Faye Pasquil died without a fuss
When struck on Sunday, by a bus
The driver sneezed and missed the brake
And in that moment sealed her fate
Her final thought, quite curious
Last night she had dreamt of a bus
Yet of an accident no mention
Perhaps she didn’t pay attention
For as the driver took her fare
He told Miss Pasquil ‘Please beware,
I have a cold.’ What could this mean?
Faye wondered waking from her dream
The last thing she expected then
Was death caused by bus number 10
But wait before you shed a tear
At her demise, for just last year . . .
When collecting for some charity
A woman rang Faye’s bell to see
If she might have some cash to spare
Or maybe clothes she didn’t wear
‘I’ve something you can have,’ Faye said
And hit the woman on the head
‘And don’t come back!’ Faye waved her stick
‘You goody-goodies make me sick!’
Faye Pasquil wasn’t very nice
Her hobby was to poison mice
Then let them loose for cats to chew
And then she got to **** them too!
And on the night of Halloween
When children knocked her door, to scream,
For chocolate treats, in scary clothes
She’d drench them with her water hose
But of these incidents gone by
Faye did not ponder, did not try
To pray, repent, or merely see
There was a better way to be
There was no Heaven, was no Hell
God wasn’t real, so who could tell
What happened after your last breath?
You went to sleep, that’s all, that’s death!
However, as Faye closed her eyes
She found there was one last surprise
For lying dead, out in the road
Her mind did not die, but, implode
The light at first was pure as snow
Then brighter, a beatific glow
Pulsating hotter than the Sun
Yet did not hurt to gaze upon
Dead relatives she did not see
Just blinding light, eternity
The cosmos born in black and gold
The pattern of her life unfold
And everything made sense at last
The good, the bad, the ugly past
For even being mean had been
A journey leading to this scene
Mistakes are made so they can show
A way of learning where to go
To see, to know, to love, to live
There’s simply nothing more to give
Awakening a certain truth
Faye Pasquil finally had the proof
A pity then, enlightenment
Had been revealed while Heaven sent
But wait, one more surprise in store
Faye Pasquil wakes upon the floor
She isn’t dead, she needs no hearse
In fact it feels like the reverse
Enlightenment has staked it’s claim
And Faye will never be the same
The old Faye’s dead as dead can be
It’s why death felt so real you see
And now she gives away her things
Attachments gone, she cuts the strings
They have no value any more
Except down at the cancer store
October doesn’t need to come
For kids to visit for some fun
Faye throws a party every week
With music, sweets and hide & seek
Her neighbours think Faye’s accident
Is brain damage, it’s evident
‘That knock was no calamity,
It’s changed her personality!’
Faye smiles at rumours of her brain
There’s really no need to explain
This was her true self all along
She just forgot for far too long.

Asteroid O’Belt Sydney Junction (Beer in Bar-Alley)
With the right words, you can make music on any planet of spatial arrangement. Dark matter keeps the balance of eccentric space, where a blue-suited handsome man, shines; however blackholes lurk to turn Spike Spiegel into a dream where he lives. Is it a dream or has he ever felt more alive than being back in the action with the moral courage that threatens his very existence Don’t forget he has a gun strictly for assurance. With warships, there lurks a year in 4050. 2000 years in progress, we may have evolved in terms of interactions. Fast forward, there are different people in whole new worlds. Like epiphanies, these characters take their place in the chatter of a celestial crowded cinema in downtown Shinichiro street.
The doctors chatter with dark undertones and hushed intentions:
“Well, it’s not like the phones are cheaper. Ever since we got their first. The phones have come sooner than virtual intelligence take place in this ghost.”
“The ghost seems to work actively.”
“Seems to be shutting down in fact.”
Shadows cast on the processes of entropy there many optimistic pursuits for the present.
But, in this modern civilization, what do we have the battles and gambles among the bounty hunters interested in staying in the loop of where the money flows. But, the real artists are the creators in this desert of opportunity.

