Escape from Paradise

[LanceALott]

(I retrieved this thread from long ago. Thinking about finishing the ESCAPE).


ESCAPE FROM PARADISE

(Copyrighted fiction by Lance A. Lott)

Lance, who dreamed of being a knight like old Don Quixote, was listening to Chet play "Someday My Prince Will Come." Doing nothing of value. Learning how to be old, worthless, and enjoy it.

The day is gray. Wind tickles the still green leaves of early fall. The October air is cool. Snow forecast for the night. Firewood is stacked high. Deer reach for a bite of elm leaves, a doe and two fawns today. Sometimes there are fifteen or twenty deer and a little cottontail rabbit, too.

Yard surrounded by a tall tight natural fence of elm trees protect the deer from view from the road. The deer think they own this estate, prune the trees at their leisure, fertilize the lawn when they feel nature's call; and they love their green oasis home in the middle of the brown desert of sun cured grass on the Wyoming plain.

A look in the mirror shows he is growing old. He sees the wrinkled and sun burnt skin of a rancher who had spent too many years in Wyoming's hot sun. Retired, no longer needed for useful purposes, alone but not sad. Nothing to do, just sit and waste time playing solitaire on his computer as Chet strums the strings of his guitar somewhere inside the stereo.

Oh, yes, memories, he had plenty, memories of life's ups and downs, full of saints and clowns, and common men with an occasional sin. Nothing to do, except review, review those memories of a life in its fall as the December of his life draws near, too damn near.

He lives in a virtual paradise that he and his beautiful wife of thirty-four years had built together on their ranch, planted a couple of hundred trees, bushes galore, flower gardens, built four redwood decks scattered around the home, put in a Jacuzzi; and beside the thirty-three hundred square foot home lay his fourteen foot green fiberglass Rouge River canoe. That canoe was a time machine, and on a river all alone it took him back to the days of his long passed Native American ancestors.

In late spring just his year that canoe had been the center of attraction, the big toy, as he, wife, kids, and grandkids used it to float the Snake River at the foot of the beautiful and sharp-pointed snow-capped alpine peaks of the Grand Teton Mountains pointing towards the deep blue sky like a woman's breasts, a well endowed woman lying on her back in the sun. 'Twas one of those good memories he treasured.

Memories, we must weed them now and then. Treasure, embellish, share, and nurture the good ones. Keep them close, and pull up and bury the ones that recall pain, the memories everyone has, but do not want to remember. Floating the Snake, now that was one of the best.

And those kids and grandkids, they had made him proud. Every one of them turned out good, happy, healthy, and strong. That's why the world no longer needed him. He had fathered four, and now had seven grandkids to do the work of this world, work so someday they could sit listening to Chet, glancing out the window at the deer in their beautiful yard, passing the time playing solitaire.

Then, the red queen popped up on the computer screen. The phone rang, or did he only hear it in his mind? A voice on the other end said, "The woods are lovely, dark and deep; but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep."

******

Suddenly, the music no longer played. A sharp pain in both of his wrists jolted him from his paradise. He was speaking as he slurred his intoxicated words: "The handcuffs are too tight, shutting off my blood, could cause a clot, lodge in my heart, cause another heart-attack."

"Ah, shut up, and quit your whining!" The Deputy said as he slammed Lance hard across the chest, knocking the wind out of the aging wannabe knight. "Just what the hell did you think you were doing running naked down the street, you pervert?"

"I don"t know. Did I do that? Why? Where?" Lance asked as he shifted his weight off the cuffs that were pressing into the seat behind his back.

"Where" Right in the goddamn middle of Main Street, you creep."

"But why? Why in hell would I do that?" Lance said, shaking his head trying to clear out the fog in his mind.

"Because you are one crazy bastard! And the judge is going to lock you in the nut house forever," the deputy said as he punched Lance very hard in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious, unconscious again, as he had been knocked when the deputy first arrested the crazy old man who dreamed of being a knight.
*****

When Lance awoke sometime after the blow to the head, John Tesh's "One World" had replaced the music of Chet. Lance blinked, looked out the window; and he once again saw the deer eating the elm leaves, very near where they had been before the red queen appeared on his computer screen.

