Lives Well Lived

Before getting to this week’s story, I wanted to take a moment to address the recent events in the news. Police violence and systematic racism has resulted in the death and imprisonment of countless innocents, the destruction of properties and futures, and produced irrevocable damage. At the Undead Author Society, I try to mostly focus on folklore and horror stories, mentioning politics only when they intersect with the material. But it feels wrong not to say this clearly: Black Lives Matter. You can find links to donate at the end of the research, in place of our normal Patreon link.

This Week’s Prompt: 113. Biological-hereditary memories of other worlds and universes. Butler—God Known and Unk. p. 59.

The Resulting Story: The Lives of Sam Dedric

I do love when I get a precise page number from H.P. Lovecraft, it can narrow these quotations down immensely. The section in question by Butler posits that the memories of an entire species might be traced backwards from a single member—and that the memories may lead to apparently unrelated places. In the same way two leaves on a tree appear to have no relation, if we remove the branches and trunk, so too could worlds and creatures appear utterly distant without the fossils and time between them.

This notion ties into ideas that some in Lovecraft’s circle, and Lovecraft himself, professed interest in. In particular, the interest in past lives and memories of earlier forms of humanity owe a great deal to Theosophoy. The Lovecraft story this most reminded me of was one that was, in part, written by a Theosophist, Through the Gates of the Silver Key. In this story, Randolph Carter makes contact with a being outside of time and learns the entity and he are the same—the entity is the Supreme Archtype, of which Randolph is a mere facet. In recognition of Randolph’s accomplishments in earlier stories (I suspect particularly The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath). Randolph asks to visit another world that he has dreamed of recently, and the entity grants this wish, sending him into the body of an alien wizard. However, Randolph forgets his symbols and rituals that would allow him to return to normal. Instead,  he ends up trapped in the body of an alien wizard, detesting each other. Eventually, he does find a way to maintain power over the body and arrives back on earth to acquire the sigils and rituals, and disgusies himself as an Indian man to attend his own funeral. The results of the story I won’t spoil, but it is…interesting to say the least.

The idea here and in general lead me to a text I had in my collection for a long time but never actually sat down to read—a collection of stories about the past lives of the Buddha. I wasn’t able, of course, to read the book in it’s entirety in the week or so I had—I managed about a third of all the text. The concept of the text is that the Buddha is instructing others on life lessons, based on experiecenes he had in prior lives. These lives range from being born a merchant to a prince to an elephant and so forth. And some tell rather incredible stories.

A favorite of mine has a man who seems determined to not learn the value of money. He begins rich, and is on the verge of being rich enough to leave home when his mother sends him to a monastery. There, he spends a year listening to the master teach, but comes home none the wiser. His mother again tries to stop him from leaving—but the man strikes her dead and leaves on a trade vessel the next day. On his journeying, he comes across many wonders at sea. He comes across a series of fabulous palaces, inhabited with supernaturally beautiful maidens, and delights in their company until they fade away after a week or so. He arrives at last at the Ussada Hell, a place that to his deluded mine appears to be a great city. Walking through it’s streets, ignorant to the torment, he comes to a man city with a great wheel of blades cutting into his head. The man, the king of the city, also slew his mother and is relieved to see our merchant friend. The merchant mistakes the blades for a splendid crown—and demands an exchange. The king is happy to do so, even after warning the merchant. It is only when he dons the crown that the Merchant learns the truth and is struck with horror. He then meets the past life of the Buddha, who happened to be in town—and in a set of stanzas, the punishment is made clear to the man, who bemoans his folly.

