Beyond Light and Dark: Part 1

Well it has been awhile, lots of catching up to do. Before relating the events of my last adventure, I will start with the worst, you know the most traumatic things first. Me and Jordan broke up. Neither one of us was ready for commitment. So when he got a job offer to do some paintings in eastern Europe, it brought are troubles to a crisis. I of course did not want to go to Europe. You know my career is here, I am actually making some headway on my books (Yes I started another book, get to that later). And I like California. It was sad and traumatic, but it was time either to commit or break up. We broke up. The other traumatic event was my eyes had to be removed. Hugo was right when he said that the Monas Stone would destroy them. It was a shock more than a surprise. It was also easier to recover from than the break up. You know it seems emotional pain is worse than physical pain. Well at least they are both over, and I can move on. The good feelings towards me at the University, Which were the result of my saving Nora, and Paul in the mid-West did not last long, I know big surprise.The story of course, fed more rumors about me, as if my reputation is not bad enough already. This I knew was going to happen. Although I did my share in helping to destroy whatever good will was left. I was invited to a informal reception for a distinguished visiting Professor. I made the mistake of talking with him. As we were chatting about me being a member of the faculty, you know I am very young for a professor. He said: "It is inspiring how much you have achieved, with your impairment." Well as you can imagine the work impairment set me off. A wave of volcanic anger overcame me. the reply came instantly: "Yes, so you can imagine how disappointing it is that my sighted students are so far behind me at the same age!" I know everyone has told me to control my tongue, but I have to be me, even if people think I am a sarcastic bitch. Not that this is anything new. A little advice if you ever meet a blind student and want to tell her she is inspiring, say something like: "It is so inspiring how you have put up with all the bureaucratic horseshit on accessibility issues." This compliment will be appreciated. I must say I was pleased with myself on my response, even if it put me back on the naughty list. After all I am always on the naughty list. Anyhow I have no regrets, " to your own self be true ' as someone said, even if everyone thinks you are a sarcastic bitch. Anyhow to continue, Nora is no longer working for me, she is working with another Professor. Instead Paul is working for me. Don't ask me how he got a transfer, to our grad program, because I don't know. Think the Old Ones were involved. Paul has remembered most of what happened, thankfully Nora has not, he even thanked me for saving him. I can tell you a little appreciation goes a long way. I am warming up to Paul. I also acquired another new friend of the non-human kind. About a month after the incident at the farmhouse Velk the ghoul showed up in L.A. It seems the Ghoul clan he was with kicked him out for helping my, by kicked him out, I mean they wanted to kill him. He contacted me telepathically, we met in a nearby park around sunset. He asked to join my cult. I said: "Sure, why not." Now there are three, me Jai and Velk. Jai has yet to meet him, probably because I told her he was mephitic. I had found the term "mephitic" in my readings, and liked the sound of the word, so started using it. It means smells bad, like really, really bad. Like in the sentence: If you want to date blind girls do not be me. Randal and Hugo are the same. I have become more involved in running the store, but have not had any more audiences with Hugo, which is a big relief. Anyhow, I was still trying to find the missing pieces of the Mystograph, and not having much luck. I had tried Rak the Hound of Tindalos, and Eithrol of the Elder race. Neither had any thing helpful to tell me. Although I had other questions for Ethirol. Ever since my encounter with the Shaggoth I have become interested in the workings of the Elder race. Ethirol is also a follower of Yog Sothoth so we are natural allies. One of the things I was interested in was the stone the Elder race used to build with. This turned out to be a surprise. It is no natural stone, instead it was created, or better said grown by the Elder race. It seems when taken out of the vats it is grown in, it has the properties of modeling clay. You can mold it any way you want then harden it. Another unusual property of the stone is that it is impervious to the Old Ones. It blocks out or deflects the senses of the Old Ones. So anything surrounded by the stone is hidden form the Old Ones. Ethirol also cleared up another mystery for me, even though I was not aware of the mystery. The Elder race also grows a crystal that illuminates, you know glows, that is why the sighted people with me in the tunnels of the Elder race never complained about being in the dark. Like I said a question that never occurred to me. Anyhow, to get back to my search for the missing pieces of the Mystograph, since my efforts with eldritch beings was not yielding any results, I decided to try more ordinary sources of information: the internet. One of the contacts I made was a man named David Fleming, who runs a site dedicated to all things Atlantis. We started messaging each other, you