As the hours pass one by one in a haze of drinks and cigar smoke, the Professor seems to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. People from various professions of Academia mingle and mix talking of foreign lands, the new sciences of the world and the horrors of war. The evening passes with little chance to catch the elusive Professor or his faithful manservant.
Then before you notice, the crowd of people has thinned and the man of the hour is nowhere to be seen. Alas, there is always tomorrow.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sense
" I can attest that I saw a number of strange things during the war that I could not explain. I would love to have had Smith with me. " Alec says as he sips on a glass of white wine. " I can also say that having worked with a number of Americans I never could understand their sense of urgency. Look at him try to work his way through the crowd. "
" I can save my question until the cigar portion of the evening. I would like to hear more about you young ladies and your interesting choice of companions. One a savage and the other a Illusionist......"
" I can save my question until the cigar portion of the evening. I would like to hear more about you young ladies and your interesting choice of companions. One a savage and the other a Illusionist......"
Saturday, May 12, 2007
In the back of the room...
I look around and note that the reaction of the crowd is split largely in favor of laughing this poor gent out of the building. The woman next to me... what's her name again, seems to be taking the lecture more seriously. If only they knew what I saw in the far east, these people may not snicker so much.
I point out the professor and moves through the now mingling crowd, quietly acknowledging but dismissing anybody who tries to engage him in conversation. My need to contact the professor taking over any sense of culture and refine behavior. These were Brits after all, they will just get huffy and dismiss the loud American as the uncouth brute they probably already think I am.
Itchy, and uncertain if it is just the suit or the markings that somehow feel alive under my skin I almost make it to the professor as a portly gentleman steps in the way. He excuses himself and when I look back, the object of my trip here is nowhere to be seen.
"Damn it." I mutter as I look around for him.
"What's the matter?" Katherine, now I remember her name, drew herself near to my ear. The question was hushed to avoid attention but almost seemed like a demand.
"Nothing." I brush her off and continue looking, hoping for a glimpse so that I will not be forced to hunt him down the hard way. That and Jeffrey was nowhere to be found in this large gathering and thus an introduction may not be had.
I turn and smile at Katherine, "It's nothing, I'm sorry. I thought I could exchange a few words with the lecturer and got carried away. I shouldn't have done that, let's go see if we can... mingle or something."
As she leads me away I look back and breath out, letting go of my current frustration.
I point out the professor and moves through the now mingling crowd, quietly acknowledging but dismissing anybody who tries to engage him in conversation. My need to contact the professor taking over any sense of culture and refine behavior. These were Brits after all, they will just get huffy and dismiss the loud American as the uncouth brute they probably already think I am.
Itchy, and uncertain if it is just the suit or the markings that somehow feel alive under my skin I almost make it to the professor as a portly gentleman steps in the way. He excuses himself and when I look back, the object of my trip here is nowhere to be seen.
"Damn it." I mutter as I look around for him.
"What's the matter?" Katherine, now I remember her name, drew herself near to my ear. The question was hushed to avoid attention but almost seemed like a demand.
"Nothing." I brush her off and continue looking, hoping for a glimpse so that I will not be forced to hunt him down the hard way. That and Jeffrey was nowhere to be found in this large gathering and thus an introduction may not be had.
I turn and smile at Katherine, "It's nothing, I'm sorry. I thought I could exchange a few words with the lecturer and got carried away. I shouldn't have done that, let's go see if we can... mingle or something."
As she leads me away I look back and breath out, letting go of my current frustration.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Gabrielle's Response
"It seems that the recent loss of Professor Smith's wife has changed his view on the afterlife and the supernatural. Though I agree, while the presentation was spectacular as usual, the content was incomprehensible."
I lean over to speak quietly with Dingane, my African guide, and my guest for the evening's events. "It seems to me that Godfather Julian has gone quite mad. I told my father it wasn't proper for him to lock himself away in solitude after the death of his wife. Why, it has been years since anyone has seen or heard from him! After a reasonable mourning period I should have stepped in and seen to it he rejoined proper society. If only I weren't so far away. Now it seems his rationality is forever lost. And to make things worse he has embarassed himself and discredited his name all in one evening."
Turning back to the table I inquire, "Unfortunately, my guest and I arrived slightly tardy. While we were being seated there seemed to be a magician performing onstage. Is anyone familiar with this gentleman? His act was quite extraordinary."
I lean over to speak quietly with Dingane, my African guide, and my guest for the evening's events. "It seems to me that Godfather Julian has gone quite mad. I told my father it wasn't proper for him to lock himself away in solitude after the death of his wife. Why, it has been years since anyone has seen or heard from him! After a reasonable mourning period I should have stepped in and seen to it he rejoined proper society. If only I weren't so far away. Now it seems his rationality is forever lost. And to make things worse he has embarassed himself and discredited his name all in one evening."
