53 The Rulebook Forbids itBuffy and Skip were like dogs that had lived their entire lives in puppy mill cages. When let out onto a sunny summer lawn with squeak toys and rawhide chews, They had no idea what to do. 

Flash wanted desperately to free them from the mental prison that held their spirits captive. 

“Come with me” he said. They rose and followed him to the bed of rubies. He raised one to eye level and it projected brilliant beams of dancing light. 

They shrunk away, and glanced about as though in fear of getting caught and being punished. 

“It’s ok!” he reassured them, “Let’s go and see what wonders this world holds for you.”

“The rulebook forbids it” they claimed. 

Had Flash missed something?  “Show me” he said, handing the tattered book to Skip. 

With worried faces, they began pouring through the book, searching for a basis for their fear. 

“I know it’s here somewhere” Skip muttered, becoming more and more flustered. 

“What I see in the book,” Flash said, “is the freedom of potential, not the blinders of fear. I think you may have misunderstood the message.”

The Ololians were so steeped in misguided beliefs that it was difficult for them to see the beauty in anything.  In light of this, perhaps Flash actually was a redeemer of sorts. But could he break the chains that shackled them?

“If you look for something, that is what you are apt to find. If it is fear you concentrate on, you will live in fear. On the other hand, if you can see beauty, then you can live joyous and beautiful lives.  Does that make sense to you?”

Their apprehension was palpable. How many years had they lived under this umbrella of suppression?  Their former world was drab and colorless. They were clearly products of this oppression, yet Flash thought he had detected a spark of joy at the blazing crystal.

“Let us further examine the rulebook,” they pleaded, and Flash obliged with an immense feeling of pity. 

As they sat, huddled over the pages, Flash set off to explore the area. He followed a yellow path which he could easily retrace if he made it any substantial distance from the ship. 

Flash was met with surprise after surprise on his ramble.  As much as he tried to keep the big picture in view, every detail beckoned him to stop and marvel.  The jewel encrusted terrain eventually gave way to a softer, almost spongy surface, but still in intense color like before.

While the landscape continued to captivate him, Flash couldn’t help thinking of Buffy and Skip, and he wondered how he could help them. Not to meddle, but they clearly looked to him for guidance.  This was their planet, not his, and this realization changed the way he viewed it.

As the yellow path narrowed and came to an end, he turned and followed it back.

From a distance, Flash could see Buffy and Skip still hunching over, just as he had left them. He felt compassion, but did not know what else he could say. 

As he neared them, he heard the sound of laughter. 

With their backs turned to him, Buffy and Skip were building a glimmering castle out of crystal shards.

They were oblivious to his presence, piecing stones together to form an ornate structure with balconies cantilevering out from tower walls. A sweeping amethyst roadway led to the main gate whose arch reached several feet above the mosaic floor. Looking over their shoulders, Flash saw within the mosaics, images from his own journey that brought him all these light years to meet them, and his heart was glad. 

Behind the castle, he saw something that did not quite fit the creative and playful scene. There, pages disheveled, lay the rulebook, a relic from another time.

The crystal palace was so detailed and well constructed that Flash could hardly believe his eyes. It was nothing like a child’s sand castle, but appeared to be an exact replica, only more beautiful than any Flash had ever seen. 

“How did you do this?” Flash asked in amazement. 

“This is how the pieces fit together,” they said. 

Flash could see it now. In this recreated world, the two inhabitants had all the tools they needed to fit the pieces together. They did not need him to teach them how we assembled the puzzle on Earth. Perhaps they would do it better here without his intervention.

Just one or two of Olo’s magnificent crystals would be worth a fortune on earth. Here, there were blue diamonds and clear emeralds larger than watermelons, but Flash was only interested in one souvenir. 

“You dropped your book,” he said. 

“We don’t need that anymore.”

52 It’s For YouThey were clearly humanoid.  Flash had heard the words they bellowed, “Happy, happy…”  He had observed one of them smiling and waving, so he did not anticipate a problem with communication. 

“My name is Flash Meridian,” he said when the duo reached a conversational distance from him.

“I’m Buffy”, the young woman announced. “And this is Skip”. 

“Hi”, Skip said. 

Flash wondered where he should start, but then Buffy spoke. 

“We are so glad you are here!” she began. “I wondered if this day would ever come!”

“We read about it in the rulebook”, Skip offered. 

