iovi statori: the rachel branwen blog

6. The Tweedle-Dee & Tweedle-Don Juans

2008-07-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

Now, I swear to you that, between the two, ex girlfriends are much scarier that pirates. Having said that, when Goblin called down from the bird’s nest that a pirate ship was gaining on us, I looked at Winston wide-eyed. He was cool as a cucumber.

“Goblin: can you make out their flag?” he called up to the bird’s nest. Goblin chirped back a response.

“Ramone: hop on Pirates.net and tell me what you can find out about these guys. Lima, we’re going to be fine--pirates are no problem, but you’re gonna have to change into some of my clothes. Girls can make them a little crazy. Put on an eye-patch.”

I went downstairs and rifled through his drawers. Eye-patch: check. Long-sleeved, well-worn, smelly shirt with rolled-up sleeves: check. Long, cut-off pants: check. Bandana covering hair, pulled back into a pony-tail: check. I threw on a fake moustache for good measure.

When I got back on deck, Goblin was barking down information to Winston, Willoughby and Ramone. “mhaark, mharrrk, mharrkmark”

“Mm hmm”

“mharrk, mharrk”

“Yup. Go on”

“mharrk, mharrrk, mharmark, mhhhark”

“Got it, Gobs. Thanks.” Winston turned to me, “So...oh! you look great!” he interrupted himself. “So, these are the Don Juan Pirates. They can be pretty violent--they’ve sunk four ships already this year and they are primarily interested in treasure-hunting and women. They don’t harm the women--apparently they just take them on board and then try to seduce them. According to the reports on Pirates.net, the large majority of women either go crazy or jump ship.

“Oh. God!” I gasped, involuntarily.

“Don’t worry,” he laughed, “you’ll be fine. Especially in that outfit.” “They’re a motley crew, headed by three Spanish pirates, called Javier, Pablo and Manuel, but they also seem...erm...not that bright. We can deal with these guys. Ramone, why don’t you make a pitcher of ‘Special’ Sangria.”

Ramone grinned and went down to the galley.

We stood on deck, then, and watched as the Spanish vessel got closer. Sure enough, as it approached, three figures could be made out standing on deck.

“Ahoy, there!” one called, smiling with a devious grin. They were a terrifying sight to see--each with long, greasy hair, rings on their fingers, and shirts unbuttoned too far down their hairy chests. Winston nodded cooly back.

On deck were two girls, tied to chairs in the shade. They looked at us with pleading eyes, but a bald ogre with a peg-leg--I’m not making this up!--was guarding them with a musket.

“Hello friends” yelled Winston, “I’d be happy to turn over our women and gold to you, if we had any.”

The three Spainards looked somewhat disgruntled. One of them called back:

“How can we be a-sure you tell us the truth?”

“Well, we’re pirates same as you. You could fire at us, we could fire at you. You could sink our ship, we could sink yours. Or, you can come aboard for some icy sangria and some tea sandwiches and then have a look for yourself and leave peacefully.”

They conferred with each other in Spanish, talked to the ogre watching the girls and threw a gangway across to connect the two ships.

They were even more horrible close up. My GOD, did they smell! Not of sea, and sun, and body odor, but of sea, sun, body odor and an ungodly amount of cologne. And they all three were equally horrible looking, with their long hair, mustaches, and rings all over their fingers. I looked across at the girls on their ship, pained, but I could tell that Winston had something up his sleeve.

We sat down in the shade of the sails. Winston introduced Ramone and me, as his younger brother. I grunted. Ramone fetched and served the sangria, one pitcher for them, one pitcher for us. Loosened up by the sangria, and thinking themselves in the company of men alone, they proceded to speak of their conquests--the vast amount of gold they had stolen from this or that ship; the treasure they had discovered at this or that port, and the beautiful women they had wooed all over the world. Of course, any person, animal--even plant--could tell that not a tenth of what they were saying was true, and I often had to gulp my sangria so as not to roll my eyes.

After a solid hour of this torture, I sneezed off my mustache. You would’ve thought somebody had thrown a gauntlet. Pablo (or whichever one it was) was going on about a bar brawl he had encountered in New Zealand last year, and was just knocking out five men at once, when he stopped dead. The other two straightened in their seats, staring at me intently.

Winston glanced over and, understanding immediately, set his cup down slowly, then rolled up his sleeves.

“Thees!” one of them ventured “Thees ees a woman!”

Winston lept up and socked on of them in the face. We’ll call that one Manuel. A gold tooth went flying. The other one, who we will call Javier, lept at Winston, and the one who had been telling the story (Pablo?) lunged at me. I pushed my chair over with a swift kick and lept to my feet, ripping off my eye patch. I ran a few paces and then--you guessed it--fell right over the railing as usual, landing in the salty water with a splash. Herman gathered me up within seconds and I could hear the brawling on board.

“Put me back, Herman!! Put me back!!”

It only took him a few seconds to deposit me back on deck, and Winston had already dispatched with the tweedle-dee and tweedle-Don Juan triplets, plus the ogre from their ship who can come to their aid. He’s pretty able bodied, Winston.

I gave him a looking over to make sure that he hadn’t incurred any serious injury--in truth, he hadn’t been injured at all--and then I went to untie the girls on board their ship while Ramone went scavaging around for stashes of gold coins. The girls were able to identify a few stashes.

“Winston?” I called over to The Star Dust, “Aren’t they going to come looking for us now that we’ve stolen these girls and their money?”

“Nope” he smiled up, dragging Manuel (?) back across to their ship and laying him out on the deck. “That sangria had a special ingredient. They won’t remember a thing about it.”

“Smart!” I remarked, impressed, “And what about the ogre?”

“Ramone will give him an injection of the same stuff.”

“Wow! You’re like the Robin Hood of pirates, Winston!” I took out my notepad and jotted down a few particulars of the incident.

I bumped into him as he dragged Javier (?) back across the gangway. “Ugh! Winston! You smell like cheap cologne!” He made a grimace.

The girls were French and sittting, smiling wide smiles, on our deck, so very happy to be liberated from their smelly captors, saying over and over: “Merci, mademoiselle! Merci beaucoup, monsieur! On peut pas vous remercier assez!!”

After the last of the Spaniards had been loaded back onto their ship, and the most of the gold taken off of it, Herman got their ship drifting West and we set sail due East. Then, Winston went below deck to clean the reek off of himself, and we had dinner with the French girls on deck as the sun set. As we ate, they told us the harrowing adventure of how they had been captured:

“Celeste,” one began, “eez a friend to us. She made a birthday party two weeks past, at ze beach. We ate cakes, we laid in ze sun, we played with ze ball and in ze water. Ze two of us fell asleep because we had lots of wine and when we woke up, eet was getting dark. Celeste and ze rest of our friends decided to go to ze pub. Eet was not far from ze beach. So, zhey left us there to get ze zhings and meet zhem zhere. But, when we get to ze pub, zhey are not zhere. We zhink perhaps zhey have gone to a different pub, so we go to different pubs. At zhe zhird pub we decide to rest and zhink of where zhey could be. Eet is not a very beeg town. And so, we are resting, and have a glass of wine. And we see zhees guys sitting at ze end of ze bar. And we zhink, zees guys are creepy, so we try to Eegnore zhem. But, zhey come over to talk to us. And we pretend zhat we can’t speak Spanish. And zheir French is horrible. So we are trying to Eegnore zhem, and zhey smell very bad. But zhey must have put zhomething in ze wine because zhen we wake up and we are on ze ship! And zhey are trying to be zweet to us. Zhey say ‘we are tough pirates’ and zhey tell us stories and try to impress us, and try to scare us, but we still think zhey are gross and smell badly. And they’ve had us for two weeks and we don’t zhink we will ever escape. One of zhem tried to kiss Stephanie,” she motioned to the other girl, “and Stephanie tried to jump sheep and I was crying but he smelled so bad zhat she just fainted instead. Mademoiselle et monsieur, eet was really very horrible. Zhank you so much for saving us. You are welcome in Bordeaux at any time.” She batted her eyelashes wildly at Winston, who coolly pretended not to notice.

“Psst, Winston,” I whispered to him, “frenchie here is flirting with you.”

“I know” he said.

“And she’s pretty,” I ventured. I wasn’t trying to encourage him into bad behavior per se, but, as a journalist, I guess I was curious to see how the mischief happened. But he would have none of it.

“Uh huh,” he said. And turned back to the conversation, conscientiously avoiding her flirtations. And those of Stephanie, who didn’t know how to speak English, but who spoke “dimples and winks” fluently.

5. Copenhagen & Storks

2008-07-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

The next morning, we were meant to set sail for London, where Winston had to see a man about some buttons and Caitlin Kitty, another of Winston’s exes. But Winston felt that perhaps we should temporarily put off the Kiernens and sail for Denmark instead. And so we did.

The girl we had to visit there was called Helga, who agreed to meet us for coffee.

When she arrived, I understood why it was that Winston had spent a whopping eight months with her: she was tall, lithe, blue-eyed, brown-haired and beautiful. She sat down across from us and cooly explained that she appreciated the apologetic gesture, but that she had not missed Winston much after he left and was quite happy they had gone their separate ways. Her new boyfriend Mads was the hunky ukelele player of the local band The Elephants and she’d never been happier. Then, she gave us a flyer for their show, said she hoped we would come, it was very nice to see him again and good day.

Willoughby was quite disappointed by the lack of flying cups and saucers, but Winston was pleased. He was happy she was happy, and felt gratified at making his first successful apology. He felt re-inspired.

We spent the rest of the day walking around Copenhagen. We admired the various fountains, we lounged in sunny gardens, we took pictures of tourists and I took to elbowing Winston whenever a girl would glare, coyly and knowingly, at him. Which was pretty often. Willoughby, for his part, had a great time checking out all of the Danish dogs (he asserted that Danish dogs, on the whole, are certainly the prettiest population of dogs he had ever seen) and was drooling, now after a Danish Poodle mix, now after Shitzu. I joked that Winston was rubbing off on him.

In the evening, Willoughby saw himself back to The Star Dust (where Ramone was waiting to surprise him with his new Super-Stealth Danish Fart Machine) and Winston and I went to see The Elephants play. Dear reader, I must recommend them! On our entire trip, those Elephants were pretty near the best live music we saw.

I’m going to zip through this next little bit, so that we can get on to some of the more interesting parts of our trip: Anya in Brussels threw waffles at him (I have pictures); Cherie, in Paris, sobbed and sobbed and begged him not to go away again; Emilie, also in Paris, at first laughed and said there were no hard feelings, then drank a bottle of Bordeaux and tried to run him over with her car; Alexandra, also in Paris, made us dinner and sent us merrily on our way; then we headed back up to London, where Becx called him everything from “Arse” to “Wanker”; Michelle said “everything is fine, thanks so much for coming by” but then tried to cut herself, and Caitlin Kitty Kiernen took us out on the town for a night of dancing, proving why she was, rightly, the only one of the Kiernen sisters that anyone ever remembers.

From London, we hit the high seas for a couple of weeks and headed for Spain.

Now, if you know nothing of pirate ships, as I did not, you must be wondering, as I was wondering, how it is that people on ships procure victuals:

I had always imagined that there was some kind of hold below deck where food and water are stored; this is true. But most of what we ate while we were out to sea, was food that was--get this!--delivered by Storks. This explained so much to me, I mean about the Storks delivering babies myth and all, because, especially from below, the great bundles of food that they fly around to ships do look an awful lot like so called “bundles of joy”. Every morning a basket would arrive for us, full of fresh fruit, a loaf of bread, some cheese, a bottle of wine, coffee. Sometimes the hermits, who were organizing these deliveries, would include something random, such as Silly String, but usually Willoughby or Ramone would run off with them before we laid hands on them. Although, in the case of Silly String, Willoughby was at a bit of a spraying disadvantage, if you see what I mean.

