CHARMAYNE (Appearing at the door – seemingly annoyed)
Whitney, you really do have to make an appointment. I don’t have time to play with you today.
WHITNEY Oh, I think you’ll see me – Pearleen.
CHARMAYNE (Steps outside, closes door carefully)
Oh? Are your efforts to master the black arts finally paying off?
WHITNEY There’s no “black ops” about it. I’ve been investigating you.
CHARMAYNE Moi? Little me? How flattering. I love being the center of attention. I revel in your…involvement.
(Making it sound sexual. Crosses her arms defensively, but says boldly)
It’s not illegal to change your name, you know. Some names are very common. You can call yourself anything you want. And some of us were saddled by our thoughtless parents with disabling monikers we couldn’t wait to get rid of.
WHITNEY But you are pretending to be someone else!
CHARMAYNE Prove it.
WHITNEY You’re wearing her necklace!
CHARMAYNE She gave it to me. Among many other gifts. I thought I explained all that to you.
WHITNEY And now no one can find her!
CHARMAYNE Poor little know-nothing. You’re not even a Querent, you’re lower than that. Sludge. Pity you didn’t pursue my entire course of instruction. Then you’d see that when there’s a new Queen of Swords it’s traditional for the previous Queen to make herself scarce.
WHITNEY You did something to her!
CHARMAYNE Prove it.
WHITNEY Plus, you misrepresented yourself when we hired you!
CHARMAYNE Oh, I told Arthur all about it! It only made him admire me more. He proposed, didn’t he? I don’t think you knew your father as well as you thought you did, Whitney. He appreciated people who made something of themselves, who figured out the physics of existence. He didn’t care for helpless wannabes who hang around trading on their birth names and trying to cash in on the past. We complemented each other. He told me, I “embraced multitudes.” And that’s what he loved about me.
WHITNEY He was quoting Whitman. I doubt your marriage is even legal!
CHARMAYNE Now hold on, sister. Have you bothered to research common law marriage in this state? Don’t come annoying me when you haven’t done your homework! I’ll give you a head start by telling you Dr. Quantreau’s trust defines his wife as “ux” – not by name but anyone he called his wife at the time of his death.
WHITNEY Prove it.
CHARMAYNE I don’t have to. And a further piece of advice? When you’re coming after someone, it’s very dangerous to put them on notice. Because then they’ll be ready for you…fully armed.
(Lights up on The Library Basement Stacks at Dead Lake Community College a mini set with bookcase and elderly woman – MRS PREECE – wearing coke bottle glasses perched atop library ladder, putting books away. )
MRS PREECE Why are all these students so freakishly tall? I’m going to kill myself, one of those days, trying to approximate the eye line of some basketball-playing mutant. (WHITNEY appears shyly around the bookcase.)
WHITNEY Are you Mrs. Preece?
MRS. PREECE No need to shout. I’m half-blind, not deaf. Depends who’s asking.
WHITNEY I’ve been researching past Dead Lake students and the girl at the front desk said you know everything.
MRS. PREECE (Coming down the ladder) Then I’m that Mrs. Preece. For all I knew you were looking for my mother in law and she’s been dead these forty years. And believe you me, she was no picnic when she was alive, and now that she’s dead she’s been particularly troublesome.
(Looks WHITNEY up & down)
Aren’t you a nice young lady! Most girls these days look so terrible I pity them. They want to look terrible is what I conclude. It’s all I can do to keep from jumping back and gagging when I see one coming – it’s like some vision of the Apocalypse. They’re arming up for something – God knows what.
(Crosses herself)
You look like a strong healthy girl. Not like those female zombies.
WHITNEY I missed a lot. I guess I’ve been… held back.
MRS. PREECE Well, stay in school forever, that’s my advice. You, – you play hockey? What’s your sport?
WHITNEY God no. I hate sports.
MRS. PREECE Don’t say that, girl. Games are all we have to look forward to. The only time we get to win. I was a left wing in my time. But you can’t even say “left-wing” these days. Teatime!
(She swivels the ladder & bookcase to reveal two basket chairs and a squat bookcase holding a smoking kettle, which she unplugs. She pours two mugs of tea and settles into chair with a sigh.)
WHITNEY (Accepting a mug) Do you live down here?
MRS. PREECE Might as well. They’ve got facilities, haven’t they? Heat, light, the whole ball of wax. I’ve got a home but why go there? The spirit of my dead mother-in-law makes it clear she doesn’t approve of my housekeeping. No, libraries are where it’s at! Temples of learning, sanctuaries of knowledge. And they’re too cheap to hire a security guard for all this treasure. Scary. All they’ve got is little old me. When I go, it’s “poof” for all these memories. If I’m going to be haunted by somebody, I choose Emerson. Or any of the Transcendentalists, really.
(Waves a hand)
Education is SO wasted on the young. And it don’t stick long on the old folks, neither. People remember the way things SHOULD have happened. But I –
(Taps her head)
Been blessed in the brain-basket. I like the past. I remember the way things REALLY happened. So, long story short, you’ve come to the right place. Sit down and make yourself to home.
(Long sip)
Such a pleasure having company I’d smoke if I thought I could get away with it, but they’ve got them damn detectors. Interested in the Lake, you say? Good riddance to it! The Black Lagoon, we used to call it! Oh, it was a pile of muck after all the frogs died. You one of those conservation nuts? An echo-terrorist?
WHITNEY Eco-terrorist? No. Actually I’m looking for a person. I’m Whitney Quantreau, and I’m looking for Charmayne Carr. She claims she attended this school. Charmayne Carr?
MRS. PREECE I should have guessed right away that’s what you wanted! EVERYBODY’S looking for that one. Nobody knows what became of her. She just abandoned her house and walked away! But she wasn’t a student, she was a teacher. Health Ed.
WHITNEY She was? Who – who’s looking for her?
MRS. PREECE Her family. They need to know where she’s at! Got no idea in hell what’s become of her! And she used to support the lot of them. So it came as a shock. Does make a motive for sneaking away, having that pack hounding after you, I’d be thinking. And the cops say adults can go where they please. It’s a free country. You know what became of her?
WHITNEY Well – she got married. That’s all.
MRS. PREECE Married? To a MAN?
WHITNEY (Flustered) To my father, actually. What did you think?
MRS. PREECE Well, I’m not sure what’s the PC word for it, but she was one of them long-time dykes. Dressed like a man most of the time! Oh she was miserable when they tried to get her up into any sort of skirt. Nowadays she’d just go and get her sex fixed to something matching her desires.
WHITNEY (Shows her phone)
Is this her?
