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A post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale by a two-time Faulkner-Wisdom Prize finalist.
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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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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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Here’s a bit that comes after the introduction of the white witch in Alice.
***
“Evelyn,” said Christopher. “Do you want me to rub aloe vera on your legs?”
Christopher loved Evelyn’s long legs. Sure, Christopher loved Evelyn’s charcoal-silk hair and Asian eyes like black almonds as much as Alice did. But mostly Christopher loved her long legs. They reminded him of something he could map.
“No,” said Evelyn. “I want you to go to the pond with Alice. She wants to show you something.”
Evelyn went back to the sangria, and Alice and Christopher walked to the pond. When they got there, they took off all their clothes, jumped in, and then lay naked on the bank in the sun for a moment.
“I forgot to cut the oranges,” said Christopher.
“It’s OK,” said Alice.
“What did you want to show me?” asked Christopher.
“The bushes there,” said Alice.
Christopher looked in the direction of Alice’s gesture.
“That bush in particular. That’s where I saw the thing move. That’s where the hum of the fairies stopped. I think it had something to do with the change in the cosmos — the night I went under the water and came up to see all the constellations changed.”
“Hmm,” said Christopher. “That’s interesting.”
“Maybe you should make a map of it,” said Alice. “You’re the mapmaker.”
She squeezed water from her brown curls. Christopher leaned over and kissed her. She liked it when he did that. Christopher had nice lips.
“There it is again,” she said.
The bushes rattled but the hum didn’t stop this time.
“Maybe they’re getting used to it,” said Alice.
A white bald head stuck up out of the bush. Youthful it looked, or timeless, but definitely white and bald.
“Hello,” said Alice.
Nothing said the head.
“Hello,” said Christopher.
Still nothing.
“We’d better take care of it,” said Alice. “It looks hurt.”
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Stock now replenished in NYC
Also available on Amazon. Full list here.
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Tomorrow (Thu) 7 pm central, Gary Gautier is the guest on the Chicago area Innovative Fiction Reading Group to discuss his new novel, Alice. The group admin will open the Zoom meeting at 7: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/6362006135. All are welcome. Just bring your curiosity.
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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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Ten days left to read Alice before the author event at the online Innovative Fiction Book Club. (If you can’t read it, just bring your curiosity. All are invited.)
Thursday, March 2, 7:00 pm Chicago time.
Here’s the link to the announcement, which includes a Zoom link for the online event.
Here’s the link to the book itself (paperback or Kindle) with Kindle copies marked down to $2.99 until the event (next 10 days). If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the reader app from Amazon for free.
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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Here’s a clip from Alice, a post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale, now available online and in bookstores in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Austin, and Guanajuato. (Cp. the opening scene here.)
xxx
John Wilson lifted one of his bushy eyebrows, and the black hairs came to attention. Alice thought of a black cat’s tail with the hairs standing in response to a threat.
“Your eyebrow looks like a black cat’s tail,” she said.
John Wilson reached up with a massive paw and touched his eyebrow, and then touched his equally bushy mustache, as if to compare the two. He looked for a moment like a distraught walrus sloshed in a button-down shirt. Then he went on.
“The fairies,” said John Wilson. “The hum went away by the pond last night. No hum for an hour and a half.” The fairies kept the whole of New Arcadia going. They were rarely visible but often audible, a humming that recalled the humming of bees restless to massacre the males and slaughter the other princesses to please their sister, the newly chosen queen. The fairies did not work in the fields or in the factory. They did not cook or clean. But it was they who wove a sense of destiny into New Arcadia. Without a sense of destiny there would be no going on, for there would be nowhere to go.
The fairies had no enemies – for how could destiny have an enemy? – save one. Ladybugs. Tiny orange specks with wings. Wings with tinier black dots. The ladybugs made no humming noise. No hint of massacres for the newly crowned queen. They just flittered in quiet beauty, careful to disturb no one, seen but not heard. Thus, no one, not Alice or Evelyn, not the kleptomaniac, not the mapmaker, not the white witch, not the rain king, not John Wilson, not even the sweeper as far as anyone could tell, could divine their purpose or what it was about them that touched the spleen of the fairies.
xxx
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On Sept. 8, 2022, BookLife reviewed Alice, the post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale you’ve all been reading (or are eager to download and read today). Here’s a clip from the review:
“A whimsical, fairytale-like quality … magnetic … a storybook world [with] a flavor not often seen.”
And Northwestern University’s Jeffrey Burgdorf ran it through his nefarious artificial intelligence (AI) machine and asked it to create a cover image. Below is the actual cover (left) and the AI cover image (right). Take your pick.
Burgdorf’s AI, by the way, gave Alice “the first ever 5-star Amazon review done entirely by artificial intelligence,” though I have no idea what mysterious feelings beating in that mechanical heart motivated the encomium.
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shakemyheadhollow 