There was no deputy, no handcuffs; and he was no longer in the police car. Nor was he naked. Lance was back in the paradise he created long ago on the Wyoming plain, looking past the computer, out the window, and wondering what the hell just happened.

Was it one of those memories to be weeded, merely a bad daydream that never happened, or something else, something like happened to the guy in the movie "A Beautiful Mind?" Was it a mental breakdown, or a breakthrough into the world of fantasy?

The solitaire game and the red queen were gone from the computer. Instead, the word processor program filled the monitor. The words you just read were typed, Lance's own writing and the power of words to create an illusion, an illusion Lance temporarily stepped into, just as readers do to escape the mundane world of bliss and boredom in which they live.

When you write, or read, you choose where you want to go. If you as my reader don't like my choice when you read my story, then write your own damn story. Use your mind, create, tell it like it should be told; and be bold. Between the covers of your book you create "reality" the way you want it to be, just like some God might have once created the real world, just like Don Quixote once made himself a knight.

But if you read on, in my story, you will step into my fantasy, the reality I chose for your amusement so you could pass your time with a short escape from your paradise, escape into my fantasyland, instead of wasting your time playing solitaire until the red queen turns up and you go running naked in the street, naked and wondering where reality ends and fantasy begins as you step in and out of the mind of the characters you and I create in our joint effort to help you Escape your Paradise for a moment.

[LanceALott]

SHAPE SHIFTING

Shape shift with me,
Be free,
Be
Whatever you want to be.

Mind free,
Be,
Eagle or Dove,
My love.

Indian shamen,
Are magic men,
We shift our shape,
Become monkey or ape.

We can be lion or snake,
Or fish in a lake;
A snowflake,
Or a garden rake.

You can fly too,
It can happen to you,
You can be Jonathan Livingston Seagull,
Or a raging bull.

Some need peyote,
Or LSD,
Or music from a CD,
But not me.

Some need a joint,
Or beer joint,
But not a medicine man,
With a shape shifting plan.

We can go anywhere,
Wherever there's air,
We can escape prison walls,
Fly above river Falls.

We can fly forward or back in time.
And it doesn’t cost a dime.
Close your eyes and see
You and me over the sea.

[LanceALott]

MERIT

(Copyrighted non-fiction by Lance A. Lott)

Few men I’ve met can measure up to an old Wyoming rancher named Merit Barton. I only saw him once, but he was a rare and memorable man who made a big impression on me. You could say he’s a man who merits attention.

Merit was 84 years old that day when we talked in his ranch house. He was alone, had outlived his third young and beautiful wife, who laughingly said she had married him expecting to get his money when he died. Merit told me he pulled a fast one on her and surprised everyone else >cause he was too tough, wind burnt, and too damn stubborn to die. Even among other rugged Wyoming ranchers and pioneers, Merit stood out. But when Merit quipped about his wife who was gone, a look in his eye betrayed memories of a woman who loved him, and memories of a woman he also loved deeply.

Some jokingly say he was tight too, never parted with a dime in his whole life, at least he never parted with one for which he did not get two dimes back. My best friend, Wayne Burnette, once laughingly said with a smile to Merit if he ever dies, there will be a big hole in Crook County, Wyoming, because if anyone can figure out how to take it with him, Merit would. He owned a big spread, some of the best ranch land in the state.

There were also many oil wells on old Merit=s land, and his bank account was so big they say even Merit didn’t=t know what he was worth. You=d think a man with such wealth must have inherited it, but not Merit Barton. When he was just a kid, Merit went to work on the ranch as a hired man, a ranch hand, a poor cowboy whose clothes, bedroll, and his saddle were all the property he had. But Merit said he was too tight to spend his money on women, liquor, and smokes like a good cowboy was supposed to do in those days. So he saved his pay. When his boss got too old to ranch anymore, Merit bought the ranch with the pay he had saved.