MRS. PREECE (Clutches her heart like she’s seen a ghost) Oh my goodness!
(Takes the phone)
Never thought I’d see HER again. So she’s a blonde now? She was a redhead when I knew her.
WHITNEY Isn’t that Charmayne Carr?
MRS. PREECE No, it most certainly isn’t! That’s Pearleen Purdy – Charmayne’s – I don’t know WHAT you’d call her. Doctor Carr’s girlfriend.
WHITNEY Are you certain?
MRS. PREECE How could a body be wrong about a thing like that? Nobody ever forgot Pearleen once they saw her. I’ve even got a picture of them together here somewhere.
(Produces a pile of college yearbooks from squat bookcase and shuffles through them)
These are my own personal Firewalkers. I don’t let them out of my hands.
WHITNEY Firewalkers!
MRS. PREECE Name of our basketball team, you know, the Firewalkers. Ought to be Airwalkers, but that was taken and we’re obligated to honor the Indians since we took their land whether they like it or not. Everyone walks through fire around here. Burning up the countryside’s practically a ritual. Let’s see, fourteen years ago, wasn’t it? The two of them were in a play together. “The Real Inspector Hound.”
(Offers the book)
Charmayne’s the one with the moustache. She was playing a man of course. Inspector Foot of the Yard.
(Agitated)
Now don’t you get stains on that!
WHITNEY (Puts mug down respectfully)
She – Pearleen looks so different!
MRS. PREECE Pearleen was older than most of the students. Word was she’d been a stripper out of Branson, Missouri. You’ve heard of Branson, Missouri? At The Gentleman’s Secret. Well, Dr. Carr had a nice big house out on the Heights and poor Pearleen grew up on that sorry lake. She came home when the developers passed out education money. Dr. Carr liked to invite girl students – poor students – I should say PRETTY students out to the Heights to live with her. She “helped” them. Folks around here called her place “The Opium Den” because it was so – I don’t know what you’d call it. Eastern-like. Cultish. With draperies and bronzes and incense. The works.
WHITNEY Cult-ish?
MRS. PREECE Yeah, Dr. Carr had one of them goddess religions she was the queen of. To each her own, I say. Live and let live.
WHITNEY Isis? TAROT? Let me guess, was she…the Queen of Swords?
MRS. PREECE Bingo. That’s it exactly. She played the cards and Pearleen played her. Dr. Carr made a pot of money with one of them role-playing games. Dr. Carr was the Queen and Pearleen was supposed to be a Princess, I think that’s the way it went. But Pearleen got rid of all those other girls one by one. Reminds me of a cat I used to have. He just couldn’t share. He chased all the other cats right off my bed. Couldn’t abide the competition. We try to turn the other cheek to promote a professional atmosphere but I‘m telling you, it was the scandal of the campus!
WHITNEY (Produces phone, uses zoom)
Did Charmayne Carr – Dr Carr – ever wear this necklace?
MRS. PREECE That dagger there? Well, it looks familiar. She had lots of totem like materials. But Dr. Carr had all these folds around her neck, you see… No one wants to gaze at that too closely! No, she was never one of the “pretty ones!”
WHITNEY And then she disappeared! Didn’t anybody find it suspicious?
MRS PREECE Suspicious! Wasn’t I telling you her family had a meltdown! They came out here screaming like banshees! Finally declared her legally dead so they could sell her property!
WHITNEY Do you remember any of their names?
MRS PREECE Her brother had some very ordinary name. Like John. But I’m telling you, they don’t care anymore. The estate’s settled! They’ve even got a fake gravesite established somewhere – had a service with shrieking and wailing. Be quite a shock to them when she comes back. They’re not wanting to resurrect the dead. You’ve got a different problem than that.
WHITNEY My stepmom’s an identity thief!
MRS. PREECE Your poor dad’s the one got trouble, bless his heart. Play and then pay, I say! Usually through the nose. I demand all my bills up front.
WHITNEY Too late for that. He’s dead, too.
(MRS PREECE drops her Firewalker with a resounding bang. Lights out.)
I’d like you to tell my fortune. Give me a reading. You know. With the cards.
CHARMAYNE
(Instantly interested)
Oh, you’d like that, would you? Why the sudden change of tune?
WHITNEY
(Graceless shrug)
I don’t want to come back on Thursday.
CHARMAYNE
(Rippling laugh)
I like you, Whitney. You shouldn’t be so teasable. I guess it’s Ramon who will have to come back Thursday. Surprises refresh me. You’ve never availed yourself of my gift of cartomancy before. Let me get my cards.
(Door snaps shut)
WHITNEY
(Seats herself in a patio chair)
Here goes nothing.
CHARMAYNE
(Appearing with a full tray)
Here, take this.
(Lumbers WHITNEY with enormous tray while CHARMAYNE carefully closes door behind her)
Careful with that!
(WHITNEY unloads tray onto patio table)
CHARMAYNE
I’m so pleased about this little tête a tête. Choose your poison. Kids these days drink only vodka. Vodka! (She snorts) Youth is so wasted on the young.
WHITNEY
I drink tequila.
CHARMAYNE
Oh, I bet you do. Care to knock back some shots?
(She mimes it)
In vino veritas, Whitney. I’ll save you the worm.
WHITNEY
Please don’t quote Latin at me. It makes me feel I’m back at boarding school.
CHARMAYNE
Life’s one school after another, Whitney. Endless initiation into unimagined horizons. All birth’s painful. A little medicine eases the transition.
WHITNEY
No thanks. I still have to drive home. Water’s fine.
CHARMAYNE
You always were as stubborn as a mule. So be it! Ready to concentrate on the future?
WHITNEY
I still have some questions about the past.
CHARMAYNE
(Sits, bounces a leg impatiently)
Oh, Whitney, Whitney! If I could only get you to see that your obsession with the past is so self-defeating! Here you are a young girl – an almost beautiful young girl who could be better than beautiful if she made any effort – and all you do is look back. On a mere nineteen years of life!
(Shakes her head)
If I’d stayed stuck like you, I’d still be gigging frogs down by the lake.
WHITNEY
What lake?
CHARMAYNE
(Immediate self-protection)
Oh, I grew up on a lake. Didn’t I mention? A sad sleazy little lake surrounded by wooden cabins – some of them actually on wheels. It’s all gone now.
WHITNEY
Maybe, but surely the lake is still there.
CHARMAYNE
Oh no. It’s all gone now. Paved over. Things change, Whitney. Get used to it! The past is always more disgusting than people are willing to concede.
WHITNEY
But who would pave a lake?