Another story tells of a wise man who knew the seas well in his youth—yet the spray of salt made him blind. None the less, his hands remained perfect for knowing the nature of things—and so he could ascertain the history of a horse from a touch or an elephant from gracing his hand along it.  Eventually, he grew tired of his work for a king—which paid very little, and in fact was unfufilling. So a group of merchants hired him to guide them on their journey—for he alone was wise to all the seas. Over his protests, the blind man went with the merhcants. And a good thing too! For the merchants quickly found themselves ina  sea where the fish had the bodies of men and razor snouts, and lept out of the water to slay men who sailed near them.  The wise man knew that this ocean had diamonds on the floor—and if the told the merchants of this, they would sink the ship to get to the gems. So he advised they lighten their load, while tossing his own net behind and trawling up diamonds for himself. Soon they came to another ocean, one that blazed like the sun. The merchants were afraid, but the wise man gave them the correct advice and they again passed through—and the merchant grew richer, for this ocean had gold. Next was a sea of milk, full of silver, and a sea of grass full of emeralds. At last, however, they come to a sea they cannot cross—for here the sea churns into a whirlpool, the waves rising like walls around an endless abyss. The wise man steps forward then and, with an “Act of Truth”, transports them back home to where they began. Richer for the journey, it seems.

Leaving the oceans for a moment, we can find lives of the Buddha among the nobility in a few fantastic stories. In one, a man establishes a tradition of almsgiving , and for this his next life he becomes the king of the gods. For five generations, his children do the same—they become in turn the sun, the moon, the stars, the heavens, and so forth. At last, the sixth son ins greedy—and in fact tears down the almsgiving house and gains a reputation for being a nuisance. So the five incarnations descend, and take the form of beggars. They then go about testing their descendant, and find him wanting—and

Another story of family issues in incarnation deals with a man name Kamsa. This man is told that his sister’s son will in time destroy him, and so he seeks to lock her away—but alas, her maid servant allows a prince to visit her, and a child is conceived. The brother promises to kill him if he is a son, and the mother too—and so the gods ensure that the child is switched with the maid servants daughter. And so the ten sons are born to the maid servant, each with prostigous gifts. They became a nuisance, bringands the lot of them, and soon the king attempts to have them humbled and defeated by summoning a pair of wrestlers. The ten sons easily over power the wrestlers, and kill them—and the king, with a chakram. One wrestler, however, calls out that he will be reborn a “goblin” of the woods and devour the man who killed him.

The group of ten then go out to conquer all of India, running into difficulty only with a city that was inhabited by “goblins”. One “goblin” would take the form of an ass and wait near the city—seeing an invading army, he would bray. The “goblins” would then lift the city out to sea, and wait for the enemy to retreat before returning it. The ten brothers, in frustration, finally captured the donkey after determining from a teacher that it was the source. The donkey gave instructions for how to prevent the cities escape, and it was captured.

The brothers then divided the kingdom into 10 parts—one member declined his share and gave it to his sister. Here however the story gets…confusing for me to follow. We are told that people lived 10,000 years during this time—and certaintly, that is a common trait of previous epochs—but there is a reference to them dying and passing their throne down to their descendants, who engage in a cruel test of a wise man and kill him. And then are themselves killed by their parents.

In the end, the goblin of the woods and a hunter finish off the last of the sons, and only the daughter remains ruler of the world.

A later, sweeter story invokes past lives a bit differently. A brahmin’s son died young, and was reborn as one of the gods. The man went and paid tribute to his son every day at the graveyard. The son sees his mourning, and descends down—dressed nobly, but his identity obscured. He tells the brahmin that he has lost his chariot. The brahmin offers to make whatever chariot he needs, but the son asks for a chariot with the moon and sun as wheels—a request the Brahmin rejects as ridiculous, for such a thing can never be made. The son then admonishes his father, for wanting something impossible—to see a ghost or to have an immortal son. He reveals his identity and tells his father to make this an alms day.

Another peculiar story tells of how a man’s past life provided him with a weakness for the future. Two asectics lived in a village. A robber in town decided to hide in the house of an ascetic—the guards pursuing him determines that the ascetic is actually the robber in disguise. At the king’s command, he was to be staked in a cemetery. However, all the stakes that attempt to pierce the man break. Thinking over his past lives, the ascetic concludes that there was once a time he pierced a fly with an ebony stick and thus calls for a stake of ebony to pierce himself with. His fellow asectic comes to meet him, seeing him impaled. He is worried greatly, but the first ascetic tells him he has no ill will to him. None the less, the second ascetic remains at his side—even as the gore of the impaling stains his golden skin black.