Turning back to the table I inquire, "Unfortunately, my guest and I arrived slightly tardy. While we were being seated there seemed to be a magician performing onstage. Is anyone familiar with this gentleman? His act was quite extraordinary."
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Moments Later
The overhead light spring to life. All of you find yourselves seated together with a gaggle of older English gentlemen and a few wives. One of the gentlemen glances about the table from side to side before speaking.
"I know Smith is suppose to be a master in his field but I did not understand one single word of that. He was almost as bad as that bloody American Anthropologist we had here in June. " He chuckles slightly as he puffs on his cigar. " Wouldn't you all agree?" The rather round woman squeezed into a green evening gown next to him laughs softly.
Before you can speak a auburn haired waitress and six servers appear with the first course of three melon balls with Katenrauchschinken. Each is placed in front of you quietly and quickly.
A rather large man that appears to be in his late sixties stabs on of the melonballs with his sterling silver fork. " You are so very right Neil. Although I did find his delievery to be very impressive. He held my attention even though I had no clue as to what he was going on about."
"I know Smith is suppose to be a master in his field but I did not understand one single word of that. He was almost as bad as that bloody American Anthropologist we had here in June. " He chuckles slightly as he puffs on his cigar. " Wouldn't you all agree?" The rather round woman squeezed into a green evening gown next to him laughs softly.
Before you can speak a auburn haired waitress and six servers appear with the first course of three melon balls with Katenrauchschinken. Each is placed in front of you quietly and quickly.
A rather large man that appears to be in his late sixties stabs on of the melonballs with his sterling silver fork. " You are so very right Neil. Although I did find his delievery to be very impressive. He held my attention even though I had no clue as to what he was going on about."
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
The Lecture
As you enter the large hall of the Upper East Gallery in the Imperial Institute you hear a round of applause filling the air and almost blocking out the smell of expensive cigars.
The Institute's security guide flashes you a quick smile as he vanishes before you enter through the door. The black tails of his tux ruffle behind as he rushes back to the first floor to bring more guest up to the conference.
As you glance up you notice a large stage illuminated at the end of a very dim room. You can make out numerous thin waitresses transversing the labyrinth of tables with older gentlemen giving them the occasional hoot of unwanted attention.
Another round of applause rings out as a young attractive woman dressed in a luxurious red crepe silk evening dress with a slit along the side that seems to go on forever, revealing the top of her stockings, floats about 6 inches above the ground. Her green eyes seem to sparkle in the light.
To her left is a slim middle aged man dressed in a multi-colored shimmering suit. His gloved fingers appear to be flexing as the woman slowly ascends higher and higher. As he moves to the other side of the stage he whips his black cape off in one fluid motion and hurls it at the woman. An instant before it touches her she vanishes.
You find yourself quickly seated at a half full table as a round of drinks are brought out to you. The waitress waits for a moment to see if you want anything else before she returns to her other tables. The show goes on for another fifteen minutes before the performers retire from the stage.
As you glance around you the lights come back on slowly and you see a older man step onto the stage. He smiles at the audience as he runs a hand over his incredibly large and bushy moustache.
"Ladies and gentleman, I am Prof. Julian Smith and I will be presenting some of my research this evening. Please save any questions until the end. As you know, I am a famed debunker of the mystics, pyshics and charlatans. I believe that money is not usually the motive for the misrepresentation of these impossible powers or events; more likely is the chance for individual notice or recognition of personal qualities, preservation or defense of spiritual belief or social benefit to the community."
"There proves to be however," and here his voice turns serious, "categories of repetitious phenomenon offering no simple elucidation. I refer to the "poltergeist," to the "traveler" who suddenly finds himself dozens or thousands of miles or years from where he stood moments before, and to the "haunting." My presentation tonight concerns the last."
"I say haunting" and not "ghost" or "spirit" because alone of such epiphenomena, the subject of a haunting can be buildings, lanterns, coaches-ana-fours, swords and so on, as well as men, women, dogs and even armies. World-Wide, the store of casual anecdote concerning haunters is enormous."
"And I say 'epiphenomena' because the haunters are not linked with specific observers, and the haunting presumably occurs with or without human witnesses, as we shall see. Thus perception of such an event is secondary to the event itself - epiphenomenical to it. "
"The essential characteristics of haunters are simple: the person or thing must have existed, must have disappeared in some sense, and then must reappear once or many times. The location of the phenomenon may stay the same, or may change; that which reappears may be partial and insubstantial, or be as solid and real-seeming as any member of tonight's illustrious gathering. No other conditions are needed."