CHARMAYNE
The water was attacked by some invasive…they had to get rid of it. I would have walked through fire to get out of that place.
WHITNEY
(Very stubborn)
But how could you still be at the lake if it’s gone?
CHARMAYNE
I would have fought the changes, that’s my point. But what would I get? A dead lake and a dying life ! Instead, look at this!
(Waves over the audience)
I have the ocean! The whole Atlantic Ocean…
WHITNEY
So tell me about that dagger you wear around your neck.
CHARMAYNE
(Playing with it)
A girl after my own heart! No sooner do I give one gift than you want another. This golden dagger is a dear memento given to me by my mentor years ago. On completing my study of tarot.
WHITNEY
(Flat footedly)
What was her name?
CHARMAYNE
Oh, Whitney…Whitney…You can never bathe in the same river twice! I only care about the future. All this could be yours someday… if you play your cards right.
WHITNEY
Depends which deck we’re using.
CHARMAYNE
(Silvery laughter)
My deck of course! You don’t have a deck! Whitney, I want to be your friend. I treasured my own mentor – she made all the difference in my life – I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a protégée. I never knew it would be you.
WHITNEY
Why do you think so?
CHARMAYNE
You’re so young, so unformed. And you have such a thirst for knowledge! I was that way once, wondering how things work.
(Reaches out to touch WHITNEY’S hair – WHITNEY steels herself)
If only you knew how much I want to give you things.
WHITNEY
You do?
(This disturbs her)
Like what?
CHARMAYNE
I could show you the lynchpins of the universe if only you would let me. Very few of us were born with a silver spoon in our mouths and a golden rattle clutched in our chubby baby hands the way you were, Whitney. You need to see the world for what it really is. You don’t accept what’s on offer – you go your own way – I was like that, too. I can teach you how to never be defeated. But first I must know. Are you a Querent or a Firewalker?
WHITNEY
A what?
CHARMAYNE
Is this idle curiosity or will you accept the challenge that is offered – whatever it requires? Can you stand up to what must be revealed?
(She produced and shuffles the tarot cards – with threatening skill)
The time is never riper. Open your mind, Whitney and accept. IF that’s what you’re here for.
WHITNEY
I’m definitely a firewalker.
CHARMAYNE
I thought so! Welcome to the Way of Fire. Enter the temple. Cut.
(Offers cards to WHITNEY who cuts the deck and selects one.)
CHARMAYNE
Don’t just take a card. Wait for the proper moment.
WHITNEY
Did you ever wait?
CHARMAYNE
(CHARMAYNE takes the card from her and studies it)
Touché!
I suppose you chose the card most eager to speak to you. Look, it’s The Fool!
(Tarot of The Fool springs up as a hologram or on projection screen)
WHITNEY
That’s supposed to be me?
CHARMAYNE
It’s the card you chose so yes, it has something to say to you. Look at it.
WHITNEY
That I‘m a number zero? Is that what it’s telling me? I don’t like your tarot language.
CHARMAYNE
You’re always braced for insult, Whitney. In your private language you can never be defined by someone else. Open your cage. The Fool is stuck, he can’t move on. Moving on is the First Principle of Life.
WHITNEY
(Leaning across the table)
My father is gone.
CHARMAYNE
He was almost ninety, Whitney. Death happens. You had him longer than I did. Get over it. I never question the past.
WHITNEY
I was raised to appreciate history because if you don’t understand it, you repeat it.
CHARMAYNE
We all were born graceless and angry, raging and accusatory. It’s only a shame if you stay that way. Look at the fool’s face. He thinks he’s free. See the rose he picked? All the while he’s standing on a cliff edge!
WHITNEY
I reject this card. I demand another card.
(Snatches one up. CHARMAYNE is unflustered.)
CHARMAYNE
That’s not the way this game is played.
WHITNEY
Maybe it’s the way I play. You don’t get to define me.
CHARMAYNE
Fortunately the tarot is wiser than you. Look what you’ve chosen! The Tarot laughs!
(Queen of Swords card appears onscreen – bare breasted and swinging double knives)
WHITNEY
You put that there!
CHARMAYNE
You chose it yourself!
WHITNEY
You probably had that card up your sleeve. Here’s my card – I’ll turn it up myself.
(Priestess Tarot card onscreen)
CHARMAYNE
The High Priestess! How appropriate!
WHITNEY
What’s appropriate about that?
CHARMAYNE
The High Priestess is a woman pretending to be a man, Whitney. She abhors feminine wiles. Because you’re so interested in history you might as well know she’s base on Pope Joan, the only female Pope. She’s the guardian of hidden knowledge. See, she’s holding the Torah with the last letter hidden.
(WHITNEY bridles)
WHITNEY
She looks like a little old man.
CHARMAYNE
Don’t take everything so personally. Seekers are often forced to wear disguise. Life’s a contest and the weak go to the wall. Look at the Priestess standing on the moon between the lotus pillars and ask yourself, how does that make you feel?
WHITNEY
Weak.
CHARMAYNE
Well don’t admit it ever. Never spill your guts. The first law is bluster. After awhile it comes naturally.
WHITNEY
I thought the first law was moving on.
CHARMAYNE
(Irritated)
That’s the first principle. Try to keep up.
WHITNEY
Doesn’t bluster risk losing yourself?
CHARMAYNE
There is no self! We are self-created. Your father always used to say – oh, never mind. The Priestess reveals her secret when the time is right.
WHITNEY
What did my father always say?
CHARMAYNE
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Now allow me to choose a card for you.
(Prince of Wands appears. He looks a lot like EIGHT)
CHARMAYNE
I knew a man would show up sooner or later. Do you know this handsome devil? What do you suppose is the meaning of his big, big stick?
(She laughs)
(WHITNEY works hard to stay cool)
WHITNEY
I‘ve met him.
CHARMAYNE
(Surprised and nettled that there’s anything she doesn’t know)
Oh? Where? Is he your boyfriend?
WHITNEY
(Smug)
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
CHARMAYNE
Still waters run deep! Possibly he’s your power card, Whitney. The elegant Prince of Wands has been pushed out of his home and sent on a journey with no weapon to protect himself other than sticks he picks up. He’s a dowser.
WHITNEY
He’s a treasure seeker.
CHARMAYNE
Well I’d very much like to meet him. We could have a tequila party. Would you like that?
WHITNEY
No. Just tell me what it means.