Merit himself had discovered the oil on that ranch. When he was that young cowboy, Merit found the oil seeping from the rock banks of the small stream that ran through the ranch. He used the black goo to waterproof his cowboy boots in those pioneer times.

Several oil companies later drilled the land where Merit found the oil seeping, but even though it was close to the surface, there just was not enough oil to make any money producing it. Those oil companies did find oil, quite a lot, on other parts of Merit=s ranch; and by the time I knew him, he had more oil income each month than many people make in a lifetime.

But no one had been able to make that first small surface field pay, and stubborn Merit could see the oil. Merit was already filthy rich when my friend, Wayne Brunette, an oil geologist and engineer, approached him one day in the 1970s. Wayne told Merit he could get oil out of that field, but Wayne had no money to buy the oil leases. However, if Merit would agree to let Wayne drill on a handshake and a promise, then Wayne would pay for the leases from the future profits of production.

Merit did not need the money, but he was stubborn. He knew that land would produce oil, and here was Wayne telling him he would give it everything he had, and Wayne was a genius, smartest man I ever knew. Merit shook hands and told Wayne to go ahead.

Wayne rounded up seven investors, got a lawyer to write up papers to make a legal company, and conned the lawyer into working for stock only, no money. The investors kicked in $300,000, and Wayne bought an old water-well drilling rig. Wayne did the dirty and backbreaking labor himself. He drilled, laid pipe, put in the tanks, and invented a system of water-well pumps to collect and treat the oil profitably. In seven years, Wayne made Merit=s smallest oil field produce $2.5 million worth of oil; and it made Merit beam with pride, not for the money he made, but because Wayne had proven Merit was right all along. Perhaps Merit was lucky, but luck seems to spend a little more time visiting with smart, hard working, determined, and die-hard people like Merit and Wayne.

Merit died a few years ago, and there is no hole in Crook County, so he didn’t find that magic way to take it with him; but the young, 84 year old, cowboy with oil on his boots who didn’t drink or smoke did find a way to merit my respect.

That day when I met Merit with Wayne as we stopped on our way to the oil field, I asked Merit why he didn’t spend some of his money and see the world. I said I was an air navigator when I was young, and I can tell him there are many beautiful spots to see in this world. Merit, sipped his coffee, thought a moment, got up and lead me to the picture window of his ranch house. He said, “Look out there. I already live in the most beautiful spot in this whole world, so why in hell would I want to go through all that hassle and stress of lugging bags around to see what is in second place?”

Merit=s ranch house sits on the bottom land of the Inyan Kara valley about fifteen miles southwest of Sundance on Interstate 90. When he showed me the view from his window, it was in the fall of the year. The aspen trees had turned a translucent gold. The wild rose leaves had turned crimson mixed with dusty green and brown. The willows were yellow and orange. The tough old cottonwoods, like Merit, were a little stubborn; they stayed green, and did not yet admit that winter was on the way. The bottom land grass and the pine trees were also still green, and the Black Hills in the distance ranged from deep purple to black, while above, pure white cotton ball clouds rolled in a deep blue sky and were reflected in the Inyan Kara Creek that rolled by the rugged sandstone cliff, the same sandstone formation from which Wayne was pumping Merit=s oil.

One look and I knew he was right; no place on earth I had seen could match his ranch for a peaceful, pleasant, beauty.

And all his wealth never corrupted this old cowboy. For him money was never the object, all he ever wanted was to live on that land he loved. Perhaps some men, like Merit, and my best friend, Wayne, who has also passed now, do merit God=s blessings; and do you know what? It is good to see that sometimes people who Merit a good life, do get it. Well, at least some in Wyoming get it, the ones who work hard, save their money, and are smart enough to know the best life is right here in good old Wyo.

[LanceALott]

How can I write Merit and the shape-shifting Indian into this story?

Would anyone read it if I wasted the time?

[LanceALott]

Here is actually the first chapter of this novel:

ESCAPE FROM PARADISE

(written 2-19-89 by LanceALott)




CH 1

THE LETTER



He was an attention getter, a real Earth shaker, sometimes not too bright, but he had uncommon courage. He was a problem solver; the kind who could write himself right into the pages of history.

