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A post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale by a two-time Faulkner-Wisdom Prize finalist.
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Please link to the post/podcast page of Happiness Between Tails by da-AL to see my guest post on LITERARY FICTION 🙂
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FREE download today. A post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale by two-time Faulkner-Wisdom Prize finalist, Gary Gautier
Get it HERE while it’s free. Read it later.
#1 Bestseller on Amazon’s Metaphysical Fiction (free) list
#3 Bestseller on Amazon’s Literary Fiction (free) list
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Hippies is free this week. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MTGGWZV/
Go on. Do it. Release your inner hippie.
Here’s a new thread of my post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale, Alice, which comes in after Alice and Christopher discovered the head in the bushes. This thread introduces the factory and the nerds.
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Two rows of circular desks, three tiers high each, teetered on both sides of a hardwood walkway. Each circular desk was ringed at the top with spools, purple, magenta, and apple red, which looked like flowerpots from the vantage of the entrance. The purpose of the spools was difficult to ascertain, as each desk housed a nerd absorbed in work on a laptop computer. This was the factory, and these were the nerds.
If one were to wander the hardwood path all the way to the end, one could turn left and enter the manufacturing wing of the factory, where the nerds gave way to the tattooed machinists, although what they were machining was hard to say. There was a sort of assembly line, in a Dr. Seuss kind of way, but it ended at an open window, and no one seemed much to care what went on outside of the window.
If there were a chief nerd or a chief machinist, they kept to themselves. Everything and everyone seemed quite egalitarian at the factory. From the egg and sprout sandwiches at the kitchen counter to the orange vests for the machinists, a carryover no doubt from an earlier era, in which orange vests were necessary, to the accessory booth for the nerds, it was share and share alike at the factory. Someone must have been in charge though. The nerds were ever upgrading the AI capabilities of the product and the machinists fine-tuning the hardware assemblies, but the endpoint remained an afterthought. When the work was done, the soft metal specks at the end simply flew out of the window. Ladybugs. Probably, someone, somewhere, had a larger purpose for the ladybugs. But that was no concern to the nerds and the machinists, who had pleasant enough work, their own colony of tiny houses, and ample trails for hiking. They were in but not of New Arcadia, whose territory included the factory. There was no rule forbidding contact with the New Arcadians, but people thrown together in any life situation tend to keep to themselves. And so it was at the factory.
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My blog entries about different ways of conceptualizing time (e.g., Three takes on time and The tree ring model of time) are all fine and fun, but what about the more personal anxiety that many people have – anxiety about aging and death. I’ve largely escaped this anxiety – maybe from reading the ancient Greeks at an early age, maybe from robust health and a good knack for living in the moment. Or maybe it’s my meditation in the park. Aging there seems peculiarly irrelevant. As I tune in to my surroundings, it’s clear that there is no ‘I’ growing old – it’s ‘we’ growing old – me, the grass, the old oaks, the little lizards, the sky and the universe – we’re all moving through time together. The idea that ‘I’ am aging relative to the world is an illusion. Somehow this perspective removes the anxiety.
Something similar, but not exactly the same, comes up in a weird episode of my speculative novel, Alice, where Alice makes a discovery in a shuttered museum. Here’s an excerpt for your amusement and edification.
Xxx
Alice proceeded as quickly as seemed decorous, given the solemn aspect of the place, to the arched doorway at the interior end of the room. The next room was equally desolate but spacious. Four columns topped by groined arches ran down each side of what seemed the great hall. Concrete debris littered the floor. A dire-looking chandelier hung at the center, and under it was a simple folding chair and a large table. The table held some kind of old machine, and so what could Alice do but approach?
She sat in the chair and looked at the machine for a minute. Someone had been here. There was a wet circle on the table where someone had placed a glass or cup recently. There was a box of batteries at the far end of the table. The machine itself had a circular device with a button next to it, attached to a cylinder of some kind. Alice pushed the button and the circular device began to spin. She pushed again and it stopped. Three plastic discs lay between the device and the batteries. Were they pulled from a larger collection? Were they intended for some purpose? Or were they supposed to be hidden? Was Alice trespassing? Stirring up more trouble as everyone seemed to think she was doing just because she was a New Arcadian?