CHARMAYNE
This must be very new – I don’t blame you wanting to keep him to yourself. The Prince of Wands is about developing intuition, cultivating talents. He’s a wily character, not well born like the Prince of Swords. He’s scrappy, like me, came from nothing. He’s had to learn to excel at something – to master it. He presages sudden changes of direction, even a journey. It could be a lucky card, Whitney, especially since you rejected The Fool. But like everything else in life, you must claim it. Claim your power, Whitney, I can show you how. Should you fail; the card’s power is reversed. Then it presages devastating loss, capture, and imprisonment.
WHITNEY
Imprisonment?
CHARMAYNE
(Exasperated)
I could say more if you would tell me about him.
WHITNEY
Forget it. Give me another card.
CHARMAYNE
You’re entitled to an eight card spread.
WHITNEY
Eight?
CHARMAYNE
Is that your lucky number?
WHITNEY
Maybe.
(WHITNEY spreads cards messily over the table)
CHARMAYNE
This isn’t slapjack, Whitney. We all have to play the cards the goddess deals. You’ll cancel out the reading!
(WHITNEY throws cards to the ground.)
CHARMAYNE
Some reverence if you please!
WHITNEY
(Produces a card triumphantly)
Here’s the one I want! Judgment!
(The Judgment card appears onscreen)
Even this one’s not very impressive. Why does the Tarot show nothing but little old men?
CHARMAYNE
It doesn’t. The Major Arcana is strongly female.
WHITNEY
Well the Judgment Card looks like my Dad to me.
CHARMAYNE
That shows your ignorance. Some have eyes but are too blind to see.
(Wearily picking up cards)
The Tarot won’t be mocked, Whitney. You’re asking for trouble.
WHITNEY
I don’t think I’m the one in trouble.
CHARMAYNE
Believe me, you are.
WHITNEY
I DON’T believe you. Your threats are vague – you can’t even be specific.
CHARMAYNE
(Threateningly)
It’s whatever you most fear that stalks you. Behind the fear lies…the wish.
(She laughs)
The ignorant are so helpless! This card doesn’t even signify what you think it means.
WHITNEY
So what does it mean, then?
CHARMAYNE
It’s the regeneration card. See the dead rising on the bottom of the card there? That angel’s going to suck them right up into her trumpet!
(She laughs wildly)
WHITNEY
You don’t think the dead can rise?
CHARMAYNE
Depends on how they died.
WHITNEY
What do you mean, HOW?
CHARMAYNE
(Threateningly)
They can’t rise if they’ve lost their souls.
WHITNEY
(Shaken)
Oh, that’s bullshit. Who says that?
CHARMAYNE
The Book of the Dead. They’re the experts. Your firewalk is just beginning, Whitney! I’ve been doing it for years. My feet are well-hardened. There’s so much you don’t know.
WHITNEY
(Overturns the table standing up)
I guess the reading’s over.
(They face each other across the mess)
CHARMAYNE
I guess it is. Some people can’t be helped.
(As CHARMAYNE bends down WHITNEY pretends to leave but hides behind the boulder, trying to calm her breathing).
CHARMAYNE
(Calling after her)
That was a one-time offer! Let me know if you ever get serious about claiming your power!
(Shrugs)
Kids. They insist on leaving the field to me. Which is fine, knowing how I hate to share.
(Clears the table, takes tray into house EXIT).
WHITNEY
(Pulls out her phone and starts typing)
Book of the Dead, eh? I have some magic of my own and it’s called Google. I remember now, that faked up résumé said something about Dead Lake Community College…
(Getting up her nerve…calling after CHARMAYNE …too late)
Like you speak French!
(Goes to sit disconsolately on a boulder.)
This is MY story and I’m not letting her tell it.
(A beachily dressed; closely shaved man with a metal detector comes up the beach slowly. Investigating.)
WHITNEY
Hey! Don’t you know this is private property?
EIGHT
Only to the waterline. No one owns the ocean. Which means it belongs to everyone. This your place?
WHITNEY
No. Belongs to my stepmother. The place she sold to buy this one was the house I grew up in.
EIGHT
So now you’re free. Like me.
WHITNEY
(Watches him work)
Who are you? What are you doing?
EIGHT
I’m a beachcomber and a treasure hunter. Name’s Eight. Like Pieces of Eight.
WHITNEY
Is that what you find?
EIGHT
I find everything eventually. Look at this.
(She comes closer)
WHITNEY
What is it?
EIGHT
Prehistoric shark’s tooth.
WHITNEY
Looks like an arrowhead.
EIGHT
They could have used it for that. You want it?
(She shrinks from contact)
WHITNEY
I don’t know. What would I do with it?
EIGHT
(Lifts his arm)
Treasure seekers help other treasure seekers. It’s the beachcomber’s code. Otherwise it goes back to the sea.
WHITNEY
Then I’ll take it.
(Turns it over in her hands.)
I wish it was a magic charm.
EIGHT
Really? Why’s that?
WHITNEY
I need magic to fight her.
(Gesticulates at house and whispers)
She’s a demon.
EIGHT
You mean demonic? Or an actual demon?
WHITNEY
I mean an actual demon. Like from another planet.
EIGHT
Most demons are homegrown.
WHITNEY
This one cultivates magic. Reads Tarot. Calls herself The Queen of Swords.
EIGHT
That’s nothing but a pack of cards. No magic there.
WHITNEY
She murdered my father. I know it.
(A beat. Game change.)
EIGHT
You sure of that?
WHITNEY
Absolutely certain. He had this neurological condition, and he hired her to be his attendant. She wasn’t qualified – not at all. He had me sit in the interviews since I lived there too. I could see how taken with her he was. I begged him not to do it but –
(she shrugs sadly)
EIGHT
Let me guess. She was a sight for sore eyes.
WHITNEY
(Nodding)
Yeah. But so fake, though! Fake everything: hair, breasts, accent. Fake résumé, even. But he didn’t want to see through her. He just didn’t care.
EIGHT
I get it. He wanted to take his own path to health.
WHITNEY
He wanted to grab for the gusto. As soon as they were married –
(Slits her own throat with a finger.)
EIGHT
Any idea how she did it?
WHITNEY
Smothering? Drugs? It wouldn’t have been hard. She cremated him right away and there wasn’t even an autopsy.
EIGHT
Did you tell anybody?
WHITNEY
I told everybody. But she has them all under her spell. People were relieved he was gone! Less trouble for everybody. Even my sisters who – neither of them can stand Charmayne – said, “Well, at least he died happy!” I was the only one who even missed him. He was already old when we were born, you see. Darby – that’s my oldest sister – said – “Oh, he’d been gone a long time already. Can’t you see that?” And McKenzie – she’s the other one – said – “Everyone dies “unnaturally” nowadays. That’s what death is.” I was the only one who thought it was wrong. My dad said the only education worth having is learning to tell right from wrong.
