Good-Bye, Charley
December 22, 1973 | Saturday
Michael
Right before the curtain opens, Archie recalls that TV Guide article again, sort of angrily. "The conceit of the show—that the ordinary schlubs out in TV Land can come onstage and win a modicum of modest fame and fortune (in the form of an oversized novelty check for $300)—hearkens back to the earliest days of television. Arthur Godfrey did it, of course, and if nothing else Ransom's genial, old-fashioned befuddled manner and his full-on Big Band orchestra (conducted by Hollywood arranging legend Skitch Henderson) evokes the wholesomeness of those Old Friends and Talent Scouts. But look a little closer at the folks coming off the street to audition for Ransom's dais full of B-list celebs and the whole thing seems awfully tawdry. The sincere acts who caterwaul or trip over their own tap shoes?They get zeroes and cruel laughs from the studio audience of mostly young people. The ironic acts who one suspects are 'ringers' to get the audience riled up? They get zeroes and boos. Once a week there's a dynamite performer who ends up looking like a legend in the making compared to the dregs who populate the rest of the half-hour. One wonders if we're all being taken for a ride by Ransom, if this is just all a 'shot,' kind of like 'professional' wrestling or those unwinnable games at the carnival.
Rose Nichols is up first. She's going to sing. She's slated for the dud spot at the beginning of the show, before the first commercial break. Oh gosh, dream Archie thinks, here we go. Skitch strikes up the band and Archie's announcer, a gorgeous blonde dressed in an off-the-shoulder ball gown, the TV lights shining off her feathered hair and bright glossy lip gloss, says, "Almost live! From Color City Studios in Burbank! It's The Amateur Hour, where your dreams of stardom come true! And here's your host, and my boss," the announcer says seductively, "Archiiieeee Ransom!"
The curtains open.
Rob
Well, Archie can do genial and befuddled. When the curtain goes up he stands there a second, lets it look like that's the bit, that he's startled to see the audience there, doesn't know what his lines are. "Oh! Uh, thank you, thank you," he says to the audience, then notices the announcer, does the barest of double takes and stares at her a second. Not lewdly, just as if he'd never seen her before in his life, which is true. "Thank you," he says, taking a step towards her, hopefully getting a laugh.
Then he "notices" the audience again. "Say!" he says, like it's just occurred to him. "Do you all want to meet a little lady... and an even littler lady... who make beautiful music together? Let's all give a big Amateur Hour welcome to--" He looks over at Rose and Charley in the wings and stops. Stares at Charley for a bit, again seems to forget his lines. "To... how about... our first act..."
He looks directly into the camera, speaking to the folks at home, though as he talks he'll glance warmly over to Charley every now and then. And he ignores his cue cards, speaking completely earnestly, no winking at all. How it goes over with the audience, I don't know, Archie doesn't care. "Listen, folks, you're about to meet somebody very special." Lets that sit for a beat, long enough for people to wonder, where is this going? "It would be easy to say this little girl is a marvel, a prodigy, a wonder, because she's all of those things. But what I really want you to know is what a swell kid she is. Just a great, great kid. The kind of kid it might save your life just to know."
Michael
The Amateur Hour director does a quick "Cut!" that the schlubs in TV Land will never see, and the grips and stagehands wheel Charley's impressive array of modular synths out onto the stage. Archie's hot young assistant director and PA hustles over to him, holding a clipboard, saying, "I thought the mom was going on first? You know, the dud spot to get the audience laughing?" But Archie has felt, over the course of this first season of The Amateur Hour, that you should start the show, before the first commercial break, with the act that's got real talent, the one that's going to win the $300. That gets everyone in a good mood thinking the rest of the show is going to be similarly impressive. Let the Raven sing afterwards, we'll all have a good laugh. But this is Charley's time to shine.
After the hustling crew finishes putting all of Charley's patchboards and keyboards into place, Archie finishes his intro [Rob, feel free if you want to do this to do it in character] and Charley takes the stage in her little silvery Rick Wakeman glam-wizard outfit. Before she begins playing, she makes a show of popping a little cassette tape into a recording gizmo attached to the entire bank of synths. She hits record, and begins playing.
Charley's number was going to be some big bold Bach Fantasia and Fugue to show off the capabilities of both her dactylic dexterity and her custom synths, but as she sees Rose in the wings, wondering if she and Charley truly are a mother and daughter act, Charley ushers her along out with her microphone, to do the vocal number that Rose was originally going to sing solo, but with fully computerized and synthesized accompaniment.
Charley's good at improvising and reprogramming on the fly like that. She is a genius.
Coming out of Charley's computer banks and speakers is a full orchestra, to Archie's ears, of synthesized woodwinds, horns, bells, drums, even vocal echo effects. Skitch and the band, who'd ordinarily sit in to lend the typical The Amateur Hour musical act a little extra punch and heft, sit there with horns and strings in their hands, watch wide-eyed in wonder as they see and hear the future. And Rose sings. And for the first time, Archie can tell in that weird way you can in dreams, for the first time in their lives, mother and daughter are in perfect sync, almost like it was meant to be this way between them from the start.
Michael
When the Nichols mother-and-daughter act has finished up, Archie comes back onstage to stand next to Charley and her mother as they receive their scores from the celebrity judges.
Archie brings Charley and Rose around to "face the music" as it were with this week's panel of B-list celebrity judges. This inclusion seemed to be a good idea esmologically to Archie and the producers when The Amateur Hour was in its planning stages, to make TAH feel as familiar format-wise as an ordinary network celebrity-guest game show even given its amateurs-only aesthetic; it helps that there's practically a rotating soup kitchen-style queue of these type of folks in Hollywood: spend a day or two taping a game show like Password or Tattletales, drink a lot backstage (and sometimes even at the dais), and pad your bank accounts. But today's judges are, for some reason, far far above the usual cut of celebrity judges. It makes Archie feel a little unsettled and intimidated but in his dreaming mind he can feel his esmological feelers twitching in a strange way, as if to say, "This is the field we're playing on now. The A-list. We're the A-list."