But anyway, we had been out to sea for about a week, leisurely enjoying the fantastic weather, relaxing swimming with the friendly sea-animals (and Herman, of course) reading books and playing ukelele by candle-light, when we had our first run-in, 100 miles East of Bordeaux, with RLPs: Real. Live. Pirates.

next chapter

4. Katherine Ann Kiernan

2008-06-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

Caitlin Kitty Kiernan was a local legend in Cahersiveen, Ireland.

When she was seven years old, she had run away from home, riding a horse over fifty miles to the town of Killorglen because her parents had tried to force her to eat cabbage. She hated cabbage. When she was fourteen, she recited an entire Canto of Dante's Inferno from her rooftop, shouting in poor ancient Italian to the fishermen and farmers of her town that had gathered, baffled, to watch the spectacle. When she was seventeen, she had organized, cast, and starred in a local production of The Tempest; when she was twenty, she could be often found in the town square, selling copies of her self-published book of grandiose romantic poetry.

She was beautiful, dramatic, and wild. To the people of her small town, she was something of a comet, and people were always asking "what that crazy Kiernan girl is up to these days." Every boy within ten years of her age was wildly and desperately in love with her and, before the age of twenty-two, she had already received no less than nine proposals of marriage. But, of course, she was going to move to London and take the world by storm; no small-town life for Caitlin Kitty Kiernan. And by the age of twenty-five, off she had gone.

Nobody had heard of her sister, Katherine Ann Kiernan.

Katherine was just a bit younger than her sister. "Kind of" pretty, "kind of" intelligent, but diminutive of stature and painfully shy, she often just blended right into the background. Frequently distracted by the shenanigans of her older sister, her parents all but forgot that they had another daughter. And, small town though it was, people only knew of Katherine as "Caitlin's sister" and she most frequently came up in the context of "Oh yes! I had forgotten that Caitlin had a sister! Is she still living in Cahersiveen?"

Katherine was a novelist, but was, in truth, a less than talented writer. The following excerpt was given to me to read:

“It was a blustery morning, a windy day. The air blew around in swirls. The wind played with curtains and the skirts of bustling women. A man’s trousers lifted up to reveal checked dress socks. This man, deep in thought, was on his way down to walk by the river. But it was a windy, blustery day, and he found himself distracted by the bits of paper blowing about in the windy wind.”

(I reckon that’s enough said about that).

She also worked at the local tailor’s shop where the owner frequently forgot her name. Even though she'd worked there for four years, and was the only employee.

The best part of her day was the afternoon when she would take her dog, Rhinoceros, for a walk, ending up at her friend Julia's house. Julia was in every respect, Katherine's very twin of disposition. It was only in looks that they differed: Katherine was just over five feet tall and frail, with pale orange hair and dark eyes; Julia was five foot nine, large and buxom of body with straw-yellow hair and washed out blue eyes.

Winston gave the following account of their affair:

“I met Katherine a few years ago. My Great Aunt lives inland of Cahersiveen and I was going to visit, so I landed there and decided that, because the weather was especially lovely, I should buy a bike to ride over to her town. I found one in Cahersiveen and set out along the way, but took a wrong turn and, while I was lost, got a flat tire. So there I was, walking my bike down a country lane when along comes Katherine and Rhinoceros. I stopped her to ask if she knew where we were and where I could find a replacement tire for my bike. We began walking towards the nearest village and got caught in a massive thunderstorm, so we turned around and went to her house. Then, she caught a terrible, terrible cold that lasted for a couple of weeks, so I stayed to take care of her. When she got better, it was late Spring, and we spent several more weeks together, mostly walking around the surrounding countryside. But then I remembered that I had to get to my grandmother’s house and, as I then knew my way around the country much better, I left.”

Now, when we were plotting out the ex-lovers to revisit, he thought it would be a good idea to start with Katherine, mild-mannered and shy as she was.

Her house is, as she is, small and inconspicuous. Sat on a shady country lane, it is covered in vines, has a brick chimney, and rose bushes in the front yard. Willoughby and I sat down on the grass by the mailbox on the edge of her property, and watched Winston approach the door with interest and smiles of encouragement.

We didn't see who opened the door, but Winston disappeared through it. Not more than one minute elapsed before the relative silence of Katherine's front yard was interrupted by loud, angry, yelling, the bang of pots hitting walls and the crash of pottery smashing. The front door swung open and Winston rushed out, wide-eyed and holding his head. A small figure came dashing out of the door behind him, spewing a tirade of curses in a rollicking Irish accent, launching a stapler, then a small lamp, then a knife after him.

He ran down the path, grabbed for my hand and pulled me away with him at a full run. Willoughby followed, laughing, behind us.

"So, how'd it go?" I asked, as we bounced along down the road. He looked at me, unamused.

After a quarter-mile, we slowed our pace to a walk and enjoyed the rest of the Irish countryside. The sun was high in the sky, the fields were green, and, in the distance, the ocean was eye-squintingly blue. When we got back to the ship, I looked at his battle wound. Katherine had left a goose-egg almost the size of herself on his forehead, by means of a toaster.

I held some ice to it for him. Apparently Katherine was a very small person with a very large temper. I suggested he maybe write her a letter

When his head and spirits were something recovered, we went on deck to make dinner, drink some wine and watch the stars come out. Ramone was playing his ukelele and Willoughby was plotting his next evil deed to play on Ramone.

next chapter

3. Herman

2008-06-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

Now, I’m just going to go ahead and tell you that, in the course of the story, I fall overboard many times. It’s just my clumsy nature and whenever the weather gets a little stormy, whenever the water gets a little choppy--heck!--whenever I’m standing close to the railing period there’s a good chance I’m going over. Thank you, god, for my two left feet and the many adventures they have occasioned.

Anyway, this time was the most terrifying, because it was the first. The water was cold and dark and choppy and as I plunged into it, I was thinking “Great! Here I am, setting off on this great adventure and I didn’t even going to make it to our first port of call.”

Swoosh!

I was sucked into a cold, churning, blackness. Opening my eyes was useless; I couldn’t even tell if they were opened or closed, which was terribly alarming, nor could I tell which way was up or down. I was doomed.

Then, all of a sudden, my head was above water. Something had pulled me up by the hair and was holding me there, suspended, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I groped blindly around, but there didn’t seem to be anyone next to me, and my first thought was that Ramone had somehow hooked me from above. I reached up into my hair and felt the most alarming thing: a fat, rubbery, tenticle.

My eyes went wide with horror.

But then I thought that perhaps, if whatever animal owned the tenticle was going to eat me, it would’ve already smuggled me down to the ocean’s depths instead of preventing me from drowning.

An instant later, another rubbery arm had scooped me up like so much ice cream and lifted me out of the water. I was shivering convulsively. As my eyes adjusted to the moonlight, I couldn’t see The Star Dust anywhere. But I did see two, giant, inquiring eyes set into a huge bulbous head right in front of me.

“Are you going to eat me?” I quaked. The bulbous head swung itself slowly side to side.

“Phew! I’m so glad.” Then I heard what sounded like a walkie-talkie.

Bzzcht... “Herman, now’s not a good time to play”...bzzcht... “It’s very windy and Lima Bean must be very cold after falling into the ocean” ....bzzcht.... “could you kindly bring her back to the ship?” Bzzcht.

It was Winston’s voice, but I didn’t understand where it was coming from. Herman blew air out from, well, wherever it is that giant squid blow out air, like a six year old being told that it is not the right time to tumble on the lawn, and started gliding through the swells.

The ship was somewhere behind me, because it still wasn’t anywhere in my line of vision and I didn’t see it until Herman had lifted me back over the railing and Winston received me into a big fluffy towel. Boy was I relieved to have some wood back under my bum! But it was still storming, and the boat was still tossing from side to side, so I leaned feebly against Winston and concentrated on not throwing up.

Herman did a few spins in the water, like a top, frollicked a little to and fro (have YOU ever seen a giant squid frollick?? It’s cuter than you’d think) and sidled back up to the side of the ship. Winston reached his long arm over the railing and scratched the top of Herman’s head.

“That was very good work, Herman, thank you for catching the lady.”

Winston took me downstairs and told me to take off my wet clothes. He gave me warm, dry sheets to wrap myself up in and tucked me into bed.

“I see that this trip is going to require a little taking care of you”

I grimaced, then indicated with my thumb and index finger ‘just a very, very little bit.’ He laughed.

“Perhaps you could have told me that there’s a friendly giant squid spotting your ship?” I managed.

“I was getting around to it,” he said, sitting down, “but I had no idea you were so clumsy.”

“Oh yes, I’m very clumsy.”

“Well, good thing he’s there, then. He’s very friendly; wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s an excellent spotter because when we’re in warmer waters, we dive off the ship in all different directions and he darts around and gathers us up as fast as he can. It’s his favorite game.”

“I see” I said, yawning. That was a pretty mighty, if brief, exertion I had just made.

“There all kinds of interesting characters in these oceans,” Winston went on softly, “I’ll tell you all about them tomorrow."

There was a moment or two of silence, then he stood up, abruptly. He bade me goodnight, and, as my eyes gave in to the weight of my eyelids, I saw him bound back up the stairs.

next chapter

2. The Star Dust

2008-06-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

The Star Dust, Winston’s ship, had seen better days, and those days were probably two-hundred years ago. All of it's various ropes were yellowed, it's anchor woven with thick moss, and it's four white sails frayed. Even so it was an elegant, if small, vessel; for all of its wear, its rich wood surfaces were slick and glittery in the sunlight and it had a buxom, well-carved mermaid on the prow.

Below deck was a small, sparsely decorated living space that consisted of a bedroom, with an attached kitchen, bathroom, and dining area. Winston brought my things down--a bag of personal affects and a couple boxes of books--and helped me arrange them amongst his own.

“Erm, Winston...?”

“There’s only one bed. I’ve already thought of it. Don’t worry, I will sleep on deck with Ramone and Goblin. I often do anyway.”

He didn’t seem terribly put out, but it didn’t seem right that I had invited myself along on his adventure AND I was stealing his bed.

“No, I couldn’t let you. I’ll sleep on deck.”

He laughed heartily. I mean, he doubled over with laughter. Then, he patted me on the back appreciatively, and went up the little stairs that led outside.

His “crew” consisted of a chimpanzee named Ramone and a three-legged squirrel named Goblin. They pushed The Star Dust away from the riverbank where it had passed the last week or so and the five of us--Willoughby came along, of course--headed for the open ocean.

Now, many of the following adventures will involve run-ins with Winston’s ex lovers. This may or not strike you as an interesting topic to explore, but let me assure you: it’s fascinating. The sheer number of girls that Winston had been involved with at any given port almost matched the number of indigenous plant species--and the girls were about as varied in both aesthetics and personality. And his stated intention for this voyage was to make amends with as many as them as he could. I thought it a noble idea, and also, more importantly, likely to produce an exceptionally high rate of excitement and adventure. Can you imagine a more dangerous mission than intentionally throwing yourself in the way of hundreds of resentful women? Okay, so maybe I’m exagerrating the numbers slightly. But just slightly.

We made a plan, as though we were staging a complicated bank heist, ranking our stops in consideration of how many women, and the varying degrees of their expected initial violence and then laid it out on a giant map across the dining room table with pins and thread. There was Alexandra in Western Morocco, Karina in Columbia; there was Cherie in France and Anya in Belgium, there was Em in Malaysia, Kat in Australia and Dessie on Tasmania.