Who was he? What was his name? How did he come to my attention? And just who the hell am I that you should give a shit? – These are not important questions, at least not for now. All will be answered in time. But for now, let’s consider only what he did to catch my attention.

It was a letter, the one he wrote to the small town newspaper. It was published in December 1972, ten days after the 31st anniversary of Peal Harbor Day. The letter was a real bomb, a real sneak attack. The shock wave from that bomb was so great it shook the unshakable CIA. It scared them so much, they dumped Nixon in a fit of panic.

All he did was threaten to overthrow the US government. It was the sort of letter to the editor that was bound to end up in the hands of the intelligence community. But the letter from the “nut� gave the National Security Agency a little more of a head ache than the average nut who writes a letter threatening to overthrow them. You see, this “nut� divulged classified information in his next letter to get their attention. And that classified information was so hot, it would have brought down the government in Washington D.C. If it ever gets out to the American People, it still will.

He was an officer in the US Army at the time he published that challenge, but the NSA determined he was just too stupid to make good on his threat. So they did not send the assassins after him, like they did with Daniel Ellesberg, who tried to publish that same classified information.

Dan can probably thank his lucky stars this “nut� wrote those letters. The letters from that “stupid� lieutenant reminded the CIA that Ellesberg was not the only American who knows that hot information, and it showed them Ellesberg was not the only loyal American who would try to get that information to the American People.

The letters showed them it was hopeless to try to plug the Ellesberg leak. So the intelligence community published their own watered down version of the Pentagon Papers to defuse all those potential Ellesbergs before they could get the devastating information out.

The published Pentagon Papers was extremely embarrassing to the Army and to the intelligence community, but they traded that embarrassment to cover-up the stuff that could destroy them. “The Pentagon Papers� was a smoke screen of scandal and incompetence in the Pentagon and the intelligence community that caused the loss of the Vietnam War. But I think they must have put out enough dirt to do the job. It worked. The People bought the scandal and the “Ellesbergs� were temporarily defused.

Still, the threat is just too real. The potential is still around for someone to use the information the government did not tell, use that information to throw out the whole Invisible Government that masquerades as our corrupt “Democracy.�

The truth of that potential takeover in 1972 frightened the CIA so much they threw Nixon to the wolves to prevent Watergate and Vietnam from bringing down the whole corrupt power structure in Washington.

The CIA knew in 1972 the combination of Vietnam and Watergate was just too much. The seeds of revolution were spread too far across America to stop them from sprouting. They knew the necessary and sufficient conditions for revolution existed in 1972, and they knew when those conditions exist in any land there was going to be a revolution. Only a change in government could nip all those opportunistic revolutionaries in the bud.

Since they could not prevent a revolution, the only hope for the survival of the CIA was to join that revolution. So they not only joined, but they actually led it. Who do you think leaked all that information to the media that created the uproar over Watergate? Who knows that kind of information about all the world leaders? What agency was created for the purpose of collecting this kind of crap?

Who else had a copy of those Nixon Tapes? Didn’t you ever wonder why Nixon would have committed his crimes and kept evidence that could and did hang him?

That was a revolution. It was a change in the leadership of the US Government. Perhaps revolution is too strong a word, but it had to be at least a coup de’tat.

The CIA gave the American People as bloodless a revolution as they could, but they did give us a revolution. And it did jerk the rug from under those other revolutionaries, those opportunists who were getting ready to ride to power and glory on the wave of their own revolution.

Whatever you call it, I don’t think Nixon ever knew who really pulled the plug on him.

I do. It was the Earth shaker who wrote those letters to the small town newspaper. He got Nixon as surely as if he had been the CIA officer who ordered the leak of all that information that dragged Nixon screaming, “I’m not a crook,� right down the steps of the White House and into oblivion.

But the Earth shaker gave no order. All he did was plant the suggestion that Nixon had to go, go before the whole government went down the tubes with him.