“Woah, Spike.” – Spike hynogogically resuscitates from his cybernetic sphere
“Wake Up.”- Jet
Presentation matters but, the old technology rumbles in the cosmos among the old cosmopolitans you’ve had in your fruitful day at a casino of blackjack and bounty hunting. Somehow, Faye Valentine comes with a bang and a bad gun in the back. Holstered but focused on the game.
“Fold the chips, for you?”- bent slightly over the steep end of gambling. Mrs Valentine can’t seem to get out her mind her job as dealer for Table 2 in a hexagonal room of full-scale gambling operations.
Clearly, absorbed in the rattling crowds of these snakes in the rabble. Or maybe there are actually snakes. ***** it.
“Raise.”- Dewey Striker
“See that’s a million.”- Faye Valentine
“Let’s hand it to the strong gentleman for his courage, but, exciting game of Woolong and Woes or simply Poker”- Table 1
“Nowhere as good as these drinks are in Jupiter. If I win, I’ll write it all down in my journal.”- Table 2
“Probably, better to put myself out there at the right time. You raise too.”
“Earth’s building itself. Well, people are the same.” – Table 1
“Oh imagine, if we had more planets to destroy.” – Dewey Striker
“With that, money? Yeah, baby. Write down a cheque next time.” – Faye on Table 2
“To **** the one among us, who has whereabouts about a notebook that had all the people who have been linked to the death of Spike Spiegel killed would take us years.” - Faye
“What!” – Table 2, someone wins
“Nice try, but, that book’s all the history remaining of someone I knew.” – Faye Valentine says daringly.
“The notebook stays with me, until you have enough to buy off the notebook. I’ll start with 100,000 woolongs. How about that, missey? You know the notebook of all the accomplices that ever worked with a Doohan.”
“Do right honey, you’re lucky you’re in the right room. I need the information and I’m a rich gal.” - Faye
Spike and Jet in Discussion:
“Apparently, Vicious had barely managed to finish him off.”
“Do the others know?”
“Faye remembered, but, let it go.”
Recluse in Exclusive Reminiscences (Part I)
Jet & Spike completely lost in the intricateness of the bounty-hunting. Might be a terrible idea to eat bell peppers and beef. But, if you’ve got an aching stomach from ton of drinking and stairwell trips, you’re gonna have a hangover. If the Prairie Oysters were still not his thing, only thing that changed is that the more he drank, the less he liked the planet. For his favorite there had to be a special occasion like a bottle of the finest whiskey that the joint would serve from the golden days of heart-warming company in the heart of this Japanese place.
“Oh but there was one time. When I ate…”
“That was long back 4001,
Commandeer and imagine my surprise when the ole Siren, Jet. That’s his name; there was a need to rename Spike Spiegel to the old school be-bop that pretty much enriched the video star. There was a bomb, I don’t know what happened; there are piles of rubble and pretty much every bounty hunter missed it.
“Says, he wants to destroy a planet. Somehow, there’s some secret stone interwoven with the need of the hydrogen-powered machinery to change the deuterium in the accelerator.”
“Well, we could use the quantized possibilities and run an algorithm with the specific plasma type.”
“But, that would mean we would have to bypass the gravity field blockers.”
Simply put, there was some riff-raff about the bags in the first place. Kept them off the scheme of people who were idiomatic in their habits, and that seemed to do the trick.
“Well, the Francium is resonant with the cell rejuvenation heuristics.”
"So, go to Pluto. Where do I find the little kid? After since I got to you. The dog."
"Spike, Faye's not welcome. Leave her out of this business."
"We made it clear, but, no parting ways unless we find the guy who erased her memories."
"Yeah, maybe you could contact her. But, let's keep it straight."
"Fade into the television; before the victory is yours. Television is on an old couple of people who have coffee and beans; saying them both remind me of all the people I owed at the hot-dog store we just passed by."
"Might be a good idea, right?"
"You think so?"
"Yeah."
"What about Faye and the little kid."
"One of the most annoying kids. He'll find us if we surface on this awful map of nowhere."
"Well, we are on Jupiter. Everywhere is nowhere here."
"You've been here a while."
"The days get longer, each time."
"Yeah, what about the weather? Always turbulence in the skies. ****, it’s cold."
“We’re on the moons, Spike. We have air-heaters in our lousy, ******* spaceship.”
Jet, do you ever maybe wonder giving us a visit, here on Pluto. It was the farthest planet I could think of. Changing my life was great. I won't meet, and I'll remember you as a person, a stranger now in my own paralyzed heart beat. I can't feel my jobs get any more exciting. Vicious happened long back. God knows. Now, we steal back from society."