First off, in the usual "Jamie Farr" slot—if you'll allow me the Gong Show-style latitude to call it that—is Robert Redford. He's got that golden aura about him—he's wearing a spiffy seersucker retro-'20s/'30s number in homage to The Sting or maybe that Gatsby movie that came out a few years back/is about to come out in the waking world—but his dark amber-tinted eyeglasses, blindingly-white teeth, and hair are all very firmly 1978. On his lapel he has a youth-style button that merely cryptically says, "RR '80?" Bob is genuinely happy to be here, Archie can tell; this isn't him "slumming" or a gag. It's like Archie's show has been elevated by contact with him, and likewise in that dream-like way, like he and his ilk have always belonged here.
"Phenomenal stuff, just dynamite," Redford says. "Very forward-looking while still bittersweet in evoking those halcyon days of the Bay Area in the last decade. Made me feel very old and outdated in all the best ways." Another 500-watt Redford smile, and then he looks directly into Camera 2 instead of Archie, Charley, and Rose. "The old must make way for the young," he states with mournful gravity. "I gave it a ten." Redford holds up a little index card with a "10" on it. Applause and hoots from the audience.
The middle spot on the dais, which in this universe-timeline without Chuck Barris's The Gong Show we will still persist in calling the "Jaye P. Morgan" spot, is taken by that young British firecracker of an actress, star of stage and screen, Avenger and sometime Bond girl, the newly-divorced once-again Miss Diana Rigg. She, like Redford, is dressed anachronistically, but instead of a nebulous Roaring Twenties/Depression outfit, she is wearing a late Victorian/early Edwardian ensemble. She looks a bit like this:
"Oh, a mother and daughter trodding the boards, singing and playing their hearts out, it's so delightful. I think these two have a great future together," Rigg says this single sentence to the camera stiltedly, like Redford did. Then she snaps back into ebullience mode. "What else could it be but a ten, darling." She dutifully holds up her "10," overflowing with doodles of flowers all around the numerals.
And finally, in the Pat McCormick/Rip Taylor "goofball" spot, is a man who needs no introduction. For a man of this level of fame to be slumming on Archie Ransom's Amateur Hour would be as absurd as him, well, hosting a 90-minute quickie B-movie on something like Nostradamus, or doing an ad for frozen peas. The sheer gravity of his presence on the dais leaves Archie speechless to introduce him. "Mmmmwell, this young lady," the third judge strokes his beard with one hand and gestures as if toasting with a glass of white wine in his other, "she touches the future, does she not? She brings it forward, brings it to life. I've been led to understand she built this contraption on all her lonesome," he says, looking at the modular synths. "And her mother, yes, a connexion to the past, but how distant a past is the real question." His rich, mellifluous review of this mother-and-daughter amateur act adds a real sense of momentousness to his eventual verdict; he, unlike Robert and Diana, does not do a wink and a nod to the audiences at home in TV land. "For a pair of mismatched, star-crossed gals such as these, it would be downright criminal... to let them out of this studio without a healthy bequest... and a unanimous verdict."
Orson Welles lifts up his blue index card with a mischievous grin. "Bonne chance, mes chères filles." It's a big, bold, serif'd "10."
As the applause from the studio audience for the opening act reaches a raucous peak after Orson's "10," Archie cues the orchestra for the commercial break. The whole dream Archie's been carried along by what feels like a wave of barely-subsumed hysteria; the whole act—the whole show—is loud and fast-paced and chaotic, and as the stage directors get ready to set up for the rest of the taping and the no-doubt comically inferior acts that will clog the middle of the show giving The Amateur Hour its trashy lowbrow appeal, Archie's dream self finds himself face-to-face with Charley just off-stage. But it's not an empty dream avatar of Charley anymore, playing with wizard-like abandon over her synthesizer keyboards, Archie can tell with his Special Rapport. It is like Charley is waking into Archie's dream, and Archie is connecting with hers. Two dreamspaces occupying the same corner of the Astral realm at the same time. Rose fades into the shadows of the backstage area, as the dramatic focus of the dream sets a metaphorical spotlight on Archie and Charley. Charley holds in her hand the cassette she used to record her duo performance of "If You're Going to San Francisco."
Mel
She drops the cassette in her hand as she jumps up into Archie's arms. A stream of consciousness overtakes them now.
who am i? I have something to tell you that i can't i'm leaving but that's not true because i can never leave you and in that
how to describe the prism?
a high light a highlight a light that is high overseas that tumbles over glass to form her in the shear in the the shearing of lambs
a mountain in our way is nothing it is nothing it is nothing the stones run they stream
this is about love and separation that doesn't that isn't do you see the dancing puppets creating space whoo's in the audience cue card rose-colored glasses he speaks sings
Pinocchio, i am lost iam lost iam lost lost lost lost lost lost
girl sits indian style on the hardwood floor and invites the man to sit with her. A figure lit from behind casts a rainbow shadow wearing rose colored glasses holds the cue cards.
Holding cradling cue cards.
A price to pay for joy please hold me Will we ever see sea I see you now and forever
Humble your brain. I demand it i beg it Or ever will you be lost. Lost. Lost. What do we hear?
What do you see? Who is there? The Sea. I love you
Michael
A rush of sensations, words, thoughts, images, emotions overwhelms Archie on the cheesy set of The Amateur Hour, as if his special rapport with Charley, the one that existed somehow even before they'd both met, had been opened wide like a burst dam. In that moment, Charley's astral self and Archie's dream-self were one, and with it all of Charley's thoughts, anxieties, memories, and life (lives'?) experiences.
Rob
"Charley... This is real, isn't it?"
Archie sits with her on the floor. "I... don't know what to say."
Hobo Stan claps a beefy hand on Charley's shoulder. "Attaboy, girlie. Ain't this what I done said all along? High time for you to light out for the territory." Enki coils around Charley like a long, large cat, and chitters in Sumerian. The puppet man has lost the knack of speaking truly. But he loves you. He wants to plead with you not to go. But he knows that this is your road. So he can do this last thing for you and send you on your way.