It was a very subtle suggestion, but a very effective one. When a suggestion is the right thing to do, it is more powerful than a command. When someone has the right answer, he is the leader, even if those he leads do not know whom they follow.

When the CIA officer followed his suggestion, the Earth shaker became the real leader of the American People. This is how he wrote himself right into the pages of history, even though those pages only know his initials.

In time, everyone will know the name of this Earth shaker, and they will see his picture in every post office, where they put up the wanted posters.

He already changed the world, and he lived to tell about it. That almost puts him one up on the all time Earth shaker, The Lord Jesus Christ.

There is no substitute for being right. It is the only way to lead. But frequently, the right answer is not the popular answer, In fact, the right answer is usually very unpopular with those who believe they are going to lose something from the change the right answer necessitates. It was the right answer, but I doubt Nixon will agree.

Change is unpopular. Most people would rather just continue the way things are, even though they know things do not work very well. So they do not like some damn Earth shaker coming along and changing the rules in the middle of their game of life.

Because people hate change, and hate people who necessitate change when they see a better way; those changes are best made from ambush until the change has become the way things are done. If you want to live, make changes out of sight, underground, no matter what society you think you live in.

People are lazy. You must force them to do a lot of work to learn all over again how things work, and they never like to do that work until they can see those changes work for them. Throughout history, civilization has a very bad record of killing its Earth shakers, like that guy named Jesus, for instance.

Yet, the man who came to my attention did his thing right in plain sight. And he is still alive today, December 16, 1988.

How did he do that? He found the best hiding place of all. He hid in plain sight, under cover. His cover was that he acted too dumb to make good on his threat. He did not even look like a revolutionary leader. He was fat, bald, and he always rubs people the wrong way. He does not cast the image of a con man or a strong man who could lead a serious revolution.

But he is a serious man and always has been. He does not lead through an intimidating or a loving image. He leads by being right.

He is not as dumb as he looks. He might look like a dipshit, but looks can be deceptive, particularly, when those looks are all part of a deliberately studied role. He looks disorganized to someone schooled in “leadership: in corporate America. His method is not authority. Authority is his enemy. Authority is how things get done wrong. Authority is the problem he will solve to write his name into the pages of history.

His method is to tell followers the right answer in such a way they see for themselves it is the right answer, then he gets the hell out of their way. Once people see the answer they need, they do not need authority or snupervision.

He knew the real leaders of the American military are the ones on the bottom. They are the only ones who really knew how things work, and who do the real work. All those incompetent ass holes who wore the high rank, they got it the old fashioned way: they bought it with their daddy’s money.

This is HOW incompetents get into a position of authority, and those incompetent authority figures are the ones he counted on to do the wrong things at the right time to destroy their own power. – He was not a “leader� like them, so why would these “superiors� ever suspect he was one dangerous dude?

That is how he did it in plain sight. No one ever thought for one minute he was capable of making good on his threat. To every Observer he was “dumb� and never quite fit in anywhere. Like a janitor in a school, he was invisible. He could go anywhere and be completely unnoticed. He was just ignored. He was the “Invisible Man.�

But his Invisible Mind never rested. He saw and analyzed how everything works. His scientific mind with its foundation in math and physics had laid the groundwork for his understanding of many complex phenomenon, the most complex of which is the workings of the human mind. He learned how this works, and he learned it better than most psychiatrists.

He even went “nuts� once to get a look at the mental health care system from the bottom up. Now, no one understands the machinery of the mind better than he does. No one sees the extrapolation of the mind, civilization and its discontents, from quite the same point of view he does.

Knowledge, this is the secret of his leadership. Tested knowledge. When he comes up with an answer, it is the right answer. When he throws a wrench into the gears of civilization, it will break the whole damn screwed up machine, so he can build a better machine.

He has already led the most powerful nation on earth. In time he will lead them all. He has learned how all the machinery of Earth works. In time, he will become the recognized master of the machinery. Communists, capitalists, religious fanatics, and scientists will all follow him like the Pied Piper. All his suggestions will be followed, because they will be the right answer for everyone.