EIGHT
I get it. You thirst after righteousness.
WHITNEY
Justice. Justice is what I want. People keep telling me it doesn’t exist.
EIGHT
Are you certain it’s not revenge you’re looking for?
WHITNEY
Well, that would be nice too. I mean, she makes me so mad. Don’t you feel it? Wouldn’t anyone? But justice is what I’ll settle for.
EIGHT
It’s a bad situation.
WHITNEY
You don’t know what a relief it is to have someone actually listen to me. I even – one day – I saw him.
EIGHT
You saw him? Your father’s – ghost?
WHITNEY
(Nodding vigorously)
I did.
EIGHT
Was he all about vengeance?
WHITNEY
He didn’t speak.
(Tears up.)
He just showed up in my room at college – probably the same moment she was killing him – and looked at me so sadly. I knew it was some kind of vision because he was his younger self – from before he had his stroke. I thought he was angry at me. Going away to school and leaving him alone with Charmayne – maybe I let him down.
EIGHT
Hey, you told him not to hire her. I mean, you were just a kid! What could you do?
WHITNEY
He admired people who “spoke truth to power”. He wanted me to be self-sufficient, use logic and hone my own instincts. She was awful to him! She made him beg for water. I saw it.
EIGHT
Sounds like a demon all right.
WHITNEY
“Withholding hydration” they call it. I should have protected him, the way he always protected me. He said I was his intellectual heir.
EIGHT
Are we talking money?
WHITNEY
No, I don’t mean that. We already had trust funds and things. What I mean is, he told me I was like him, that I had the same kind of mind. He said knowledge is everything and you have to cultivate a bullshit detector. Even though I was the youngest – me and my sisters have different mothers – he told everyone only I was fit to stand in his shoes.
EIGHT
Well, I’m starting to see why your sisters might not want to cooperate.
WHITNEY
People have to stand up for what they believe!
(Very earnestly.)
EIGHT
You blush when you’re angry.
WHITNEY
I blush whenever there’s another person in the room. But what do you think I should do? I’m scared of her. She threatened me.
EIGHT
How?
WHITNEY
She said I’m nothing and she created everything. She’ll send me back into the darkness. She wants to “tell my fortune” so she can predict all the terrible things that are going to happen to me. When she calls herself Queen of Swords, she tries to sound like she’s Master of the Universe.
EIGHT
Sounds like a con artist to me. They just feel around for anything someone will believe. Don’t let her get the drop on you.
WHITNEY
But what if those cards tell the future?
EIGHT
Tarot’s just another dead language, Whitney. You could learn it if you really wanted to. Language shapes how people think.
(Taps his head)
Don’t meet her on her turf. Predators like their prey frozen. And confused.
WHITNEY
How did you know my name?
EIGHT
I hang around. I hear things.
WHITNEY
So, you’re an eavesdropper.
EIGHT
Treasure seekers are serendipitous. We pick up what we can find.
WHITNEY
Well, you can’t pick me up.
EIGHT
(Still working his stretch of beach)
I wouldn’t dream of it.
WHITNEY
(not thrilled to hear this)
But what if she really is magic? It seems that way sometimes. I don’t know how to stand up to her.
EIGHT
Don’t sideline yourself so quick. You’re here, aren’t you? A person who can see the dead can do anything. Magic’s a game and anyone can play. Games are about rule-making – about control – gaining advantage on somebody, Whit.
WHITNEY
My father said never to play a game that’s rigged.
EIGHT
What if its rigged in your favor? And this one is. You know what happens to murderers?
WHITNEY
I’m hoping they get caught.
EIGHT
The truth will out.
WHITNEY
(Looking nervously up at the house)
Charmayne thinks she’s indestructible.
EIGHT
Wow. Sounds like a dare. I’m partial to dares myself.
WHITNEY
She says anything anybody tries to do to her comes back on them a million times. That it’s pointless to fight her. But I’m not giving up. You see why (looks at the tooth) I might need all the magic I can get?
EIGHT
Make her play your game.
WHITNEY
I’d love to see that! What do I do? Exactly?
EIGHT
Today’s your lucky day. I just happen to know some magic.
WHITNEY
Is that part of being a treasure seeker?
EIGHT
Sure. First, you master the elements. That’s way bigger magic than flipping cards and cutting off old men’s hydration.
WHITNEY
(Skeptical)
So how’d you that?
EIGHT
I’ve been swept out to sea. I’ve been buried in sand and I’ve been frozen in snow.
WHITNEY
We’re going to need way bigger magic than that.
EIGHT
See this mark on the top of my head?
WHITNEY
(Rubbing his head)
Looks like scars! Where did they come from?
EIGHT
I had a demon of my own. Once.
WHITNEY
You did?
EIGHT
Yeah, and he was hard to destroy. Took a piece out of me, I can tell you. He marked me right here.
WHITNEY
(Very hopeful)
Did you mark him?
EIGHT
I told you I destroyed him. And then I marked myself.
(Opens his Hawaiian shirt to show tattoo)
WHITNEY
(Reading)
“Be not Afraid.” How’s that help anything?
EIGHT
It’s a reminder.
WHITNEY
But you defeated him?
EIGHT
Sure did. He’s locked in a box and he’ll never get out. That’s what sent me wandering.
WHITNEY
How come?
EIGHT
Because every action produces an opposite reaction. He’s static, I’m in motion. Searching.
WHITNEY
But if he’s still alive…can’t he still hurt you?
EIGHT
No. He’s lost all his power. But I did have to take control. And I had to work on setting myself free.
WHITNEY
(Flouncing down onto the beach)
I’d rather just kill her. Serve her right.
EIGHT
No, no; don’t give her that. That’s what she wants.
WHITNEY
Trust me, that is NOT what she WANTS.
EIGHT
(Nodding vigorously)
Trust ME, it is. She’s hoping to turn you into HER. She’d have a new young life, a new young body. I’m not sure anyone could rescue you then.
WHITNEY
So tell me what you think I should I do.
EIGHT
Play it by the Bible. You’ve got to call a demon by its name.
WHITNEY
(Unimpressed)
Really? The Bible? That’s all you’ve got?
EIGHT
Hey, the Bible’s full of demons.
WHITNEY
So how do I learn her name? Tell me.
EIGHT
You said she had a fake everything. If that fake résumé still exists. I’d start there.
WHITNEY
(Arms crossed)
She probably destroyed every copy. Then what?
EIGHT
Don’t be a “yes, but”. You know she’s got secrets. The past’s the best predictor of the future. Find out her past and make sure she knows you know. Believe me, suddenly she’ll find you the most interesting person on the planet.