"Pfeh," snorts the Dragon Lady. "Should the world blubber and cry when a bodhisattva transcends it?" The scorn is for Archie; to Charley, she speaks kindly, saying "Yí lù shùn fēng, child--may the wind be at your back. You have greater destinies than this endless game of broken men." Stoney nods, adding, "And au revoir is not adieu, young adept. We'll meet again, in other channels." Hobo Stan clasps his beat-up tin-can hat to his heart, looks off to an imagined horizon. "Wherever there's a doojigger needs wiring to a whatchamacallum, you'll be there." Stoney rolls his eyes.
Archie fumbles for words but his love for Charley, his pride in her, his regret for the ways he's failed her, his conviction that she has saved him, is all there.
Mel
The lights begin to slowly dim on this stage. Archie and Charley softly speak words that warm even Stoney's cold heart. And as the puppets hold the space for father and child to have their good-byes, a large shepherd's crook emerges from the now dark stage right. Enki is the first to go. But unlike the old Miner's Bar days, it gently carries him off. Next, the Dragon Lady, then Stoney... and as the hook makes its return Hobo Stan sidesteps out of the way, spilling his can. "It's your cue to hit the road kid!"
Charley gives Archie a final squeeze and whispers to him, "Thank you for being my Dad."
The shepherd's crook gathers its last little lamb. Hobo Stan makes himself cozy next to Archie. They both stare off in the direction of Charley, silence finally broken as Stan, elbows Archie, offering up his tin can, and says, "Beans?"
Michael
The area around the Trinity Test Site is desolate. Tiny pebbles of lurid green Trinitite remain here, even after the government cleanup and burial of much of the manmade radioactive mineral. Jocasta feels in that ineffable dream-like way that she's actively trespassing here, that despite there being no fences, no marker, no structures, nothing that would have kept her from driving her cherry-red 1958 Ford Thunderbird out here. As Charley walks towards Jo and the car, Jo finds herself thinking about those radio broadcasts she heard at the beginning of the dream, the unsettling, horrified voices pleading in what she figured was Sumerian. She didn't feel fear that it was the Red Kings trying to get an entry into her head. What Jo felt was sympathetic fear and pity. Charley crunches across the sand and pebbles towards Jo. Charley's wearing a wide-brimmed hat, khaki shirt, shorts, and hiking boots. She looks like she did tonight at the Christmas party, except the fair skin on her arms and legs is beginning to burn a little bit. "Hi, Jo," she says, sort of dully and sadly. "You never made it out this far, did you? When you drove away from ALLOCHTHON?" The dream's perspective changes focus as Charley says hi to Jo. Behind Charley, further away than where Charley started, Jo can see a couple dozen or so adult figures shuffling towards Jo and Charley, slowly. They look like they're tired, bedraggled, hindered, unable to walk at full speed. Jo can't make out much more than that as the desert dust whips up around them in a sudden sirocco.
Leonard
"No, I never did," Jo replies. "It was...too much. I was a bit scared, to be honest with you. Lots of bad vibes here," she says with an exaggerated expression of displeasure. "What are you doing here, Charley? Who are your...who are these people?"
Michael
"They'll be here soon, you can ask them yourself." Charley's face shows some sadness, a tightening and pursing of her lips. "They're the Survivors." Charley puts her hand over her eyes like a visor to look at the figures through the bright noonday desert sun, then reaches into her pocket and pulls out the vintage sunglasses that Viv gave Mitch after her book tour, the ones Jo used her Psychometry on. "Not many people did survive the blast. Did you hear the Transmission?" Charley points her thumb at the car, and Jo realizes she's talking about the chaotic shouting in Sumerian that appeared through the static. "We fired first," she says, a seeming nonsequitur.
Leonard
"We did this?" Jo ask, haltingly. "We found a way to...to go back, and to make that happen? To them?" She tries to study the faces of the people walking slowly towards them, but they're too far to see clearly, or maybe she just doesn't want to see. "Charley," she says, her voice flooded with something she always tried not to express in waking moments with Charley, or anyone else: despair. "Did we...did I do this? Will I have to do this? The futures I've seen for me, they're all...so dark. There is nothing in them but pain and horror. I know it's what I deserve, but...I never wanted it. I don't want to make this happen. It's better I, I don't live, if this is what my life was for."
Michael
"It's all right." The dream-Charley comes closer to Jo, holding out her hand. "It's just that you need to know about this. The ghosts... talking to them... that's your responsibility now too." Charley looks absent for a moment, like she's somewhere else. "When They gave you that power to see the past, They didn't know what kind of a weapon against Them They were making. Don't worry about the future; you're all going to make a fine one. This," Charley gestures at the Survivors closing in on Jo and Charley, "this is the past. And it needs to be dealt with before you can put those ghosts to rest." The Survivors are now clearly more visible. They wear rags, but what remains of the fashioning of them is... culturally suggestive. So too, are the few words Jocasta can now hear from their mouths as they speak among themselves. And their complexions, where it can be seen under the severe burns, is a more-or-less uniform light brown, with darkish hair predominant, although lighter-haired outliers can be seen among the group. But all are covered in severe burns, in some cases, the flesh is festering or necrotic. Two rolls: Archeology-13 (at a penalty because of the condition of the clothing) and First Aid-15 (Telesend won't work with these dream figurants).
Leonard
>> SUCCESS by 0
>> SUCCESS by 5
"I always forget the past," Jo mutters half to herself as she clutches Charley's hand tightly. "It's so easy to worry about the future and forget that...everything that happened then still matters."
Michael
Jo looks at the Survivors now that they're within conversational distance; she can now make out minor design details in their ragged clothing. They seem to include design motifs from Mesopotamian cultures (which Jo remembers from her SANDMAN training) and Southwestern Indian tribes (which Jo recalls from her recent work on Indian culture). But this is dream-logic, of course, Jo thinks to herself. What circumstances would lead to that kind of cultural combination? It's at that moment when Jo has a sudden realization about the third set of decorative elements in these exotic, ruined costumes; the diaphanous togas of the "Nordic" humanoids who appeared in the flickering superposition with the kulullû, the grey aliens, and the Army Reservists back in Ohio. Along the edges of some of the Survivors' robes, Jo can see the same class of mysterious hieroglyphics from the downed UFO's balsa-wood framework. These Survivors are clearly suffering from radiation burns, Jo's Army first aid nuclear-biological-chemical training can tell her. "My mom tried to help them. She figured it was the least they could do. But there wasn't much any of them could do. My dad got so mad about what happened to them."
