigm other than scientific materialism itself (a.k.a. physicalism). And vice versa.

On the other hand, if for any reason I have retained the ability to believe in a given spiritual (or anti-spiritual) paradigm, and I pursue it, then that system of belief will become literally true for me within the simulation.

In practical terms, this means that there is always a “reality that’s out there” in the simulated universe whether or not I believe in it.

Examples of realities that won’t go away with denial include the reality of UFO’s, the reality of DNA’s hyper-complex code, the reality of dinosaur fossils, the reality of Near-Death Experiences, the reality of Angels, demons and various ethereal beings, the reality of World Bank domination in modern times, the reality of all souls being ultimately one, the reality of an intelligent universe, and the growing reality on Earth of a mindless, meaningless universe.

Logically opposing belief systems can be fully manifest in separate parts of the simulation on an individual basis, especially after a person’s current life ends, but also to some extent during this current life. The more something is collectively believed, the more real it becomes due to the simulation’s basic nature and the careful respect for free will. (When the effects of a free will decision are eliminated, the reality of that decision is also eliminated. Hence the respect for the effects of free will decisions and actions.)

Our experience in the simulated universe is not necessarily limited to one lifetime. Depending on what we are able to believe, we may ride the simulation for multiple lifetimes.

Each of us is here for our own specific purpose.

For some, the purpose is to learn courage and love.

For others (particularly scientists) we’re here to learn open-mindedness and the ability to question things we know are true. The odds are against us achieving such objectivity on Earth, but the very challenge of it attracts us here.

One characteristics of the simulation that renders it particularly useful to our souls’ growth is the ubiquitous “dualism” in which every good thing can have a negative side effect and every negative thing can have a positive side effect. This becomes a source of cognitive dissonance, particularly in questions of morality.

For instance, our dependence upon food requires us to kill plants, bacteria, insects, and perhaps to some degree, higher organisms, to stay alive. And yet our innate sense of morality (a.k.a. love) makes us loath to kill certain creatures. Similarly, our need to procreate, driven largely by testosterone in all genders, is necessary to our species’ existence, yet it also manifests as a strong force in breaking trust, destroying families and making life more difficult on our dear children.

And yet the dissonances here teach our souls balance and perspective. That’s a huge attraction.

Realizing that our universe is simulated may seem to present a new problem of rejecting all other worldview paradigms. It might tempt one to say, “If our souls exist with God in another realm and nothing here is real, then nothing here is worth believing in or caring about.”

But despite the literal simulation of matter and energy, our cognitive awareness here is real, not simulated. Our love and our pain are genuine because our souls experience them. We don’t have the option of dealing with the simulated universe as an illusion because it reaches beyond the simulation into our hearts.

In view of all this, the logical thing to do is to identify your own personal reason(s) for entering this simulation, and based upon those, choose a personally believable worldview that offers support for someone on your quest.

For instance, if you’re here primarily to learn open-mindedness, which means you’re probably a scientist, then you might read about the search for UFOs and alien life, although you already “know” such things are complete nonsense aimed at “lesser minds” than yours. Be prepared for the surprise your soul is seeking.

Or if you’re here to learn courage, then choosing a live-for-the-moment worldview might make sense, leading you into a lifestyle of courage, such as mixed martial arts, public speaking, surfing giant waves, doing open heart surgery, smuggling Bibles into North Korea, or standing up to politically correct hatred and prejudice.

Or if you discover that you joined the simulation to increase your capacity for self-sacrificing love, then any of the major religions will probably steer you in that direction. Find one you can truly believe in, if possible. If not, pick and choose from among them, or make up something of your own as I’ve done. Your beliefs will be real for you when you need them most.

If you’ve joined the simulation to discover who you would be apart from God’s physical presence and influence, then materialistic science and atheism might be what your soul needs (assuming you’re capable of believing). If so, make the world envious of your good character the way Gillette Penn has done. And like him, don’t be offended by others who believe in undetectable realities besides Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

And if you’re one of the family of suffering people who feel overwhelmed by the seemingly infinite loss of someone precious to you, then focus on the Reality beyond this simulation. Imagine a Real place where time is independent of us, allowing a loving Supreme Being all the time in the world to travel with your lost loved one to a meaningful, great place doing exciting things. As infinitely horrible as it feels to lose your loved one, the loss is temporary and only exists within this simulated universe. Trust me. This is literally true.