know chatting online. I did some research on him, I have learned to be cautions, and it is interesting to investigate people. I found out he has no connections with the Old Ones, but we do have something in common; an interest in birds. After the help I had gotten from the crows, crows, and birds in general have become an interest of mine. I have learned to recognize the calls of some of the birds in my area. I have become a bird fancier. Does that make me a bird watcher? Maybe a bird hearer? I wonder if there are clubs for blind bird watchers? Anyhow, I forgot to tell him I am blind, so he sent me (through the University) some bird calls and a pair of binoculars. I thanked him, still not telling him I am blind, and put the binoculars in my desk at work. Seems sort of weird I have binoculars. It was David Fleming that would give me the clue I needed to proceed in my search for the missing pieces of the Mystograph. Anyhow, I was invited to speak at another University in L.A. about my ideas, I have been publishing some articles. I of course, accepted. I have been making a lot of progress on my book, so you know I am anxious to talk about it. I love talking about my ideas. I have so much material I have divided the material into two books: one book on the how the mind uses visual data, in other words on thinking, the other book on how sight affects the sighted worlds mythology and attitudes. Like I often say "blindness allows me to see things the sighted world misses". I started the lecture on the difference in thinking in sighted and blind people. How sighted people think in visual terms. That all sensory data must be understood in visual imagery. The very substratum of sighted thinking is visual imagery, In other words the thoughts of sighted people are made of visual stuff, while blind people think in terms of tactile images. The stuff of blind thoughts is tactile, you know how it feels to touch. I have been thinking should say I tactualize things and ideas instead of saying I see, but of course I never remember, you know sort of like remembering to turn on the lights. Then I transitioned into the new material on sighted mythology, or a mythology of light. Since experience of the world for sighted people is visual images. The world disappears or transforms for sighted people when the lights go off, you know when they are in the dark. This is why sighted people are so scared of the dark, the world literally changes for them into a different place. You know only the most extraordinary sighted people can brush their teeth, or comb their hair in the dark. I know funny but true. So it should come as no surprise that if you are using a visual model for thinking, you know instead of a tactile model that light becomes associated with good, while darkness with evil. This has been a big breakthrough for me in understanding the sighted world. You know when you are blind there is not some new scary world that can come about by the flick of a light switch. Tactile stuff is unaffected by light. Blindness always leads you to the concrete, my world does not instantly fade away. Blind thinking in scenarios is stable, it is not dependent on an outside agent (light). I like thinking in blind scenarios, so much so I think it is a mistake to associate blindness with chaos or ignorance, you know this is a pet peeve of mine, instead blindness should be associated with stability, and solidity. Well in my opinion. Still thinking about a title for the new book on light mythology. Anyhow, it was after the lecture that David Fleming messaged me a rumor he had heard about a recently deceased physicist, by the name of Titus Wendal-Jarlsberg who had possessed a Platonic solid that matched my description. Which was good news, because the lecture had gotten little response, you know sighted people do not take well to criticism, especially when it involves sight. Maybe I could call the book "Sight and Being" no don't like it. Anyhow I got back to my office and looked up Wendal-Jarlsberg, Turns out he had taught at the University Paul had been attending. Paul was turning out to be a capable T.A., and he did what I told him. I was warming up to Paul, part of the reason may have been he and Nora had broken up, you know we were in similar situations. So I sent Paul over to the University to find out whatever he could. The trouble with Paul is he was just not good at gossip. Surprisingly Velk was a great source of gossip, but I could not send a ghoul over to the University. He did find out some. It seems Wendel-Jarlsberg had originally been a professor at a prestigious eastern University where he had suffered a nervous breakdown about fifteen years ago. After he recovered he had moved to the west coast, and accepted a part time teaching position for applied physics, I think that is engineering. Anyhow, I told Paul to keep researching Wendel-Jarlsberg, it was good he knew something about my extracurricular activities, and did not ask questions about them. Around the time Paul had left to investigate the Wendel-Jarlsberg, Randal called, to inform me that the mysterious Jared Collins had made an appointment to view the Yig figures I had gotten from Paul. Randal wanted to know if I wanted to meet him, yes of course I wanted to meet him. The appointment was for late afternoon, only a few hours away. I immediately called Jai. It tuns out Jai had never seen Collins, not even a picture. So she was