Triadic Tales - The Ball - Short Story (Part Three)

Triadic Tales - The Ball - Short Story (Part Three) PART TWO PART ONE
TEN YEARS LATER  
Alice and her mother now live in a cyber community in Metropolis. Metropolis fills almost all of Reality.
Alice is thirteen, She has completed her tests. She  reads philosophy.  She has a girl friend.
Alice's mother is different these days.  She's svelte. Her lusts are not obvious.  She has no lasting resentments. And the  Daily Discipline she scorned is now a cornerstone.
On earth as in heaven.
She knows about gently moving forward. She knows how to make instant decisions. She gives time to herself.
Alice is still a handful. She's choosy.  She's fresh. She's unpredictable. And very, very smart.

The ball Alice called "icky"  has a prime place at the Reality Research Center. Among more than a hundred such balls. each once an inhabited planet - Alice's is now the most revered.
The Research Center is a community like every other in Reality.  Alice ascends its gentle ways. She passes entrances of homes and kiosks, schools and squares.  After years of refusal, she has come here to see her ball.
A woman sits at a desk.  Twenty feet beyond, Alice  sees the ball resting on velvet, behind glass. 
Her eyes identify her. "Hello Alice, welcome," says the woman.
Alice looks past her. "Why was this such a big deal?" she says.  
"It's one of the oldest. It almost succeeded. They were starting to end wars."
Alice walked  toward the glass.  She wanted to touch the ball. 
"What else?" she asked.
The woman stood and walked toward Alice. 
"They were starting to accept death," she said. "Fighting less. They looked inside themselves. Cut themselves more slack. They were on their way to being where we're going."
Alice nodded.  The ball seemed to emit a translucent ray that enveloped her hand and moved through her body. Something inside Alice spoke her name. She heard with crystal clarity. 
Later, at home, she was unusually silent. 
"What are you doing?" her mother asked,
"Nothing," Alice said with an open smile.      Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store  



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Triadic Tales - Fifteen Minutes Before a Roaring Fire - Short Story (Part Three)

BEYOND THE BLUE HORIZON

Triadic Tales - Fifteen Minutes Before a Roaring Fire - Short Story (Part Three) PART ONE PART TWO
EPILOGUE
She died too young.
Adam gave serious thought to the idea that he might travel with her some day. Take her on the road on one of his William Least Heat Moon secondary roads peregrinations. But he was fully aware that he had no way even to renew contact with her. He was not even sure she would remember the fellow who offered her his sweater on a cold August night in Chilmark.
Morton and Wife Two did not last. 
Morton lived on with a compatible woman who like Wife One was versed in psychiatry. When Morton died in his late eighties, Adam went back to the Vineyard for  a memorial service. Morton addressed the attendees via a taped message.   Adam's attitude regarding celebrity never changed. It did not excite him. The most significant encounters he ever had were mere moments he could tick off on his fingers. It embarrassed him to know how many more such moments there might be if he practiced things he now knew full well. 
That one can will experience. 
That one can will thought. 
That art is in the eye. 
That reason is divine. 
And beautiful. 
And true.
There was one thing about celebrity that seemed apposite as Adam looked back on those fifteen minutes on the carpet a few miles from her home in Gay Head. 
His knowledge had increased. He might have articulated something of significance. But no. It would not have been appropriate. 
Suddenly, now, as he looked back, he realized that he had been as excited by celebrity as the most fawning idolater on the planet.    He had simply had nothing to say at the time.
Adam's Bicentennial Musical Narrative was rejected as too serious and never performed. It was later later recorded by a choir. His patrons opted for a Las Vegas-style lollapalooza to  get the juices of their constituency flowing.

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