Flash smiled, hiding his confusion, and hoped they would further enlighten him. 

“What rulebook?” he asked.  “What did you read?”

“It was foretold!”, they exclaimed in unison, and then Skip continued.

“…That you would come from the heavens in a shining garment, and create for us a whole new world.”

Yes, he had come from the heavens.  Yes, his silver suit shone.  Yes, their world had been transformed. 

Flash grew concerned. This story sounded rather familiar. It seemed the Ololians saw him as some sort of messiah figure. 

“May I see your rulebook?” Flash asked.

“Yes, of course, we always keep it nearby”. 

Skip pulled a worn book from his back pocket and handed it to Flash, who opened it with some trepidation. 

Indeed, the book told of Olo, and its two inhabitants. It told of Flash, and his journey with it’s setbacks, mechanical trouble near Mora and his journey through the black hole. He turned pages, quickly devouring the information while his skin tingled in absolute wonder at what he read. How could this be?  He turned another page and saw there an image of Olo’s destruction and restoration. It was exactly as Flash had seen upon his arrival. He felt faint, his mind boggled by what he saw in the book.

He looked up at Buffy and Skip. They stared at him wide eyed as if anticipating some insight or instruction. He stared back at them in a daze. 

“What must we do now?” Skip asked. 

“What do you want to do?”

The question seemed like a completely foreign concept. 

No one said anything for what seemed a rather long time, so Flash opened the book again. 

“It says here…” he began, and at this, the two sat cross-legged on the ground in front of him, clasped their hands and looked very solemn. 

“It says here that this new world has been created for you to enjoy. I think you should enjoy it together.”

Still, they sat looking up at him, oblivious to the wondrous world around them. 

“Look around you!” he urged. This planet is beautiful!  And it’s for you!  Go!  Explore!  Live!”

They glanced at each other, and looked blankly back at Flash.

front and back cover

inside front and back cover

Twelve years ago, I never imagined that I would still be doing this!

The Adventures of Flash Meridian was just one of those silly things that just happened one day. My friends Jeremy, Josh and Justin came over. I had flight suits. They put them on. It was as simple as that. I took pictures and altered them in Photoshop (which I was just beginning to learn to use).  Then I made up some captions for the pictures. We laughed. That was it… Or so we thought. 

Those fifteen or twenty actors that portrayed characters in the early episodes grew up and/or moved away long ago, and here I still am, with my silver “space suit” and a story in my head. 

The website has always gone through changes. I did one episode with Barbie Dolls and action figures. I did an episode or two using a comic book app on my phone…  but in the last year since the relaunch (at my daughter’s urging), there have been cataclysmic evolutionary leaps. 

The story now focuses primarily on the writing, even though I have transformed a room in my basement into the interior of the mother ship. 

Maybe the pictures will come back. Maybe in the form of paintings. Maybe a new crop of actors will wander into my life.

For now, I am obsessed with writing. The current story line (in the mid 50’s episodes) goes back about 28 years, when I was in my early 20’s and worked in a summer camp between semesters in Bible School. 

It doesn’t matter what you write about, pieces of you will surface. C.S. Lewis said that, far better than I just did. And it’s true. I’m often surprised at what details of the real me appear in my story. 

But the thing that really spurred the idea of a book is that the blog is all backwards!  The most recent episode always appears first, and I find it cumbersome to be constantly scrolling back to find continuity, although the links at the right hand side do make it easier to navigate (and allow you to comment). 

So the book flows. In order.  And that’s why I did it. 

I read the entire booklet out loud to my dogs tonight, and they listened attentively to the whole thing. I think they enjoyed it. I happen to love the story even though I wrote it, and I hope you’ll like it, too.

51 Hello!

It was clear to Flash that he needed a plan for exploring this planet. He could easily spend a week or more within site of his ship.  This was simply a random spot, and not even among the obvious geologic features that rose like huge coral reefs in the distance.

But first, lunch. He settled into the cockpit of the TNI2, and addressed the onboard computer, which was simply an extension of the network on the mother ship. 

“I’d like a ham panini sandwich with goat cheese, please,” Flash stated into the handset. 

“Certainly,” a voice responded. A few moments later, he opened a compartment and retrieved his lunch. 

He felt strength returning as he ate, but before he finished, something happened. 

It suddenly became dark, as though a storm cloud passed directly over him, and Flash looked up to see what meteorologic change was taking place.

It wasn’t a cloud. 