In spite of his knowledge, he is a common man, and he wants to be nothing else. But because of his knowledge, he has trapped himself into being a very uncommon man. He now has no choice except to lead all Earth, because he knows someone must do the dirty job, and he knows he is the only one who can.

Who is this uncommon common man? What is his name? – There could only be One Man big enough to fill His shoes. Only One Man could do what this Thief in the Night threatened to do. Only One Man could ever master that much knowledge. He would have to be the Son of God. Or maybe, just maybe He is the Son of GOD?

And who am I? – I am the one, the creator, the writer who created this Son of mine to finish the job that other Son of God started 2000 years ago.

I have written a plan, and there are volumes to that plan. It will work. It has to work. It will work. It has already been tested. Wisdom is going to rule this world, wisdom and justice, or there is not going to be a world left to rule.

Wisdom cannot turn a deaf ear to anyone who thinks they have a good idea. Wisdom must listen to the Communists, and to the terrorists, as well as to those greedy capitalists. Wisdom must even listen to those ideas invented by girls, and that has got to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.

[LanceALott]

And there really is a manuscript:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter
1The Letter
2What you don’t know can kill.
3Mind games
4Grand or grandiose
5The Vietnam mutiny
6The NSA officer
7The decline and fall of the American aristocracy
8Isolation
9Dialectic
10The terrorist games little boys play
11Operation Pearl Harbor
12Cowardly incompetent public officials
13What is to be done
14How
15Communist and Nazi prophets
16Point of View
17Pro-life – Pro-choice
18The awakening
19Thought Blocking
20The rise of the American hegemony
21Proletariat
22Lessons from Wyoming history
23Command and staff
24The fisherman
25Identifying friends
26Discipline and control
27The level playing field
28Professional terrorists
29A fun day for bun day
30Sticks and stones
31Something is wrong in paradise
32Drawing conclusions
33The last straw
34Onward
35Epilogue

[polaris]

Sounds like a deathless work of doofuss-lit.

[ilovelucy]

LAL/

Take some of the meat of the story and create characters through dialogue from the beginning...create ACTION rather than description...You have the talent to do this in a more concise way to present the characters who LIVE the stories you tell as the action and plot are revealed to the reader. What you need in this sort of genre is suspense and the bait for a reader to want to know the characters and what is happening through their lives and interactions with others, rather than being to telling of what the "thinking" is....

if you see what I mean here...

[polaris]

In short Lal:

If you want to din a bunch of crazy political preaching into oour ears, write a treatise of political philosophy.

If you want to write a good political novel, create living characters that embody and live their ideas and the struggles and doubts and moral dilemmas these ideas create.

Capisce?

[ilovelucy]

Characters are everything and action as well...The story has to move quickly and concisely, imo...Tom Clancy has made a fortune with this sort of novel...he is a good model..another spy novelist who does this well is John Le Carre....

[LanceALott]

Characters are everything and action as well...The story has to move quickly and concisely, imo...Tom Clancy has made a fortune with this sort of novel...he is a good model..another spy novelist who does this well is John Le Carre....


I have books by both of them in my library, and they are good, great, at precisely what you say: OUR GAME, and CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER.

However, their plots (strategy) are flawed. They are set up from the beginning for the bad guys to fail, so the good guys can win. -- I am a plotter, a strategist, not a tactician. And I agree, I need a co-author, a tactician, to do precisely what you suggest; to take my plot and write it with feeling, through the eyes of simple common people, so even some dumb bastard like Polaris can understand it, (feel it).

[LanceALott]

If you want to write a good political novel, create living characters that embody and live their ideas and the struggles and doubts and moral dilemmas these ideas create.



Most of the characters, the important ones, I did not create at all. They were real people, like Nixon, people with serious character flaws who gave history a push IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.

When you write historical fiction, you must use what history provides.

[LanceALott]

Sounds like a deathless work of doofuss-lit.


Sort of like a history book, right?