"God only knows." - Jet, baffled by no name of the planet
No name was given; however, that made Spike rather elated with the heightened discussions happening on Mars. There the assumption they made about their friend had concluded on Pluto. Here on Jupiter, you are always working with the better people to make a living. Too many moons, and further than the Asteroid Belt still lies the interstellar galaxy all beyond our amazing stipends. All of them, owe it to themselves, bounties are perfect to fill your midnight blues. And nothing to snack gives you the existential jeepers. Better smoke before evening kung fu time before you flow like water into the background of the Bounty-Hunting business. Once you're dead, you can't come back alive, but, freedom is a specious young kid floating in space and hacking your whereabouts. He’s about 19 years old.
“Your friends would be proud of you.” – Edward seems to have beat a chess grandmaster. The same old adversary from the blues of the old loss. Edward, you’re smart. Figure out, where’s Spike.
“Spike, where are you?” – Dewey Striker
“Can I help you?”- Faye Valentine
I suppose we must have misread the situation, but, the cross and frowning kid is not your f
Holding up a picture of Spike at the beahc.
“I wonder I should go back.” – Faye hurrying to her Casino table
Pack your bags and umph
You’re leaning into yourself, and the legs feel fine and the peak of my appeal seems to be, my whole package. But, even a gun couldn’t save him from someone she thought she lost forever. Spike was the only person in the galaxy who she knew was dead for sure. You can never tell in such a large galaxy, but, there are better views of sunsets in Venus. Did I want to die? When I knew he died in the fire of bullets and completely riddled by a long series of hovering flashbacks.
Story Part II (Continued Clueless And Moving)
The windows must open to a better life. Spike’s hungry.
“Well, your smokes are in the bag you carried. Didn’t bother stealing a single one of those Macintoshes you got from that place on Earth.”
“Jesus, man what part not touching other people’s stuff, don’t you get?”
“The part where it concerns us paying for the food stamps.”
Spike quizzically asks “Do they still do that?”
“Jet, don’t tell me we’re living off the previous million we had in woolongs. Not some ****’s mushrooms this time.”
“By the way, forgot to tell you. The recorder is on, I decided to get one of those VHS tapes.”
“Yeah, about that?”
“Hmm.” –Jet
“Faye got kind of emotional on the “day.”” – Spike
Government data shows that you two are bounty hunters. Those passing wormhole customs need to pay a price. See the sign.”Await your turn. Or pay up your woolongs.”
Jet yells at Spike, and seemingly hastened,” Seems like we have to pay up.You guys charge a grand for this?”
“You mean we didn’t come for more questioning?”- Spike
“Well, Spike we have to stick to what the customs say. And sure every single woolong counts as a bit of developed product. How about Mr. Agent? Do we get a free pass for a good ole’ blues gig?”
“Mr. Spiegel, please explain to your friend over here. You cannot go without the code for the customs department.”
“Spike, Faye gave us some sort of code in the back of the letters.”
“Seriously?”
“How did she know I was alive at the time?”
“Well, I told her you wouldn’t have survived the bullets. But, you could escape from the bloodiest gunfights in the history of this team.”
“Mr. Spiegel, I wonder if you would be caring to ask the services of our executives at your cryogenic storage?”
“How do they know, Jet?”- Spike
Turns out, the cryogenic patients are monitored. This is a sacred bond of servility to a life beyond the mortality of humanity and immorality of society. IN the end the immortality and the authenticity of your identity lives on. They called it the “Ghost.”
“Do they know about G.H.O.S.T?”
“Mr. Spiegel, we are getting late. Can we please finish this easily without involving organizations of vast power and affluence.”
“Growth of Hyper Oscillating Specimen Testing”
“Wait, what?”
“I mean we have to get out of here fast and we do not have time before Vicious comes and kills us.”
How We Escaped?
Basically, we turned to our best instincts as to whether a secret lurked behind the planet’s corrupt system. Jupiter had become a place of leisure, but, the alcohol was getting to our minds.
“Yeah, we checked names.”
“We checked faces, and no sign of those doctors.”
“The dream doctors seem like real nightmares.” – Jet
“Good one, Jet. But, having the nerve to ask the customs agent about Vicious really put him off.” - Spike
“Oh, man. That scared him.” - Jet
A cold beer was opened, and what happened afterwards is unreal; and as we approach our planet Pluto. We follow the invite, and the code is some sort of invite. If it was going down, me and Spike were gonna be there for sure.