"I have three hauntings that I wish to discuss in detail. A Breton fishing boat, a Norwegian woman, and a London hansom cab." Smith turns to his manservant and nodds. The man in his mid forties turns on the slide projector and a pale light illuminates the wall.
"Each case was studied and photograph simultaneously from at least three positions, allowing accurate scaling of the apparitions. The three apparitions do not coalesce from points, as most tales describe, but slowly emerge whole from invisible planes, as if passing through 'the curtain of perception'. "
"Each is also semi-transparent." Smith rubs his hand over his brushy mustache as walks up to the projection. He traces the clear passage of a wave through the fishing boat. Showing that the boat in the image causes no ripples and does not resist the water. In the other two images he points out the photographers can be seen through the other apparitions.
Also each image glows appreciably, as Smith demonstrates by isolating the reflection from nearby objects. Sampling attributes part of the glow to ionization, but not all of it. Carefull indexing of the reflections indicates that each level of ionization varies randomly during each event.
The rate at which these three apparitions manifested motion was in comparison to normal movement slowed by a consistent half in each case.
Smith points out a ripple passing across the sail of the fishing boat; when 16mm cinematograph film is sped appreciably, the ripple sees normal while the ocean waves become ridiculous. So does the staircase descent of the Norwegian woman seems less unusual when speeded up. The horse drawing the Hanson cab switches her tail casually, as if discouraging files , rather than making seemingly malevolent and mysterious gestures.
"Historically each of these three apparitions were held as having disappeared not being killed or destroyed. Comparatively very rarely have instances of solid apparitions occurred. But one could wait many lifetimes, I suspect."
"Such apparitions seem not to be uniformly preserved. The south of England has been settled by man for many thousands of years, yet the vast majority of haunting seem to have been produced in the past five or six centuries. Only a handful from Roman times."
"It is my belief that such hauntings represent clues concerning a natural universe much larger and much stranger than we imagine. The walls of what we perceive as normality have a subtle flexibility. Occasionally, and I greatly hope for understandable reasons, conditions allow inter-penetration. The spectral haunting I have discussed represent attempts - perhaps random, perhaps purposeful, certainly unsuccessful ones - to return to this time and space by elements of it somehow removed."
"If we are energetic , and not a little lucky in our observations, students of paraphysicality may one day be able to move up and down time, or to travel globally with minor effort, or to perceive that which at present lies completely beyond our senses. Whether that which waits beyond is light or darkness, or simply different, or evoked by our unstated desires remains the supreme question which, for the present, each must answer for himself."
The Institute's security guide flashes you a quick smile as he vanishes before you enter through the door. The black tails of his tux ruffle behind as he rushes back to the first floor to bring more guest up to the conference.
As you glance up you notice a large stage illuminated at the end of a very dim room. You can make out numerous thin waitresses transversing the labyrinth of tables with older gentlemen giving them the occasional hoot of unwanted attention.
Another round of applause rings out as a young attractive woman dressed in a luxurious red crepe silk evening dress with a slit along the side that seems to go on forever, revealing the top of her stockings, floats about 6 inches above the ground. Her green eyes seem to sparkle in the light.
To her left is a slim middle aged man dressed in a multi-colored shimmering suit. His gloved fingers appear to be flexing as the woman slowly ascends higher and higher. As he moves to the other side of the stage he whips his black cape off in one fluid motion and hurls it at the woman. An instant before it touches her she vanishes.
You find yourself quickly seated at a half full table as a round of drinks are brought out to you. The waitress waits for a moment to see if you want anything else before she returns to her other tables. The show goes on for another fifteen minutes before the performers retire from the stage.
As you glance around you the lights come back on slowly and you see a older man step onto the stage. He smiles at the audience as he runs a hand over his incredibly large and bushy moustache.
"Ladies and gentleman, I am Prof. Julian Smith and I will be presenting some of my research this evening. Please save any questions until the end. As you know, I am a famed debunker of the mystics, pyshics and charlatans. I believe that money is not usually the motive for the misrepresentation of these impossible powers or events; more likely is the chance for individual notice or recognition of personal qualities, preservation or defense of spiritual belief or social benefit to the community."
"There proves to be however," and here his voice turns serious, "categories of repetitious phenomenon offering no simple elucidation. I refer to the "poltergeist," to the "traveler" who suddenly finds himself dozens or thousands of miles or years from where he stood moments before, and to the "haunting." My presentation tonight concerns the last."
"I say haunting" and not "ghost" or "spirit" because alone of such epiphenomena, the subject of a haunting can be buildings, lanterns, coaches-ana-fours, swords and so on, as well as men, women, dogs and even armies. World-Wide, the store of casual anecdote concerning haunters is enormous."