Did you know H.G. Wells wrote one of the best, most accurate, most interesting world history books of all time? -- But he told "his story" through the eyes and words of "real fictional" characters like Lucy wants me to do, less the human thoughts not spoken. And it is well done, but I bet you did not even know this historical fiction even exists?

The reason: Wells did not try to make England look like the good guys, and therefore it was not a valuable propaganda piece, like the dime escape crap you seem to want me to write. -- My manuscript is an impartial view, a bird's eye-view (or a God's eye-view of the Cold War), as the story might have looked to an impartial God, if there is a God.

[ilovelucy]

Which book of Wells' are you referring to? The guy was a genius, really....

Characters move readers most because readers want to place themselves in a story instinctively, and if they are empathetic to the characters in some way, this holds the readers' attention and what we sometimes refer to as "captivates" them in suspended disbelief or belief, for that matter....

[LanceALott]

Which book of Wells' are you referring to? The guy was a genius, really....

Characters move readers most because readers want to place themselves in a story instinctively, and if they are empathetic to the characters in some way, this holds the readers' attention and what we sometimes refer to as "captivates" them in suspended disbelief or belief, for that matter....


Wells wrote an actual World History book, in two volumes. I think it was called WORLD HISTORY.

But, instead of telling how Ceasar (or others) conquered a people, he writes it in dialogue, and swinging swords, and charging horses, and men crying out in pain that probably did actually happen.

I agree with your statement that the reader must be captivated, and the easiest way is to make him want to step into the story to escape his hum drum world. -- But, sometimes, you can captivate a reader in other ways, sometimes you can captivate with a story the reader does not dare to put down, provided he is smart enough to undersrtand the threat is real and closing in on him from the real world.

[ilovelucy]

So, political fiction in a sort of prophesy vein?

Science fiction is also an excellent vehicle for this sort of "fortelling of possible events"....

[LanceALott]

So, political fiction in a sort of prophesy vein?

Science fiction is also an excellent vehicle for this sort of "fortelling of possible events"....


Yes, until it has happened, it can only be called fiction; even if someone (or some international underground) is behind the scenes giving history a push in the direction which will someday change the prophesy into history.

[polaris]

Excuse me, I've read a LOT of H. G. Wells, including an abridged version of his unfortunate history--a book that was ripped to pieces by real scholars, especially Hilaire Belloc's ruthless evisceration which was so cruel and thorough that it may actually have damaged Wells' health, and remains a white elephant among his collected works, which include some very estimable comic novels like Tono-Bungay and the History of Mr. Polly, to name two of my favourites.

[LanceALott]

Sounds like a deathless work of doofuss-lit.


There are actually two different manuscripts titled ESCAPE FROM PARADISE.

I only wrote a few chapters of the first manuscript, but the next chapter is titled: THE FOOL. Don't have it on a disk, but I'll retype it just for you.

[LanceALott]

ESCAPE FROM PARADISE

CH 0


THE FOOL



Sir Lance A Lott stood wearing his rusty armor. He is a broken knight without an old horse like the great Don Quixote de la Mancha, nor evan a loyal sidekick like Sancho Panza.

Alone, growing old, one heart attack under his belt, hair almost gone. Alone, more like The Hermit than the powerful Knight of Swords he once had been.

Friends gone, many to their final rest. Lance broken, mended with duct tape, even Viagra would never make his mighty weapon stand up straight again.

And yet, the old warrior, living in fantasies long abandoned by sane men, had the smile of The Fool on his face. Instead of acting his age, lying down and dying peacefully, or just fading away like General McCarthur, or was that King Arthur, I forget; anyhow, the old soldier was still planning to do battle with the powerful dragon, or was it the Gorgon?

The wind blew what was left of his hair as he stood at the edge of a great cliff, looking up to the sky, instead of looking where he was going, expecting the gods to guide his steps. The once mighty warrior raised his best foot, and put it forward, in the air over the precipice.

Bravely going where no man had gone before, Lance leaned forward bringing his foot down like Wylie Coyote. Just then the Westwind, father of Hiawatha, blew strong onto the rusting armor on Lance’s chest.

