'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
the lone and level sands stretch far away.
Shelley
Old as man's emergence, sure as man's existence is Ozymandias and Ozymandias and Ozymandias.
"BORN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, WITH DOMINION OVER NATURE" is chiseled in stone above the door of SONS OF CHRIST CHURCH in Pinkerton.
Fully intent on the Pinkerton story fermenting at the back of consciousness, I was convinced this was to be the most clever notion I had ever had. And in my own mind, clever notions were not few for me.
I sat pencil in hand, blank paper on my desk, words elbowing to be set down. The four of us knew exactly where this story was going.
"Pinkerton," I wrote, "is not reached without effort. It sits well off an interstate highway, so far from ordinary travel that one came to Pinkerton only if one felt compelled to come to Pinkerton ."
I had just crossed the T in Pinkerton when the distinctive presence of Julia peered over my shoulder and slowed my hand. "Just what in Hades are you trying to do?" Julia, dead for over 2000 years, daughter of the most important man in the first century Mediterranean world-- Julia, victim and victor of her fate, held my hand and mind.
"I'm past trying. I am writing." With closed eyes and clinched hands, I willed her away. Julia is not easily willed away. Without my consent or input she summoned Carti and Tanaquil. While the three perched at the edges of my mind, I shook my head and said aloud -- to no one, for no one was really there. "Get out. Get out before people start to think I am nuts."
Grins from all three.
"Did you not hear? I don't want to be insane. Ican't be insane. I will not be nuts."
Julia's hand rested on my shoulder. "And why does knowing us make you nuts?" Her eyes shifted to Tanaquil. "Do you feel insane because you talk to me? Or to Carti? Or to Jewellee?"
"Not on Tinea's life."
"See, Jewellee, you are not nuts. You're special. You're in touch with your past, your distant past to be sure. Think about what we are doing-- think about it. We're trying to talk to our futures, and that is a whole other pot of eels. Let's let that pass. What we have been remiss in is that you have not dipped into your more recent past. You haven't seen or talked about that quaint ancestor of yours. What was her name? Marybelle or was it Maybelle?
Shall we summon her?"
In unison Cartimandua and Tanaquil said, "Oh yes, let's."
And there she was. Marybelle."
"I am so glad you came," Julia said in a tone oozing sincerity and charm. "The last time you seemed less than delighted to be with us." Marybelle blushed. Julia continued, "Not that I blame you. I imagine you find us not exactly to your liking--"
Marybelle interrupted, "Crass, pushy and self assured."
Julia's laugh was more a cackle than a laugh. "Ye gods, I admire your grit. You do know who we are? That is all but Jewellee."
In your current form-- mostly a figment of Jewellee's imagination as I would be if I chose to be a part of this madhouse activity. You are all three more myth than fact. Only Jewellee and I can pass the fact test." She ignored their attempts to interrupt her. "And to be honest it's iffy for her. To be sure you were once real. But now you're so overlayed and encrusted with mutable layers of biased and misinformed history who knows the real you?"
Julia's eyes flashed; her lips widened into a smirky grin. "And you? Jewellee, I grant you, has not lived long enough, or to be more accurate has not been dead long enough to allow for what you so inelegantly call encrustation of biased history. But you, dear lady, have. Shall we explore the women of your age. They were, I have no doubt, no different from me, or Tanaquil or Carti." Turning to me, aghast at her aggressiveness she continued, "Jewellee, since our little Maybelle or Marybelle or whatever her name is not sharing with us, you singularily are capable of informing us of the women of her time."
"But she knows better that I."
"True, but to be fair to us all we need history's bias equally applied. You may report when we next meet. Get at it. We'll leave you to your task.You have your work cut out for you.'
And they were all gone.