Leonard
Jo shifts where she ‘stands’. She knows at a certain level that she’s in a dream, but she still feels exhausted : there’s so much still to do, so many things to have to know. Behind every conspiracy is another conspiracy; every mirror reflects back another mirror, forever. The feeling of finally learning something only to have the curtain pulled back onto another new reality soaks her body and weighs her down; it’s been the primary condition of her life for so long now. “Freeing these spirits, giving them some direction and some connection to the greater worlds…it’s so important. It’s why I’m trying to help Leonard with the Ghost Dance.” Her head swims a little, and the reality of unreality becomes even more tenuous. This must be what Mitch feels like all the time, she thinks fleetingly. Focus, Joey. This will all be gone soon and beyond your reach, she thinks. Speak while you can be heard. “I know I shouldn’t even ask, Charley. So many times you came to us for answers and I feel like we failed you every time. But can you help me? Can you tell me how to help them, to help all the souls caught between this life and the greater life?” She pauses for a moment, wishing she could smoke in the Dreamlands. “I’m glad you found your mother, Charley. I was…I think feeling the way I do about you didn’t let me see that finding her again was what you needed and wanted. I thought it should..:that it had to be us. “But I would have done anything for you. Anything I could have. Don’t forget that, Charley, please.”
Michael
The dream image of Charley looks at Jo with real sympathy and care. "What's been done has been done. The dead remain dead. These dead are unknown, unmourned, unloved. At least in our world. Remember Cairo? Remember how cut off everyone was from their history, their ancestors, the true meanings of their lives? Remember how cursed that made the town? That's what They thrive on. Not hate necessarily, just... the absence of love and memory. All these people killed by the bomb are more useful to Them in this state. They exist in their after-life in a state of anger, confusion, betrayal, vengeance. If you could set them free, to do what my father couldn't... they'd need to move past what was done to them. All of them, offered something valuable, greater than themselves to work towards that isn't a spiral of hate. They fear and hate us for bombing them and mourn that the Kings couldn't keep them safe. The living may forget, but the dead remember. That's the emotion that They use to keep them trapped and useful." Dream-Charley realizes that unknowingly, she's tied in Jo's wanting to heal the dead with all the sadness about how things worked out with Charley and her mother and URIEL and SANDMAN... the whole mess that her life's been up to this point. "'Souls caught between this life and the greater life.'" Dream-Charley laughs and smiles. "You're doing now what you should be doing for me, Jo." Charley looks around Jo and Jo sees that the poisoned Survivors have now vanished from the Trinity site. "Letting go."
Leonard
Jo looks out again, at something. Something that was there and now is gone, or something that was gone and has reappeared? She can't tell; ghosts flicker in and out of her vision like flipping a television channel.
"I have always been afraid that the people who I thought could show me the truth, the real truth, the reality behind the endless sets of curtains, would disappear. And they did. One after another. I tried so hard to keep them close," she says. "Maybe they're not gone, though. Maybe they never were. Maybe nothing ever is." She reaches out, as if to embrace Charley, but there is no one there: only space, only time. She folds her arms together, holding nothing but her own heart. She looks down at her hands and they are still there, they way they have been on her hands every day for the last nine months. No one else sees them, but she knows they are there. "Goodbye, Charley. Thank you."
Mel
An unfamiliar voice emerges from the noise on the radio. "And HORROR in the halls of GRANITE PEAK Look at last on meadows GREEN And trees and hills THEY long have KNOWN." More static then: "Jocasta? Jo? Am I coming through? Can you hear me? It's Charley."
"I'm... I'm... I'm... on the dark side of the moon."
"It's so obvious! Over on the dark side, radio radiation....direct interference... solar flares...causing brain damage at night...madness... illusion."
Charley's voice is (mostly) calm and steady, but the radio cuts in and out as though it's unable to hold her frequency.
Then the radio starts to play...
Leonard
"Charley?" Jocasta says, her head spinning. "Are you okay? Do you need help? Speak to me."
Mel
Dead air, then the Charley broadcast continues. "It's precisely 50 years to the day... But going back and forth uses an incredible amount of energy. However, I can see the hidden... using an.......Ground control? Jo? Everything is on track..I'm just..tired. Captain R. Hare says the egg is about to take off. If all goes well, we'll be back before...with the shipment of......Time............ Time to go. Time.....father. Time...wait..."
Distracted by the radio, Jocasta doesn't immediately notice the pink spotlight that is beaming down from an egg-shaped spacecraft several hundred feet in front of her Thunderbird. The light moves erratically, darting in all directions before finding the convertible and fixing itself onto it, then narrowing its focus onto Jocasta, gently tugging at her until it lifts her from the car. Jocasta suddenly senses that the light pulling her upwards is Charley. That thought informs the dream and shifts it.
Jocasta and Charley sit on the old orange sofa from the office, watching the waves crash onto the beach at Half Moon Bay. Charley notes, "Even the good vibes couch is getting a fresh start." patting it fondly before cuddling up closer to Jo. "Jocasta," Charley says sadly, "be careful." Then she hugs Jocasta tightly before turning again to a pink light. And in that light is all the love that Charley feels for Jo.
Michael
Leonard, can you give me a Body Control-13 roll for the sleeping Jocasta? It seemed to be a good default skill for dream lucidity to me, especially considering Jo still likely has civilian LSD in her system.
Leonard
>> FAILURE by 1
Bah! McKenna’s LSD is too good!
Michael
Jocasta's dreaming self sits at the shore, remembering (more like fully flashing back to, Jocasta realizes) the visions she had on LSD back in July when she was trying to untangle the knots of Charley's origins and the microchip and SRI and the subsequent acid experience/vision she received of the daddy-energy that manifested as the Emperor on his Metron-like throne over the water.