Eventually, the king comes by to see that the ascetic is punished—and finds the second ascetic, who proves the first’s innocence. The king tried to have the stake removed, but it can’t be done. Instead, the stake is cut on either end, leaving the first ascetic with a peg in his chest.  This man latter goes forth to cure poisons with recitations, driving out snake venoms when they come into men and more. Here the past life memory not only explains circumstance, but is bodily marked.

These stories work best with past lives reconciling or reckoning with past affairs, past deeds, and guilt. A story of our kind deals with perhaps more extreme notions—the ideas of forgotten roots, forgotten parts of the human species or human family. Memories of lives before this one, ages before this one, worlds separated—worlds perhaps as fantastic as flying cities, palaces of jewels, seas of fire! A story I think would reckon with what these memories lead to. Do they reveal secret treasures? Lost knowledge? Lost people? Ideas and dreams forgotten in the haze?

Let us see, next week!

BIBLOGRAPHY

Butler, Samuel. God the known and God the unknown. London : A. C. Fifield, 1909. Accessed: https://archive.org/details/godknowngodunkno00butliala/page/60/mode/2up June 18, 2020.

Cowell, E.B. The Jataka or stories of the Buddha’s former births. Cambridge University Press, 1895-1913.

Links: Please Consider donating to one of the following causes

Please educate yourself if you can. Protests are not spontaneous. Read more on what Black Lives Matter means here https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

1.BLACK LIVES MATTER: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_…

2. LOVELAND FOUNDATION: is committed to showing up for communities of color in unique and powerful ways, with a particular focus on Black women and girls. Our resources and initiatives are collaborative, and they prioritize opportunity, access, validation, and healing. https://thelovelandfoundation.org/

3. COMMUNITY BAIL FUNDS: Donating through this secure platform is an easy way to support protesters nationwide. The site equally divides your donation between 38 community bail funds or allows you to allocate a desired amount to each fund. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bai…

4. THE EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE: is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. https://support.eji.org/give/153413/#…

5. THE TREVOR PROJECT: Founded in 1998 by the creators of the Academy Award®-winning short film TREVOR, The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25. https://give.thetrevorproject.org/giv…

6. THE COMMUNITY BAIL FUND: Protests mean arrests, arrests mean bail. Bail threatens the economic security of those fighting for justice. Help ensure safety of those arrested and donate to the community bail fund here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd

7. THE NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, LDF seeks structural changes to expand democracy, eliminate disparities, and achieve racial justice in a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all Americans. LDF also defends the gains and protections won over the past 75 years of civil rights struggle and works to improve the quality and diversity of judicial and executive appointments.

Gerald Report

Before getting to this week’s story, I wanted to take a moment to address the recent events in the news. Police violence and systematic racism has resulted in the death and imprisonment of countless innocents, the destruction of properties and futures, and produced irrevocable damage. At the Undead Author Society, I try to mostly focus on folklore and horror stories, mentioning politics only when they intersect with the material. But it feels wrong not to say this clearly: Black Lives Matter. You can find links to donate at the end of the story, in place of our normal Patreon link.

This Week’s Prompt: 112. Man lives near graveyard—how does he live? Eats no food. 

The Prior Research: Long Pork

8:00 am- Gerald wakes up. He fluffs his pillow, twice today. On some days he fluffs it three times. I have not found a pattern to this yet.  

8:10 am- Gerald goes to shower. His water is supplied by an old lead pipeline, run by the Municipal Water Company. Gerald has not missed a payment in seven years, and that payment was delayed only due to inclement weather. There is a small window, facing away from the graveyard but into his bathroom. Gerald’s showers are always hot, they fog up the windows visible from the street.

8:25 am- Gerald dresses and watches the news in his living room. His preference is local news, Channel 8. He receives bills from three different cable providers, one of which is addressed to a different name. Gerald says that it’s a mistake he hasn’t corrected, and that Alan Cordwick is the prior owner of the house. Alice Cordwick is listed at City Hall as the prior resident. Alice Cordwick left the building two months ahead of Gerald’s arrival—she works upstate. Alan Cordwick has a Facebook  profile, but it has not been updated since Alice’s departure.

9:00 am- Gerald goes out for coffee. He made his own, until his pot was shattered. The pot was a gift from a daughter or cousin or aunt, the story seems to change. He prefers his coffee dark, to jolt himself awake for his morning walk around the cemetery. He orders his coffee from a local shop, which drops it off in bulk bags. He prefers beans from Arabia. He does not smile when he talks about coffee.