Lance tilted sideways. Was it the wind sent by the gods to save the old knight, or was it all the wine he drank before he donned his armor and sat out to find and challenge The Gorgan, or was it the Devil? All that wine obscured the mental image of the great enemy.

Foot in the air, tilted sideways, aching old legs, the weight of the rusty armor, and that gust of the father Westwind made Lance stumble, or was it stagger? Anyhow, the next thing Lance knew, he was on his butt, looking down the edge of the cliff he almost stepped over like the Tarot Fool, card number 0, and hence the title of this chapter.

With great difficulty, the rusty old Knight got up, returned to his castle, took off the armor, and poured another big glass of wine. He was a generous Knight, and decided to give the Devil another day to live.

[WCP]

Might I suggest Jig Saw Puzzles? ::)

[LanceALott]

Might I suggest Jig Saw Puzzles? ::)


Man, you are one hard critic to please.

Is there anything you like?

[WCP]

Man, you are one hard critic to please.

Is there anything you like?


I haven't read anything of yours posted on here that an 8 year old couldn't reproduce in 25 minutes in a time-out in their bedroom, probably with less confusion because you steal one character from one stoary, grab another one from another, incorporate one or two different plots, which also have been obviously stolen, and you jumble them around a bit and thenyou excrete onto a piece of paper.

No offense intended.

[LanceALott]

I haven't read anything of yours posted on here that an 8 year old couldn't reproduce in 25 minutes in a time-out in their bedroom, probably with less confusion because you steal one character from one stoary, grab another one from another, incorporate one or two different plots, which also have been obviously stolen, and you jumble them around a bit and thenyou excrete onto a piece of paper.

No offense intended.


Thank you for your review.

[Exterminator]

Sounds like a deathless work of doofuss-lit.
Doofuss-lit? What the hell is doofus-lit?

[LanceALott]

Doofuss-lit? What the hell is doofus-lit?


That is a political criticism from someone who is illiterate, and probably illigitimate too.

BTW, the second story, Chapter 0 THE FOOL, is one I started using a deck of Tarot cards when the DC snipers were kiling people and posting cards to trees. They caught the guys, and after about six chapters I lost interest.

I took a card from the deck, and wrote a chapter to fit that card. Kind of like my old third grade teacher did with us to get us creating. She posted a picture on the bullitine board on Monday, and we had to write "the story behind the picture" by Friday. It was fun, and gave me a life-long love of creating, even if BN does not like what I create. Wonder what card fits BN, Polaris, Bush?

[Exterminator]

That is a political criticism from someone who is illiterate, and probably illigitimate too.

BTW, the second story, Chapter 0 THE FOOL, is one I started using a deck of Tarot cards when the DC snipers were kiling people and posting cards to trees. They caught the guys, and after about six chapters I lost interest.

I took a card from the deck, and wrote a chapter to fit that card. Kind of like my old third grade teacher did with us to get us creating. She posted a picture on the bullitine board on Monday, and we had to write "the story behind the picture" by Friday. It was fun, and gave me a life-long love of creating, even if BN does not like what I create. Wonder what card fits BN, Polaris, Bush?
Oh ok. Thanks!

[WCP]

It's shite.

Shred the page that has the author's name on it so it will never come back to haunt you and flush the rest.

The Lord Jesus Christ compels you!!

:signofcross:

[polaris]

Yeah. Seriously, it's bad.

But hey! as a writer, you have to know that for every page you'll actually end up using, at least a dozen will go into the shitter.

[Exterminator]

Thank you Reverend News LOL!

[Exterminator]

Yeah. Seriously, it's bad.

But hey! as a writer, you have to know that for every page you'll actually end up using, at least a dozen will go into the shitter.
Or at the bottom of a birdcage.

[wellkeptsecrets]

Thank you Reverend News LOL!


Why do you laugh. Mr. News is an ordained minister. 8)

[Exterminator]

Why do you laugh. Mr. News is an ordained minister. 8)
Oh really? Ok we'll make him NoPC's ordained minister.