Suspended there above his ship, like a Thanksgiving parade balloon, an enormous white whale hovered. 

This was something Flash had never encountered or even heard of before, so he was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Was there any danger?

He decided to face this head on, as was his typical response. 

He stepped back out onto the now shaded but still bright ground, and walked out into the light to get a different view. This was the larger of the whales, and the other floated above it. Which part of a whale do you address?

He walked forward  toward the mouth, and looked up to see the texture of ventral pleats bigger than hand hewn timbers, which narrowed and curved up toward the rostrum or bow of the giant. 

He had to walk quite a ways forward of the animal in order to be able to see anything other than the underside of it, which hung in deep purple shadow, and twinkled all over with multi colored reflections from the gem encrusted plain below. 

“Hello!” Flash called, unable to see a rider on its back. “Hello!” he hailed again.  

The front tip of the whale lowered toward the ground and gradually the tail rose. As the whale became more and more vertical, the rider came into view, sliding down the dorsal ridge, and landed on his feet about midway between Flash and his ship. 

Down came the calf, perpendicular to the other whale.  It rolled its body and the other rider slid down its pectoral fin, landing on her feet as well. 

He wore a white shirt and a black necktie, and she wore a pink dress.  As they walked toward Flash, the whales drifted higher and higher into the atmosphere, and Flash watched them rise. 

“Hello,” Flash said again, and as the whales vanished from view, the riders approached him. 

50 No FootprintsThe TNI2 set down on the surface of the newly revised planet, and Flash took a moment to look around. 

It would be unwise to exit the vehicle before knowing exactly what the environment contained. 

Sensors scanned the air. Probes analyzed core samples.  Flash took in the technicolor panorama and longed to explore it on foot. 

The readings were displayed on the computer screen as the surface minerals were examined. 

The blue was lapis lazuli, giving way to pure ultramarine.  The yellow and red contained ferric oxide in the form of specular hematite crystals. In turn, each hue revealed minerals that ranged from common to semiprecious on Earth. Here on Olo, they stretched as far as the eye could see in saturated purity. 

The air was fit for human respiration, so Flash was free to explore.

The hatch opened, and Flash stepped outside, still marveling at his surroundings. He walked several paces and then turned. His boots left no footprints on the ground. The airborne particles had settled quickly, and were tightly compressed as though something greater than gravity pulled them down toward the center of Olo.

In the distance, Flash could see some of the fantastic upright forms he had observed from above. These, he wanted to study up close, but every detail surrounding him was so fascinating that it made for slow going. 

He came upon a patch of blood red. While the color was deep and dark, it seemed to emanate light at the same time. He got down on his hands and knees to have a closer look. The entire surface was faceted like expertly cut rubies.  He picked up a crystal. It captured light, and glowed in his hand. He held it up and looked into it against the sky. The luster of stars danced within the stone and it cast beams of burning red light in every direction. 

He couldn’t tell how long he stared into the crystal fragment, but he felt he could look at it forever. Eventually, however, he placed it back where he had found it. There was so much more to see. 

As time passed, Flash began to feel hungry and tired. His brain could hardly keep up with his excitement and the details of this place. As much as he wanted to explore, he thought it best to make his way back to the TNI2. 

Having left no footprints on the crystalline surface, he had no path to follow back. 

Turning, he saw the patch of ruby, the spray of yellow and the field of blue. There where the colors came together sat his space ship, bathed in a rainbow of luminescent reflections. He had only walked a few yards. 

Not to be confused with the complete Adventures book, this 44 page 5.5″ x 8.5″ booklet contains Episodes #37-#55, and will be available in January 2012. I am organizing a public performance featuring some of my favorite local readers, music, and images via powerpoint. Stay tuned!

Some of the lost episodes have been found! Not where I expected them to be, but when I saw them I remembered.

I’d hoped to find them in digital forms… somewhere on the internet… on a CD or hard drive somewhere in my cabinet, drawer, box or basement. But when I pulled out that big red notebook that I used to scratch the episodes in, I found what Zach and I collaborated on, by the fire, at the Birch Terrace, laughing. It was there in my living room the whole time. Finding them this way means the photos are still missing. It gives me something to still look for. Something yet to find, if they even exist outside of my memory.

In the meantime, I’ll transpose them to text and upload them… Possibly as a comment to the ones that made it through… In the vicinity of Episode 38.

I laughed in places when I read them.

