As I Was Telling You While Sleeping

AS I WAS TELLING YOU WHILE SLEEPING

by

Mark Lind-Hanson

Copyright 2013 by Mark Lind-Hanson

a majority of these pieces have previously appeared serially on my blog www.grandjatte.blogspot.com

Smashwords Edition 2013 by Mark Lind-Hanson

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and didnot purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

Table of Contents

PART ONE- SHORT SHORTS

A Fine Day At The Beach

Lexene, A Vision Glimpsed Darkly

Cmmr. Konev and the Pit

Hard Morning On the Prairie

We Are The Singularity

INTERLUDE: Poetry

Eluemeve’re

PART THREE: SHORT STORIES 2011-2012

Bagel Eater The Crow

Fun Credit Vendetta

Hugh Baggs

Mrs. McGillicuddy’s Magic Tea Set

The Unlikely Redemption of Andrew Dempster

The Broken Heart of Dale Holloway

One Tough Ride

Nadastra Snivaras

And Time Ticks On

The Desires of Desiree Fauchon

A Fine Day At the Beach

A fine day at the beach. Jim Collins watched his daughters frolic in the sand. They were well and cheerful. The beach was spotted with vacationers- here and there they sat in clumps, beneath beach umbrellas, sprawled about on towels, delving into picnic baskets.

The air suddenly changed. Jim couldn’t tell just what it was, at first. But suddenly the beach was hushed, and a low flying jet could be seen approaching from the south.

Mouths agape, the beach-goers gasped in horror as they noticed that the jet was delivering a package.

A three-hundred pound bomb, painted white, just like the jet, bounced on the sand not four meters from Jim, over his head, and those of his girls, and down the shore toward the waves.

Get down Terry, Kelly! he screamed, and to emphasize the point, he gathered them in his arms and slammed to the ground. The bomb went off in the surf, spraying the beach with heaps of wet sand. Here came another, not but thirty meters to his north, bouncing down the sand and exploding.

By now, people were screaming, gathering up their beach gear, and running for the coastal road. Jim did as well. Further away in the sky he could see them- more jets were coming.

Run, kids, run! And they did.

Jim, Kelly, and Terry reached the apartment house where he had parked his car in the underground garage. Get it, get in, we don’t have much time! By now the girls were screaming, too. Terry’s face was the perfect picture of sadness, drawn into a sullen and tearful pout. Kelly looked nothing if not confused, too confused to express the emotions she shared with her sister.

Jim started the car, and backed out of the garage, tires squealing. He no more had cleared the exit than a bomb crashed into the apartment house above him, and more screaming could be heard, as smoke and car alarms began going off.

He tore away up the coastal road. He would need to take the east-west streets if he was to avoid any strafing- and the latest group of jets were indeed, scouring up the landscape with scores of machine gun hits.

Jim could not quite care how it had begun. All he knew at this time, was that the war had come home. And as for home, that was twenty miles uphill, in the highlands above Santa Barbara. That was where he would be headed, just as soon as he got batteries, fresh water, and some groceries.

But the grocery stores were shutting down, as the grocers got calls from their concerned relatives, and packed it in for the day themselves. One last chance- he stopped at a convenience store just before his freeway exit, and managed to fulfill most of the requirements. Enough fresh water for a week or so. Enough pet food for the dog and cat for the same time, and cereal, cookies, and frozen dinners for the rest of the family.

Maybe it would work. It was a gamble.

When he arrived at the house, he sent the girls inside. Soon he could hear them chattering with their mother as to the nasty adventure they had but barely escaped. His wife beamed with admiration. That Jim had delivered them safe and sound back to her apron strings. From here they could plan what they might do– just in case the invasion happened to get a little more serious.

Lexene: A Vision Softly Weeping

A foggy London morning. I sat in my favorite pub, armoring myself for the day. With a glass of absinthe, the Green Fairy, to contemplate. A future without justice, without hope, without reason. Everything I had had gone up in smoke. And all for the chance to renew myself and prospects once more.

All was gone. The places I used to walk, the friends with whom I used to talk, all had passed into decay, ruin, faraway remembrance. And now this morning just like so many others, painted its face a shade of grey, that the gaudy truth still outside my grasp should lay.

I knew few like any other though than fair Lexene, with her ribbon bow. She was a friend to me in time of need- but as for how I might re-meet her, I had not the clue. Her eyes like steely nails of blue pierced me to the quick, and with an elfin smile. All was broadcast about her as though some majesty of regard. For such was her nature, that she was fair of heart.