anxious to come. She was still on the human sacrifice case. It seems the police did not want to allocate a lot of resources to the case, which is typical of things involving the Old Ones. Jai picked me up at work and we drove to "Hugo's" she pretended to be a customer browsing around. She really wanted to get a good look at Collins. Randal had set the figures up in a private viewing room, Collins liked his anonymity, but he still had to walk in the front door. Collins was of course, right on time; Jai in the store, and I was with Randal to greet him. Jai told me later what Collins looked like. He was heavily clothed in a long coat (ankle length) which was strange it was a warm day, but that was not the strangest thing about Collins. I was dressed in a short skirt and tank top, and wedge scandals. Jai told me he seemed to not have any hair at all, and moved in a swaying worm like way. At least he was not mephitic but he did have an odd smell, sort of like the reptile house at the Zoo. Randal introduced up, we shook hands. His hand was cold and damp. He was creepy. we moved to the Private room where the figures were set up. I could hear Jared pick them up one by one, while making approving grunts, I mean weird grunts of approval, like hissing sounds. He announced after inspecting them: he would take them all. He also added: "I am also interested in representations of the Platonic solids, that have a history." What he meant by history is that they have been used in the Cults of the Old Ones. If there was not enough clues this clenched for me, Jared Collins was a devotee of Yig (remember the figures were all of serpents (Yig). I also got the impression that Jared had some hon-human ancestry, but not Ghouls like Manafort, but serpentoid. I chimed in: "I have heard some such pieces were used in Atlantis for magical purposes, of course it might all be just a myth." The reply came quickly: "I would be interested in any such pieces myth or not. Do you have any?" At this Randal spoke up: "No, not now, but if we get any you shall get first look at them." At this Jared announced he had to be going, but before making an exit, he turned towards me and said in his odd hissing voice: "It was a pleasure meeting you Gwen; please call me Jared." and with that the meeting broke up. After Jared had left, Randal admitted to me that, Jared gave him the creeps. Which is saying a lot, since Randal was a High Priest of Cthulhu. Anyhow, when I got back Paul had taken some initiative, and made some calls regarding Wendel-Jarlsberg. He had found some additional information on him. Paul had found out that Wendel-Jarlsberg had been in Africa working on some infrastructure projects before his nervous breakdown. He also found out that Wendel-Jarlsberg in his last years had done a lot of writing, but no had seen it or knew what he was writing about. The mystery was deepening. A few days passed with no new information. Jai was also helping out in investigating Wendel-Jarlsberg, but had found nothing I did not already know. I was at a dead end. I needed information, but where to look. I did not want to go back to Hugo; I really do not want to have a debts to Hugo, and something was telling me not to bother Yog Sothoth with this, you know that is why I was on the case so to speak. Again I was on my own. There was one alternative left, the creepy one: necromancy. I did not like it but had nothing else. Anyhow it was no trouble finding out where Wendel-Jarlsberg was buried. He was in a cemetery in the L.A. area. Jai drove me out there. Jai of course knew already where to find the grave; have I mentioned what a great investigator she is lately. Jai also voiced some objections about necromancy, seems I an not the only one who finds it creepy. But there was really no choice. I told her more confidently than I fest that it would be alright. I had done this before, well only once. Jai navigated us over to the grave site. It was somewhere in the middle of similar grave sites. I sat down on the grave, I ran my fingers over the plaque. As I was feeling the letters of his name and dates, I tried not to translate the letters into Braille. I am trying to get better at writing and reading script but it is hard. It had always seemed weird to me that sighted people could read squiggly lines. I guess that is how sighted people feel watching blind people read Braille. As you can see I was trying to distract myself from the task at hand. It felt creepier and more forbidding this time. While I was feeling the plaque I reached out with my mind to for the dead mind of Wendel-Jarlsberg. I found it, the mind seemed to be in confusion. A confusion that did not last long. The dead mind of Wendel-Jarlsberg tried to suck me in it viewed me as an intruder, a hostile intruder. It was not cooperative like the mind of the policeman I had previously contacted. It wanted to smother the life out of me. This is where my fear of necromancy helped I withdrew at first sign of danger, that was the only ting that saved me the mind of Wendel-Jarlsberg was strong and opposed to me. This drove home to me I was still a novice at necromancy. And it was skill I would have to work on. I collapsed on the grave. Jai instantly grabbed me and said excitedly: Gwen are you alright!!!" I was just exhausted, and scared. The few seconds before the dead mind had gained me some information, well if not information I now knew who to ask. End of Part 1