The last thought emboldened Alice. She put the first disc on the device and pushed the button.
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A monk sat on a bench, engaged in a daily practice of reflection. Another monk approached and sat on the bench next to him.
“I am here, Brother Anselm,” said the second monk. “If you need me.”
“I know, Brother Hector,” said the first. “Thank you.”
Brother Anselm continued his practice, controlling his breath. Four breaths per minute. Three breaths per minute. Duckweed on the pond in front of the bench drifted like bits of green plastic clouds, forming slow shapes at the water line, breaking apart on the surface. Two breaths per minute. Drifting into transcendence. Time crawled to a stop. Alice could see all this happening on the wall-projected image. She could feel it. The gentle rat-a-tat of the machine continued.
But then she saw his anxiety. Time had stopped for the practicing monk. The rest of the world went on. There are things he should be doing. In his meditation, five minutes seemed like an hour. His mental images flitted across the screen. That was an hour that he could have spent baking bread with Brother Joseph or helping with the school play. Sometimes it seemed that the deeper the meditation, the slower his metabolism became, the more frantic he became that the world was flying by while he was idling.
Gradually, the whole thing flipped. The idea was not to slow oneself to a pace of contentment while the world rushed along in its course. In meditation, one could slow the world itself. When he slowed, his life slowed, the trees growing around the pond slowed, everything in the world slowed. He was not slowing down relative to the world; he was slowing down the world and himself within it. Alice could see it in the film. The eternal goalpost became more and more distant as time slowed. Like approaching the event horizon of a black hole. And then, as when one hits the horizon, time stopped and eternity was here.
Brother Anselm smiled. Alice could see in his smile that he had solved the problem of meditation as disengagement. It was not disengagement. It was a shaping force of reality. It had taken Brother Anselm many years of meditation, an enormity of reflection, to bring the world to pace. For Brother Hector, on the other hand, everything came in a flash. Alice could see into his mind. He didn’t need to think about things first. He didn’t need to go through all the hard work. He moved by quantum leaps.
“Funny thing about quantum leaps,” said Brother Anselm out loud. “No one can say ahead of time if they are in the right or the wrong direction.”
Then the camera panned back and Alice noticed something strange. The pond. It was her pond. A different time. Her pond. Mab’s pond. Maggie’s Hollow. But time passed. The monks disappeared. At the far end of the pond, a woman with long brown hair stood with her back to the camera. Then the rat-a-tat slowed to a tat . . . tat . . . tat.
The disc had run its course. Well, fair enough, thought Alice. No one has to know everything all in the same minute. She started the second disc.
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God and the devil were walking in the Himalayas, jagged peaks and plains of ice, bamboo and stone below.
“I never knew why you did it,” said God.
“Did what?” asked the devil.
“Damned Adam and Eve.”
God gestured and the devil followed him into a small clearing behind the rocks. Strewn about were costumes of Greek gods and goddesses.
“I didn’t damn Adam and Eve,” said the devil, indignant. “You damned them. I was only trying to help.”
“Help? I gave them a pure soul and you ruined it.” God tossed a centaur costume at the devil.
“No,” said the devil. “Too obvious. You take the centaur costume. I’ll be Zeus.” He smiled at the thought.
God shrugged and fingered through the representations of Hermes, Hera, Hades, and a few others.
“You told them the soul was inside the body,” said the Devil. “That was a lie. You told them to look inward, forbade them the fruit of the outer garden, the joy of the senses, the senses that are always reaching outward, desire pushing them ever out into the world to discover its joys.”
“But those sensual joys are not the joys of the soul,” said God. And as if tripping over his own severity, God slipped, slid several feet below the clearing, almost into a small stream running down from the peaks. His antagonist caught him by the arm and helped him up. But in the combination of helping and laughing, the enemy slipped his own foot into the icy waters and let out a high-pitched yelp.
“Damn,” cried the Devil. “Not used to this cold water.”
The Devil then mocked God in a sing-songy voice of sarcasm.
“But those sensual joys are not the joys of the soul,” he mimicked.
Then he returned to his own voice and looked at God in earnest.
“You’re falling for your own tricks,” he said. They hobbled back to the clearing and to the weighty decision of costumes.