WHITNEY
Why’s that?
EIGHT
Because here’s the secret. Demons long to be revealed. If she invites you to dance –
(Does a little dance, waltzing the metal detector)
Dance with her. Then – suddenly, at the time of your choosing you – step aside.
WHITNEY
Step aside?
EIGHT
(Involving her in his dance)
Step aside. Let her own momentum bring her down.
WHITNEY
(Very frustrated, dancing like she has two left feet)
I‘ll never get it.
EIGHT
First you have to tell your own fortune. Then you tell hers.
(Heads off down the beach while she’s thinking about it)
WHITNEY
She’ll try to put ideas in my head!
EIGHT
But if she’s a demon, your ideas are stronger than her ideas.
WHITNEY
You don’t know how persuasive she can be.
EIGHT
(From the end of the beach)
Oh, I know.
WHITNEY
Wait! Where are you going?
EIGHT
I’ve got to get moving. I only found one treasure here.
WHITNEY
And you gave it away.
EIGHT
(Looking at her meaningfully)
That’s not the one I mean.
(Resumes his quest)
WHITNEY
Wait, wait! Give me your phone number!
(Pulls out her phone)
EIGHT
I don’t use those things.
WHITNEY
But where can I find you? When will I see you again?
EIGHT
Don’t worry. I’m always around. I like this beach.
After my fiancé graduated law school in Kentucky, we came East – where our families lived – to get married. I applied to Brooklyn College for the MFA program and was hired as a writing fellow. What followed was an experience so discouraging I can well understand why graduate students are at a high risk of suicide.
First, there’s the contrast between the high prestige of the position and the pitiable pay. You could literally make more money (and spend the same amount of time) combing the subway for lost change.
Next, there’s the “job” they want you to do, which is to prepare seriously undereducated freshman to write an essay justifying their admission into the hallowed world of academe.
I had fun developing my own syllabus, which was basically teaching critical thinking in the most fun way I could possibly imagine. A teacher “reviewer” who came to watch the class wrote me a rave review – I don’t think anyone in my life has ever praised me as much as he did. I still cherish that evaluation. But don’t get excited – the second guy (months later) disparaged me so much that if you add the two reviews together I think you’d have to give me a sad C-. But at that point, They Knew About Me – that I had no college degree -and so they were trying to get rid of me. Really, you can’t blame them – how could I prepare students to get something I didn’t have myself? And what – you may ask – was wrong with MY thinking and reasoning powers that I had not expected this?
The truth is, I had flouted “rules” all my life – they always seemed ridiculous – and because I was a “rara avis” I usually got away with it. But clearly, this could not continue. Much chastened by my brush with the universe (which represented itself as “sanity”) I did go ahead and get a BA degree in psychology from LaSalle. I even got half a masters under my belt from Springfield College until I saw that it was useless.
But back to Brooklyn. There were classes I took, of course, in WRITING – which was my absorbing interest and passion. I kept the fact that I had actually published a novel a secret because the class expressed such a tragic belief that being published was their deepest desire and most desperate and holy quest. I knew that it was the writing of the book itself – finding the subject AND the expression that was your spiritual release into the world – that was the most important absorbing and exciting. My first book was written to specifications – what was “popular” – under the ingenuous theory that I would develop important publishing relationships (my editor lost her job, my company bought out and revamped.) You could hardly brag about an experience like that.
For my class on the Novel I decided to write a novel. I thought it would be fun. If you wrote a chapter every week you would have a novel at the end.
One of my classmates was an ex-nun – a most interesting person – whose experiences strongly affected me. I effortlessly adapted her into my heroine, because my book was a mystery. Surely these are the easiest to write – they must evolve according to a plan. You have to introduce the problem, then the suspects, give clues, and make the reader care about the outcome. I had an idea it would be less emotional than my first book, which got bogged down into a bizarre love story about a fatherless girl pathetically seeking mentorship. THIS book would be all business.
I got such massive pushback from the class I’m kind of surprised I went through with it – but I was enjoying the writing and the characters were alive to me. “Criticism” in class was students laboriously reading each others’ work, describing its emotional effect on them and describing different ways things could be said. The forward motion of a novel – the sweep, the assumption of power – was thereby utterly dissipated. Everyone just rewrote the first chapters of different books endlessly. So it shouldn’t have been called “Novel Writing”, it should have been called “Paragraph Writing” – a class I wouldn’t take.
This teacher and I butted heads on all kinds of issues. First off, he said great writing couldn’t have a “happy ending.” I saw his point but I thought it shallow. Surely completion of a quest – solving a mystery – is an enormous relief. But mysteries aren’t serious writing, he insisted. (Uh oh. Since I was engaged on one.) Well, what about the Odyssey? Jane Austen? {Probably Tom Jones, if I could recall the ending.)
MODERN literature!! He insisted. We can’t have happy endings anymore!
That was when I realized the whole thing was bogus. If I was bogus, they were even more bogus. I was eight months’ pregnant at the time and this man’s feeble philosophy defied the spinning of the planets, the arrival of spring, the creation of Life itself. What a silly fellow.
I finished Pinch of Death, and still reread it with pleasure, A very charming book.
This film, probably his last, is not the movie to rescue the 88 year old filmmaker but it certainly marks an advance in his artistic life. Throughout his career, Allen has leveraged an apparently traumatically low self-esteem, inviting us to laugh at the hoops society forces ordinarily inadequate people to jump through for admiration, employment, companionship & love.
As he matured, he began implying that society itself is a crime and we are its victims (Shadow & Fog, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Hollywood Ending, Match Point, Broadway Danny Rose, Cassandra’s Dream, Interiors, Irrational Man, Scoop, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Bullets Over Broadway.)
I’ve come to believe he’s our Marcel Proust – sharply attuned to the pathos and ambition of our social signaling and teasing us with scandalous gossip about how far some of us might be willing to take our desperate impostures. What will we do to get what we want and what might we do when challenged?
Throughout his career, he has presented beautiful young women as the ultimate desirable acquisition of the good life; otherworldly angels whose psyches are completely closed to him, but whose bodies he hopes to subjugate.
Coup de Chance offers one of these mysterious creatures as its protagonist, a beautiful gallery worker “rescued” from her life with a shiftless musician by a wealthy, jealous man terrified of losing her. Yet she is bored, bored, BORED by his dull existence of object acquisition and gourmet travel and secretly falls for a handsome, exciting young man with a head full of dreams.