The story got muddled in 2002, between Episode 30 (the end of Volume 2) and Episode 37 (the beginning of The New Adventures). But that was part of my journey, and was reflected in Flash Meridian’s narrative as well.

49 Converge
Startled, Flash looked up to see an enormous whale coming straight for him. He quickly turned the small ship and avoided impact. A wall of sparking white rolled by, almost within arm’s reach.  The creature seemed unaware of Flash’s presence, until the eye appeared. The huge eye filled the window, and he could see the distorted reflection of the TNI2 in it as it passed. 

Flash strained to see the rider, but he was too close and too low on the whale’s flank. The body looked like a soft, snowy landscape, which tapered and eventually flattened to an enormous horizontal fluke. 

Other than its steady forward momentum, it did not move. Nor would it have stirred any air if it had, hovering here among the dark particles of space. 

The second whale followed closely, but lower than the first. It was a smaller animal, and Flash had the impression that this was a growing calf. 

As it passed, it blew a spout of crystals which did not fall again, but hung there shining, almost glowing, in every color, including some that Flash had never seen before. Tearing his gaze from the glimmering display, he looked down at the second rider.  She looked up at Flash and smiled, waving to him. 

At this, he hastened his descent and plunged into the pale blue bubble of air. Sensors on the pod picked up oxygen, and so he continued on down to the surface of the small planet. It took only a fraction of the time it would have taken entering earth’s atmosphere, and soon he passed quite close over a cobalt plateau. The landscape then dropped away to a crimson plain and the TNI2 continued to fall. 

He turned the ship and hovered a bit in an area where several colors converged, and there he lowered his craft to the ground. 

At least he could analyze several minerals in this location, and then he could see what unfolded from there. 

48 Silent NightThe sounds Flash heard within the whale merged with, and then were replaced by the familiar sounds of his ship. He was not sure how long he had slept, and he looked down again on the planet Olo, which now looked completely different than when he first saw it. 

What had been a drab little speck now danced with color. He had never seen a more beautiful planet. 

Flash watched anxiously until the whales, with their enigmatic riders came into view. 

Did they need his help?  They were far below him, skimming the thermosphere while the mother ship orbited much further out. 

Weighing his options, he decided to jettison the TNI2 and head down to investigate. He’d be safe within the craft while testing the atmosphere and the stability of the planet’s surface. 

Olo’s characteristic sounds had ceased, along with the seismic activity. All was still and silent. 

After a breakfast of waffles and maple sausage, Flash suited up for his long awaited descent to Olo. The planet which had intrigued him for so many years had only become more compelling in the light of recent events. There was always danger in any excursion from the mother ship, but Flash was undaunted. After all, this is why he had come. 

Granted, he hadn’t planned on encountering orbiting whales. Come to think of it, there were ten other whales that were unaccounted for. They had shown no signs of aggression as they swam up past his ship, and his dream further comforted Flash Meridian as he prepared to disembark for his journey. 

After checking the air pressure gauge, he opened the hatch and floated through the portal into the TNI2. 

The view of Olo’s surface from the pod was stunning. 

An equipment scan showed all systems “GO,” so Flash sealed the hatch and released the craft from its moorings. The slightest touch of booster rockets separated the pod from the mother ship and he was on his way. 

Because the mother ship was in geosynchronous orbit, Flash circled the planet several times looking for anything unusual. It was all unusual. The color fields over which Flash passed were mesmerizing. The closer he spiraled down toward the surface, the more detail he saw, photographing every bit of Olo’s surface. These images were automatically uploaded to his computer and compiled into a satellite map. 

The longer Flash stared at Olo’s surface, the more he saw, noting the relationships of the shapes and colors, and he began to see cryptic images within the landscape. An enormous purple rabbit. A fish head. A woman hanging laundry on a line, a boy flying a kite on a frozen lake with fish swimming below the ice. Flash felt he could spend eternity staring at it and never exhaust the combinations of forms. 

What had appeared to be flat color shapes from a great distance were actually mountains, canyons and extravagant prominences in every conceivable shape and size. Glimmering lakes had looked metallic from the mother ship. They were fed by rivers that cascaded through the newly formed terrain and dropped in shining falls like liquid silver. 

As the TNI2 gradually descended, Flash’s mind was completely focused on the resplendent vistas below him until a warning alarm sounded. The radar screen detected a collision course with a large, slow moving object.