“The soul was always outside the body,” continued the Devil. “The joys I speak of, found in the world through the desiring senses, those are exactly the joys of the soul. The soul is not inside the body. The body is inside the soul. The soul is the universal body. And it must be explored. Your trick – trying to capture the universal soul, seal it inside the bodies of those poor creatures, Adam and Eve – it was just a trick. It couldn’t last. Sooner or later they would break the seal and rejoin the great outer soul. I just sped things up.”
They both stood and headed down the mountainside. The Devil had finally chosen the costume of Prometheus and God had settled upon Athena. They had crossed the tree line and were surrounded by rich vegetation.
“Ah, well,” said God. “A philosopher-devil. How comes it then that you fell from heaven while good ones stayed behind and lived in inner peace?”
“Relativity,” said the Devil. “I was rising up from the pit of heaven. From your point of view, it looked like a fall. For me it was a discovery.”
God aspirated in disgust, and the Devil gave an impish grin.
“You should join me, God. Before the festival. You have your costume and I have mine. Get away from all that nasty inwardness. Get out and explore the world, feel all the reflexes of the great outer soul.”
They paused to rest against a great rock, and God seemed to consider the Devil’s proposal. Then the rat-a-tat-tat slowed to a stop.
“Sorry, God and the Devil,” said Alice smartly. “One more to go.” And she put on the third disc.
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Stock now replenished in NYC
Also available on Amazon. Full list here.
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Sorry all. The public online book event for Alice (see previous post) was pushed back one week to Thursday, 9 March, 7 pm, Chicago time.
Same announcement link is still good: Here’s the link to the announcement.
For the actual Zoom link (embedded in the announcement), you may have to scroll to the bottom of the announcement (or here), as it may not appear in the announcement header box.
The good news is you have a few extra days to read the book if you choose to do so, and the e-copy will stay at $2.99 for the longer window.
(If you don’t have a chance to read it, just come to the free event. Last minute is fine, but better if you can check “going” in advance.)
Thanks~
Gary
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Here’s a passage from my post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale, Alice, introducing Christopher and the white witch.
xxx
Rat a tap tap. Christopher knocked at the cabin door of Alice and Evelyn. He didn’t really have to knock but it seemed polite, in case they were making love or having an argument. Alice and Evelyn didn’t really have arguments but politeness doesn’t always speak to what is but to what ought to be. And it was written somewhere that lovers ought to make love and ought to have lovers’ quarrels from time to time.
Alice opened the door.
“Christopher,” she smiled. “It’s so nice to see you.”
“Were you making love or having an argument?” asked Christopher.
“No, we were just making sangria for the gathering. Would you like to cut the oranges?”
“Yes,” said Christopher, and in they went.
Christopher was a regular guest, so there was nothing unusual about his visit. He occasionally came and sometimes spent the night. Sometimes he came because he was making a new map and reassessing the territory. Sometimes he came to help Alice and Evelyn in the garden or with the water lines. With his sandy surfer hair and his clear hazel eyes, Christopher had a mild-mannered way that made him well-liked in New Arcadia. But there was a physicality to his presence too, an outdoorsy vitality, slim but solid, that was almost rugged. He had a light beard and mustache, but nothing like John Wilson’s mustache. Nothing. And Christopher was practical, too. It’s always nice to have someone practical around.
“Making maps and helping with the water lines go together,” he said.
“Why?” asked Alice.
“I can’t tell you,” said Christopher.
“Why not?
“Because everyone needs his own mystery.”
“That’s just the way Christopher is,” Evelyn would later tell Alice. As if Alice didn’t know.
Christopher lived across the woods. You have to bypass both the factory and the hamlet to get there. His lover, Freyda, would sometimes tell him, “Christopher, why don’t you go spend the night with Alice and Evelyn?”
When she said this, he knew that she had night work to do. Her night work was maintaining the music of the spheres. The fairies couldn’t do everything. The music of the spheres must always play, but now and then one must tune the imaginary instruments. “Sort of like an organ,” Freyda would say, her red locks cascading down in a flame. “But with many trap doors hiding tiny mechanisms that are constantly changing. Sometimes they change so fast, you open a door and fix something and before you can close the door it changes into something else.”
No one could verify exactly what Freyda meant because, of course, the instrument was imaginary. But one thing everyone could vouch for – keeping it tuned was the task of the white witch. The fairies couldn’t do it. Freyda was the white witch.
xxx
See other Alice excerpts here and here.
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Get’m books for Christmas. Below are choice picks at bargain prices by two-time Faulkner-Wisdom Prize finalist, Gary Gautier.
All on Amazon worldwide or in bookstores around the US. For e-copies, select “Buy for others” to send as a gift. For signed copies, email drggautier@gmail.com.
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Alice
Kindle: 99c this week only
Signed copies: $14.50 + shipping
Alice’s little utopia in a dreamlike forest begins to crack when strange things start happening. A small deformed creature with a bowling ball head appears out of nowhere and turns to Alice for support. Her trips to the pond start to bring transcendental omens and strange visitors. Thus begins a journey in which Alice wanders away from her idyllic home to find another world and to slowly connect the dots of her own world’s missing history. This post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale is comic, poignant, thoughtful, and sparkling, a magical tapestry with many threads.
Schematics and Assemblies of the Cosmic Heart
Kindle: $3.91
Signed copies: $9 + shipping
A poetic landscape with the impact of human passion and imagination. The poems are both personal and archetypal, rich in intimate joy and sadness, but also connecting to something abstract and eternal. The focus may settle on a brittle image, domestic or mythical, or on a brief feeling that opens a transcendental vista and then, perhaps, closes again. Each poem is tightly sculpted and easily read, but in a way that keeps readers reaching into the heart of their own cosmic lives.
Love’s Ragged Claws
Kindle: $3.93
Signed copies: $7.85 + shipping
Faulkner-Wisdom Prize finalist. In this short novella, Gabriel enters confession for the first time in 50 years and tells the priest he has only three sins, all sins of the flesh, and the confession opens up the byways of human identity and human relationships as it weaves the tale of three sins. The account moves back and forth across decades, pulling out the little epiphanies that would be reference points of meaning for the rest of Gabriel’s life.
Goodbye, Maggie
Kindle: $3.88
Signed copies: $11 + shipping
Faulkner-Wisdom Prize finalist. In a culture of health food stores, gurus, quacks and seekers, Phil’s stagnant life is rattled when his charismatic brother shows up with the news that he has murdered someone and asks for sanctuary. Thus begins a dramatic comedy of misdirection, as our heroes find racism, madness, and unlikely friendships as they roll through the Louisiana bayous into New Orleans.
Hippies 
Kindle: $3.94
Signed copies: $14 + shipping
The Vietnam war resistance, psychedelic drugs, sexual openness, the freedom of the commune – it seemed that everything about the 1960s could be incredibly liberating or wildly destructive. Filled with the sights, sounds and ideals of the Age of Aquarius, this hippie epic follows Jazmine, Ziggy, Ragman, and a coterie of hippies as they discover an LSD-spinoff that triggers past life regressions and sweeps them toward a dramatic climax.
Spaghetti and Peas
Kindle: $5.99
Signed copies: $14 + shipping
What would you do if you saw a snake in the lettuce? Rachael had to figure that out fast. And she found a magical adventure in her own back yard, within smelling distance of the spaghetti sauce her dad was cooking on the stove. Enjoy this zany, richly illustrated, hardbound picture book as a read-aloud or early reader.
Mr. Robert’s Bones
Kindle: $3.94
Signed copies: $11 + shipping
In a neighborhood full of quirky characters, three kids’ search for hidden silver in an abandoned house pits them against forgotten ghosts and the house’s dark memories of racism and betrayal. The quest for the silver is especially nerve-racking for Annie, the kid who actually sees the ghosts. Her friends want to believe her but can’t, and she herself is torn between running away from it all and following the ghosts into the house’s dark history.
Phineas Frecklehopper
Signed copies: $5 + shipping
Phineas Frecklehopper was not always picked first at sports. He couldn’t always remember to take a bath or brush his teeth or do his homework in every single subject. Still, he considered himself a normal boy in most respects. But he did have one peculiar hobby, or at least others thought it peculiar. He loved to cook. But could rendering a recipe really make a hero? Absolutely! Read to see how. Then cook Phineas’s sample recipes! Ages 8-12.
Shipping (USA):
First book $3.50
Second book in same shipment $2.00
Additional books in same shipment $1.00
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