This film was banned from Cannes as a show of solidarity with the credible accusations of sexual impropriety by Allen’s daughter, whose story as an adult and a child, has never varied. The persona who comes across in Allen’s stories is inquisitive and clueless and needy enough to have done what he is accused of, yet most of us will never know the truth. Creator of his own worst fears, he triggered their realization. “Exposed”, discredited and cast out; still he is making films.
Artists we can unreservedly admire as human beings are rare, Picasso and Tolstoy and Byron, for example, displayed outrageously cruel, downright illegal behavior for all to see. But it’s quite possible that the sinner’s story is always the more interesting one from the perspective of our own humdrum lives. Certainly no one knows crime as intimately as a criminal.
Unlike the brilliant Match Point, the intensely immersive Cassandra’s Dream, the creepy Crimes & Misdemeanors and the tour de force Irrational Man, Coup de Chance’s plot is a mere story board, lacking the three-dimensional richness this collaborative art usually supplies, but it closes with Allen’s final gift to us, the end philosophy of his lifetime of restless questing. His last word? That each of us is a lucky miracle and that life itself is a miracle we must learn to revel in and appreciate.
APOLOGY FROM ALYSSE – Somehow the first version of this came out in Plaintext! Sorry.
Film Review: Spellbound
A Viennese psychiatrist in this movie demands a dream “the more cock-eyed, the better” and Hitchcock obliges with this wildly uneven picture offering us Alfred at is best and worst. This film about psychoanalysis is schizy; pretentious, illogical, childish and afraid of its own emotions. Unfortunately it starts with an awkward, talky beginning in which misogynist doctors accuse Ingrid Bergman (for the first time in her life, I’m sure) of being a “glacier” who’s uninterested in men.
No one heats up a screen like Ingrid Bergman, shooting smoke and fire in all directions from the get-go and it will surprise nobody to find out she and Gregory Peck conducted a hot affair during filming.
Dr. Constance Petersen is a psychoanalyst at an upscale Vermont looney bin full of nymphos and weirdos, galvanized by the arrival of Gregory Peck as the new doctor in charge and he’s just as worked up about her. It doesn’t even faze her to discover that he’s an impostor, the real Dr. Edwardes is missing and her swain is accused of his murder.
The film begins to gather speed as the couple goes on the run together with Connie telling everyone they’re on their honeymoon. She takes the amnesiac to her training psychotherapist’s house in Rochester where she promises to “cure” him.
Her teacher tells her that “love smitten analysts playing dream detectives” make “the best patients” but she is making good progress breaking down Peck’s resistance when the police show up and the couple flees to a ski resort called “Gabriel Valley”.
The famous dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali is pretty interesting – gamblers in a club decorated with eyes, a man tumbling down a rooftop and a masked man laughing behind a chimney brandishes a wheel. Constance interprets this as her boss murdering Edwardes on a ski vacation to prevent the younger man from replacing him and framing her lover for the crime.
When she tells this discovery to her boss he threatens her with the very same gun, but she faces him down and he shoots himself instead. Seen from the killer’s perspective the gun fires directly at the screen.
Film ends with Constance Petersen and her Big “100% Cured” male making out at the train station. To get to this point Hitchcock had to battle a sappy film score, (Bernard Hermann wasn’t available), a bossy, clueless, tone deaf producer (David O. Selznick) and a woman-hating screenwriter (Ben Hecht) to ignite a modicum of his signature passion and suspense. At least it was a huge hit and broke all records. What a film this could have been without the frozen art direction, the awkward rear projection and the hysterical film censors. Someone should definitely take another stab at it.
My second book contract was a two-book contract. I had long been working on a novel, Model Prisoner, that was based largely on the true crime story described in Barthel’s Death in California , where a man murdered his best friend and kidnapped the friend’s wife. I was working through the issues created when women are forced to cooperate with dangerous men. As often happens, the characters hijacked the story. The relationship between the two men became more and more important – my poor heroine was just a marker of success or loss. In a lucky flash of intuition, I realized the mythic proportions of what I was dealing with – my protagonist became Persephone, uncomfortably contended over by two Lords of Darkness.
Another character pushed his way onstage – Persey’s dog, Digger. Because Persey loved him, he was an object of jealousy by the Lords of Darkness, who wanted her all to themselves. This evoked the legends around domesticating wild creatures into household pets and the story became Woman Into Wolf.
When I was ready to submit the novel I discovered my publisher Bridgeworks had been bought by another publisher, Rowman & Littlefield, so I sent it to them and prepared myself for the uncomfortable weeks long wait for consideration lowly authors are subjected to. A few weeks later I heard from my old editor (who I’d dedicated my second novel to!) that Rowman & Littlefield in fact had no editorial department, and so my contract was essentially null and void. I submitted Woman Into Wolf to my old editor to see if she had any good ideas about what I should do next. She suggested I de-emphasize one of the characters (the Bird Lady) and play down Persey’s past life – I took all her suggestions. But when I sent her the revised manuscript I discovered she had forgotten all about it and wanted me to tell her how the novel USED to be!
At that point I lost faith in her. My trusty Girl Focus Group (my daughter’s friends) loved the book, and I feared further monkeying around might break something important! It seemed a better idea to jut publish the thing myself. And the reviews bore me out.
…a thrill-ride, unique and highly recommended reading.” –Entrepreneur.com
“deceit, rape, fertility, imprisonment and a mother’s grief…as each piece of the tightly coiled fiction was loosed I waited for the revelation to come…she couldn’t imagine the extent of the deception until it was spelled out. Neither could I.” – MyShelf.com
“one of the most unusual mysteries I have ever read…I loved reading Woman Into Wolf … kept me on the edge of my seat right through the end…I highly recommend this novel to fans of crime mysteries that also enjoy some extra spice in their stories.” – Readerviews.com
“a very fine psychological thriller… the characters in this book are as bright as crystal and as sharp as shattered glass. Aallyn not only can describe them to a neo-noun, she can make them speak true to those characters. Quite a talent…a novel every bit as worthy as her first.” –ArmchairInterviews.com
If This Card Chooses You – Do you need to forgive? Or be forgiven? Most of us require both! Ask your dreams. Do you dream of home? Sometimes we dream of a home that no longer exists, or never existed. “Home” represents the state of psychic absolution where all mistakes are forgiven and forgotten.
Warriors Create The Future – We commit to the ultimate compassion that we are all in this together. Jesus suggests that understanding doesn’t arrive until we learn to be the “forgivers”. Obviously, this means we must learn – somehow – to forgive ourselves.
Warriors Create Heaven – Such forgiveness helps us achieve the state of spiritual lightness that allows a warrior to float through time, history, even the universe.
Warriors Are At Home In the World – What’s your “dream home”? A warrior’s training emphasizes understanding and managing the fragility of the human body and the objective world, and accepting our healing and unifying mandate. Once we have scoped out the terrain and the inhabitants, Warriors are at “home” anywhere.
Warriors are About Justice – But not the kind that leaves more brokenness behind. Warriors achievements and physical selves display the triumph of thought, will and love.
What Does It Mean to “Start Over”? – We don’t wish to be free of “consequences”. We want to learn and grow from our mistakes but not be humiliated and punished for them. Pretending they didn’t happen doesn’t free us. Seeing our mistakes as moves in a dance we are all contributing to frees us from painful rumination and helps escape and explain the prison of blame. “I did this because you –“… Human interactions are a tar-pit in which we trap and tar ourselves. We realize we need to forgive every chain in the event pattern if we are ever to have any peace.
It’s All About You – Robert Frost defines “home” as a place where, when you show up, they have to take you in. Defining “they” defines your group, your original home. Philosophy may provide an answer. Buddhists see history as a circle, Christians as a spiral. The question for Christians is, which direction is the spiral headed and do we have time to learn what we need to know before there’s a cataclysm? Can you define the mess we’re in and intuit your behavioral contribution? Is it possible to detach from the mess? In what group – or even in what “moment” can you detach from the mess?
Warriors’ Danger – We can’t afford to get mixed up about right and wrong. “By their fruits shall you know them.” Think it through. One avenue leads to health, dignity and growth; the other leads in the opposite direction. Don’t make the mistake of “fundamental attribution error”. The threat is NOT coming from inside the house. Martin Luther King Jr. made the wise comment that our specific brand of capitalism tends toward is “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us.” It certainly suits corporations to lecture their employees on building a better world without incorporating any of those ideas into the bigger picture, where we have no control and they demand absolute freedom.
What Is The Bigger Picture? Health and safety for all living things to achieve their growth potential as part of a harmonious, non-exploitative whole. It is key that our resistance – which is necessary and life-giving – not embitter us.
Forgiveness Is Our Armor – Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the past or accepting bad behavior. It’s part of an interaction where forgiveness is a request, not a demand. Usually there is a recognition of fault or an expression of remorse: “I’ll never do that again!” When the requesting party instead seeks permission for the suffering to continue, “I can’t change – that’s the way I am” — that’ a different request. “Home” is not re-created that way. Hell is. Your opportunity is to point this out – if necessary, (because of safety) only to yourself. “If I’m not willing to try giving up my participation in this suffering because I think I’m not able to, then this pattern will continually get worse.” Time to construct a better – more intelligent map.
Models & Mentors – “It’s not an easy journey to get to a place where you forgive people. But it’s a powerful place, because it frees you” – Tyler Perry
“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world” – Marianne Williamson
“The weak can’t forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong” – Mahatma Gandhi
“To forgive one another, we must understand one another” – Emma Goldman
“Forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. It liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself” – T.D. Jakes
#Haiku: Forgiveness
Returning home with Newborn eyes Strong hands Fresh translations Future’s past
If This Card Chooses You – Is our brain’s labyrinth powerful enough to solve the universe’s complexity? Each of us experiences slow-growing difficulties just heaving from infancy into psychic awareness. How are we going to figure out the space-time continuum? In order to tackle these vast problems we have to get some sense of their dimensions.
Are You Dreaming of the Impossible? Last night I dreamed of being at a resort where people were able to run across the top of the ocean playing a curling game – but they had to move fast. I couldn’t figure out what kept their feet above the waves. Later it was my job to provide lunch but the food at the little store was appalling. Very little bread, all stale – some weird canned vegetables, no protein other than some very suspect cheese. I was so relieved to wake up!
Don’t Try This Alone – Life is very complex. We are bombarded with daily reminders that many of its problems are too big for our tiny brains to tackle alone. We need help deconstructing and deciphering the maze – we require the assistance of legions of engineers, mathematicians, philosophers and artists – living and dead. Our mythic history is nothing but re-runs of: Tiny Human Confronts Huge Universe.
Is Your God Too Small? – We have a regrettable tendency to try to solve problems by reducing them to the size of our individual brains. Don’t. There’s no shame in admitting the problem is of awe-inspiring size; there’s no shame in requesting help. But the concept of God must be of something mightier than ourselves, our problems, even bigger than space and time.
Warriors Are Puzzle Solvers– There is a way out of this labyrinth. You can follow string, leave breadcrumbs, mark walls, climb higher to get a birds’ eye view. You can call in a favor, study history, learn a skill, consult experts, request advice, find out what’s worked in the past. My favorite cartoon shows a goat calmly eating his way through maze walls. The key, problem solvers tell you, is not to panic. Whole years of primary education are devoted to getting you to sit down, breathe calmly and focus on the problem. Remember what you have been taught. Recall your goals.
Warrior Challenge – It is not necessary to solve the entire problem to solve a problem. Even a blind rat can get through a maze one step at a time. Algebra came into being to manipulate unknowns. Guessing at the existence of x using the behavior of surrounding particles allows us to see without eyes. Many “hacks” are clever, and certain innovators have a gift for adaptation and reconfiguration. We can always use help. We can always form teams. Repeat after me: “All my problems have some solution.” Often the solution is viewing the “problem” differently. Maybe it isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s an opportunity.
Warrior Danger – Primary dangers are panic (inability to think) and defeatist thinking (lack of imagination). The lovely movie The Martian shows a scientist literally conquering the impossible. If you ”give up”, you never get there, but retreat, reconstitution, changing training regimens and getting help are NOT giving up. Promoting your physical health and “Sleeping on it” are always good advice, as is viewing the difficulty from some other angle or changing the definitions of the entities considered.
Warrior Opportunity – Key to success is fostering excitement about challenges. Our high school used to dump couples in the countryside at night and give a prize to the first couple who found their way home! (Following roads and train tracks always a good idea.) Scavenger hunts and orienteering cover much the same territory. The fact that a problem is difficult only makes it more fun. Ask chess players.
Models & Mentors – “The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity” – Douglas Horton
“The labyrinth combines walking and thinking to open your power of imaginative perception” – Lauren Artress
“Willingness to be puzzled is a valuable trait to cultivate” – Noam Chomsky
“In a maze, find the center, in a labyrinth, find yourself” – Alysse Aallyn
“Life is a puzzle, missing pieces guaranteed and you can’t cheat and look at the box” – Anonymous
#Haiku: Every Book is a Zen Book
Puzzle Words – Assume Solution – Labyrinths Demand Escape; Look Up
Alysse Aallyn 