But in Nova Scotia was the girl that would cause us the most problems, a girl named Simone with a vicious temper and such a propensity for cutting insults that even now, thousands of miles and several years away, the mere mention of her name was enough to cast Winston into a despondent, even fearful, silence. They had been lovers briefly, but things ended poorly and he had ended up leaving behind his Parrot, a loving and intelligent African Grey named Rinaldo, a fact by which he constantly felt pained.

We put her at the end of the list. We were still far from the coast of Nova Scotia, in time not miles. Our first stop would be in Ireland, and we were crossing the wide, cold, Atlantic.

Ramone was a remarkably able First Mate, and he had a quite a sense of humor to boot: Willoughby had a bed set up on the deck where he could lay in the sun and feel the fresh sea wind on his muzzle. As soon as Willoughby would get comfortable and start snoozing, Ramone would steer the ship ever so slightly North, or ever so slightly South, so as to shift a shadow back on top of Willoughby. Willoughby, roused from his nap by the chill, would get up, and pull his bed back into the sun, only to fall asleep again, and again wake up in the shadow. It took him at least two hours to realize that Ramone was playing this prank on him. He revenged himself by shaving Ramone’s eyebrows off while he was sleeping. The rivalry only escalated from there, and every day they would each turn up with some new outrageous scheme afoot, or the evidence of some outrageous scheme on their person. Goblin remained conscientiously uninvolved in the feud.

About two or three days off of the coast of Ireland, we hit a storm. It wasn’t a tremendous or terribly blustery storm, but it was windy enough to take up the sails and the swells of the sea became quite large. It was just when the last vestiges of daylight were slipping around to the other side of the planet, and I was clumsily trying to help Ramone tie up one of the sails. There was one piece of rope that I had accidentally let go and it was flailing behind the ship, in the wind; two more seconds and it was going to fly away entirely. Ramone was yelling something to me, but there was so much wind in my ear that I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I reached out six inches farther than I should have, and as I felt the weight of my body transferring to the outside of the railing, felt myself tumbling towards the frozen water below, I finally put it together in my head:

“Don’t worry about that rope; we have another!”

next chapter

1. We Were Pirates

2008-06-21T16:53:00.000-07:00

In the end, there were other women. There were tight fists, bar fights, and lies. There were sunk ships, and fat lips. There were indiscretions, insults and a complete loss of dignity. But once, we were happy. Once, we sailed the high seas, we laughed and loved, and took up each other’s arms. Once, we set foot on all nine continents, made babies and concocted schemes.

Once, we were pirates.

**************

It all began in the dawning Spring of a couple years past. I had taken to studying in a under-frequented corner of a park near my apartment. Usually, I could sneak to this park-corner from my apartment, spend the day absorbed in the scholarly works of whatever hermit had caught my interest, and sneak back again without running into another person of any sort. I had become so good at inconspicuity, I began to wonder whether or not other people could even actually see me at all (one of the benchmarks of true hermit-hood is that most regular people actually can’t see you. Except for under very certain circumstances, when the light is just so, and they are abstractly thinking just so, and their eyes focus just so. Otherwise, you could be right under their nose and they wouldn’t even realize! It’s quite a funny thing to observe, but the chances of ever making such an observation are few, given hermits’ distaste for peopled environments). At any rate, I got very used to going unnoticed.

On this particular afternoon, I was reading Astro-Physics & the Mating Habits of Noctural Marine Mammals and Mermen by Camilla Buttersworth and Moby Dick (I hope I don’t have to remind you that Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick), when I noticed a guy swagger over to a nearby tree and fall asleep. Now, as you may have intuited by my description of him--“a guy”--I didn’t take much notice and, after an hour or two, forgot that he was there at all. Several hours later, while ruminating on a particularly delightful passage of Moby Dick, my eyes came to rest on this figure. To my great surprise, I realized that, not only had he awoken, but he was staring at me. I started, fidgeted with the book resting in my lap, and stared intently at the pages so as not to provoke further interest from him. But I had become acutely aware of him and, after some minutes, grudgingly looked past the corner of my book to see whether or not he had turned his attention elsewhere. To my horror, not only was he still looking at me, but he had turned onto his belly and, resting his face in his hands, was persistently--obnoxiously!--staring at me. Greatly discomfitted, I turned my back to him, and weakly whistled to Willoughby.

Willoughby, who is my favorite companion, and also a dog, had expected to be at the park for at least another few hours. He was rolling around some distance away in a patch of newly sprouted clovers. He didn’t immediately hear me whistle, but when he did, he looked plaintive and uninterested. “Going now” he looked at me? “But this is graaaaand!” Since you can’t publicly speak to animals, outside of North Carolina, I gave him my best alarmed and “we have to go now!” look. But it was too late. He had no sooner began a slow saunter towards me, than I heard the crunch of leaves and determined footfall at my back.

“Hi” said a voice behind me. I jumped around to face it. And I must have looked pretty scared, because he--the guy who had been napping under the tree, the guy who had persistantly stared at me, and now was intent upon speaking to me--started laughing, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. Here,” he said, backing up, “I’ll stand a little further away.”

Though I was alarmed, this struck me as comical. He was going to endeavor to talk to me from a distance of four or five feet away, as though we were speaking across an imaginary precipice.

“Do you have a cigarette, by chance?” he asked.

“No, no I don’t”

“Do you know where I might get something to eat around here?”

“No” I lied, “I, uh, don’t eat. Often. Out, I mean”. I’m not usually this conversationally awkward, but, as I said, it had been a long time since I had talked to anyone, let alone unexpectedly, let alone to a boy.

“I’m Winston” He leaned out across the invisible precipice to shake my hand.

“Lima. Lima Bean. I’m sorry for, umm, seeming so alarmed. I was just so absorbed in my book...”

“Lima Bean!” he cut me off, “The Lima Bean?? I’m a terrific fan of your work!”

I looked at him, dumbfounded.

“Err, I’m sorry, you must have me confused with some other Lima Bean”

“Not at all, not at all! I’ve read your reports from the Hermits’ Convention, all of them! Then, I did some investigating, asked some friends, and got ahold of some of your poetry as well. It’s really very good! I might go so far as to say you’re a genius. I’ve wanted to meet you!”

Willoughby trotted up and sniffed the stranger with interest, who immediately leaned down and began scratching him behind the ears as though they had always been friends. And, from the grin on Willoughby’s face, you really would’ve thought that they had. I was, at the least, curious about this fellow; Willoughby was already in love. There’s nothing like a good ear-scratching to sway Willoughby into very deep love.

“I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?”

“Winston. Winston D. B. Oliver Zwinton”

It is hard to recapture the innocence and strangeness of a first meeting with a person you have later known intimately, but I will, at any rate, do my best. He was tall and extraordinarily handsome: well-proportioned, with a mess of black hair, Atlantic-blue eyes, a rosy complexion, deep dimples and strong, well-formed hands. He wore heavy rings in both of his ears, a bandana around his neck, and almost every part of his body that was visible, was tattooed in thick black strips. He was handsome in a rugged, weathered way. Handsome as a bird of prey might be, or a very large coyote. Or, say, a pirate.

“I think I’ve heard of you, too, actually. The terror of the Seven Seas.”

“Ah, my reputation precedes me” he said knowingly, almost bashfully.

I had, at a Hermits’ Convention, heard talk of him. A hermetically-affiliated Don Juan of sorts, who was notorious, not for romancing women, but for breaking their hearts. He would love them, sort of, and sail off abruptly, leaving behind a intercontinental rash of scorned women and fatherless birds.

The hermits’ interest in him was manifold. The child of rather hard circumstances, he had grown up wild, but searingly intelligent. And while they weren’t sure what would become of him, his vagabond ways and emphatic resistence to everything ordinary made him natural kin to the hermits,who looked on, often bemusedly, often alarmedly, as he bumped through his complicated and rocky life.

To be perfectly honest, I had developed a lurid curiosity about him at the Convention and was pleased that he had run himself into me at the park. As I understood it, he was a man of incorrigibly bad behavior, adventures, misadventures and excitement; he was a real life pirate! But, as any stealth journalist, I curbed my enthusiasm.

“How long will you be in town?” I asked

“A few days, I think”

“Would you like to have dinner with Willoughby and me?” I offered. Willoughby looked smilingly up, wagging. Winston nodded.

We cooked and laughed, and slowly warmed. We drank wine and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes on the fire escape. I showed Winston some of my recent writings, and got a few fantastic stories out of him. Like the time he had to scale an impossible cliff, beat a Spanish fencing genius in a duel, wrestle a giant, outwit a Sicilian, and trek through an unsurvivable swamp in order to save a princess.

Just kidding: that’s obviously the Princess Bride. But his stories were--and I make this statement carefully--as good. We fell asleep mid-conversation, side by side, as innocently as children, and when we woke up in the morning, my mind was made up: I begged him to take me with him on his next sailing adventure. As I had recorded the Hermits’ Convention, I wanted to record the Adventures of Winston D.B. Oliver Zwinton. I was bored with being a hermit. I wanted to be a hermit-slash-pirate.

next chapter

2008-06-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

Nine: Summer Rise, Summer Set.

2006-09-09T13:18:00.000-07:00

The next three days were a blur of hither and thither activity that felt like nothing more than just that: I had caught the end of summer blues, and was feeling rather lackluster.

I spent the morning with a pair of different musical hermits, who aggravated my hangover with their innovative renditions of Bizet’s opera Carmen, to my great dismay, which I fear was but thinly disguised.

I spent that afternoon with Pipton, reading, and the evening with one of the most famous hermits of all time, Santa Claus, who jovially explained to me his true involvement in the Christmas holiday (he invented the concept to promote global altruism through international gift exchanges, but when the idea was pirated by a co-operative of multi-national toy corporations--his face and name kept as the figurehead against his will--he became a hermit and has since been formulating a counter-initiative, nicknamed “Project The Grinch”, to re-create Christmas as the holiday it was originally intended to be.) (You can expect the evidences of this initiave to become apparent beginning 2009, if all goes as planned).

The day after that I listlessly bummed about with Calvin in his garden, then went to visit Herman and Delia (who are officially ‘a couple’ by the way. Claudia, Vance, and Shirelle fixed the spell so that Delia can keep her legs--sans nasty sleeping side-effects--as long as she takes one herbal pill each morning and evening) They are quite happy, and moving back to the mountains together, along with Eleanor, Pooka, and Augie, of course.

The day after, I woke up and the forest was empty. Just like that.

Even though the hermits’ presence was undetectable by the naked eye, I could just feel it: the difference was palpable.

In true hermit style, Willoughby and I slipped away without ceremony, without saying goodbye to Pipton or Calvin. Who invented goodbyes anyway? What a dumb idea.

We didn’t speak much on the ride home and once we had snuck back into our urban hermitage, after we had un-packed our few things and napped, after we had eaten some late-night pancakes and sipped some herbal tea, we stood on the fire-escape and in the relative quiet of the wee-morning hours, we were sure we could hear it:

the quiet shuffle across prairies, over mountains, through forest and brush; the pitter-patter of light footfall across dells, to farms, to the ends of country-lanes thought to be abandoned. The brush of steps towards remote ranches, to caves and bungalows.

It was the end of summer, and hermits everywhere were returning from their Annual Convention.

Eight: Boil, Boil, Toil, and Trouble.

2006-09-04T16:23:00.000-07:00

I woke up in the morning so tangled in arms, sheets and legs that it was a good minute or two before I dared move. I wiggled myself loose a bit, and looking over my right shoulder, found Peter’s head not far from mine. His hair was messy and obscured all of his face, save a bit of mouth. I admired him for a second or two (sleeping Peter looks so sweet) then I put my forehead against his and shook my head, using the volume of my own messy hair to tickle his sleeping face into awakeness. And then I bit his lips--I figured there were worse ways to wake up in the morning.