Jo's realizing that this place she's been taken by Charley's dream-self, Half Moon Bay, is the place she couldn't identify in that dream. It's real, Jo's been there, her subconscious realizes, and the connection she has with Charley—actual Charley, not the earlier dream-image of her diffidently kicking around in the desert at White Sands—recognized this place on the Inner Astral in Jo's dreaming unconscious, sought it out, found it as a place of love and safety.
Jo is in a hypnopompic state now, half-asleep and half-awake, the acid's effects draining away. The longing she has for mama, for ocean-mother: that yearning is the same one Charley had all those years locked away in SANDMAN's dungeon. And this place of peace, of safety, of a mother-and-child reunion by the surf, will never be intruded upon by that father-energy, ever again. This beach is a place of safety and healing: importantly, it is one Jo knows now she will be able to return to, without acid, without trauma triggers, without using her psychometry. All Jo will need to do is dream, or meditate, and she can spend as long as she needs to here, on the Inner Astral, to deal with her pain, sorrow or trauma. Charley got her mother back and indeed now will be reunited for good with her, Jo can sense: it is only fair that Charley return the favor of reunion with Mother, to Jo.
(Leonard, Mel and I had the idea that Charley's dream-self showed Jo this place in Jo's own psyche, somewhere Jo could retreat to if the sanity-draining parts of her life grew to be too much. Remember, time on the Astral goes at 1/10th the speed of time in the material realm. I know you have a couple of xp left, and I was thinking I could model this somehow for 2 xp (to start anyway) if you're interested in developing it.) (edited)
Think of it as a subconscious/Astral bolthole for Jo to process her shit.
Half Moon Bay
Leonard
Yeah, let's do it
Michael
Cool, I'll look at various Meditation/Sanity bonus mechanics, but it was all Mel's idea. A way to enshrine the Good Vibes Couch on the Astral Plane
Leonard
(Also I have been to Half Moon Bay and it's gorgeous but also highly suitable, as Jo's place of peace and safety, that it's most recently been in the news as a victim of climate change, a city crushed by the economic downturn, corporate irresponsibility, and mass shootings)
Michael
Marshall feels in complete control of this dreamscape; he's conscious he's dreaming, and he can feel all the basic waking psychological urges and factors behind his subconscious constructing this scenario: taking the acid, the heavy-headdy vibes at Druid Heights, hearing Judy Garland on the hi-fi at the Ransoms' party, listening to Terence talk about a new chapter of his life and the world's new quantum level of novelty, which obviously fed into the "black and white into color" Wizard of Oz motif. Rose/RAVEN as Glinda the Good Witch also seems pretty cut-and-dried, what with her dropping into Charley's life out of nowhere; Charley as Dorothy Gale inviting Marshall to open the door onto Oz, well, hasn't Marshall always asserted that Charley is a bodhisattva, ready to open the door to a new age? So what's behind the door, Marshall wonders. (Given your critical Dreaming roll, Brant, you can do whatever you like to shape the dreamscape at any point, or see where the eddies and currents of Marshall's subconscious were originally planning to take him.) But most important is that feeling Marshall got when he first looked at Charley-Dorothy: that this dream figurant is an empty vessel, waiting to be filled with an actual dream visitor, which Marshall's dreaming self is certain is and will be the actual Charley, communicating with him. Can she travel into dreams now? Well, considering the practice she's been undertaking with astral projection, that would make a lot of sense. As she's gone deeper into the Astral in the last few months, she's gained the ability to visit humanity's collective unconscious, the noosphere as Terence (and Teilhard de Chardin) called it. So making her way into a dream of one or the other of the Club seems like it would be, excuse the pun, child's play.
(And just so Mel knows the situation fully: Charley dressed as Dorothy and Rose dressed as Glinda are standing with Marshall in the Gale farmhouse from The Wizard of Oz before everything turns to color. :D)
Brant
I think we concluded the live scene with Marshall taking Charley-Dorothy’s hand and walking through the door. What’s on the other side?
Melanie
A green light is cast upon Marshall and Charley-Dorothy as they stand before the luminous doors of the Emerald Gate. Their towering height and strange glow make it impossible to look away. As Marshall looks deeply at its markings that seem to pulse in and out of sight, he slowly starts to see an inscription that reads, "Isa, son of Maryam, said: 'The world is a Bridge, pass over it, build no houses upon it. He who hopes for a day may hope for eternity, but the World endures but an hour. Spend it in prayer for the rest is unseen." Marshall's vision of the Emerald Gate fades to Charley-Dorothy's smiling face as he feels her small hand take his.
The sight of Charley smiling up at Marshall is accompanied by a ringing in his right ear that reaches an uncomfortable pitch. It breaks as he hears what sounds like Judy Garland's voice coming from Charley-Dorothy. "Many golden paths lead the soul in and out of the heart. But only the GOLD path leads directly into its flame. Who are you to open this door? Thief, murderer, liar, are you sure you want to go in there?" Charley then shrugs, mirroring Marshall's nonplussed expression before pointing back at the green gate. And there, before the entryway, a lion-headed angel wielding a large flaming ax inscribed with the word "PAX" in its right hand. In its left hand, it holds a scale weighing what looks like straw.
Brant
>>Theology, SUCCESS by 3
Marshall clocks the inscription, seemingly making a note of it.
"I am no one. Go ahead, weigh my heart. You will find no thief, no murderer, no liar more proud than me. I am without regret. I have done what I have done; I could have done it no differently."
Melanie
The heliotrope-colored eyes of the lion fix their gaze upon Marshall before it speaks again. "Now is not the time for weighing your heart. It is the time of your choosing. I will step aside if you wish to proceed."
Brant
"Then step aside, daemon."
Melanie
"All right! All right! You heard Monsieur. Step aside, beastie!" Says a little black rooster-dog that jumped from Charley-Dorothy's arms. With a bow to Marshall, the angelic being grows smaller and brighter until it is no more than a ball of light floating off into the distant technicolored skies. And before the heavenly light is no longer in view, the little dog-rooster barks at Charley and Marshall. "Come on, you two! No turning back now."
