People are starting to talk

Here are some comments on Whispers and Shadows, Vol I: An Exquisite Corpse that people left on the website Goodreads. 

Word is starting to spread. Mark my words, the final nexus will be found. 

Too much. I said too much. 

Here's what they said: 

This book was not what I was expecting in the slightest.
Whispers and Shadows is an exquisitely written book about Thomas Grey (the author) and the powers of dreams and the imagination. In the book you can choose your own reality and interpret your own message. In 104 pages (that I finished in an hour and a half) you go through ups and downs of Thomas Grey's life and the life of "The Warrior". At times the book is fast paced and hard to follow, but in the end you always come out understanding.
This is a book you definitely want to take the time to read! It was great.

another:

I really enjoyed this book. The story is about the author Thomas Grey who is getting lost in a surreal world through lucid dreams.
His narrative is very dark and sometimes is hard to tell the difference between a lucid dream or being awake.
Includes a lots of footnotes with his blog site and real information making the story more interesting.
It is a very short book (104 pages) but its very deep and it gives you a lot too think about.

 Have you read it yet? What thoughts did it leave you with?

The Sliver Woman/Lucid Lucy

The Sliver Woman is a mysterious creature. Have you ever seen her in dream? To me, she usually appears tall, thin woman with features that undulate and move like the lava in a lava lamp. She is liquid, impermanent, able to slide between dreams and appear (almost) anywhere, then evaporate again. Her touch to me has been light, but smoldering, like the tip of a lit cigarette on your thigh. 

Apparently others call her Lucid Lucy. See the account of this lucid dreamer: 

All of that had changed about a year and a half ago when John met “her”. One muggy May night as John lay asleep in his bed he began to dream that he was outdoors at a classic car show. John walked around the car show having a great time looking at all of the cars. At some point a gentleman came up to John, in his dream, and said that he really liked John’s 1949 Ford Bueller. John realized that there is no such thing as a “1949 Ford Bueller.” He noticed the man was wearing a nametag so he leaned over to read it. Sure enough, the letters on the nametag were moving around and he couldn’t make out the name. As has happened so many times before, John realized that he was dreaming and became lucid. Now John was in complete control of this dream.

Later in the dream: 

At this point in John’s dream, the crowd present at the car show to started to act a little strange. He could see there was a commotion in the distance. People were starting to stop and look over in one certain direction, a few were pointing. Then a young man came running past John. Next a scared looking woman ran by. John was confused. A second man sprinted by, as he ran past John he yelled “she’s coming this way!” People started to turn and flee all around.

Finally: 

She was close now. John could feel the icy cold glare of her stare cutting through his very being. Now, for the first time, he was worried. He could only think about getting away from those black, life-sucking eyes. John ran around the side of a car and squatted down. Maybe she wouldn’t see him. Maybe she would pass him by. The air was quiet and still. John sat there contemplating his next move. He looked up nervously through one of the car windows. She was standing just on the other side! From his vantage point he could only see part of her lower half. She had some kind of weird tight fitting skirt with vertical red and white stripes. “What a strange being!” he thought to himself. Then he wondered why he thought of her as a “being” and not a woman. His thoughts were interrupted by something that made him “jump out of his skin,” as he put it. Her long, pale bony hand was reaching straight through the car! It was just about to close around his neck!

Writes the author: 

I’ve gotten similar stories from the handful of lucid dreamers I have interviewed. Always they are haunted by a tall, thin woman with solid black eyes. “Razor Black”,one woman who I’ll call “Susan” told me, if there was such a color. She assured me it was a color she knew all too well these days. Susan said Lucy looks different in every dream. But always tall, always thin, and always those solid black eyes.  

Have you seen her? What did she look like to you? What do you call her?

Fire's jealous affection

Part of the problem with being an unwitting narrator is words have too much meaning. I’m a child playing with fire, a clown juggling grenades. 

In my rush to communicate these visions to you, know they are part truths. They are the things I saw. But you may see them differently. What I may call death, you may see as a poem. A forest fire leaves the woods more fertile.

                

Know this when you see a leaf in the wind. It may not be as helpless as it seems. 

                 

But this is gibberish; you’ll understand in time.

 
(Paragraph deleted)

I’m still in the woods, though the soil has turned moist and fertile. There’s a sweetness in the air. It’s almost erotic. 

Every day I run my car. I use it to charge my battery. I use that to run my computer, lamp, hot plate and whatever other things I need for the day. While the car is running, I often stretch out on the roof and feel the feeble warmth of spring on my face. This brings me so much joy that I can’t bring myself to run the car before the afternoon sun warms the hills. So my mornings consist mostly of cold coffee and oatmeal, cans of uncooked vegetables and leaning into the fire as I read old books and magazines. By late morning restlessness urges me out to go for a walk along the numerous creeks, listening to the groggy exuberance of life waking up from the apocalyptic cold. Partly, I think this routine helps me cherish my evenings of hot food and coffee and access to the Internet via my wireless card. What a gorge of pleasure that is every night.

                

 Winter was a bitch. This cabin is on the electric grid, but I stopped paying about two months ago so they shut it off. It seems most of my waking time since then has been spent writing and providing hospice care for the chronically pathetic fire in my fireplace. I never have enough dry wood, and I’m out of lighter fluid; I live in terror of dousing the poor thing with a soggy log and struggling for another hour-plus to get it re-lit.