(This poem can be sung to the melody of "Tammy" by Jay Livingston and Raymond B. Evans.)

You topped TV's televangelist scene.
Tammy Faye, Tammy Faye, you were the queen.
When hubby Jim Bakker was forced to come clean,
Tammy Faye, Tammy Faye, you were still queen.
Will we ever know
What it was
That made you tick?
And people still wonder why
Your make-up was so thick.
We can still picture your face with its sheen.
Tammy Faye, Tammy Faye, you were the queen.

When other preachers were badmouthing gays,
Tammy Faye, you had new pathways to blaze.
You offered them love in so many kind ways,
Even though there was much money to raise.
When the world was cruel,
So very cruel,
To people with AIDS,
Compassion for them became
One of your crusades.
Although people blasted your actions and mien,
Nonetheless, Tammy Faye, you were the queen.

-by Bob B (9-21-21)

Hope you had a good night’s sleep Faye
He coos holding the cup to her lip
Nice isn’t it the morn’s first sip
And be ready for a lovely day!

By the way sweetie I had a good sleep
Long, dreamless, deep
If I don’t count that recurring nightmare
You’re sitting broken on your favorite chair!

Can’t stand to see you broken that way
From me you ever being taken away
And one morn here I’m alone to weep
Not holding a cup to Faye’s lip!

You know sweetie I meant it true
When I said would die without you
For you my love is so deep grown
I see it mirrored in the rusted bone!*

Faye’s eyes don’t move a blink
His words in her quietly sink
There’s a thrill in her timeworn bone
That her man would never have tea alone.

I’d thought that they were extinct until
I found one in the coop,
A genuine Jersey Giant, strutting
Up on the henhouse roof,
Twice the size of the other hens
As I said to my sister, Faye,
‘Where did it come from?’ She replied,
‘Not there yesterday!’

‘I go to collect the eggs each day,
Do you think that could be missed?
That bird is a giant,’ she declared,
‘So don’t blame me, desist!’
I calmed her down, for she used to flare
At the slightest hint of crit.,
‘Whatever it is, it’s here to stay,
Perhaps we can breed from it?’

There wasn’t a cockerel near the size
Of this random Jersey Black,
‘It must have come visiting overnight,
I joked, ‘from a neighbour’s shack.’
She wandered into the henhouse and
From behind an empty keg,
She said, ‘You’d better come look at this,’
And showed me a giant egg.

An egg so big that you wouldn’t think
That a chicken could let it pass,
Tall and brown with a pointed crown
And a shell as thick as glass,
‘Are we going to let it hatch it out,’
Said Faye, ‘or crack it yet?
I wonder how many that would feed
As a giant omelette?’

‘We’ll leave her be, and we’ll wait and see
If a monster’s there inside,
We might as well, if a cockerel
It can be the henhouse pride.’
So we let her sit on the giant egg
For a week, or maybe more,
Then Faye came running inside one day,
‘You’ve not seen this before!’

The egg emitted a humming noise
And rocked a bit on its base,
While through the shell there were coloured lights
That would fade then grow apace,
And as we stood it began to crack
Then pieces would fall away,
It almost gave me a heart attack
For what I saw that day.

For spinning inside the egg we saw
A tiny universe,
With a sun-like star at the centre and
Our planets, in reverse,
And as we watched it began to grow
To float out the henhouse door,
Swelling constantly as it rose
To the skies, with a mighty roar.

I don’t know what it has done to us,
The sky doesn’t look the same,
There are three moons now in the evening sky
Since the Jersey rooster came,
I lopped the chicken that laid the egg
And I wait for the slightest sight,
With an axe for the Jersey cockerel
That Faye prays to at night.

David Lewis Paget

are made each year, in Canada they are made by Canadian Broads’ Company, a t.v. film organization maimed, I mean manned, by women. Let’s listen in to a conversation between Barb {a tall, buxom drink of water} & Faye {a short squirt of scintillation}, first Barb: “You know Faye, I’m running the bra & *******’ department.”
   Then Faye: “Listen Bar, I’ve had it up to
my areolae with your sniping ***** attacks!”
   Then again Barb: “Oh Faye, drop the
cold cream --- I wanna talk.”
   “Yes,” said Faye.
   Barb resumes: “You’ve worked for *****
Unlimited for 6 years & I couldn’t be happier ---
   “Hold it,” Faye interrupted, “***** Unlimited?
I thought it was ***** Mountain?”
   “No,” Barb corrected, “it was *****
Town before & it’s ***** Unlimited now.”
   “Oh...” {“I can’t help but to be reminded of my
time on the farm sloppin’ sisters & riding bikes with
my pigs,” Faye felt like almost saying.}

Can you see? Can you see?!
Where the Faye roam free,
Where the earth and the sky are one in the night.
  Can you see, can you see?
Where the Faries fly free,
   And dance in the light of the moon shining bright.
   *Can you hear? Can you hear?!
The laughter of the lutes,and the songs of the Stars.
As they pull you to their world, too enchanted to run.
     Can you hear, Can you hear?
The songs of the Sirens trying to beguile,
   And the tunes of the Naiads calling you to drown,
Into the depths of the water, of which they both ware the Crown.

I.

The last thing? It wadn't nothing special. Pa and me, well, we never had what I guess you'd call a real easy exchange. He kept to hisself. I kept to myself. We worked hard, and we appreciated each other. But we--and this may be sad to you, but it ain't sad to me--we didn't get touchy-feely. Didn't say "I love you" or things like that. We traded off fetching the water. Traded off nabbing clothes off the line for Ma. He taught me how to be, to live, you know? How to work the cotton. How to work the mules. He gave me three bullets--just three--every time I took the .22 out to get a squirrel. "Make it count," he'd say. "Don't bring home less than four." Making it count--that means more than that other stuff.

So, what I'm saying is, in the end it wadn't no big to-do. Before he handed Ma the shotgun and told us to get, he stuck his head out the kitchen window, the one just over the sink. He said, "It's gonna rain. Them's the kind of clouds that ain't fickle."

I said I reckoned he was right. He said yep. Handed Ma the shotgun. And that was that.


II.

Robert never wanted to live in Tennessee. He was a Kentucky boy, and if it hadn't been for my selfishness, I believe he would have died a Kentucky boy--or man, rather--at a much later date. See my mother, Faye, she got dreadful sick back in '31, and I says to him, I says, Robert, you know my sister can't take care of her--this being on account of her being touched in the head and all. He didn't say nothing, which was usual, but he didn't grumble neither and that, that right there, is the mark of a good man.

We started with just 80 acres. He built the house hisself. Did you know that? It wasn't nothing fancy, no, but we didn't need nothing fancy. It was made pretty much entirely of--oh what do they call it. It ain't just cedar. That uh uh uh--red cedar. Can't believe I forgot that.

Anyway, our place was sprawling with red cedar. Not the prettiest trees you ever saw, but they were ours, and they provided what we needed of them.

Because of us doing alright with the logging, we was able to pick up the Whitmore place. That was another 160 acres.  Robert hated Tennessee, not a doubt in my mind about that. It was his home, though, you see. It was his land. He wanted to make something of it to give to our son, Henry.


III.

Come all you people if you want to hear
The story about a brave engineer;
He's Franklin D. Roosevelt, in Washington D.C.
He's running the train they call 'prosperity.'

Now he straightened up the banks with a big holiday;
He circulated money with the T.V.A.
With the C.C.C. and the C.W.A.
He's brought back smiles and kept hunger away.
      -"Casey Roosevelt" [Excerpts]
          Folk song recorded by Buck Fulton for E.C. and M.N. Kirkland, July, 1937


IV.

Before they even started on the reservoir, the Tennessee Valley Authority started digging up the dead. I'm serious. Most frightful thing you ever saw. Hickory Road--and I swear, I swear on the country, the good Lord, anything from a ****** to a mountain--the road was full-up with buggies carting coffins. Three days straight they were carting dead folks down to Clinton. Most of the coffins were barely holding up, too. Made out that crude pine. Seeing them yellow-but-not-yellow heads poking out was enough to make a feller sick.

If I remember right, they had to relocate something like 5,000 before they dammed up the Clinch, but they made a lot more living, breathing folks than that move along. Lot more.


V.

A week before the T.V.A went and flooded the valley the sounds stopped. The duhh-duhh. The errgh-errgh. You know? The sounds of work. When you don't got all that noise going on--that routine, I guess you could say--what can you do but think?

And because of that, I believe, that last week Pa acted different. He was trying not to, trying to act just the same. But he was trying to be the same too hard. Ma would take coffee off the stove, pour it for him and he'd say: "Thank you, sweetheart." He always said thank you. That much was the same. It's that sweetheart bit that didn't fit in his mouth right. She left the kitchen. Couldn't take it.

Tom Scott hung himself, too. Clyde Johnson, his brother Jacob. There was one more. Big fella that lived down by Hershel's store. Can't remember his name. Pa's was the only body that didn't wash up on the bank.

I never did see them after they washed up. Mrs. Scott said it was appalling. She said her husband's body was all puffed up, swollen with the water. Sheriff cut the rope off her husband's neck. She said that neck was black leading into purple leading into black. Raw. Mrs. Scott didn't live too long after that. A year or so. The shame got to her I suppose.

When folks called my pa a coward, I never argued with them. Didn't see the point. What's a coward? Somebody hang hisself? Somebody that leave his wife and boy to fend for themselves? That a coward? Call him what you want. I ain't gonna argue. All he is--is dead to me.

VI.

My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low. Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.
         - Isaiah 32:18-20

VII.**

Robert had brown, wavy hair. He had big hands with scarred knuckles. He was missing a tooth on the right side. Three or four down from the front. You could only tell when he laughed. Every day in the field he wore the same cap, a Miller's Co-op cap, with overlapping sweat stains. He never wanted to track dirt in the house so he'd knock on the side of the house anytime he needed something from inside, like a box of matches or a knife or something. The first two knocks would be to get my attention. They'd sound urgent. The third was soft, as if to say please. When we went to bed, he always waited for me to fall asleep before he even tried. He knew his snoring kept me up.

On the last day, Robert handed me his shotgun. Says, "I love you, Mary." He was so choked up, I didn't know if he was going to kiss me. So I kissed him. Says, "I love you Robert." And that was pretty much all. We got in the buggy and headed off to my mother's.

I wanted to bury the shotgun. I knew I'd need a place to visit, a place to talk to Robert. And it had to be a piece of him. I dug the hole out behind my mother's place. Henry, he must've thought I was crazy, digging that hole the very next day. He asked me what I was going to put in there. I says the shotgun. He says, "No, ma'am, you isn't." I says, "Yes, son, I is." He says we need that gun. Get squirrels. Get rabbits. Make it count, he says.

I was pretty sore about it, but I ended up throwing my wedding ring in that hole. It being the only other thing that was him. We put the shotgun over the door frame in the kitchen.

I miss him every day. I feel it in my body. Feel it down to my bones. I imagine it wouldn't feel no different if I had lost a hand. But what makes me sadder than anything, sadder than not seeing Robert every morning, sadder than knowing he don't get to see what Henry makes of hisself, is that Robert didn't get nobody's attention.

He never said that's why he had to do it. I just figured as much. He wouldn't die for nothing. That wasn't him. The paper wouldn't say nothing about him other than he was dead. I wrote the T.V.A. Never heard nothing back. It's like the world mumbled, "I'm sorry," and just spun on. That's what they give the good men: a mumble. Killers make the front page. They're in the pictures. The good men? For the good men, the world has to keep asking for their names. The world says, "Oh, Robert, right," and "I'm sorry." But the world don't mean it. The world's got dams to build, valleys to flood. Graves to move. People to uproot. Why? Do you know? Course you don't. God hisself would shrug his shoulders and tell me that's just the way it is.