Brant
Marshall follows.
Melanie
Charley hand in hand with Marshall says,”I sure hope this wizard has the answer.”
Brant
"They rarely do, but I've found it's best to hear what they have to say anyway."
Michael
The streets of the Emerald City are empty. No horses of a different color trot along its byways, no Munchkins or Winkies or Quadlings from the provinces visit its streets to entreat the Wizard (or Princess Ozma). The green spires and wats stretch off across into the jungle; Marshall realizes suddenly he is in the Khmer city of Indrapura, but before it became the ruin that he, Roger, and the Green Berets raided for SANDMAN back in 1967. It's also a little bit of the Technicolor Emerald City from the 1939 movie, of course, in that ineffable way of dreams. But neither human nor Irruptor walk its streets. It is a city of temples with no demons, no ghosts, no dangers, no prayers. But Charley and Marshall know there is a Wizard at its center. They step up to the main wat with Toto-Brigitte in tow and find the Wizard's door closed with no attendant to welcome them. Marshall's Dreaming crit allows him to conceive that this structure is, again, built from memories and imaginaries combining his trauma in the jungle with his memories of seeing, yes, The Wizard of Oz in the theater during its first-run when he was seven years old—Charley's age!—in 1939. One of the fondest memories he still has of his parents, memories that are admittedly few and far between. Marshall senses that the door is open and unlocked—no pesky lockpicking roll required says a crazy voice in Marshall's head—and that there is a third dreamer, a real dreamer, at the heart of Oz's palace-temple, and that this dreamer's power is immense.
Brant
Marshall suddenly feels slightly trepidatious. “Judy,” he says, referring to Charley, “what are we doing here? This is a dangerous place, even in dreams.”
Melanie
"Well, I wanted to tell you I'm leaving with Mom. I thought in dreams would be the safest place to say goodbye. But I was only thinking of the happiest moments of the movie when I reached out to find you. I expected something else." Charley considers the collage of cities before adding. "It may be your unconscious contribution to the dream."
Brant
"Ah," Marshall says with a tone of realization, "another shared dream. Fascinating." Then: "Well, you'll be missed. Any plans for the future?"
Melanie
“Spend time with my mom. Explore the wide world.”
“And try and avoid that.” Charley gestures behind them out beyond the gates of the enigmatic city. To a sea of red poppy fields and at it’s border a growing tornado.
Brant
Marshall looks in the direction Charley gestured. Then: "Sounds boring. But I guess everyone has to backpack through Europe at least once in their life before they realize there's nothing out there for anyone. Tell me: is the Wizard Mitch?"
Melanie
"Tell yourself. This is your dream." Says the disembodied voice of Charley. Who now appears as an orb of pink and purple pastel light floating up and away. Before she's entirely out of sight, he hears Charley giggling. "You know how to reach me if you need me. Farewell, Marshall!"
Brant
“What a strange kid,” Marshall murmurs.
Melanie
"I heard that!”
Michael
Mitch sees Charley coming up to him; she's wearing similar type clothes to what Mitch is wearing: comfortable denim jeans, a fleece pullover, sneakers, multiple layers, plenty of insulation for the cool spring here on the slopes of Mount Shasta. She's also got a little satchel slung over her left shoulder. She reaches into her jeans pocket and pulls out a folded-up piece of paper. She looks a little sad, but levels her gaze at Mitch in a very grown-up sort of way: determined, steely, resigned.
"Hi Mitch." She unfolds the single sheet of paper to the point where it's just folded in half. "So I did what they asked at the office, and got my mom to write a formal letter." She hands it to Mitch. "They said I had to present it to you." She waits, looking behind Mitch while he checks out the letter, at the dozens of other schoolkids having their biology and music and philosophy lessons here at Mitch's school. She waits attentively for Mitch to read the letter.
Jeff
Mitch scratches at his philosopher's beard, which feels like it sticks straight out from his chin. "Okay."
He accepts the letter. Before he reads it, he pauses and rubs his neck. "Which office?" Mitch asks as he unfolds the letter the rest of the way and examines it.
Michael
Dear Mr. Hort and the staff of [SCHOOL], the handwritten letter starts,
I am writing this letter to formally dissolve my daughter's relationship with your institution. Although she has learned a lot in her twenty-five years here, Mitch looks up and Charley is still seven or eight years old, not 32 or 33, we both feel it is time for her to consciously separate from you and the rest of the faculty and go out into the world and seek her dharma there. There may be an opportunity for a grand reunion near the end of the narrative, but that will depend on many factors, not all of them under our control. But we both feel like we must try to strike out on our own. It is time for my little girl to grow up, and for us to get to know each other in the time together we were denied by your predecessor institution. But in the time my little girl has been with your school, she has been given excellent instruction, both intellectual and moral, and the impact of her years here will be felt the rest of her life.
With all sincerity and my most profound thanks,
Rose Nichols
"You know, the office in the main building, where all the staff works," Charley says. "Mitch, I'm so sorry. But it's time. I ran away that one time and I didn't know where I was going. But this time... I've got my mom."
Jeff
"Why sorry? The goal of a school is for students to move on. It's not like this is a community college, the degree from which qualifies the graduate only for teaching at that same community college. I don't totally get the idea that it had to be hand-delivered to me personally, but that's why I'm not in charge of keeping our accreditation with the state. Anyway, thanks for the heads up." He refolds the letter and stows it in a jacket pocket, pulling out his wallet in the same motion.
"You'll need, hold on, bus fare...maybe a coffee, heck, lunch..." Mitch starts taking hundred dollar bills out of his wallet, gives eight of them to Charley. Or tries to.
"Oh, shoot, before you go, can I get my sunglasses back?"