There may be forces preparing. But for what?

The following is an email I received from a reader of Volume I, who is a published expert in dreams and maintains a blog titled groovywriter.com. 

From: J. DeBord (email address omitted)

To: thomasgrey12@gmail.com

Date: Aug. 13, 2013

What Virgil told you (The Narrator) about the plan to enslave humanity is true, to my knowledge. You could call it "neo-feudalism" where debt is used to enslave people, governments, etc. The plan has been unfolding for centuries but has really kicked into high gear the last few years. Massive underground citieshave been built in the Ozarks as a hiding place for the elite when everyone left on the surface kills each other off or dies from toxic exposure, hunger, etc. I can send you a link to the Ozarks story. The locations have been found and filmed -- the underground cities are as big or bigger than places like Dayton. Jesse Ventura did an episode about the Ozarksconspiracy and obtained film footage of the one of the underground bases. The powers behind the drive to enslave humanity are inter-dimensional. They come from the two dimensions "below" the 3-D / 4-D reality we know as this universe.

The Silver Woman doesn't want you to know is you already have the power to keep her at bay. Laugh at her! She is, when really you think about it, quite ridiculous. I suggest that you learn how to cast a circle of protection and clear your energy field, if you haven't already.

So you (The Narrator) need to find The Warrior. Have you read "King, Magician,Warrior, Lover"? It explains the main archetypes better than anything else I've read. However, what we're talking about is the embodiment or manifestation of the archetype as an entity -- elemental magic. Wow. Well, one clue I can give you is the Warrior's counterpart is the Lover -- you always find them together.

I have some new biographical stories up on groovywriter.com. You'll find them under recent posts. You might be interested in some of my formative experiences.

I've been telling myself lately that I want nothing to do with the madness unfolding in this time-space. I used to think that I could somehow save humanity, but I realize now it was my ego driving me that direction, and it was my ego that cracked under the pressure I placed on myself. A decade of hard drinking banished those notions. But I think I also proved something to myself by writing a couple of books and establishing myself as a sort of wise man for the Indigo generation. I no longer need to prove that I'm "sssssspecial." lol. I am open to playing some sort of positive role though, but my condition is that someone way up the chain has to help us. This whole idea of God leaving us to fight our own battles against inter-dimensional forces makes me sick. If the Creator doesn't love the Creation enough to intervene, fuck it, you know? 

Those are my thoughts for now. When is the second book coming out?

Jason

PS -- It's a really good book!

---

Whispers and Shadows to hit newsstands soon

The independent magazine Telephone Weekly (Pick it Up) has agreed to publish Whispers and Shadows in serialized form, starting with their Oct. 10 issue. 

The magazine is currently available in the greater Dayton, Ohio area and will soon expand to Columbus, Ohio. 

Click here for a list of locations where you can find the publication. 

I am looking forward to a fantastic collaboration with the publishers of this adventurous magazine, and their talented staff of illustrators. 

Wheels are beginning to turn. Stones are being rolled back. Smell the air. There's potential in the mist. And I must continue to write. 

Whispers and Shadows Vol. II, The Marionette's Lament

The second volume of Whispers and Shadows has been compiled. It should be available shortly. Here is a bitter taste: 

Chocolates. Individually wrapped. Each one offers a choice. She plucks one out and looks at it, considers it briefly. The decision had already been made. The milky shell dissolves almost immediately, as it was designed to do. Then there’s nougat, requires teeth, embraces them, won’t let go. Tongue slivers over each jagged surface, digs between molars to free the remnants. Mouth is left creamy, dry. She reaches for her coffee, room temperature, sweeter than the candy but artificially. Saccharine and low-fat creamer. It washes the inside of her mouth. First a utilitarian gulp, to cleanse. Then another sip, to taste it again. And again. Coffee doesn’t fill. It eats, it empties the pores of the tongue. It aches in the stomach. It leaves the breath stodgy, and oaky and sour. In her purse, next to the cigarettes and Excedrin she finds the mint chewing gum. Unwraps a piece. Bites down. The flavor explodes, rolls across the gums, purifies the palate. She chews, and chews. The motion is methodical, relaxing. But the flavor soon fades, leaves a ball of putty she stretches, separates, recombines with her teeth. But it becomes cumbersome. A foreign object. She considers swallowing it, hesitates, then reaches back into her purse. She finds the receipt from a dress she had bought two months ago. It didn’t fit, so she planned to return it. She wads the gum up inside of the paper and places the package carefully into her pocket. Her computer screen continues to glare at her, a hum of computer key clicks and groans of office furniture hover over the surrounding cubicles. She picks up an ink pen, squints her eyes deeply at the online form in front of her, a Human Resources skills update she is required to fill out by Friday. “What are your goals with the company?” She puts the back tip of the pen in her lips, it dangles like a cigarette, long and precipitous, then gets launched back between clenched teeth. It feels artificial, tastes like dust, like canned air. She bites down. It’s stronger than her teeth, anxious to wear them down. She launches a new internet window, checks her email, her Twitter account. Nothing new. She yanks out the pen and presses it into her bottom lip, feels the tiny circle dimple the tender flesh. “What are your goals with the company?” She reaches for another piece of chocolate.

Hold my hand

I have been unable to wrest this song from my brain. It's haunting, telling and beautiful: