On another subject, altogether, if you ever wonder why people sometimes vanish before your very eyes, here's a partial explanation of mythic bent:

The Battle of Inner Shmuck and Inner Bitch

(Sliding steel and a nasal twang, slow rolling Country ballad style)

He was such a man, he was calm and cool,
He'd learned the rules at the oldest school,
He was funny and warm, kind and polite
The kinda guy a girl thinks about at night
The perfect foil for the perfect wench,
A dreamy, creative outer mensch!

She was fire and air mixed with light and song,
Stepping lightly and free in the noisy throng,
She was music and laughter and a dancing art,
The kind of girl could steal a wise man's heart
With a smile that would turn you like a Stilson wrench,
She was love made incarnate in an outer wench.

Well, they danced and they dreamed, and they wrote sweet prose
Like a carnation dancing with the perfect rose,
Every corner sweetened with their flashing souls,
Dancing waltzes and country and that rock and roll,
Every tear was admired, every story rhymed,
Where the mensch and the wench danced their double time.

But the time caught up with them, as time surely will,
And the rollercoaster took a little spill,
And the lights went out, and when they came back on,
It looked like the dancers and the band were gone.
She was hurt and confused, she was blinded by luck,
When she found she was talking to his inner Shmuck.

His head was whirling, he was out of time,
With a heart full of vacuum and a broken mind,
He was scrambling and slipping on a slope from hell,
Tried to ask the dog, but the dog wouldn't tell,
Just a wino crying that he oughta be rich,
He discovered that his lover was the Inner Bitch.

Well they glared and they pouted and they put up screens,
Duelling through the Aether like two pinup queens
Like a pair of cosmic wet-down Siamese
Their waves scared children and melted trees,
Every psychic on the Coast had to sit on the bench,
And there wasn't a trace of the Mensch or the Wench.

It was Cosmic tumult, like a monsoon storm,
And it rattled till the Being shook right out of the Form,
Up and down the nation folks were sleeping in,
Not daring to wake up to such a holy din!
And  soon there was no way to tell what  from which,
The Inner Shmuck all mixed up with the Inner Bitch.

Well the shaking and the glaring just kept mounting higher,
'Til it started interrupting the Ethereal Choir!
And the Choir Master frowned, with a sudden start
As a cracked chord penetrated into his heart!
Well he rolled up his sleeves, and he turned around,
And he readied himself to throw some thunder down.

And he reared back high and he leaned down low,
And he hollered out, <i>molto fortissimo!</i>
And he opened his hand, and a Cosmic Chord,
Went hurtling down toward the mortal horde,
And it shivered the timbers of every soul it struck,
Including the  Bitch and the Inner Shmuck.

Well that chord went deeper than they'd ever been,
And it touched them in places they had never seen,
And it resonated like a blast from Jove,
Like a tropic breeze over a treasure trove,
And somehow in the music, their distress was gone,
Like a bluejay whistle at the crack of dawn.

Well they looked at each other, and they'd plumb forgot
What the fuss had been, and who'd done just what,
And they looked around through their earth-bound space
And they each saw a smile on the other's face,
And they both started laughing, and slapping their knees
'Til it scared all the monkeys in the coconut trees.

It startled all the monkeys, and the ring-tail coons,
And it set a blue light dancing all around the moon,
And it set rainbows dancing in their bright tear-drops,
And they laughed even harder, 'cuz they couldn't stop!
And the Andes Peaks and the Marianas Trench
Were all shaking to the laughter of the Wench and the Mensch.

When the sun came up they had both moved on,
Or maybe they melted - but they both were gone!
And they never reappeared on that mortal plane,
With its tangled confusions and its price of pain,
But sometimes people tell me, when the wind is right,
They can still hear their laughter ringing through the night!

They can still hear the laughter, and that cosmic tune,
Painting rainbows in dewdrops, and a ring around the moon,.
 
 (Whining slide guitar fades recapitulating theme...K-Mart Girl's Chorus repeats last line several times)
 
 
 

Regards,

A