He stretched his arms over his head, peeped an uncovered eye open, and grinned, then threw an arm around me and slid me back onto the warm, cuddling side of the bed (his). I was on the point of falling back asleep when I remembered that I was a professional, and there was work to be done! I had not been invited to the Hermits’ Convention to cuddle with a cute hermit, after all, I had been invited to record the event and its participants, and there were still many more to meet. So I rolled us both right out of the bed with thud.

“Oooh, Lima.” Peter complained, halfheartedly, “why did you have to do that?”

“Because, sir, there are many things to be done today and I just thought that our chances of waking up would improve greatly once we were actually out of bed. Don’t you feel more awake?”

He groaned, but then sat up and blinked his two blue eyes open. “Yes.”

“Good! I’ll fix you some root coffee.”

“So where is it you’re off to today, Miss Bean?” At this point, I was sitting at his table sipping my root-coffee, revising some notes, and he was sat in a chair playing with his guitar.

“Well, I have an interview with Isabelle Du Bontemps in the morning and THEN...”

“yes?”

“...then I’m going to meet Claudia, Shirelle and Vance.”

“Well, that’ll be fun. Are you taking Willoughby?”

“If I can find him! He’s made so many friends I can hardly keep track of him!”
But no sooner had I said that, then I heard his own happy bark at the bottom of Peter’s tree.

“Speak of the devil!” I leaned my head off of the porch, “Good morning, love.”

He smiled his toothy smile up at me and suggested we get a move on. Apparently Willoughby wanted to meet the witches as well. I ran over to Peter and, yanked on a bit of his hair and kissed him goodbye. Little did I know it would be the last time I'd see him.

I climbed down the stairs and into the fresh morning air, whereupon Willoughby dragged me to, and quickly from, my appointment with Isabelle du Bontemps.

She was interesting to look at: tall and waifish, with large-eyes and ankle-length blonde braids, but she answered almost every question with a single word answer--often a single syllable--and would periodically fling herself at a canvas mid-conversation and begin furiously adding details to this painting or that, which were too high-concept for simple-minded me (please detect a note of sarcasm here). What I can say for Isabelle, is that amongst the hanging plants and wide-windows of her treetop studio, sitting on her stool, surrounded by canvases, with a long cigarette in hand, she remained at all times with her fair face in the best lighting and at the most advantageous angles. Even in the absence of everyone but, well, me and Willoughby.

After an half hour, Willoughby was squirming with boredom, so we excused ourselves and waved goodbye to Isabelle, who was back at attacking a canvas before we had so much as closed the front door.

On the way to visit Claudia, Shirelle and Vance, Willoughby was walking at such a fast pace, that we kept missing turns, and so got lost three times before finding their place. Which was by no means easy to find. This is where you are expecting me to say “witches’ den.” I know you are.

I have to admit that even I--hard though I may try to ignore stereotypes--was also expecting something along those lines. But, boy oh boy, was I surprised!

Claudia, Shirelle and Vance, three former Southern Belles, had constructed the most lavish residence on the North Carolinian property: a sprawling single-level, bright-white house, with huge floor to ceiling windows, whose shutters opened onto a wraparound porch complete with hanging plants and COLUMNS--yes, their house even has columns!--AND a yard with sloping, green grass and two shady trees, underneath one of which was a set of tasteful white-iron lawn furniture, and from whose branches hung a swing, in which Shirelle, wearing a floppy brimmed summer hat, was lightly swinging back and forth, drinking Pimms and soda. She lifted her glass in salute as Willoughby and I approached.

Shirelle saluted us from the tree-swing, Vance was sitting at the table slowly flipping through a book of mammoth proportions, and Claudia was lying on a blanket, under an umbrella, on the lawn, sunning her legs.

Shirelle was tall and buxom with dark brown hair that fell in loose curls from beneath her hat, down around her heart-shaped face and winking green eyes; Vance had blonde hair with teased bangs and a and blue eye-liner'd blue eyes that always seemed wide with pleasure or interest and Claudia had straight, cropped red hair and freckled skin: they were the Golden Girls but slightly younger and infinitely more fun (as we would soon find out).

“Well, hello!” Claudia waved, sitting up.

Vance got up from the table to greet Willoughby and I with a scratch behind the ear and a kiss on the cheek, respectively.

“Come! Come have a seat” she welcomed, motioning to the table. The three of them were all smiling at us their most hospitable Southern smiles. Willoughby’s tail was wagging so furiously that it took him multiple attempts to get and keep his bottom sitting.

“Now isn’t he daaahhling!” Shirelle said, “Can I give him a treat?”

Willoughby looked slightly incredulous that she should ask my approval, then nodded at me furiously. I laughed.

“Of course he can.”

Whereas other witches of repute have had cauldrons, wands, or, more recently, twitching noses, Shirelle had a large Louis Vuitton handbag, inside of which, she could find anything. To be honest, we couldn’t ever be sure if it was magic, or if she just traveled well-prepared. At any rate, she produced a tasty treat for Willoughby, who took it in his mouth and then glided by each of us in turn, giving us broadside dog-hugs. The ladies were delighted.

I sat down at the table with Vance. Claudia got up to get another pitcher of icy Pimm’s for everyone.

The ladies were great to talk to, because they needed so little prompting. Really, I had to just sit and smile and listen as they bounced stories off of themselves, including the time they disguised themselves as Slovenian socialites, leased a villa in Italy and seduced a trio of Italian shoe designers, thereby winning a lifetime supply of Italian pumps; the time they beached their yacht into a deserted island in the Caribbean and coaxed the local animals to help them harvest coconuts to nurse their hangovers; the time Vance accidentally turned a girlfriend into a Weimaraner and the time Shirelle purposefully turned an ex-boyfriend into an ox.

As the afternoon waned, so did the pitcher of Pimm’s. And the next. Soon we were saucy and laughing. I was taken on a tour of the house, but all I remember of it, is that I tripped over the rug in the Parlor, which had the girls (and Willoughby) in fits of laughter, and Vance fell into the pool with all of her clothes on.

As the evening progressed, so did the crazy antics. If you’ve never spent an evening with three drunken witches with a good sense of humor, well, you should try to arrange it.

Shirelle turned Vance’s blonde hair pink mid-conversation, Claudia made my lounge chair start walking across the yard, Vance made bouncy balls materialize from all sides of the property until poor Willoughby (who’d also had a bit to drink) was smiling sloppily and nearly cross-eyed from chasing them. The hijinks continued until Peter came to fetch me--Pipton had sent him to see me home safely--and carried me away, stumbling and laughing as the girls laughed and waved from their doorway.

Now mind you, I said that that morning was the last time I would see Peter, and I was telling the truth. It was dark when he came to fetch me, and once we were back in our neighborhood (and the walk had sobered me up a bit) we laid down on the shore of the lake and stargazed as I recounted to Peter my experience of why the witches were everybody’s favorite hermits.

Then, he put his forehead to my forehead and his nose to my nose, and admitted in low tones that he was leaving in the morning. I said well, we knew the summer wasn’t going to last forever, and then I kissed his face.

The next day, I woke up in my bed with a pretty serious hangover. Willoughby, who was lying on his back with face pressed into his cushion, was snoring audibly. I suspected he wouldn’t feel much better.

I dragged myself into a sitting position and slowly took stock of the night before. I laughed, just thinking about Claudia, Shirelle and Vance, and laughed again imagining their parallel hangovers.

Then I remembered the end of the night and my head resumed throbbing. Peter was gone.

next chapter

Seven: Continued.

2006-07-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

The three of us scrambled up and followed Herman to his front door. Upon opening it, we found a woman standing upon a rock, clasping the skirt of her dress and looking down in alarm.

“Augie!” Herman scolded, and the small gray mouse came over to us, chuckling.

“Oh thank you so much. He just frightened me, that’s all--I didn’t mean to scream.” She looked up at us apologetically. She seemed to be about thirty-five, with long brown hair, gray eyes and a friendly face.

Herman cleared his throat and looked--now this is shocking--a bit timid.

“It’s no problem at all, ma’am. He has a very wicked sense of humor, you see. Can I help you off of that rock?”

“Oh yes, thank you.”

Once she was safely on the ground (she had leapt quite a distance in her fright) introductions were made.

“I’m Delia” she said, holding out her hand.

“I’m Herman” he said, shaking her hand. And continuing to shake her hand.

“Ahem” I suggested. She laughed.

“Oh yes” said Herman, “this is Miss Lima Bean” (he indicated without so much as turning around) “this is Eleanor, Pooka, and you’ve met Augie, of course.

She nodded hello to us.

“Would you care to come in? We were just about to have some tea.”

“Thank you, very much”

She came in a we had some tea, and then someone (I think it may have been Eleanor) suggested that we play Poker, so we did. Poker went on for hours and hours. Augie kept winning, and Pooka said it was because he cheated. Augie just chuckled and laid his cards out.

Over cards, we found out about Delia that she is one of the mermaids that inhabits the lake, who had asked the resident witches, Claudia, Shirelle and Vance, to work out a spell so that she might go on land for a day. The only glitch was that every hour and a half, Delia would fall asleep for five solid minutes, regardless of what she was doing, and then wake up completely disoriented--which happened twice during our game of cards alone.

Another thing that became increasingly evident over cards, was that Herman and Delia liked each other a lot. Herman was almost a completely different person--he was almost likeable, even--as he made sustained efforts to keep the conversation going. He asked about her life, her interests, her friends. They stared at each other a lot, but there were times when he would look at her pensively, even sadly--a hermit and a mermaid can fall in love, but where will they make a home?

Turns out there is quite an easy answer for that, which I’ll get to eventually.

Delia reluctantly took leave of Herman and decided to walk home with me around sunset, since we were going the same direction. We had a nice chat on the way home--mostly about the amazing nutrional value of sea vegetables--and I concluded that she’s certainly much more level-headed than most of the mer-folk.

After I saw her safely sucked back into the lake, I decided to go to Peter’s house, where I took the liberty of springing upon him as he was sleeping in bed, and inviting myself to stay the night (as admittedly, I had been doing more often than not, lately).

next chapter

Seven: Herman & Delia.

2006-07-13T15:01:00.000-07:00

At this point in my record of the Hermits’ Convention, it is necessary to re-orientate you--the reader--about its progress. Of course, being completely out of touch with the rest of the world, I have no idea what day of the week it is but I could guess based on the changing length of the days, the increasingly delicious feeling of surrender to North Carolinian summer laziness, and the steady progress of my writing, that about two weeks had passed since I had first arrived at the Convention--which meant that there were only about two more weeks left before we would all go our separate ways.

In addition to the hermits that I have already mentioned, Pipton and I spent an afternoon with Jack, Pipton’s good friend and the Convention’s founder, ‘fishing’. (Of course there was never any intention of catching anything, but there was one severely distraught fish who tried to convince us that he wanted to be caught. We immediately referred him to the resident psychologist); I spent an afternoon with the contingent of Martial Arts-doing Hermits, of whom there are quite a few and all very fit; and I spent an afternoon with the division of Hermits often referred to as Monks, who painstakingly decipher, analyze, and translate ancient texts all day, and who freely converse in ‘dead’ languages, but who love to cut loose in their freetime with some red wine and disco music.

On this particular day, Pipton thought it was about time that I made the acquaintance of Herman--the quintessential hermit of hermits.