"And I say 'epiphenomena' because the haunters are not linked with specific observers, and the haunting presumably occurs with or without human witnesses, as we shall see. Thus perception of such an event is secondary to the event itself - epiphenomenical to it. "
"The essential characteristics of haunters are simple: the person or thing must have existed, must have disappeared in some sense, and then must reappear once or many times. The location of the phenomenon may stay the same, or may change; that which reappears may be partial and insubstantial, or be as solid and real-seeming as any member of tonight's illustrious gathering. No other conditions are needed."
"I have three hauntings that I wish to discuss in detail. A Breton fishing boat, a Norwegian woman, and a London hansom cab." Smith turns to his manservant and nodds. The man in his mid forties turns on the slide projector and a pale light illuminates the wall.
"Each case was studied and photograph simultaneously from at least three positions, allowing accurate scaling of the apparitions. The three apparitions do not coalesce from points, as most tales describe, but slowly emerge whole from invisible planes, as if passing through 'the curtain of perception'. "
"Each is also semi-transparent." Smith rubs his hand over his brushy mustache as walks up to the projection. He traces the clear passage of a wave through the fishing boat. Showing that the boat in the image causes no ripples and does not resist the water. In the other two images he points out the photographers can be seen through the other apparitions.
Also each image glows appreciably, as Smith demonstrates by isolating the reflection from nearby objects. Sampling attributes part of the glow to ionization, but not all of it. Carefull indexing of the reflections indicates that each level of ionization varies randomly during each event.
The rate at which these three apparitions manifested motion was in comparison to normal movement slowed by a consistent half in each case.
Smith points out a ripple passing across the sail of the fishing boat; when 16mm cinematograph film is sped appreciably, the ripple sees normal while the ocean waves become ridiculous. So does the staircase descent of the Norwegian woman seems less unusual when speeded up. The horse drawing the Hanson cab switches her tail casually, as if discouraging files , rather than making seemingly malevolent and mysterious gestures.
"Historically each of these three apparitions were held as having disappeared not being killed or destroyed. Comparatively very rarely have instances of solid apparitions occurred. But one could wait many lifetimes, I suspect."
"Such apparitions seem not to be uniformly preserved. The south of England has been settled by man for many thousands of years, yet the vast majority of haunting seem to have been produced in the past five or six centuries. Only a handful from Roman times."
"It is my belief that such hauntings represent clues concerning a natural universe much larger and much stranger than we imagine. The walls of what we perceive as normality have a subtle flexibility. Occasionally, and I greatly hope for understandable reasons, conditions allow inter-penetration. The spectral haunting I have discussed represent attempts - perhaps random, perhaps purposeful, certainly unsuccessful ones - to return to this time and space by elements of it somehow removed."
"If we are energetic , and not a little lucky in our observations, students of paraphysicality may one day be able to move up and down time, or to travel globally with minor effort, or to perceive that which at present lies completely beyond our senses. Whether that which waits beyond is light or darkness, or simply different, or evoked by our unstated desires remains the supreme question which, for the present, each must answer for himself."
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Brig Alec Keogh Summerfield
My name is Brig Alec Keogh Summerfield of the 51st. I was born in the small english town of Cardiff, the oldest child of Sir Edward Kyle Summerfield. A knight in the queens service.
I grew up in the shadow of my father and his numerous successes. My father was exceptional at everything he did and expected no less from his children.
I was a good cricket player, not great, but how many people could do what father did? I went to the best schools and did well. I was in the top 10 of my class, mind you father was his classes Valadictorian.
The only positive I have to my story is that by being good and not great I was able to spare my siblings from the "love" of father.
After college father was determine that I make my mark in the business world as he did. But having lived long enough under his shadow and off of his money I made a choice. I joined the service were I served well and with honors.
I served in the Great War. I saw a lot of good men die. I was on my way to being a general. Yes, that would have shown father. But seeing my best friend and fiancé blown apart by a German bomb I lost my stomach for war and the military.....
I grew up in the shadow of my father and his numerous successes. My father was exceptional at everything he did and expected no less from his children.
I was a good cricket player, not great, but how many people could do what father did? I went to the best schools and did well. I was in the top 10 of my class, mind you father was his classes Valadictorian.
The only positive I have to my story is that by being good and not great I was able to spare my siblings from the "love" of father.
After college father was determine that I make my mark in the business world as he did. But having lived long enough under his shadow and off of his money I made a choice. I joined the service were I served well and with honors.
I served in the Great War. I saw a lot of good men die. I was on my way to being a general. Yes, that would have shown father. But seeing my best friend and fiancé blown apart by a German bomb I lost my stomach for war and the military.....
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