Afternoons In Narnia {Five Minute Friday}

Freefall.

So very much worse since I was here last, with pain and other fell things running rampant. Perhaps I'll hit a plateau, lower than this, and can work on from there.

Perhaps not. It's a fear that turns my knees to water. Fear of what happens ere death comes.

I can still take care of the dogs, mostly, but days are now spent sitting at the door to Barb's bedroom...it's the only room with aircon, and with the door cracked there's a cool breeze.

Plus, it's three steps to the dunny.

Time spent with the dogs, and cold Diet Dr. Pepper allowed to go flat in the freezer.

And time spent with C.S. Lewis, in Narnia.

Days to be endured? well, yes, in part, but I believe that this is where I am now meant to be. (Endure is the Five Minute Friday writing prompt for this week.)

You can't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes, you just might find...you get what you need.

Cancer is not the end.

And the fight, while it last, is worth the fighting.

Long live Aslan, and the free Narnia of my heart.

But the nights...well, they're hallucinatory, and the sonnet below tells of what I described in the wee hours of this very morning, as Barb sat up with me.

I sought Barb to summon wife to me

upon her smart cell-phone,

for I truly took Barb (yes!) to be

Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones,

for we three must stand back to back,

and fearul watch must keep

against the fell and bold attack

of lethal flying sheep

who would plummet through the roof,

plunging from a coal-black sky,

crimson fangs to offer proof

of the worst of ways to die.

Came slow the morning, bright and cool,

and in the yard (gasp!) tufts of wool...

Here are the Stones and the Duke University Vesper Choir, with You Can't Always Get What You Want.

I do try to answer each comment in a timely fashion, but with Internet providers really stretched, I have only about half of the access I once did. Please bear with me!

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Unicorn Rider

Janet Grant, of the Books and Such Literary Agency, this week published a post on authors' magical thinking, in which she described the hope that so many writers have of bypassing the usual gatekeepers and riding to success and adulation wearing a golden crown, upon a unicorn.

I can relate. There's a fresh new tumour in my navel, and it's issuing pus and blood, and it really, really hurts.

Plus, if I doze off and roll onto my back, I'll stop breathing, and Ladron and Belle, service dogs, with much barking and growling, have to push me onto my left side, so I can draw breath. Gonna have to try to sleep in a chair.

Life is frightening, and it's theatening.

Maybe going this alone, with no medical care, was the wrong decision. But the alternative, with no health insurance, would have been forcing Barb into penury for the rest of her life.

So, I need magic.

I need to think that there is another side to this. That there is a sunrise in this life that I will still see.

I need a unicorn to ride.

This may or may not be my last Five Minute Friday post. I have other things to do (like finishing Barb's racing hydroplane, which is a way of turning money and fossil fuel into speed, noise, and pollution, and we do not care), and to be honest, I have never enjoyed writing. Strains the brain, like, dude, ya know?

I'll come back and read your posts, but comments...not likely, because it's just too hard now.

It's been fun.

If you want to help, click on the links below and buy my books. They're not bad. Well, not really bad.

Santa rides a unicorn

everywhere that he may go,

and its shining curly horn

glows just like a bright rainbow.

Yes, the reindeer pull his sleigh,

but rest in the in-between,

and for travel everyday

Santa doesn't need a team.

He clip-clops across the sky;

are you good or bad? Be alert,

for he has a practised eye

though he's wearing an aloha shirt.

So know, my friend, he is aware

of the tack you placed on boss's chair.

Music from 30 Seconds To Mars, with From Yesterday.

Like the subject of the song, I don't want to write the message yet.

I do try to answer each comment in a timely fashion, but with Internet providers really stretched, I have only about half of the access I once did. Please bear with me!

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 765 - I Hate Jesus, And So Do You {Five Minute Friday}

When we’ve chosen sides,

when it’s Us and Them,

the spear rips through His Side

and Christ has died again.

OK, time for another pop quiz.

In the past weeks, did you feel a quiet sense of satisfaction seeing protestors topple statues dear to folks you don’t really like? “About time!”

In the past few weeks, did you feel a sense of quiet satisfaction in seeing protestors with whom you do not agree tear-gassed? “About time!”