Michael
Charley smiles as Mitch says his piece about graduation. "I... I knew you'd understand." She readily takes the $800 and stuffs it in an inside pocket of her satchel. There's a book in there, Mitch can see, but Charley closes the clasp before he can get a good look at it. "Sunglasses? Those sunglasses? I don't have them. I'm giving them to Jocasta as a hint about the Solarans and what happened at White Sands in 1945. Or I'm going to give them to her. The real ones are still on your car visor, don't you remember? You put them there after driving back at like 8 am from the solstice party. Time and bisociation is a little weird here in the Inner Astral, 'I' have to wait for 'me' to finish taking Marshall to see the Wizard before 'I' can truly come say goodbye to you."
Jeff
"Well, that's okay." Mitch sounds disappointed, though. "Pass along my hello, when you're close at hand." (edited)
Melanie
“I heard that!”
"Shhhh!!!" Says someone from behind Mitch, stopping Charley from saying more.
Jeff
Mitch glances back over his shoulder.
Melanie
And sees one of the kids looking sheepish.
Michael
A pair of Mitch's students—one Black, one white, both boys around 11 or 12—crouch behind a low stone wall, eavesdropping on Headmaster Hort's conversation with his most prized student. The kid who shushed is Hilton, who dream-Mitch knows to be a first-year student at this dream-school... one of Mitch's more promising students, in fact. The other student, the white kid, Mitch can't identify because he hightailed it out of there when Charley seemed to hear them whispering to each other about her. Mitch senses a change in this dream-reflection of Charley, as if she is more real somehow now, less a mere figment of Mitch's own dreaming subconscious. Mitch's dream-self looks at Charley's aura and realizes that now Charley herself is here.
Jeff
"A stroll at St. Francis, to trace the steps of Annunaki's influence, subtle yet. Within advantage's reach, two levels gained, a third debated, withheld for gameplay's sake. Months have passed, since SANDMAN and I surveyed, not solely under URIEL's guiding light. An elusive demon's vanishing act...to find its path, a puzzle in the dark. Amid those hopeful, pastoral, and failed, paths intertwine, where truths might be unveiled."
Melanie
“If there is a demon. Sometimes they reveal themselves when asked.”
“At least that’s what Roger told me. I never actually tried it.”
A priest with a Bible in his hand stands where Charley had stood. He looks much like Damien Karras, as the dream plane "gifts" Charley's new form with the soon-to-be-famous tragic priest archetype. But to Mitch he looks like a dark haired, middle aged, world worn man of the cloth.
The priest looks at Mitch with concern and rests his free hand on his shoulder. "Would you like me to speak to this demon for you, my uncle?"
Jeff
"Not opposed to intervention, but still unsure if change will yield a meaningful shift."
Michael
Hilton remains on the periphery of this scene, taking everything in with a keen interest.
Melanie
Father Charley meets Mitch's eyes as he gives his shoulder a reaffirming squeeze before saying. "You must have Faith."
"Now we must prepare! The first thing we must do is get the little ones out of here. Except that one." Father Charley points in the direction of the still eavesdropping Hilton. Who, in shocked response, points to himself for confirmation. The priest chuckles, "Haha! No, dear boy, not you, that one behind you. But best that you go running along now!" As Hilton hightails it out of the outdoor classroom, he leaves young six-year-old Granite Peak Charley behind him. Catching Mitch's uneasy look, Father Charley explains, "Don't worry, son, she's not real. But the girl will make the perfect conduit. I could ask you to do it, but believe me; you don't want that thing inside you."
Jeff
"You're right, I don't. I can't feign comfort here, yet trust in you persists, despite my doubts. Well then, Charley, if your counsel insists, we'll heed your words and venture forth as urged."
Michael
Father Charley leads Mitch and the very quiet Granite Peak Charley over to a ridge overlooking the valley below Mitch's school. Usually, Dream-Mitch knows, this valley below his school is wild and overgrown, with a narrow hiking path cut by an old now dry stream. But as Mitch looks down there now, he sees Marshall's Mission from down in Sonoma, Spanish architecture, vineyards, horseback riders, meditation groups and all. The campus is bustling, and Mitch's eyes are drawn to the visitors moving to and fro, but Father Charley puts his hand on Mitch's shoulder. "Not yet. That seal is not yet to be opened. But its presence will attract our quarry," Father Charley says. At that moment, Granite Peak Charley undergoes a sudden transformation. Her hair grows wild, her eyes savage, her mouth opening in an unearthly scream. "No!" Granite Peak Charley screeches. "I was free! How dare you bring me back here!" The demon looks through Granite Peak Charley's eyes at Mitch, judging him silently but without real malice. That malice she saves for Father Charley. "You have faith that they can accomplish all that they must accomplish? Without you?" She spits, curses at Father Charley. "That they will find me and banish me? They will never find me. Instead they will do my bidding, unknowing, until it is too late and I sit upon my rightful throne." Granite Peak Charley's teeth, rotted and green, break out in a keen, eager grin.
(Mitch can give me a Detect (History B)-15 roll and an IQ-14 roll.)
Dr. Cronk used
/roll
Jeff
>> SUCCESS by 5
>> SUCCESS by 10
Mitch looks, for lack of a better word, disgusted. "A moment there, I mistook you for her, but those green teeth belie the truth."
Michael
So as Mitch considers this very sudden swerve in the dream's vibes, the first question on his plate is Is my dream actually actively being invaded by an êkimmu? (hence the Detect roll). The answer to this question is, blessedly, a definite no. This demon-possessed young Charley is a mere dream image, an astral construct. But! Within this dream-image of the demon is some pertinent information, some real thread of fate or Serendipity that connects Mitch with the êkimmu that escaped the St. Francis six months ago. And that information is being used by Mitch's subconscious (and, presumably, Charley's facility with the Astral Plane) to construct this demon's imago and identity. So it may try to lie, it may try to mislead (as is its nature) but somewhere inside this dream figure of a possessed little girl is real, actionable, pertinent information, and a connection that makes that information valid in the waking world. Think of it as Charley helping Mitch interrogate his unconscious and memories of the St. Francis for clues.
Now the IQ roll was for Mitch interpreting the weird appearance of the Mission down in the valley below. And the information from that critical success I'd like to unfold gradually as the interrogation and "exorcism" of this demon inside young Charley continues. Carry on, you two.