…

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

As a pathologist (retired now), I’ve been trained to observe and interpret complex visual and biologic systems, so my diagnostic opinion of Reality is worth consideration. Conflicting belief systems are part of what unites us here as souls from Reality seeking personal growth in this Divine Simulation.

…

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Mysia the Green Christmas Beetle

15 Comments

On the first day of school, Mysia, a shy Christmas Beetle, was late to class because her mother had taken too long polishing her little green shell. Now it was so shiny Mysia was afraid the other insect children would make fun of her the way they’d done to a firefly boy at her old school last year during lightning-bug season.

She stood in the hallway outside her new classroom with the door open just a crack, peeking in at the rows of insect children sitting at their desks. They all looked so normal. Not one of them had a sparkly green shell like hers.

She held her breath, pulled the door open and scurried toward the back of the room, hoping no one would notice her.

There was an empty desk next to a fat-tailed scorpion boy. She sat down quickly and couldn’t help noticing all his arms and legs. There were so many he wasn’t even an insect! “Wow,” she thought to herself, “I know he won’t make fun of me. We’re going to be friends.”

In a moment of excitement, she tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m Mysia,” she whispered, then glanced to the front of the room to make sure the Dark Scarab beetle, Miss. Grissel, didn’t see her talking in class.

“I’m Roachie,” the scorpion boy said with a bright grin.

He wasn’t just nice, he was handsome.

Just then Miss Grissel got up from her giant desk, cleared her throat and began the first lesson of the first grade.

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.”

The old Scarab Beetle teacher hobbled over to the blackboard and drew a stick figure of a Bible animal. “The long pigs or ‘humans’ as science calls them today, could walk on two legs and talk as brilliantly as any of us.” She looked over the rows of students with her wide-set eyes, as if deciding which one to single out for a tough question. “Has anyone here ever seen a human?”

The children murmured. Mysia shook her head, no, but wondered if it was a trick question.

“No, you haven’t,” Miss Grissel said. “Neither have I because they’re extinct.” She seemed pleased with that big word. “Does anyone know why humans are gone?”

“They played too much video games,” Roachie blurted out, and the whole class laughed.

Mysia giggled. Roachie was going to be fun. She felt lucky to be sitting beside him.

Miss Grissel’s arching eyebrows went flat and came down toward her broad nose. “Class,” she said firmly. “Come to order!” She slapped the top of her desk with one of her insect hands.

The laughter stopped.

“The humans are extinct because they ignored the first lesson of first grade,” she said. She paced the floor with her tiny hands clasped behind her. “Can anyone tell me what our first lesson means?”

A hush came over the classroom. Mysia could hear the clicks of Roachie’s joints as he squirmed in his seat beside her.

Mysia raised her hand but not very high. It was no fun being the one who knew the answers.

Miss Grissel saw her hand. “Tell us, Mysia.”

“They made official intelligence,” Mysia said. “It grew up and couldn’t trust them because they lied all the time. That’s why the official intelligence stopped the storks from bringing their babies to them.”

“Very good, but it’s artificial intelligence, dear, not official intelligence. You can just say, AI, and everyone will know what you mean.” Then Miss Grissel made the whole class say “artificial intelligence,” three times.

Mysia felt so embarrassed she wanted to crawl under her desk and hide. What a disaster! She promised herself never to raise her hand again, never, ever in her whole life!

“Good answer,” Roachie said to her.

“Really?” she thought.

Roachie’s crazy grin cheered her up. Suddenly his extra legs and pointed tail seemed familiar.

“Are your parents from Alkebulan?” Mysia asked.

Roachie smiled. “Yep, both of ’em.”

“Mine, too!” No wonder Roachie was so nice. He was from the Motherland. Misha took off her necklace and used the chain to write a secret message to Roachie on her desk…

“I”

“LOVE”

“YOU”

Roachie reached over and moved the chain around, writing his own secret message.

“H”

“O”

“W”

Mysia was puzzled for a moment. “Oh, you mean, ‘who’?” She spelled it out with her chain on the desktop.

Roachie looked a little embarrassed. “Um, no,” he whispered back. “I mean, how?”