If you can honestly say you didn’t, go to the head of the line and St. Peter will ask for your autograph as you pass through Heaven’s gates.

Otherwise, for the rest of us (myself included)…well, “Uh, oh.”

But wait! Jesus, He’s on the side of Right, and He would have been out there in the crowd, leading a chant!

That’s what the zealots thought. You know…like, Judas?

Yeah, there ya go…Jesus, man, He was law and order…render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s!

Comfortable over there, standing next to Caiaphas?

Jesus Christ was not a revolutionary, ready to take His place on the barricades, Molotov cocktail in hand. That disappointed the zealots, and that’s why Judas betrayed Him.

Nor was He a strong supporter of the establishment, counseling full cooperation with the authorities. That’s why the Pharisees feared Him, and that’s why they arranged to have Him killed.

Jesus had a fairly simple message. Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.

We’re not doing too well with this.

Every time we shake our fists at the cops, every time we give a demonstrator the finger, every time we wish ill on Donald Trump or Nancy Pelosi, we’re crucifying our Lord, all over again.

I hate Jesus, this I know;

He’s so blind He will not see,

He won’t go where I would go,

He will not agree with me.

He’s a rebel ‘gainst our rule

(He’s a pawn of Pharisees),

He’s become the zealots’ tool

(He wants us to die on knees).

We’ll find a way to make it seem

(He won’t raise His fist and shout),

that every day He doth blaspheme

(for silver we can sell Him out).

Either way, we will not choose

to accept His version of Good News.

We've made a plastic Jesus, just like the song (first heard in Cool Hand Luke), and here performed by Billy Idol. We've done this, and we have to deal with it...with, perhaps, some wry humour.

I do try to answer each comment in a timely fashion, but with Internet providers really stretched, I have only about half of the access I once did. Please bear with me!

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 764 - Cold Rice

One o the really hard things about being terminal is that nothing tastes right. Spices make me sick, sweets become sour, and the wonderful nutty taste of stout is not so wonderful as it returns to the light of day.

So rice is about the best thing. A bit of butter, a bit of salt.

And if I care to think about it, it becomes a miracle.

The cold rice

upon which you meditate

will become summer’s banquet.

I have no idea what music to set this to, so how about the Fab Four, and Yellow Submarine?

I do try to answer each comment in a timely fashion, but with Internet providers really stretched, I have only about half of the access I once did. Please bear with me!

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 763 - Keep The Laughter Going {Five Minute Friday}

This was going to be a totaly different post, containing the answers we all need forhealing divions, hanling panemics, and finding in masques a fashion-statement (yes, masques)...but it's been a really bad week, and I kinda misplaced my notes.

Bad week, as in, I can barely eat, and have not the breath to even whistle (which is important as I used a whistle...yes, that one...to get Barb's attention so I could sign to her, since speech is gone).

The one thing I have learned through this whole...thing...is that you have to intentionally keep your humour up. It's perishable; let the laughter die, and resurrection can be real hard as the gloom-sharks close in.

You've got to laugh, and you have to keep the joke-tank full. Because otherwise, you look at a world you are leaving, an you want to cry...and those tears, maybe you can't stop.

It's really worth it, and worth is the Five Minute Friday prompt this week.

So, a hypothetical question...if Jesus had, at the Cana weing, turned water into Bud, would that have been His first beericle? (Some researchers, BTW, contend that the daily 'spoilproof' beverage was actually a kin of beer, far cheaper than wine).

And another...does Swiss cheese come from the milk of holy cows?

And if anyone's still with me...

This is just disaster,

this is just a mess,

so with fashion as my master,

I shall put on a dress,

apply a bit of lip-gloss,

scarf by C. Dior,

and giving bouncy hair a toss

head on out the door

to neighbours’ vast amazement,

friends’ horrified surprise;

they’ll hide out in their basements

to protect their eyes

from what they should have never seen,

and it’s not even Halloween.

And so, music from Boy George and Culture Club, with Karma Chameleon....I wonder if our world today needs some of the spirit of the music and the video?

I do try to answer each comment in a timely fashion, but with Internet providers really stretched, I have only about half of the access I once did. Please bear with me!

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.