Alienus Tempus - Intro
It’s said that when you are in the throes of mental illness,
when you are truly crazy, that you are unaware of what the reality of the
situation is. That you are totally immersed in and absorbed by irrationality
and delusion. So that must indeed settle it then. I am not crazy. Somewhat
confused, possibly. It can be difficult to distinguish between the two worlds
each of us inhabit. A KOINOS KOSMOS and an IDIOS KOSMOS, the shared reality and
a personal reality. There are those that think that when the IDIOS KOSMOS tips
the scale then you are crazy. I would like to say that is a possibility, but
would also argue that if your KOINOS KOSMOS is not in alignment with your IDIOS
KOSMOS then you simply may not be balanced. You are missing part of the
picture. Too much of one or the other is either neurotic or psychotic,
depending upon which. I have a healthy dose of IDIOS KOSMOS and should be
balanced, but I am not. There has been an assault on my faculties and for some
reason, I am not in control as I used to be. There is Another… another me, that
seeks to restore balance, but in doing so, has shaken the very fabric of my
reality, and I would argue, the KOINOS KOSMOS, as well. Except that it is hidden, but in place. Occult. Waiting for the
opportunity when its’ interest would be best served. This potent anamnestic
force, similar to the one which one science fiction writer referred to as
VALIS, must have considered June 23, 2002 such an opportunity.
Chp 1 - Moby and
Dick/ 6-23-2002
Twigs, leaves and branches blanketing the road from the
recent storm snapped and popped beneath the tires of my '90 maroon Daytona as
we crept along Mulberry street. Tammy and I had left our daughter, Sarah, at my
mother's house in Dexter, Missouri the night before. We had just watched a
couple movies sixty miles north, in our home town, Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
We had watched Spiderman II together, and I stayed for
"Minority Report". Tammy said she’d pick me up after the movie and
left. She won't watch, read, or discuss anything that pertains to Tom Cruise,
even Steven Spielberg. I guess you could say it's my fault. After the movies, I
took Tammy to her mother’s house in Clarkton, and I went riding around in
Gideon, only three miles away. All three towns, with the exception of Cape, are
in the Bootheel of Missouri. Although I grew up in Gideon I didn’t go there
often, and when I did, it was only for a short cruise which often left me
reminiscing about the many houses we had lived in during the eleven years we
had lived there. The few friends I could claim had abandoned the town long
before.
My mother, Alice, bingo raging in her blood, left Sarah with
my sisters, Whitney and Cheyenne. Sarah was riding a purple tricycle with pink
tassles on the end of the handlebars. I rolled the window down to wave at her
and as we pulled up to 827 Mulberry Street she squealed and peddled next to my
driver’s side window. After I left the Daytona I squatted and she jumped into
my arms. I held her tightly and stood up with her. “Hey, baby girl. I missed
you so much”.
Whitney, Cheyenne, and some blond girl with shorts too high
were talking to my brothers, Jason and Justin, and two other bare chested boys.
They were all huddled near a yard swing next to the old white, decrepit
bungalow.
"Hey, Bub," Whitney said. "Have you met our
friend? His name is Moby Dix, but we call him Moby Dick, you know, like the
book?"
Well, call me Ishmael, I thought, while trying to suppress a
grin. I gave a brusque nod to Moby Dick. He may have been white, but I didn't
see what was so great about him. Did they not think I’ve heard that type of
umm… innuendo before? If they were my daughters. Well, I didn't want to get
into it at that moment.
After a few minutes of small talk, Sarah, Tammy and I left
for home. Driving down broken branch road, I thought, "Moby Dick,
huh?" In my minds ear I began to hear a song that used to play on the
radio all the time. But I hadn’t heard it in over two years. What was it
called? I had the tune, but no words to match it with.
After turning left onto Business 25 I glanced at Tammy,
"Do you care if I turn the radio on?"
"Sure, go ahead.”
I pushed the faded black knob, last tuned to a preset
station. I leaned back in the seat then
immediately sat up straight and looked at Tammy. The song that would not go
away in my mind was actually playing. There was a male and female vocalist and
they were singing about going down to the “east side”?
"Tammy," I said. "What's the name of the
group that plays this song?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure, but I think
it's that guy Moby. He's bald and does a lot of electronic and dance
music."
Naturally intuitive, sometimes to my chagrin, I immediately
saw a picture coalescing. It was as if a few vital pieces of a puzzle had just
been “intelligently” maneuvered into place.
As there is not much to do in the Bootheel, except to see
our family we hardly went south of Cape. Even rarer was it for me to go to
Gideon, and when I did, hardly ever I spoke to anyone. Earlier that day, while
I was riding around Gideon, I did see someone I knew. I’ve seen him walk in the
same area before and never stopped but this time I did. I talked to Philip for
a few minutes and then left. The topic of conversation has been lost to me for
years.
And then there was the meeting with Whitney’s friend, Moby
Dick.
Then there was the precognitive event with the song on the
radio. I discovered later that day that the song I heard, first in my minds ear
and then tuned into when I turned the radio on, was “South Side” by the artist
known as Moby.
The second movie I had watched alone was called
"Minority Report", based on a short story by the late science fiction
writer, Philip K Dick. How could I not connect these events? See how it works?
It was significant that I spoke with Philip earlier that day, and that we met
“Moby Dick”, and then the precognitive sense about the song by Moby. Moby was
the tie that bound Philip and Dick. And it was “confirmed” by my hearing “South
Side” in my mind then turning the radio on and both Tammy and I hearing it
immediately.
To complicate matters even more, or possibly shed some light
on the situation; I felt a pull to watch “Minority Report” because of a tenuous
but important connection I had made from the movie “Vanilla Sky” I had watched
not long before. The movie starred Tom Cruise, thus my “direction” to watch
“Minority Report”. (I speak more about this connection later in the manuscript)
This inevitably led to my pondering the author's middle
name. What did the K stand for? Would I find relevance in his middle name, as
well? This was definitely Jungian synchronicity manifesting. It had to be, with
everything else that had recently occurred. It's like my own IDIOS KOSMOS had
been altered from what it once was, in preparation to receive this information,
from what I believe had in part been delivered through the KOINOS KOSMOS. It
seemed to me there was some sort of master mind controlling the way reality
works i.e. “Space and Time”. This couldn't have been just me. Certainly there
was some outside objectivity to it. Either that or I truly was crazy.