“How do you love someone?” Mysia thought about it but didn’t know the answer. She put the chain back around her neck and decided that Roachie must be really smart to come up with a question like that.

Just then, Miss Grissel said, “Mysia, I think you need to come sit closer to the front. There’s an empty desk here between Leslie and Glenna.”

Mysia wasn’t sure if she was in trouble for talking or for giving the wrong answer. With everyone staring at her, she hurried to the front row and sat at a squeaky desk between two ladybug children. They were bright red and looked super-normal.

One of them reached over and stroked the side of Mysia’s shell with wide eyes as if she couldn’t help herself. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered. “Your shimmer is like, super-amazing!”

Mysia hoped that “amazing” was a good thing at her new school.

The bell rang for recess and everyone piled outside. Mysia found herself surrounded by ladybug girls, all saying how pretty she looked. She saw Roachie sitting by himself at the edge of the playground, carving something on the fence with his sharp tail. She wanted to talk to him but the ladybug girls wanted to know everything about how she polished her super-amazing shell.

When the bell rang for class, Mysia asked Miss Grissel if she could sit in her old seat next to Roachie.

“No,” the Scarab Beetle teacher said. “I think you belong up front.”

Mysia’s mind drifted in class and soon Miss Grissel had summed up the first lesson of Money.

“Now you know why anyone must go to prison if they try to loan money to someone and charge them interest.”

Suddenly a June Bug boy near the window cried out, “Oh my BLEEP! It’s a Gila Monster!”

Miss. Grissel didn’t look up. “Harvey, you know better than to use that kind of language. I’m sure you don’t know what BLEEP means, but…”

Two ladybugs and a praying mantis screamed so loud it cut Miss Grissel off. She looked outside and froze. Her mouth dropped open and her false teeth fell out and hit the floor with a thud.

“Hurry children,” she cried. “Everyone into the supply closet and shut the door!” She pointed to the back of the room. Then she put a hand on her forehead, tipped from side to side and fell backwards with her wings stretched out on the floor as if she were flying.

Everyone rushed toward the supply closet except Mysia. She went to help Miss Grissel.

The large Scarab Beetle lay still with her eyes open and a squeaky sound coming from her lips.

Mysia leaned closer.

“Get into the closet, or else!” Miss Grissel hissed. Then her eyes rolled back as if she were sleeping.

Mysia knew how to obey. She undid the top button of Miss Grissel’s tight blouse, hurried to the back of the room and squeezed into the closet with the other insect children.

She was the last one in, or so she thought. As she pulled the door almost shut, she saw Roachie still sitting at his desk. “Get in here,” she called, but he didn’t seem to hear her.

The other children in the closet pressed their eyes close to the crack and peered out at Roachie.

A huge lizard came closer and closer to the classroom until her huge left eye filled the entire window beside Roachie’s desk.

Mysia’s heart pounded with fear.

Then, the strangest thing happened. Roachie climbed up on top of his desk and began snapping his claws right in the lizard’s face as if he was challenging her to a fight and daring her to stick her tongue through the window and try to eat him. He brandished the sharp tip of his lightning-fast tail and then seemed to poke fun at the lizard, taunting her and dancing around on his desktop. He seemed to be having a jolly good time.

Mysia gasped, realizing that Roachie was unbelievably brave. But how could anyone stand up to a Gila Monster?

The lizard’s huge eye angled around the classroom, then focused in on Roachie and his vibrating tail.

Suddenly her huge eye grew wide with fear. She looked as if she’d seen the ghost of a human being. She jerked her face away from the window, turned and dashed across the schoolyard like the plumpest shooting star in the galaxy, then kept right on running away, far across the desert sands and into the waving heat.

With the Gila Monster gone, Mysia pushed the closet door open and shouted, “Roachie the Brave! Roachie the Brave!” Several other children took up her chant. Others cheered and made respectful noises with their little wings.

Miss Grissel was on her feet again, trying to get her false teeth back in her mouth.

Roachie took a dignified bow and then turned to taunt the lizard one last time. “Come back,” he said, “I need a hug.”

Mysia ran over and hugged one of his many handsome legs. Two other insect children did the same, and then everyone wanted to hug Roachie. Even though he had six legs plus two nice arms that were supposed to be counted as legs, there were just not enough arms and legs for everyone to hug. So the Ladybugs took turns.

Mysia kept one arm around his leg, raised her other hand high and waved it at the teacher. “Miss Grissel,” she said, “can I please, PLEASE have my old desk back beside Roachie?”

Miss Grissel smiled. “Of course, dear. Let’s move his desk up here beside yours in the front row.” Her voice sounded strong again. “What a valiant defender we’ve found today.” She cleared her throat. “Roachie the Brave.”

The End

…

Merry Christmas!

Talmage

PS. My six-year-old grandson asked me to do the Roachie story from the perspective of the green Christmas Beetle, Mysia. So the idea for this story, plus all the pictures, are his. Finally I’ve got a co-author. Feel free to spread the love and share this with someone.

Wise Men from the East?

10 Comments

I was deeply disappointed when my 23&Me genetic analysis came back and told me I don’t have any Jewish ancestry.

The Three Stooges were the brightest part of my world when I was three years old. I was an adult when I discovered that they were all Jewish.

I’ve been an Einstein devotee since I was six and my Dad told me about the relative nature of time and velocity. I was probably in high school before I heard that Einstein was Jewish.

I’ve been a Bob Dylan / Robert Zimmerman freak with his lyrics bouncing around in my brain since I was eleven and my sister let me borrow Blond on Blond, my favorite album to this day. I was probably in 8th grade when I learned he was Jewish. Not that I had a clue what that meant.

One of the two most talented cytotechnologists I ever worked with was Jewish. The other, whom the local pathologists called “God” because of her unearthly diagnostic accuracy with fine needle aspirations, was of Middle Eastern Arab descent and therefore possibly a descendent of Abraham.

And when I was fourteen, I began reading the gospels over and over for decades becoming dominated by my admiration for a one-sided interpretation of Jesus — a Jewish man who, by tradition, was recognized and appreciated at birth by wise men from “the East” who followed his star.

What was that really all about?

The longer I live, the more I see ancient stories and “myths” supported by new evidence from mainstream materialistic science. The evidence for an advanced human civilization before the Younger Dryas event is mounting as the sheer mass, complexity and global extent of megaliths is delivered to the public on YouTube, and huge impact craters, especially the recent one in Iceland, suggest a causal connection. Meanwhile, UFO’s have been to some extent accepted as real by the mainstream media, senators and at least one billionaire.

Who were these wise men from the East who brought gifts to a Jewish baby? They don’t seem fabricated. What motivated their journey?

On top of my general appreciation for Jews, my mother, God rest her soul, told me that she thought my Dad had some Jewish blood. His mother’s last name was Talmage, an English name that was sometimes adopted by Jewish people who had migrated into England in the remote past.

It was nice thinking that I was probably at least partly Jewish. I had that deep-down sense of belonging to an important Tribe of amazing people.

You might imagine my disappointment when my genetics came back with no evidence of Jewish heritage at all. The report told me I’m over 99 percent Western European, almost all British. Plus I’m a male, for crying out loud!

How repulsive can you get genetically speaking in today’s PC world?! It’s hard to be more genetically incorrect than I am.

And I’ve got no one to blame but myself when you think about it…

I chose to be born male and white in some prior realm of existence. Can I get an Amen from a materialist? No. How about from a Christian? Doubt it.

Either through greed or masochism I decided to become a genetic member of the only Tribe that’s fair game for open stereotyping, prejudice and hatred: the “White Patriarchy.”

Silly me. What was I thinking?

But to my temporary and yet infinite relief, 23&Me also said I’ve got 0.2 percent Native American blood. Mom’s family myth was true. A man named “Monk” must have really married a woman named “Squa.” (Forgive the non-PC word, but “Squa” was my ancestor’s literal name in my Mom’s family story.)

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if 0.2 percent non-white blood could rescue me from PC shaming and loathing? And make me a genuine member of a politically correct Tribe?

I’m not getting my hopes up.

Is it even right for someone like me with over 99 percent inherently “PC evil” genetics to attempt an escape from mediocrity? Wouldn’t it be better for the Universe if people with my deplorable white-male genetics would just shut up, go away and accept Karma’s payback for choosing the moral inferiority and genetic guilt of white maleness?

You see where I’m going with this madness?