Herman was by far the oldest of all of the hermits at the Convention, not so much in actual age, but in action. He despised conversation, so only came to a meeting or gathering if Jack or Camellia wrote to him specifically requesting his presence. I had met--or seen, rather--him on several such occasions, but he never allowed an opportunity to be spoken to; he would arrive, listen to the presentation, give his opinion to the necessary person and retire immediately back to his cave.

He had three pets: a rabbit named Pooka, a mouse named Augie, and a Great Dane named
Eleanor, after his ex-wife (she had named the dog, not him). Herman was peculiar man with a peculiar past. His life had been perfectly average--he had been a sucessful businessman with a narcissistic wife, a nice house in the suburbs, two nice cars, a white picket fence--the whole deal--until one day while in the midst of a conversation with Eleanor (his wife) he decided to go on a long walk with Eleanor (the dog) and never came home.

(It is rumored that this all took place one Summertime in the Sierra Nevadas, somewhere just off of Secret Town Road.)

He had walked and walked and walked and walked, further and further away from the suburbs, into the mountains, and had come across an abandoned house in very poor repair, far, far from anything but a small town where he withdrew the money from his bank account, mailed a letter to his wife, informing her that he would not be back (it is said she was shocked for a minute, cast into despair for three minutes, and then ran out of the house so as not to miss a pedicure appointment) and began careful renovations on the little house he had found, without any practical regard to whose land or house it was.

Being a practical person yourself, I am sure you are wondering whose land and house it was, and why they didn’t come to kick him out. In fact, this is one of the many ways that hermits act under the radar to find and keep each other: the land and house was owned by the Hermits’ Co-operative and was left abondoned with the express intent that a hermit in need of it would eventually find it and put it to use. This is also how Herman was eventually brought into the Co-op months later, via a pigeon delivered letter.

Most hermits have a similar story as to how they ‘became’ hermits, since the Hermits Co-op can not actually be found. It must be stumbled-upon.

(I’ll be sure to tell you my own story soon enough. Don’t let me forget)

But back to Herman. Once he and Eleanor (the dog) were established in their new residence and plugged into the World-wide Hermits’ Network, via a hermit provided computer and hermit provided wireless internet, he set about doing the things that he had for forty years dreampt of doing: growing a garden, writing poetry, and observing nature as a participant in its seasons--being battered by Springtime rain, escaping the heat of Summer with a icy-cold river swim, buried by piles of multi-colored leaves in Fall, and warmed by a glowing hearth in Winter--in the upper elevations of the mountain range.

But Herman is one of those hermits who was so zealous in his new-found solitude, that any impingement upon it spurns almost immediate resentment--or at least very unencouraging behavior on his part.

Now, in his sixties (well, approximately) he acted like more of a hermit than certain hermits thirty years his senior. It is for these reasons that I was slightly nervous about going to pay him a visit.

And to make matters worse, nobody could come with me! Peter had agreed to teach Calvin how to play a little guitar, Pipton had forgotten that he had agreed to have lunch with Isabelle du Bontemps (a very talented French artist), and Willoughby was off playing with Liam Darby’s Koala Bear, and Myrtle (Calvin’s squirrel).

And so I set out for Herman’s--nervous and all by myself.

When I finally found his cave, located near the top of one of the hills over-looking the lake, I had to knock four times before I could hear a stir within. At last the door swung open and Herman glared out at me. I jumped back.

“WHAT is it!?!” he demanded impatiently.

He was not bad looking, if exceedingly unfriendly. His brown hair sprung out in tufts all over his head and his grey eyes were opened wide and leering.

“I..umm...my...uh...name”

“SPEAK UP I say!”

I stopped my stuttering and dropped my eyebrows in vexation.

“Hey listen!” I bucked up, “There’s no need to shout. I’ve been sent here to meet you and it really doesn’t do that you’re being so rude before I’ve even had a chance to stutter out my name!”

He stared at me for a moment more then laughed heartily. “Now THAT’S better” he rather roared at me, “You’re Lima Bean. I know.” he laughed again, “I’m surprised they sent you up here by yourself.”

Although he was being more pleasant, his chuckles still struck me as being somewhat malevolant.

“Well COME IN!” he demanded, regaining his gruff tone, but smiling.

I glared at him, but nodded. I felt as though we had found our means of communication, and that was at least something.

Once inside, I saw that his yearly residence was comfortable, if little better furnished than my own. Books lined a wall--I gathered that the collection grew each year, since the shelves were becoming quite full--and a writing desk near the door was cluttered with papers.

Eleanor was an absolute love she walked elegantly over to where I sat cross-legged on the floor, and sat down on top of me.

“SO!” Herman began “What exactly have you come to find out, Bean? Hmm?”

“Mumble, mumble...haha..mumble” With Eleanor where she was, and the fervancy with which she was licking my face made conversation a bit complicated.

“Eleanor” his voice was shockingly gentle as he addressed her, and she looked up innocently, “Would you mind moving off of Ms. Bean a bit? Thank you. Miss Bean?”

“Well, sir, I suppose I am here to hear about your personal experience as a hermit and about the projects you are currently working on.”

“Bah!” he said, “When was the last time you ate cotton candy?”

It was then that we heard a little scream of fright, just outside of Herman's front door.

next chapter

Six: Continued.

2006-07-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

As we reached the stage, somebody announced lunch-break, so the actors scattered in various directions, gathered various articles from various corners, and filed backstage where sandwiches were laid out upon a long wooden table.

We were spread out and sat in between various persons: Peter next to ‘James Dean’, Pipton next to ‘John Wayne’, I next to ‘Marilyn Monroe’ and Willoughby next to ‘Charlie Chaplin’ at which fact he was absolutely delighted (his favorite movie of all time is City Lights, with Lady and the Tramp being a close runner-up).

“So” I began to Marliyn, “How are rehearsals coming along?”

“Well” she laughed nervously, “when there is so much talent all together in the same place, there’s a lot of...umm...ego? You know. Actors...”

“I’ll say!” chimed in ‘Shirley Temple’ with an irksomely sweet smile.

It was just then that, from the other side of the table, the sound of a plate shattering caught my attention. ‘James Dean’ was standing up, looking angstily down at the table, holding out his arm as though he had just thrown something.

“Oh my! Why do you suppose he did that?” I asked, alarmed.

‘Marilyn’ and ‘Shirley’ looked uninterested.

“You know” Marilyn sighed, “he’s a rebel without a cause. Sometimes it does get a bit tiresome, I must admit.”

Shirley nodded, curls bobbing, still smiling.

From the opposite end of the table, I caught Peter’s big eyes looking in my direction in amazement, and then I understood: these people were never out of character. This was the resurrection of all the greats of Hollywood history. And our company was eccentric, even by Hermit standards.

Within the context of a theatre, perhaps not as obviously. But several days later Calvin, Peter, Willoughby and I ran into ‘Catherine Hepburn’ and ‘John Wayne’ on our way to go swimming. That was quite a different matter.

“How do you do”, ‘Catherine’ asked.

“We’re fine thank you” I said, speaking for myself and my shy friends.

“It’s fine weather we’re having today,” ‘John’ began, “But watch out for those injuns. I’ve been told there’re injuns in these parts.” He looked around, leering into the forest with one hand on his holster, craning his best features towards a non-existent camera.

“The little lady felt like coming out for a walk, so I was obliged to escort her. Don’t get me wrong” he corrected, “it’s a pleasure, ma’am! A real pleasure.”

“Oh John, don’t be ridiculous. I’m a capable woman, and there are no indians in this forest,” she rolled her eyes, laying a hand on her hip and looking self-sufficient. She stormed off into the forest, he tipped his hat to us and ran off after her.

I remarked to the boys that the Dramatists were certainly an interesting bunch. Peter agreed, Calvin bashfully nodded, and Willoughby smiled a toothy grin.

We bumped into many more of them in the following week, as more H.H. organized events got underway. There was the ice-cream social at which ‘Sir Laurence Olivier’ would only condescend to speak Elizabethan English; the Summit For Oceanic Conservation at which ‘Charlie Chaplin’ snuck silly drawings onto some of the presentation boards--like top-hats and moustaches onto a chart of deep dwelling sea-creatures--and he at one point he got the whole room laughing by sneaking behind the presentator, who was Jack, actually, and dancing a most ridiculous jig.

Dr. Buttersfirth, who took the topic very seriously, tranquilized him after that and, at least our contingent, thought that was even funnier.

But the most important incident that happened concerning the Dramatists, was when ‘Clark Gable’ snuck me off for a twilight walk through the forest and tried to seduce me, insisting that gardeners and guitarists were not fit company for a lady. I laughed him right back to his theatre.

The dramatists were certainly an odd bunch, but they certainly did add a charming element of absurdity to an already very peculiar Convention.

But one thing I will add, is that on more than one occasion while walking through the forest, my direction would abrubtly change if ‘huminahuminahumina’ was heard from behind any approaching tufts of trees.

next chapter

Six: Barrymore, Bogart, Monroe & the Stooges

2006-07-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

In short, this next bit is about the Hermits’ Dramatic Contigent. And, oh, what a contigent it is.

The D.C. is comprised of about twenty hermits from all over the world who are simply too eccentric to exist in the normal world. While hermits like Camellia Buttersfirth are working on global preservation, these hermits are working on stage preparation and oral recitation so that once a year they can put on a theatrical extravaganza at the Convention.

Pipton had gained admission to one of their rehearsals, so, with my ever-increasing entourage (we had Willoughby and Peter in tow) we strolled over to their cave. As was to be expected, the entrance was well obscured and passage precarious, but once we gained the main vestibule, all quartzitic qualities had been obscured by the lavish fittings of a very formal theatre. And the room that held the main stage was really stunning.

With enough seats for probably a hundred or so people, a huge stage smiled towards tiered stadium seats and red-carpeted aisles, and the high ceiling domed into skylights.

On stage, a gaggle of actors were going over their lines--but it didn’t seem as if they were doing so together. A gangly man with a cowboy hat drawled to no one in particular “Well, you see ma’am, these men are bad news, bad news. It seems to me this town could use a cleaning out.”

While a buxom woman in a Marilyn Monroe dress purred “Oh, for me! You shouldn’t have. Johnny, baby, mix me a martini? Make it dirty.” She winked, but also to nobody in particular.

There was a Humphrey Bogart type who sat in the corner pouring himself glasses of whiskey, and smoking a cigar, and a James Dean type who just lent against a wall, looking cool and saying nothing at all. There were scads more: a Sarah Bernhardt whose eyes kept going wide, a Charlie Chaplin who kept tripping over chairs and breaking his fall with a hat, an Audrey Hepburn, looking fragile and petite, in a chair, and John Barrymore being very dramatic with a Sir Laurence Olivier.

Watching them was like watching the all of the greatest films ever made, unravelled, and set to play simultaneously on the stage. Which, at least to some extent, is what I have since understood that they are trying to accomplish.

Peter looked on, amazed, with his two huge, blue eyes, as he does; Willoughby grinned widely, as he does; Pipton grinned demurely, as he does, and I surveyed each of them happily in turn, as I do. And then a sudden noise from behind us made us all jump.

“Oh! Sorry to have surprised you!” a short man said. He was wearing pants that were three sizes too big for him, suspenders, and a hat from beneath which tufts of messy hair protruded, “Geez...err...huminahuminahumina...”

“I’m the three stooges,” he finally managed, “you can call me Bill”

“All three?” I ventured, smiling.

He wheezed and pumped his mouth open and closed a few times. It seemed as though conversation was no simple endeavor for him, “Yes, yes, yes. And, huminahum...wheeew. It’s no easy task!” This last phrase was said on an exhale and seemed to exhaust his energy to the last degree.

“You had better not ask him any more questions, Lima, or he’s going to pass out.” Peter whispered.

I nodded.