9:30 am- Gerald returns to the house, having walked the entire way to the coffee shop and back. He collects the mail, usually two dozen envelops and a package twice a month. The packages are regular, rectangular cardboard. He gets every three months a collection of Cutco knives. He worked for Cutco for a five year period, from 2000-2005.  

9:35 am- Gerald walks to the cemetery for his first rounds as groundskeeper. He walks in a counterclockwise pattern. He stops and examines a few particularly old gravestones that are overgrown. The names on these stones are Alfred O’Maily, Johnathan Stutton, Emelia Harrington, and Roger Dormithy, according to the registry. However, the names are damaged significantly. On Sunday, he pours coffee on them, about one tenth of his cup on each.

10:35 am- Gerald compeletes his first round. He pulls weeds with heavy welding gloves. His own yard has received three complaints from the Home Owners Association. Two of these were for an overgrown lawn, the third was for trash left in the open. All were filed in the summer of 2012, by Miss Malory Cordoway. Miss Cordoway passed away in the winter of 2012 of natural causes. Her dispute with Gerald was not formally investigated.

11:00 am – Gerald drives the 1987 Volkswagen Beetle that is outside his house. He will tell visitors he is going on a lunch break. He drives three miles to the parking lot of the Michaels Crafts Store. He sleeps in the parking lot, listening to recordings of Car Talk. He parks in the spot farthest from the store, in the second row, near the shopping carts.

1:00 pm – Gerald drives to the Bashas on Main and Mckellips. He buys a coffee from the Starbucks Kiosk. He asks for the dark roast today. In summer he asks for the cold brew. He leaves without making any other purchases. He then drives to Lowes on Broadway and Southern. He purchases several lengths of copper wire for household repairs, a box of nails, and replacement tools as needed. I have only seen his house damaged once, in a thunderstorm. He did all the repairs himself in twenty four hours. He never calls a plumber or carpenter to do his work.

1:10 pm—Gerald returns home. He checks his mail again. His afternoon mail is comprised of Amazon orders, primarily college text books or magazines that are only found in doctors offices. In addition, he receives about one to five letters from a foreign address (in descending order of frequency: Paris, France; Barcelona, Spain; Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; City of London, England; Rabat, Morocco; Tokyo, Japan; Sydney, Australia; Toronto, Canada). Envelopes are never thrown out, nor are their contents.  He claims they are from “business associates” from his time selling insurance in Indonesia.

1:22 pm – Gerald watches a television station (821) that plays static at all other times of the day. At this time, the television station broadcasts a burning log stream. This Christmas log recording is of unknown origin, and the TV station has yet to be entirely located.

1:25 pm – Gerald goes on his second walk around the graveyard. He listens to a podcast, usually Bonesaws.

1:45 pm – He stops near the grave of Timothy Robbinson to smoke two cigarettes. His medical records show a history of smoking back to 1983, but no negative side effects or signs of lung or throat cancer.  I have not found prior medical records.

2:00 pm – Gerald stops at a utility shed at the other end of graveyard. The utility shed’s door has a setoff 3 locks—one bolt, one combination, one two keyed. Gerald enters the shed with supplies purchased from Lowes. The shed is officially a utility shed, for upkeep of the grounds. Gerald, however, stores all known and accounted for tools at his home. Noise complaints from one Joseph Dorian Farrow from 2009 report loud music and drilling sounds from the shed at 2:00 pm until 4:00 pm. No subsequent complaints have been filed. Mr. Farrow moved to Maryland in the fall of 2010.

4:00 pm – Gerald exits the shed with a new cup of coffee, and resumes his route. His coffee is warm enough to emit steam, indicating it’s fairly fresh. No external electrical generator exists for the shed, and so far no wires running to it have been unearthed. His electrical bill is normal. Perhaps he has an interior generator? But he never buys gasoline. Something is inside the building.

4:30 pm – Gerald returns to his home. He prepares another cup of coffee. He watches the afternoon news. He watches a syndicated set of sitcoms while working in the garage. He works mostly with carpentry, making small children’s toys. Once a week, he instead piles up boxes of the toys and takes them to the post office. He marks each by hand and sends them, although where they go I do not know.