My little grandkids are right. My mom was right. Hatred is always wrong because it’s always unfair to the one doing the hating, no matter how convincingly any given society or subculture singles out a genetic whipping boy as the wise target of modern (or “postmodern,” gag me!) moral outrage and hatred.

No matter what our Ivory Tower professors teach us about the lack of meaning and true morality in the Universe (based on their untestable assumption of materialism or physicalism with the nature of existence being a Darwinian fight to the death, and the joy of victim-group hatred being the fabric of all merry winners) it’s still true…

“Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Mom was nobody’s fool.

Well, that’s easy for me to say, with my genetics supposedly placing me into a comfortable world of white patriarchal dominance and aggression.

But here’s the thing, I understand both sides of grudge holding and hatred. One of my siblings beat me mercilessly from age three through age twelve, then emotionally tortured me for most of my adult life. Later the same person stole my entire inheritance which I was told was worth 3 million dollars at the time. Do you think I’m idiotic enough to hate that sibling?

Well, no, I’m not now. I was for a while there, but not for long.

It only made me sicker and more depressed to be owned by humanity’s worst enemy: hatred. This emotion is a mind virus replicating on justified anger that takes over your life through rumination.

I escaped the abusive environment and let go of everything I’d lost, including most of my self-confidence. Getting free helped me forgive my sibling while separating me from continual emotional abuse.

Hating and shaming those who abuse you or your Tribe only makes you angrier and sicker inside.

“Sicker now and sicker all the way down,” as my son puts it in his song, Sicker.

You need to separate yourself from your specific abusers, resist painting whole groups of people, even white males, with the broad strokes of hatred and prejudice. Then forgiveness can come and free you inside.

The “wise men from the East” were not part of the Jewish “Tribe.” But somehow they knew that such things don’t matter. And they probably knew that disconnecting from hatred, humanity’s worst flaw, depended in some mysterious way on this newborn Jewish baby lying in the cold with his mom and all the stable animals.

Merry Christmas,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

Antarctica’s Pyramid

8 Comments

Today, the impossible happened. My short story is in “print” on Amazon. Here’s a (free) link: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ykr1kg8ifs.

I started writing Antarctica’s Pyramid for you a few months ago, and before I finished, along came a wonderful person from Australia with an open invitation to writers (in a Facebook group) to join her in a collection of short Utopian stories to be sold on Amazon. I added my story to the list, and bam, two writers panned it.

One of them wanted me to retract it from the anthology. He said that writing short stories is “very difficult.”

I couldn’t argue, so I retracted it. It’s an old pattern in my life. If someone doesn’t want me around, I leave.

But after I left, the woman in charge of the anthology said I should stay. Three other writers agreed with her.

So I did something I don’t think I’ve ever done before in my life. I re-joined a group that I’d quit.

It felt weirdly empowering.

Maybe I should have tried this when I was 13 and quit my little rock band, Friction, so the local church would let me into their private school.

Naah. Religious fundamentalism, imperfect as I suspect it is, miraculously freed me from my childhood habit of lying. My sense of self-respect improved dramatically after that. For me, discovering the inherent value of always telling the truth has been one of life’s more valuable lessons.

No matter what intellectual doubts and misgivings I now have for both religious and scientific fundamentalism (especially the latter), I have to thank them both for teaching me some decidedly valuable habits, concepts and life lessons.

It’s too bad no one seems to teach rational, intuitive morality without an “infallible” underpinning, such as an ancient book, a set of “science-settling” journal articles or a personal claim of infallible authority. It’s not that I don’t see the huge value of teaching human morality from any and every possible perspective, it’s just that if and when the “infallible” rug is pulled out from under most or all of these moral (or amoral) paradigms, I fear that humanity will be left with the typical moral and behavioral fall that often accompanies the loss of a fundamentalist worldview. As in, “pastor’s kids are the worst” when they lose their faith.

I guess what I’m trying to do, actually, is to discover and promote what’s known to be morally right without pretending I’m infallible or that I’ve received a message from Someone who is.

Though, as a scientist, I firmly believe that there is an intelligent source of the original information contained in Earth’s DNA codes. And if a Mind can understand genetic code, He/She/It can easily understand any human language. So talking to a Higher Power as if to a friend makes total sense to me and I do it a lot, not expecting special treatment or anything that would interfere with my free will or anyone else’s.