Mel
"Silence, Demon! Do not speak to us of your foolish webs! They will no more ensnare us than the fisherman's nets can contain the seas, for you know as well as I there is only one true Lord that may sit upon the Throne!"
Father Charley wipes the spittle from his face as he turns his attention to Mitch. With the sign of the cross, he says, "May the work we do here be for the good of all." Then, casting a watchful eye on the possessed child, he adds, "Watch that she doesn't run off as I retrieve some items from my satchel."
Jeff
"Doubt not she'll linger. This truth is stark: an extra film of unreality fixes her like a weighted quilt in park."
Mel
The priest rummages through his bag, muttering about a "Black Gate" and "oaths that should be broken" before pulling out a good book, a wooden box, and a burning candle. "Here, take this in memory of me and open it to chapter 10." Father Charley handed Mitch the book he would recognize as part of the box set she had given him at the Christmas party.
Upon opening the book, Mitch discovers that it has a hidden compartment that contains the Redgrave Cassette. "Make sure you review that! I feel certain it holds a key to your inquiry."
Jeff
Now follows the Parley (on 25th). Aragorn and Éomer wind horns before the Morannon, and summon Sauron to come forth. There is no answer at first, but Sauron had already laid his plans and an embassy was already coming to the Black Gate. The Wizard King? He bears the Mirthil coat and says that Sauron has already captured the messenger - a hobbit. How does Sauron know? He would of course guess from Gollum's previous visits that a small messenger might be a hobbit. But it is probably that either Frodo talked in his drugged sleep - not of the Ring, but of his name and country; and that Gorbag had sent tidings. The messenger jeers at Gandalf for sending a weak spy into the land where he dare not go himself, since his wizardry is no match for the Master. Now Sauron has the messenger, and what happens to him depends on Gandalf and Aragorn. He sees their faces blench [sic]. And jeers again. 'So!' he says - 'he was dear to you, or his errand was vital? So much the worse for you. For he shall endure slow torment of years, and then be released when broken, unless you accept Sauron's terms.'
'Name the terms,' said Gandalf, and tears were in his eyes, and all thought he was defeated and would yield - and of course be cheated.
The terms are that the Hosts of Gondor and Rohan shall withdraw at once beynd Anduin. All leands east of Anduin to be Sauron's for ever, solely; and west of Anduin as far as Misty Mountains shall be tributary to Mordor and swear vassalage: Gondor and Rohan: as far as the river Isen. The Ents shall help rebuild Isengard and be subject to its lord - not Saruman, but one more trustworthy!
Gandalf replies, 'Yea, and what surety have we that Sauron will keep his part? Let him yield first the prisoner.' (That is awkward for the ambassador as in fact Sauron has not got him! But he laughs.) 'Take it or leave it so,' he said.
'We will take it,' said Gandalf, ' — this the mithril-coat in memory. But as for your terms we reject them utterly.' Horror of Pippin and Merry if they are present? 'For in any case you would not keep them. Do as you will. And let fear eat your heart - for if you so much as set a thorn in the flesh of Frodo you shall rue it.' The ambassador laughs, and gives a dreadful cry. Flinging off his garments he vanishes; but at that cry the host prepared in ambush sally from the mountains on either side and from the Teeth, and pour out of the Gate. The host of Gondor taken at unawares wavers, and the leaders are surrounded. All the Nine Nazgûl remounted swoop down; but the Eagles come to give battle.
Michael
After contemplating this crucial portion of the third book of Holy Scripture, the demon inside Charley screams. There can be no compromise with Sauron, no ceding of territory to him, Mitch realizes. If they offer us such a treaty, we shouldn't accept it. We can't peacefully co-exist. By the end of the trilogy it's got to either be us or Them.
Weighing the Redgrave Cassette in his other hand like it was on a pair of scales, Mitch's eyes once again go down to the valley, to his god's-eye view of the "Mission." The Mission's guests are now dressed more like ancient Sumerians; the red banners fluttering from the mission's spires and cupola look distorted, the deep reds tearing through what appears like the fabric of this dream-reality. It's as if everything down there was on videotape. Mitch thinks back to when he discovered the Special Ones sitting around the TV in their suite, and threw the U-Matic machine out the window, and the way the tape had been infected by Them. The Irruptors peeking 'round the corners of Marshall's handsome guest houses. The worshippers shouting hosannas to their Masters.
Mitch now sees and understands, through both his Illuminated senses and his critical dreaming IQ, that every single one of the Mission's guests down below are Illuminated. They sing the song that makes the world that the Anunnaki desire, keeping it alive for the day an infection can take root in History A and bring back History B.
"My name is Legion," Granite Peak Charley-Regan burbles forth in what sounds like a desperate attempt on the demon's part to stay inside this conduit. "For We are many."
Father Charley says, as if quoting Scripture him/herself, "Maybe one of the reasons subduction events default to History B is a whole lot of Illuminated, somewhere, somewhen, are keeping History B alive."
Find the intruder, Mitch realizes, and we get closer to finding the mass of Illuminated who are dreaming en masse, keeping History B next to us in the stack. It must be part of the intruder's purpose.
(I suppose the other thing the passage from The Return of the King demonstrates to Mitch is that no matter who it is who seems lost from the Fellowship/Club forever, the show must go on.)
Jeff
"This truth is not the one I wished for here. I still yearn for détente with Morrigan, hear?" Mitch sighs. "Alas, the threads of narrative conspire, weaving tighter, binding us entire. "
Mel
"Where is our simple truth? How can one act in the face of such complexity?" Says Father Charley to no one in particular before placing his hand on the forehead of the fitful little girl. "I release you go in peace." Then, stooping to pick something up from the ground where the child had been, he says to himself, "If only it were as plain as this." Mitch can see the priest slip something gold into his pocket.
"Uncle, it's time for me to leave this dream." Charley now looks like her seven-year-old self again, dressed for the green slopes of Mt. Shasta. "Take care, and if you ever need me before I return, just find me." With a wave, Charley turns to make her way on a narrow path that leads towards a distant setting sun.
As she does she sings,
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.