4:42 pm – Gerald whistles a tune. The tune has not been precisely identified. I have heard it once before, when a child was walking past my door, but I’m not sure if it is the same tune. Maybe that is where Gerald heard it—Gerald avoids the schools, however, and routes children walk down when he is around. Funerals with children keep Gerald away. But I have not yet found him on any legal registry.

5:00 pm – Gerald begins his final walk, in the reverse direction. He regularly looks over his shoulder. He carries a heavy flashlight and takes his time walking. He wears a workmans gloves. He points the flashlight behind every third and fifth stone—that is, the third stone, the fifth stone, the eighth stone, the tenth stone and so on. He pauses as it gets dark out, and I have seen him point his lights at the sky, as if singaling to something up on high.  The flashlights make a sequence of symbols, recorded below. There is no apparent order.

5:12 pm – Gerald reaches the utility shed. He checks every lock, twice each. He walks around the shed twice, shining his light at the foundation and then at the connection between the wall and the roof.

5:25 pm – Gerald arrives back home.  He checks the mail. He shines his light under his 1987 Volkswagen Beetle, outside the house. He checks the lock on the trunk. Gerald’s trunk contains a number of old magazines from 1984 to 1992. A precise count has not been confirmed, but at least Amazing Heroes,  American Health, and Between C & D as well a collection that are missing their covers and thus unidentified.

5:30 pm – Gerald returns to his home, and watches television. He watches Hallmark Movies on VHS. Gerald prefers ones about Christmas.

5:50 pm – Gerald rises and goes to the bathroom. On his way back he refills his water bottle.

6:10 pm – Gerald rises and goes to the bathroom.

6:30 pm– Gerald rises and goes to the bathroom. He swats a fly on the wall. There is always a fly on the wall. There are a number of flies in Gerald’s house. But there is no fruit in his trash, nor meat containers, nor bones or poultry remains.

6:50 pm – Gerald rises and refills his water bottle.

7:10 pm – Gerald begins a second tape.

7:32 pm– Gerald refills his water bottle.

7:58 pm– Gerald gets up. He takes his jacket and leaves his hat on the chair. He leaves the television on. He exits his house through the back, into the graveyard.

8:10  pm– Gerald arrives at the back of the graveyard. He walks across the graveyard. He has no flashlight. This provides little hinderance.  He unlocks one of the locks on the shed. He walks to the back of the shed.

8:12 pm – a click is heard at the front of the graveyard.

8:15 pm– Gerald heads to bed. He sleeps beneath three blankets. He sleeps for 12 hours. He is awake for 12 hours. During no period of the day does Gerald appear to consume food of any sort, nor purchase any.

---

This week’s story was also inspired by the following Tom Waits song:

Links: Please Consider donating to one of the following causes

Please educate yourself if you can. Protests are not spontenous. REad more on what Black Lives Matter means here https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

1.BLACK LIVES MATTER: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_…

2. LOVELAND FOUNDATION: is committed to showing up for communities of color in unique and powerful ways, with a particular focus on Black women and girls. Our resources and initiatives are collaborative, and they prioritize opportunity, access, validation, and healing. https://thelovelandfoundation.org/

3. COMMUNITY BAIL FUNDS: Donating through this secure platform is an easy way to support protesters nationwide. The site equally divides your donation between 38 community bail funds or allows you to allocate a desired amount to each fund. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bai…

4. THE EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE: is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. https://support.eji.org/give/153413/#…

5. THE TREVOR PROJECT: Founded in 1998 by the creators of the Academy Award®-winning short film TREVOR, The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25. https://give.thetrevorproject.org/giv…

6. THE COMMUNITY BAIL FUND: Protests mean arrests, arrests mean bail. Bail threatens the economic security of those fighting for justice. Help ensure safety of those arrested and donate to the community bail fund here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd

7. THE NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, LDF seeks structural changes to expand democracy, eliminate disparities, and achieve racial justice in a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all Americans. LDF also defends the gains and protections won over the past 75 years of civil rights struggle and works to improve the quality and diversity of judicial and executive appointments.