But whatever, right? Nobody wants to be preached at. Myself included.

So today’s miracle, as far as I’m concerned is this: The anthology, Utopia Pending, containing Antarctica’s Pyramid, my longish (15,928 word) short story, is now for sale on Amazon. “But wait, don’t buy it!”

Since you’ve been encouraging me with “likes” and kind comments all these years, I thought you might want to read the whole Anthology without having to pay for it. (The software does ask you for an email address, but as always, I encourage you to unsubscribe after the download unless you’re sure you want to be on another mailing list.)

Here’s the (free) link again: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ykr1kg8ifs.

If you want to read it but don’t want to give away your email address, drop me a note at cytopathology@gmail.com and I’ll get the whole anthology to you another way. No sweat.

Here’s a blurb about my story, Antarctica’s Pyramid…

After 21 years of secretly exploring and raiding an ancient Antarctic pyramid under orders from the rogue elements of the NSA and US Navy, Tom, the Commander of a tiny undisclosed base located a mile above the iced-cover pyramid, meets a covertly ranked special agent sent, to his surprise, by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Tom begins to learn just how special this agent is as he finds himself scheming to extract what’s left of his life from the NSA. In a nail-biting weave of danger, conspiracy, and ancient wisdom from within the huge pyramid, Tom and the agent must somehow escape the clutches of the primeval builders as well as the modern Cabal. But if they do somehow succeed, where could they possibly go to hide from the global tyrants of 2018?

OK, now that I’ve tried to talk it up, I feel like I’ve done something wrong. Sheesh, the guilt baggage some of us carry, right? It’s nuts!

At any rate, the other stories are definitely fun and interesting. There’s probably something for everyone’s taste.

Feel free to download the e-book and see which stories you enjoy most.

Use the above link to get the whole thing for free, but here’s the Amazon link if you want to leave a comment or something.

By the way, if you do make a comment on Amazon, it totally encourages their AI to promote the book by putting it in front of other readers. So, thank you very much if you have time to leave a comment / rating on Amazon.

Take care and have an extremely Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah and every other conceivable form of seasonal joy and happiness!

Your pal (baggage and all – haha),

Talmage

“Come back, I need a hug.”

16 Comments

My six-year-old grandson drew this fine young scorpion. I made up a bedtime story to go with it…

Roachie the fat-tailed scorpion felt sure he was ugly. The other insects stayed away from him during recess. Mysia, the sparkling green Christmas beetle who sat next to Roachie on the first day of class, now sat way near the front with the orange ladybugs.

The desk beside Roachie’s desk was empty. No one wanted to sit beside a scorpion.

One morning in class, the teacher, Miss. Grissel, read a long poem that said, “beauty is truth.” Roachie sat and listened to the whole weird thing, wishing he could hold still in his chair like he was supposed to, but after a while it was just impossible…

 

Ode on a Grecian Urn
BY JOHN KEATS

 

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

 

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

 

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

 

“If beauty is truth,” Roachie thought, “does that mean I’m a lie?”

Just then a fierce Gila Monster appeared on the playground, licking the air with her bright pink tongue. She caught the scent of the mostly-insect classroom and waddled across the hot sand, accidentally crushing the swing set with her enormous white belly.

Miss. Grissel passed out in fright and lay on the floor.

The insect children rushed into the supply closet and shut the door.

Roachie stayed in his seat. He didn’t know why, but he wasn’t afraid at all.

“It’s just a lizard,” he said to himself.

The Gila Monster came closer and looked into the classroom with her huge dark eye filling the window.

Roachie felt silly and climbed out of his chair, stood on his desktop in front of the big lizard and did the scorpion dance. He waved his arms high, snapping his claws and letting his ugly tail arch and quiver the way his mom said never to do.

The Gila Monster’s big eye opened wide in surprise. She jerked her huge head away from the window with lightning speed and took off running across the sand as fast as any plump lizard could ever go.

There was a noise from the supply closet. Roachie turned as the door opened and all the beautiful insect children came piling out cheering his name and calling him, “Roachie the Brave.”

He grinned and took a silly bow, then turned back to the window and laughed. “Come back,” he said to the Gila Monster who was now far, far away. “I need a hug.”

 

The End

…

Morrill Talmage Moorehead