And as I sat staring at the empty street, this one once loved I should wish to meet- what then did come walking down the pub street way but fair Lexene, her flaxen hair as fine as hay. Forgetting my cup, and my plate of cares I strode off into the fog with her unawares. That behind her yet for blocks I walked with hurrying step and anticipation.

Yet as I came closer ever yet she did recede, somehow my catching her was not to be the deed. She turned a corner rather fast as her velvet cape behind flowed past. I was now out of sight, and from her out of mind, and yet forward I pressed with one thought in kind. That I should redeem myself in her eyes, and draw from her a kiss, that would make her wise. All my love for years had never fled and so perhaps one day yet we might wed.

Now I saw her once more, but wrapped in the fog. The velvet cape flapped, as she made her way down to the steaming dock.

I came up behind her as she stood and threw my arms about her, and drew back the hood. That from her view my presence known alas but here again all hope was overthrown.

Her flaxen hair hung down in hunks and from her face flesh fell in chunks- for now I but held a skull inside my hands as the flowing cape fell on the strand. What deuce is this that has trumped me hard, what ace of spades has played my card? I held the cape in one hand, the skull in another and so I swore upon my brother: With regret I have neglected ye long, but had I but known your fate, my folly might’ve been shown some regard for its redemption.

Alas, now, for all indeed was lost, I had not even her love to turn my fate across. With the ribbon bows stuck to its side, the skull I placed on a rock at the water’s side. There to face out toward the sea- oh piteous wind, oh pitiful me.

Cmmr. Konev and the Pit

I was at my post early on a Friday morning, smoking a cigarette, feeling rather chipper. It was November of 1989 and I was a border guard in East Berlin, working the guard station along the Aleksanderplatz. Konev, several years my elder and three ranks my superior, had the prime watch and showed up late that morning. The news out of Moscow had been dispiriting to him. He was a hardliner. Gorbachev’s perestroika had been restructuring the country to the point that the natives were restless, and getting quite uppity. Daily patrols about our position would reveal to us many East Berliners not quite happy with our longstanding détente with the West. They were itching to get at us, you could feel it, and the daily rounds of rock-throwing by teenage hooligans were ever-increasing.

It was in just such a climate that we saw it. It was coming from over the West side but it had obviously circled around a bit- a large transport plane about the size of a fin whale.

Inside were about 200 Ukrainian Jews on their way toward a new life. Gorbachev had bought them a new lease on things, and they were in their own way, now escaping us.

The guard station looked out over a large expanse of the Aleksanderplatz, including a section which had been transformed into an archaeological dig. Recent investigations had shown the exisence of extensive underground chambers and bunkers (no, not the Fuhrerbunker) which ran underneath the city out toward the Brandenburg gate. The historical societies had managed to gain permits from the city to allow them to create a large, soccer pitch-sized hole in which they everyday would bring shovels, picks, and paintbrushes, wheelbarrows and buckets, and work at deciphering some of the conundrum which had been the legacy of the fascists on Berlin.

To be fair, some of their finds were often quite fascinating, and would receive big writeups in the newspapers. But on this day we had reason to attend to the pit for other reasons.

The plane taxied in on the middle of the avenue. It was certainly odd enough, and all I could do to keep Konev from discharging his weapon in its direction- after all, flying in from the West, it seemed to be perhaps aimed at the Wall like it were a missile. But it didn’t. It taxied to the end of the block, and you could tell the pilots were doing all they can to apply pressure to the brakes to keep it from skidding into the pit.

But that was exactly what happened next.

When the plane reached the edge of the pit it had almost acquired inertia but the final push of its wheels toppled it into the pit. My concerns were for the pilots, taking the brunt of the fall, as the plane teetered and toppled headfirst into the sixty foot deep hole. However it was not long before the passengers and pilots emerged from the vessel and milled about on the floor of the pit, gesturing to us, asking for help, a ladder, anything to bring themselves up to ground level and back to civilization. The idea of them being trapped inside a Nazi-era fortification must have been both highly ironic, as well, the idea of their being yet trapped behind our border had to have been doubly disconcerting.

Konev looked about the edges of the pit. He did note that there was a tall ladder of about fortyfive foot height nearby, and he set about positioning it on a ledge so that the refugees might begin ascending it. The first of these was a babushka of about seventy five years of age. She retained some measure of pluck, however, and began to take the ladder one rung at a time.