“Here” he expostulated, tripping (rather intentionally, I thought) over one of the seats and tumbling clumsily a few rows, “follow me and I’ll hum...humm...I’ll introduce you hh-around”
I’m on the Welcoming Commitee, you know!” (he slipped on a banana peel, slid a bit, wheezed, righted himself, but didn’t look back at us)

We looked at each other, giggling, and followed him towards the stage, first Pipton, then Willoughby, then Peter, then me.

next chapter

Five: Continued Some More.

2006-07-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

Willoughby and I were left on a different bank of the lake from the one on which we had began, so had good thirty minutes worth of walking to get back to where we started. And neither of us were complaining about it: it was early evening and the air was just beginning to cool off a bit. To our right, the lake cooed and murmured, reflecting the blushing sky; to our left, the forest’s friendly tree-fringe provided a bit of shade and a choir of gleeful twilight chirping.

Coming to a particularly nice cluster of trees, Willoughby and I paused upon hearing an unexpected addition to this melody: someone was playing guitar. I looked up and directly found the origin of this music. There, on his tree-top balcony a boyish-looking hermit sat on a stool, effortlessly playing the most amazing song either of us had ever heard.

We watched, enthralled, for a moment or two, until, looking down, he saw us watching him and abruptly stopped playing, nearly dropping his guitar all together in quite a fright. To our amazement, when he stopped playing all of the birds that had been singing also stopped (it turned out that they are, in fact, a choir).

None of us knew quite what to do, so Willoughby and I just stood still, there beneath the wondering stare of his two huge blue eyes. Then, perhaps recalled to himself by the silence, he looked to either side of him (as if for an escape route) and began playing again.

As he did this, the whole (bird) choir struck back up with him. He played beautifully, and every so often looked bashfully back up to see whether or not I was still there. I was mesmerized; Willoughby just rolled his eyes.

I slumped down against a tree to listen for some time and then, realizing it was getting late, and that I was getting tired, I waved goodbye and turned to go. But there was another abrubt end to the music. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw that he had stood up and was looking after us.

I laughed. Willoughby rolled his eyes.

“Hi” I called up.

He looked hard at the ground, and stammered back a hello. It was only twilight, but had it been midnight I think I still would have been able to see the beet color that flushed his face.

“I’m Lima Bean” I said.

“Lima...er...do you want to come up for a coffee?” he managed. Willoughby nudged me.

“Have you finished...um..playing?”

He nodded.

“O-okay” I shrugged. I am not typically a very shy person, but his shyness was making me a little bashful. He was very cute, and, you know, with my focus on moving into hermithood, it had been a long time since I had met a cute boy.

His place was neat--except for the vast amounts of instruments and music books that occupied every available table-top, counter, desk and chair. And that was just the stuff he was able to transport, he said.

Once he had been a successful musician in the, so to speak, real world, but had retired at an early age to the solitude of a self-sufficient ranch that had a large garden and a gigantic swimming pool, where he was working on his musical masterpiece.

I asked if it would change the future of music. He said no, but that it might produce some nice nursery school sing-a-longs. That’s musical immortality, he said.

I had gone up for coffee, but I ended up staying for dinner. And by the time dinner was over, we were conversing like old friends. In fact, there was so much to talk about, that we talked ourselves right to sleep.

So, here you have it first: I did spend the night with the cutest hermit at the Convention. But there was no funny business, save the gentle snoring of two soundly sleeping almost-hermits.

And his name? you ask. Peter Pan.

Of course.

next chapter

Five: Continued.

2006-06-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

The passage was be-decked with shells, stones and glass mosaics, and we spent a solid two minutes walking before we finally came to a brocaded door and knocked. A French-accented voice said to come in, so we opened it and peeked around into the room beyond.

The room was a huge laboratory. In shocking contrast to the grotto without, everything was undecorated stainless steel. Gauges wagged, beakers bubbled, monitors beeped, and panels’ knobs blandly reflected the plain, practical lights. A huge chair on the opposite side of the room swivelled from a computer screen to face us, revealing a very small woman, wearing very large glasses and a white lab jacket.

“Hmm. You must be Lima Bean and Willoughby” she said, “I wasn’t expecting you unteel tomorrow.”

“Yes. You must be Dr. Buttersfirth?” I ventured.

“Camellia, cherie, Camellia. Well, have a seat! And let me just see eef I can find you sometheeng to put on--you’re dreeping wet!”

It was true. I had turned up to meet one of the greatest scientists EVER with a wet navy blue bikini, and a very wet Willougby!

She handed me one of her own spare lab-coats to wear as a cover-up, but because she is such a small woman, and I am a rather tall one, it looked more like a very mod mini-dress than any attempt at modesty. I blushed (Willoughby laughed) but she was so kind that I was set at relative ease.

She gave us a tour of her lab, which was incredible: “Zis ees where I can track global weather trends” she said, pointing to a large monitor (attached to a panel with many knobs), “Zis ees where I am working on an compound zat weell destroy atmosphereec green-house gases” she said pointing to a counter with many elaborately labeled vials, “Zis ees how I prevented a life-eradicating meteor from smashing eento ze Earth two years ago” she said pointing to a chalk-boardful of calculations, “just a seemple trick of inter-planetary refraction” she said with a wink, “Zis ees the Convention’s teletransporter” she said, pointing to what looked like a beauty-shop hairdryer (it turns out that it had, in fact, been a beauty-shop hairdryer; apparently they are not far from teletransporters in their natural state) “and zis” she said, pointing to a bubbling vial, “ees where I am formulating a new soda pop.”

Willoughby and I looked on with awe. She was 5’1’’ of pure brain.

“I have many more projects underway, but zey are all in my real lab in France,” she added.

Next, we followed her to the opposite side of the lab from where we had come in to an elevator which linked her lab to the H.H. island.

“Thees is the front door, by the way” she laughed.

Arriving in the Headquarter’s Glen, we sipped cold lemonade and discussed many of life’s greatest mysteries. Like whether or not time-travel is possible, what happens to people when they die and how death can be almost entirely prevented; whether or not humans will ever be able to live peacfully as a species and whether monogamy is or isn’t a biological impossibility; how the pyramids were built, whether or not life like ours exists on other planets, why you didn’t have to breathe while swimming in the hermit’s lake (it’s infused with a skin-absorbable oxygen, she said!) and why vegetables like brocolli and cauliflower cause gas.

Then, as the afternoon waned, she abrubtly stood up, said that she must get back to work, but said she was happy to meet us, that she looked forward to seeing us again soon, and that I ought to keep the lab jacket that she had lent me since it was so becoming.

She must have been telling the truth, because it was on the way home that I caught the eye of the sexiest (and shyest) hermit that I had never met.

next chapter

Five: Singing Trees and a Lakeful of Surprises.

2006-06-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown...”
--T.S. Eliot

The invitation, it happened, was from Camellia Buttersfirth (scientist extraordinaire) and, needless to say, I was very excited to meet her. But the appointment was not until the following day, so I consulted Willoughby as to how we should spend the one at hand.

He reminded me that I ought to spend a good deal of time working--I had yet to produce any kind of written masterpiece--and then suggested we go swimming. This last suggestion was clearly his preference, and I knew it because, as excited as he tried to be about my writing, the thought of swimming not only got him wagging his tail with zeal, but indeed, wagging his whole body.

So I easily convinced him that we should go swimming first.

The morning was warm as we emerged from our tree, the air sweet, the sky clear, and the lake was glistening friendly. We laid down our towels on the rocky beach and waded in. At first quite cold, the water seemed to warm the further from the banks we got. So we went further out, and further out. And further out.

Soon, we were hundreds of feet from the bank, but the water was still only waist-deep.

“Look Willoughby!” I said “The water is STILL only up to my wai....” and that is where my sentence was cut off because, as I had turned back to look at him, the shallow lake-bottom had come to an abrupt end and, to my alarm, I found that I was being sucked at a swift rate deep into the lake.

Now: this is not a horror story, so I will tell you in advance that there are no lake monsters (at least no un-friendly lake monsters) and I am not about to be eaten, drowned or kidnapped. Having set your mind at ease, I must admit that I was quite perturbed in the heat of the moment, since no narrator was there to reassure me of these facts.

Mild panic aside, there are a few things that I noticed: firstly, that the water, however deep I fell, remained perfectly clear. Secondly, that I didn’t seem to need to breathe. And thirdly, that Willoughby was being sucked down also, and seemed perfectly enthralled with the situation.

Soon, we had reached the bottom of the lake, which seemed to have its own gravity, since both of us were able to walk upon its sandy surface. It was not nearly as dark as I would’ve imagined a lake bottom to be, and in the near distance I could discern what looked like a huge sand-castle. Of course, Willoughby and I immediately set out towards it; the walk was slow going, but the scenery fantastic.

It looked as though we were standing on an actual road. To either side of it were far-reaching sea-weed forests that waved in aquatic hues of brown, yellow, blue, purple, red and green. As we approached the castle, the forests receded into what I can only describe as intricate sea-weed gardens, of the Versailles variety, that stretched out around the castle in labyrinths of symmetrical designs.

Awed as we were by these sights, there were also the myriads of mer-people and sea-horses frolicking inside of, outside of and straight through the castle, audibly singing, laughing and talking. Yes, yes, I know: you thought they didn’t exist. But they do. People just never look for them in the right places. Mer-people, first of all, much prefer fresh water and second of all (obviously) prefer to go undiscovered more often than not.

In addition to fish and sea-horses were also the lake monsters that I (sort of) mentioned. They were swimming about with the rest, playing and laughing as heartily as anybody.

It was when we reached the edge of the gardens that we were spotted: a shapely, red-haired mermaid called loudly “Look, everyone! Visitors!!” As if the party had come to an abrupt halt, everyone turned on their heel...fin, rather...and swam in our direction.

Willoughby and I, eyes wide, smiled sheepishly as a they raced towards us in a herd and, having nowhere to go once they got there, swam around us in a tornado of fins, scales and toothy smiles.

The red-haired one, along with a mer-man friend of hers got within earshot and exuberantly fired off questions at us at such a rate that we could only look at each other and stammer “well...yes...you see...yes...in fact...” in between.

We ascertained that, although all of the hermits were invited to visit the castle as much as they pleased, few ever did. We ventured a guess that perhaps it was because mer-people are a bit too...um...chatty to most hermits’ tastes (imagine poor Calvin bombarded with so many questions; He would implode!)

She finally got around to introducing herself--Veronica--and introduced everyone in the mer-tornado that continued to swirl and laugh around us.

“This is Harold. That’s Sherry. That’s Emily, and Roger, and Carolyn, and Charlotte, and, and, and...” Willoughby and I felt on the point of implosion ourselves.

Be forewarned: Mer-people are very, very friendly!

Anyway. We finally arrived at the castle itself and were shown around it’s many chambers--it was just like a castle one might find inside a fish-tank, but much bigger (obviously). The rooms were decorated with various themes: one a music room, one a kitchen, many bedrooms. The lounge looked relatively unused.

Finally, Veronica showed us to a chamber at the very bottom of the castle where, swimming through an underground passage, we re-emerged (sopping wet) into the lobby of an underground, air-filled grotto. Being a mermaid, when we climbed out of the pool that had brought us there, she bade us farewell and told us that if we continued down that passage, there would be somebody who would be happy to see us.

Now, I’m sure this whole time, one question has really been bothering you: HOW could Willoughby and I have been not breathing this whole time? Well, I was wondering myself, and the person we met at the end of the passage was just the person to explain it...

next chapter

Four: Continued.

2006-06-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

After I recovered from my Pipton-induced shock, the rest of the afternoon was lovely. Calvin, as Pipton was (had been?), was one of the hermits who resided at the Headquarters year-round, so his residence was especially well-habitated. And large.

As the gardens and vegetable patches that Calvin oversaw were sprawled and tangled in the forest, so was Calvin’s tree-house sprawled throughout the tree-tops. There were no less than fifteen rooms and all of them were connected by an impressive network of rope-bridges and ladders. And Calvin had many, many animal friends, including a small, gray monkey, a pair of Colugos, and a very friendly squirrel named Myrtle.

Myrtle was my favorite of his ‘pets’ (which is not to be repeated, especially to the Colugos who would surely take offence) because in addition to having an excellent disposition, she also had a fantastic sense of humor. She followed us all the day long as Calvin gave us the tour of the gardens, the dairy farm and his tree-house, and since she was so agile in the trees and quick on her feet, she could easily disappear as she pleased, only to pop up in the least expected places, often hanging upside-down, or sneaking down upon Calvin’s head while he was talking, without his having any idea about it, and lip-synching along to whatever he was saying. And in case you’ve never seen a squirrel lip-synch, let me just tell you that it’s funny.

Not to mention the fact that Calvin, even amongst friends, is a very shy person. Speaking on subjects with which he was familiar was trying enough for him, but any unrelated conversation would leave him stammering, with down-turned eyes and adorably flushed cheeks, like an embarrassed child giving a grade-school presentation.

And with a lip-synching squirrel on his head! It was all we could do to maintain straight faces, lest we cast him into a state of irreversible mortification.

The tour itself was magnificent! You’ve never seen such well-kept gardens or such a dedicated gardener. Clever Calvin! He made helpers of the local rabbits: and rabbits--believe it or not--are the best gardeners you could ever enlist. He explained how initially they had pillaged the gardens until he coaxed them into working for him and, in return for minimal work, they were rewarded with more fresh produce than any rabbit, or army of rabbits, could ever hope to steal--not to mention the daily gratification of a job well done.

The dairy farm was little more than a community of goats, cows, and sheep who stayed about because they were happy: they were free to wander about the forest at leisure, bathe in any of several forest pools, graze upon and roll around in, lush, green meadows, but still enjoy the protection and gratitude of the hermits. For the organization and maintenance of the ‘dairy farm’, Calvin had two apprentices of sorts: a pair of autistic twin brothers who had been abandoned at the edge of the forest as babies, recovered by the hermits, and who were ‘savants’ when it came to animal communication. Approximately twenty or so years of age, they tended to the animals with more care then most people give their children. In terms of themselves, they were the happiest two boys you’ve never seen. Acting as more of one mind than two, they went about in the relative solitude of a world that included but the animals, Calvin, and themselves (natural hermits, you see).

As the sun set, we helped Calvin prepare a delicious dinner: layered vegetable napoleon with spinach, tomato, and carrot salad, red wine and oven-fresh bread. We ate it on Calvin’s dinner deck (except for Pipton who had apparently lost his appetite along with his, umm, real body) and discussed the intricacies of raising healthy aubergines, the many varieties of tomatoes (of which Calvin knew every one!), the unbelievable prolificacy of zucchini patches, and the easy solution to ending world hunger.

After dinner, we said our thank-yous and good-byes and made plans for a morning lake-swim later in the week. Then, with Pipton by my side, I weaved my way home through the dark, friendly trees and arrived to find Willoughby curled at the end of my bed, and another invitation, sat on my desk.

next chapter

Four: Making the Rounds.

2006-06-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

In fact, it wasn’t long at all until Pipton and I met again.

A few days after the fateful Welcoming Dinner at the H.H., I received a letter from Jack informing me that the next thing I ought to do was to make my rounds of the Convention, meeting and spending a day with each hermit, one by one, and that I should be expecting invitations for visits to start arriving (with the exception of one crochety old hermit, named Herman, who would surely not send me an invitation, but who I would have to see sooner or later, nonetheless). The first arrived from Calvin Clennam, the gardening hermit.
Calvin I already knew by reputation, and I suspected the reason that he had been eager to see me was because I had been so impressed by the provisions he had almost single-handedly prepared for the Welcome Dinner. Calvin was a gardener and cook extraordinaire.

It had been explained to me how Calvin grew enough food for thousands of hermits, let alone the hundreds at the convention. And not only that, but he also cared for the animals at the Convention’s small dairy farm, which produced the finest quality goat, cow, and sheep’s milk cheeses. The truth of the matter is that Calvin has figured out how the world’s resources could be optimized in order to nourish every single one of its inhabitants--indefinitely. Unfortunately, the world at large isn’t ready for his plan. As of yet.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I had been out swimming in the lake one morning when one of the Convention’s Messenger Pigeons dropped by a message from Calvin Clennam. (That’s right: Carrier Pigeons are not, in fact, extinct. A pacifistic race exposed to too many wars, they’re just hermits, too.) It contained detailed information as to how to reach his hidden farm on the outskirts of the Convention and asked if I could stop by that very afternoon.

As it happened, I hadn’t planned anything for that afternoon and, since Willoughby was off on a playdate with a Meerkat friend he had made, I had a little lunch and set off for Calvin’s on my own.

As usual, the directions were confusing and impossibly specific so--not as lucky as I had been upon my arrival--I soon flubbed them. And it wasn’t long before neither trail, nor lake was anywhere in sight and I was becoming increasingly frustrated.

I found myself, then, at the edge of a ravine. To my right was a steep wooded incline, to my left a steep and somewhat creepy descent into a darker part of the forest. It was then that I noticed that clever Calvin had drawn a rough map on the back-side of his instructions. (Remark: Calvin is clearly clever, I am clearly not--having been lost for two hours at least before noticing it). Based on his drawing, I deciphered that his farm was most likely a mile or so on the other side of the hill I was facing. And then it happened: I heard voices.

These were no hermit voices I was hearing: these were people. People who had somehow found their way to the end of the over-grown trail at the end of a dirt road at the end of a gravelled lane, through the gate at the end of a pot-holed country road at the end of a rural highway at the end of a forlorn interstate! And what’s worse: they were hunters! And had a mangy growling dog!

I was struck with terror. The kind of terror you experience if you have taken psychedelic drugs and are forced to interact with anyone who has not. Oops, did I really just use that metaphor?

Well, nevermind. The point is I was terrified! I was terrified and using swear words and ducking futilely behind a clump of bushes without ANY idea WHATSOEVER of what to do. And what was worse was that, not only were they blocking the only observable path in the direction that I needed to go, they had decided to take a lunch break. Sitting right down upon it.

Sweat was beading on my forehead as I ran over my options: the way back was completely lost to me. The way down the hill into the dark, unfriendly forest was no option whatever. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and would have screamed, except, spinning around in alarm and, seeing Pipton as I did so, I fainted instead.

When I woke up, he was carrying me. I was not alarmed, as the whole scenario was simply too surreal to react at all. We were in a different part of the forest all together, and as my bleary eyes came into focus on his kind, smiling face and twinkling blue eyes, I could hear his voice speaking in low melodic tones.

“You were in a bit of a bind over there, I see. Don’t worry, we’re back on the right trail now. Would you like to sit down for a bit? Here we are.”

He sat me down upon a rock and I just stared at him (rather rudely, in fact) as my thoughts slowed their scrambling around my head and began to fall into some sort of order.

“Pipton, you are dead, are you not?”

“That’s right. I’m dead.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think you can walk?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Follow me, then. We’re nearly there.”

I followed him, still just every so slightly confused. Still waiting, in fact, to wake up.
Or something.

Soon--and I wasn’t paying enough attention to tell you how this time--we were there, on the edge of a vegetable patch. Calvin was on the opposite side of the zucchini patch from where we were when, spotting us, he straightened up, waved, and started over.

He looked little above 25 years of age, was slight of frame with a fuzzy blonde-beard and long blonde hair tied back into a pony-tail. In the outside world, he might have been best described as “a hippy”.

“You must be Lima Bean! How do you do?” he said, shaking my hand, then, turning to Pipton, “Ah, hello there, Pipton. Didn’t you die the other day?”

“Indeed I did.” Pipton returned.

“Hmm. I thought so. How’s that going for you, then?”

“Well, you know, I’ve been meaning to lose some weight for a while," he laughed "and so now ...well, watch this” and he walked right through a tree.

My mouth fell open again, but both just looked at me as though I was the odd one out.

(to be continued)

next chapter

Three: Off To a Bumpy Start

2006-06-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

Pipton steered our dingy to a corner of the island where the banks receded into a narrow inlet beneath its tree-fringe. The narrow inlet became a small river that wound its lithe serpantine self towards the center of the small island, the banks becoming nearer and nearer on either side until it seemed we would be able to go no further. But before my squinting eyes had any more time to wonder at the increasing impossibility of our passage, the river opened into a small bay, with thirty or so dinghies tied to several docks.

Bringing our own dinghy around to the last available spot, Pipton helped Willoughby and I out onto the landing platform before tying up the boat and ascending himself. By lantern-light, Pipton lead us down a small trail, at the end of which a faint glow could be detected, as though a congregation of fireflies had settled amognst the islands’ many interior trees.

As the light grew closer, so did the din of the cheeriest party you have never heard: even I did not know that hermits could be so very chatty! Finally arriving at the clearing, the scene was nothing if not jovial: Five long banquet tables, heaped with the most appetizing array of fruits, vegetables, nuts, loafs of bread, cakes, cheeses and pitchers of wine, encompassed a grassy dance-floor of sorts, where hermits danced, laughed, joked, frolicked and cart-wheeled.

Animals ran in circles, animals of all kinds: cats, dogs, rabbits, deer...a monkey or two. At the head of one of the tables, a koala bear looked on, amusedly chewing at a bit of Eucalyptus, and several different kinds of birds looked demurely on from nearby tree-branches, in mid-air conversation with each other.

I looked down at Willoughby and then at Pipton: we were all smiling as broadly as our faces would allow. Willoughby’s face allowed for the broadest grin of us three, and he set off without further ado to join in the romp himself.

Pipton and I began to make our way towards the tables. A large-eyed lady with ankle-length blonde braids and a beret conversed with a jolly-looking bearded man (I later found out that this man is, in fact, Santa Claus); three cloaked men (who otherwise might have been confused with Druids) were laughing so heartily over their wine and cheese that their faces were turned bright crimson; women in patch-work skirts gigged to flute music and men in top-hats disco-ed, children (or elfish, ageless-looking people) hoola-hooped, and from the trees on all sides, as I had naively observed, but hadn’t hoped to believe, millions and millions of fire-flies did, indeed, set the scene a-glow.

We were just coming to the second table when we heard someone call to Pipton. It was a short and gnarled man with twinkling eyes, who grinned a toothy grin and introduced himself as Jack.

“I am the host of this convention” he said “and just wanted to extend a hearty welcome to you. Pipton tells me that you are quite a brilliant writer, and, from the pieces of yours that I’ve had the luck to come across, I feel that there is a good chance that is true.”

I looked at Pipton in surprise, and then back at Jack to thank him....And then back to Pipton. How and when had he ever read my writing, I wondered. He just smiled his benevelont smile and twinkled his blue eyes at me.

Jack brought us over to his table and introduced us around. Afterwards, over wine and cheese, with sporadic intervals of dancing and frolicking, I was treated to the long story of their acquaintance, which had begun seventy-some years before in California, when California still had land to farm, small towns, and non-toxic beach sand with which it was still safe for little boys to build sand-castles.

The night was magical, that is until Pipton snuck off for something or other and, as the din of the party raged on unwitting, clutched his heart and fell silently to his death.

It didn’t take long for people to notice, and soon all the world’s hermits, and all of their animal friends were gathered in silent awe around his still body. I alone was weeping.