Come on, come on up, come find your taste of freedom! Konev assured her, and the look on his face became quite quizzical. If I could say he appeared to be the cat who ate the canary that would be a good approximation of his expression.

Meanwhile, I was watching Konev’s hands. He was fingering the safety on his Kalishnikov, and setting the mechanism to single-shot. I barely got the words from my mouth What are you doing, you fool! when the old woman reached the top of the ladder, and Konev put a bullet right into her chest. She toppled headfirst back down into the pit, and was soon swallowed up by the crowd of babushkas at the bottom, wailing lamentations and defiantly shaking fists.

I knew what I needed to do. I realized there was no other choice, that if this went on, it would become an international incident. I set my own weapon to single-shot and drilled him. His body toppled and he fell himself, down into the pit, landing face first on an archeological grid of twine and dust. I said a prayer for his soul, and indeed, one for my own. But had I not done this, he would have continued his taunting the refugees, and he would have continued firing at them, perhaps until they were all dead. I knew he had done it for in his opinion they were attempting escape. Such it was in those years.

I looked down intothe pit and called for the next woman to come on up. Come on, taste your freedom, I swear, I shall not fire!

It was with much trepidation that the next babushka began to climb the ladder in my direction. When she reached the top of the ladder I set my weapon on the ground and helped her off with both hands, so that the others could see I was no longer armed.

I cut the wires that separated the pit and the lip of the pit from the free air of the West. I helped seventy of them across before the guards from the neighboring guardpost came and assisted the rest of the refugees up and out themselves. The Wall would be coming down in the morning. We too were tasting our first breath of the new wind.

Hard Morning on the Prairie

The village was waking up, slowly. Maybe the dance the day before had been a little too much for the old folks- but me and Teardrop Star were up early anyway, trying to make a game of checking on the ponies. The ponies were all kept by the river, where we knew no enemies could approach but to come right through the village first.

I don’t know how it happened, except that, one minute Teardrop Star was there beside me, we had tied a long rope from a tree back toward one of the council tents. But then he was gone. I never heard it. He was just gone. I hadn’t heard it, but somehow, the enemy had come and stifled him, and dragged him off.

At least, that was what he told me, in the aftermath. It must have been Wakan Tanka kept me from learning where he went- but anyway, soon I would have a lot worse problems.

Not long after Teardrop Star was gone (and I spent some minutes walking up and down the grassy bank of the river, calling for him) I heard it. It was as it often was, whether it was soldiers coming or it was enemy warriors. You heard the thunder of their ponies first, then their whooping.

The enemy came on the village, fast, and they weren’t using coup sticks, they were using real whips, arrows, tomahawks, lances, clubs, one might have even had a pistol. They were on us! Because I was there I began screaming and soon men came from their lodges, the alarm had been raised, men and their wives were making provision to melt into the prairie where the enemy was waiting.

There were more of them riding now through the village, hurling lances almost at random, jumping off if they found someone to attack, stopping where they could to do whatever damage they could. A spear fell by my feet.

I saw Spotted Dog’s mother beaten with a dogwood club by an enemy warrior. The eyes in his head went white and rolled up when she took a stone maize crusher and swung it with full force into his forehead, and he fell. To my left, his jaw clenched tight with anger, Bear Wolf, the strongest of the young man hunters of our village, had pulled one of the enemy off his horse, and was twisting his braids around in his left hand, a knife in his right. The enemy fell, again.

On my right, I was lucky enough to look up just in time.

He was riding right for me. It was an enemy old man. He had few teeth, but he had all his war and spirit decorations on, and he was heading straight my way, a lance in his hand. I could swear that I was unaware of anything other than cold stark paralysed fear.

But he came on- and as the point of his lance came near, I picked up the spear lying on the ground, and when he came charging at me with his lance, mine was just long enough to get to him, before he could jab his into me. I stepped to the left as I punched its tip into his ribcage.

I did not want to die. I did not want to kill. But he was enemy, and it was our village, and these were my people, and I took the lance and drove it straight deep into his chest.

He looked at me with no sense of surprise, more an understanding- you are no longer the child. You are doing what I would have asked my own son to, if I were young and I were you. There was a glint of acceptance as well as respect as he fell, thick like a stone from the pony. He stared up from the dust, toward the stars.

When the old man fell from his pony, I grabbed up the reins and jumped upon it. I rode to the side of the village where my parents had their tent, and brought them that pony, and tied it outside the tent. I went back to the body of the old man and took his necklaces. I did not