The reason for this is simple: hermits have long since done away with death as a natural part of their life progression (Camellia Buttersfirth, hermit and scientist extraordinaire, figured out how to get around THAT nasty human glich in the early 20th century) so, not as yet a hermit myself, I was the only one who felt the full impact of that antiquated equalizer.

When the ordeal was resolved and I was helped back to my hermitage, I reflected on the intensity of my feelings: it did seem strange that I was so affected, having only known Pipton for a single day. But I suspected there was more to the story. In a single day, I felt as though I had known him a lifetime, but perhaps I had known him an entire lifetime and it only felt like a single day.

By the time I fell asleep, traumatized though I was, I felt some kind of resolution. Afterall, Dante had had his Virgil and, I, Lima Bean (or whatever my name is), felt honored to have a Pipton Lear.

next chapter

Two: Pipton Lear.

2006-06-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

Willoughby and I took a quick nap. Exhausted by the extensive travel, our twin-size futon bed seemed the perfect retreat.

An hour or two had gone by when a queer rustling woke us from our revelries: at the base of our bungalow, a low voice bellowed “Hallo? Hallo? Miss Lima Bean?” Peeking my head over the parapet, I could see the up-turned face and balding head of a man holding a candle.

I shimmied down the stairs and opened the trunk-door to see whatever could be the matter.

“My name is Pipton Lear” said he, “I wish to have a word with you.”

I smiled, nodding my approval of his request. Closer to him, I could see that he was tall, rotund, and smiling benevolently. His voice was low and pleasant; he had Irish-blue eyes. In the light of his candle, I could discern that he was wearing a worn sailor suit.

“You see, dear” he began, “not only am I in charge of ferrying you to and from the H.H., but I have also been assigned to you as your counselor and guide for the entirety of your sojourn. Anything you wish to know, you can ask of me.”

“Thank you, Pipton” I assured.

“So” he continued “the first thing I need to know is: what are your favorite books?”

“My favorite books?” I reflected. Willougby helped me out with a friendly nudge. “Oh yes, of course! I do really enjoy Jane Austen...”

“THAT will not do” he said “What else”

“Well, I have been reading the Divine Comedy, Shakespeare, Milton, Hemingway, Nabokov...”

“No, no, no, no, NO! Come with me.”

He led me through the midnight forest to an abode, equally as obscure as my own. Upon entering his hermitage, what immediately struck me was the incalcuable quantity of books lining every wall. They also served as night-stands, bed-stands, and, ironically, book-stands.

“Here” he said, handing me a volume.

I turned it over in my hands, feeling its weight and smelling its age.

“The Witching Hour. By....Anne Rice?!”

“Yes. I think you will like it”

I was flabbergasted. Dante, Nabokov and Hemingway had been disregarded for ANNE RICE?

Who was this hermit?

The next two or three hours revealed that he was anything but a vapid fellow; it just happened that he had a penchant for pop. lit. He also enjoyed, I soon discovered, macrobiotic foods, oatmeal, sailing, the orient, detective stories, and the ancient art of Judo.

We spent hours watching John Wayne movies and discussing world politics. I liked him more by the hour. I felt as though we had been friends forever, and the twinkle in his Irish eyes only confirmed my suspicion.

I felt happy to have made a friend. All the more so as he was ferrying me, in a yellow rubber dinghy towards the intimidating island: Hermits’ Headquaters. I knew--I just knew--that Pipton and I would be fast and lasting hermit friends.

The lake was placid and water, dark. Small fish lept from it alongside our dinghy and were impercetible in the moonlight, but for the ripples with which they pocked the lake's surface. As we approached THE island, the faintest--but only the faintest--murmer could be discerned. And only the faintest clinking of plates, the faintest chatter, the very faintest sound of hermits’ laughter.

next chapter

One: North Carolina.

2006-06-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

At the end of a lushly over-grown trail through a heavily-treed forest at the end of a dirt road at the end of a gravelled lane, through a gate marked “NO TRESPASSING” with 20yr old rusted chains wound round and round, at the end of a pot-holed country road at the end of a rural highway at the end of a forlorn interstate, is a lake. This lake is somewhere in North Carolina, but most of the people who live in North Carolina would not be able to confirm its existence. If they were, by some magical stroke of luck, to find themselves at the end of the trail at the end of the gravelled lane at the end of the pot-holed country road at the end of the rural highway at the end of the forlorn interstate, facing the lake, they certainly would not be able to detect the hundreds of little hermitages, camofloged within the surrounding forest. What they would not know that they were looking at, is the site of the Annual Hermits’ Convention.

As I arrived, one dusky June...er...dusk, I also did not see anything of a Convention. What I saw, upon my arrival, was simply: a lake. A beautiful lake, of a somewhat Alpine aspect, with sloping, forrested banks and a tree-fringed island in the center. As the last of the light drained from the sky, the only noise that fell upon my ears was the sweet chirping of crickets, the occasional amphibious hiccup, the soft hum of the evening air, settling into the trees. Of course, I was not alone: aside from the Hermits, who I knew were near, I also enjoyed the company of Willoughby, my dog. (Please don’t stop to ask me what kind of dog Willoughby is; he takes offence. He is of diverse ethnic background and rightly claims that the canine heritage is shared by all dogs alike, as the human heritage is claimed by all humans alike, so his kind is of little or no importance, except that it has provided him with all four legs and an extremely pettable person.) We took our time, savoring the favorable cooling off of North Carolina, and referred back to our directions--a task that was becoming increasingly difficult in the dimming forest:

Eighteen paces forward. At the shrub with 12 orange blooms, turn 60*NE and go 32 more paces until you run into an oak tree.

One, two, three, four...Willoughby loafed along behind me, wiggling his nose at every new waft of forest air...seventeen, eighteen. Aha! Twelve orange blossoms!

Thirty-two paces later, and fifty-three paces after that, I crossed down over the last of flagging slopes that brought me nearly to the edge of the lake, where I could see upon its now-black surface a myriad of watery, white stars reflected. There was nothing but a few wiry trees now to my right, left, and behind me; I could see nothing else. I had but five paces to go.

I consulted my directions: Due South, they said.

My compass indicated that “Due South” was just behind my right shoulder, so I looked--somewhat confusedly--at the trees in the specified direction. Perhaps I had foibled the directions earlier on! Perhaps I had gone NE and a half, when I ought to have gone NE, or turned at the wrong mushroom patch!

Pace one (there’s nothing there! I’m sure of it).
Pace two: “Willoughby, we may be camping tonight”
Pace three, pace four...pace five.

I was standing two feet from a double-helix tree-trunk. Nothing more. Until--clever Hermits!--my eyes adjusted and I realized there is a door handle! Suddenly, everything was clear. Looking up into the underbelly of the tree’s branches, I realized that what looked like a labyrinth of healthy branches, was really a very clever camofloge on the bottom of my tree-top cottage.

The trunk-door opened without a squeak. Willoughby and I climbed up the narrow passage with little difficulty and arrived in our comfortable accomodation: the room was of a funny shape, conforming to the natural shape of the tree, but was of a comfortable size with half-walls encompasing it and a door opening onto a small veranda over-looking the lake. It was furnished with a small, but comfortable bed, a “kitchen,” consisting of a small wash basin, counter-top (atop which was thoughtfully laid a basket of fruit, crackers, and dog-treats), and a writing desk.

Setting down what few things I had brought with me, I noticed a small, white card with my name on it. It read:

Dear Ms. Lima Bean (obviously, not my “real” name, whatever that means)

The pleasure of your presence is requested, by the prestigious
Hermits’ Convention Welcoming Commitee, at the Annual Hermits’
Convention Reception Dinner, to be held this very evening, at
two loud owl hoots past Mid Night, at H.H.

(ie: Hermits’ Headquaters) (ie: the island in the center of the lake)

A dinghy will be put at your disposal; we do not recommend
that you swim.

Best Regards,
The HCWC,
huminahuminahuminah.

(Oh, I’ll get around to explaining THAT soon enough.)

next chapter

The Hermits' Convention

2006-06-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

Introduction.

It is a June twilight. The moon is orange and hanging lazily; the air is heavy and making halos around the small town street-lamps that are twinkle buzz pop and flickering, one by one, on. In the fields, plants are beginning to tuck their leaves and small animals are beginning their evening bustle. Meanwhile, from all corners of the continent, quiet pilgrims are starting their procession towards a common meeting place. Across prairies, over mountains, through forest and brush, there is the pitter-patter of light foot-fall. From dells, and farms, from the ends of country-lanes thought to be abandoned, is the shuffle and brush of steps. From remote ranches, from caves and bungalows:

hermits are setting off for their annual convention.

Hermits: the most misunderstood race. Let me tell you what I know you think you know about them. Firstly, most obviously, that they live by themselves and as far from civilization as possible. This is true. Except for those that choose to live in pairs--or threesomes(!)--but even those only speak for under an hour a day, and usually during an allotted hour at that. That they are eccentric could not be more true, by traditional standards. Most of them dress in strange ways, an haute-couture that is entirely their own. But consider! Where do you suppose a hermit can, or would ever choose, to go shopping? Exactly. This certainly does make clothes very hard to come by. And would you guess that hermits (generally speaking) love animals? My, do they! A hermit is never near without his/her dog, bird, cat, zebra, cow, chicken, or, as I have witnessed, panda bears. But then, a hermit is never near.

The preferred residence of a hermit varies greatly. Some hermits reside in marvels of environmentally friendly architecture; some prefer the simple and reliable comfort of a cave. Some have huge ranches; some inhabit deserted islands; some live in trees and only come out once a day, strictly to gather food and use the...er... facilities. Some enjoy yoga. Most of that you could have guessed, and most of it is correct. Most of it.

But that once a year they gather at an undisclosable location in North Carolina to brainstorm, and--gasp!--socialize, you may not have guessed. But they do, and it’s the highlight of any hermit’s year. For hermits are certainly not as solitary as I’m sure you suppose.

Now, of course the first logical question you may have, is “How do all of these hermits know when and where to meet?” and the answer to that is simple enough. If you were smart enough, you could hack into a vast network of hermits’ computers. But nobody is clever enough to do that, since hermits, few realize, are the smartest of all the creatures to inhabit the world. Contrary to popular belief, they are a tightly connected community who just choose to live separately, but who are, in fact, the only real-life super-heros in existence, working every-day, and more successfully than any other manmade organization, towards the successful preservation of planet Earth. They are just too evolved to desire acknowledgement for this feat, and too elitist. Their solitary lives amongst the exclusive ranks of their own society are what they most prefer.

Your second question might be: “Why hasn’t the CIA or FBI or the super-powers of the world intervened to glean information, steal their inventions, or to regulate their activities since, without regulation, they might well-be considered a terrorist organization? What if they are harboring weapons of mass destruction?” The answer to that question is that they are the super-powers, my dear. And it’s a good thing, too. For if the world were truly left at the hands of the powers that seem to be, we would all have good reason to be very, very, terribly, and truly terrified.

Your third question, naturally, should be “WHO exactly are YOU, Narrator?” The answer to that must remain a bit of a mystery. So, I will tell you first what I am not: I am not someone that you've ever met, most likely. I am not a person who reads People magazine, who watches reality TV, who drives an SUV, or who attends church on Sundays; I am not a person who condones video games or Twitter accounts. I am a person who reads a lot of books, has very little money, speaks to few people, and has nomadic habits; in short, I am a hermit in training. For this reason, I was allowed to infiltrate the very intimate goings-on of the best and most productive Hermits’ Convention to date. And I am writing this from the front line, reporting everything faithfully, with the security of a sound conviction that not a person will ever believe me.