“If I ever get this published it’ll be a miracle, because at the rate I’m narrating the translation it’ll never see the light of day…”
The Townsend Letters;
Christopher’s correspondence with Dale Hines.
December 3, 1964
******
[My brother] Ralph’s letter today was a welcomed sight from home with its news that Dale Hines will be arriving soon from the States… I am among the several groups working under Sir Leonard Woolley. We are now on an expedition, jointly with the British Museum, excavating the sites believed to be Ur and Sippar. Thus far we have managed to only move dirt from one location to another! I do feel that our task will not prove to be in vain.
Dr. Woolley mentioned various times that this specific area had under gone a major earthquake, and a massive flooding; as evidence of the rock layers of strata shifting...
Exert from
Christopher Townsend’s personal Journal
June 28, 1922
******
Four
THE DREAMER’S TALE
The next morning, over breakfast, Jacob shared his bizarre dreams of the night before with Arlene. She gave him a resigning look over her coffee cup, “Babe, this is becoming -- somehow -- way, too normal. I wish we knew what they all meant.”
Just as seriously, Jacob answered, after a sip of his own, “Yesterday, you mentioned visiting my brother sometime. How about this weekend, instead of next?”
Accepting the great idea with raised brows she perked up, “Sounds fine to me, I just need to get a few things packed up for the trip, and see if Jillian can watch Franklin for us.” The dog wagged his tail at the mentioned of his friend’s owner’s name. Jillian had a Britney Spaniel named Spencer, and had taken Franklin on several walks with them before.
Smiling at both their reactions, Jacob complimented the idea himself, “She’s been a great neighbor, I don’t think she’ll mind.” Then added an earlier unspoken thought, “I don’t know why, Arlene, but I just have this strange feeling that Stewart has more answers than what he’s letting on about.”
Sounding a little confused, his wife asked, “What do you mean? You -- you think he knows something about your dreams, Jacob?” Then sighed a disbelieving breath cooling her Irish Cream.
With a big grin, he admitted, “That’s exactly what I think. There was that odd comment in my grandfather’s letter about Miriam, which he had written years before I even came across all those letters.”
“That’s right, weird uh? It’d be nice if there were some answers, Stewart could pass on.”
The week passed quickly. That Friday night as they slept, Jacob drifted off to sleep thinking it was be peaceful and uneventful. He was wrong on both accounts. The AC had gone out Wednesday afternoon, and by that Friday they were still without it.
Mid October and it was still hot. The ceiling and box fans were only circulating the warmth about, leaving Arlene more miserable than Jacob; yet, they both found themselves restlessly falling asleep somehow.
From out of the warm, unknown darkness his hazed vision grew as a lingering smoke rolled in across the land. The sight of a strange battle lay before him, and became a vivid scene. It looked like the carnage the day after a major combat on some ancient battlefield, or maybe the lull before its second wave was to attack. The grass was blotched with pools of blood that glistened beneath the smoldering haze. A putrid stench inescapably filled the air with the aroma of death. The realism of it all was beyond belief, no matter where Jacob looked, he was there in real time.
Whether it was near dusk or early dawn, he couldn’t tell from the blackened burnt-orange sky. Silhouetted heads mounted on pikes jabbed at the red glowing horizon, with their expressions glaring in silent screams. Beneath each pole were the mangled remains of the unfortunate victim. They had apparently lost their fight against a formidable enemy. The entire field was littered with mutilated and charred body parts of the half dead who beggingly reached skyward, for a mercy that never came. Their fateful demise had been cruelly sealed.
Jacob felt like vomiting as he could almost discern distant moans gaining in volume from behind him. Suddenly the ground underfoot had begun to vibrate with the approach of the advancing onslaught. As his panoramic view turned to the left, he saw the defending armies screaming and gathering strength as armored knights rode out onto the field. The army's eagerness to engage was in stark contrast to what had obviously been an earlier defeat, just days before.
Someone was beginning to shout a speech of encouragement, just as another group entered the fight. They bore down, against what appeared to be a barbaric horde of monstrous club welding beast. Without warning, out of the corner of his eye a shiny, black armored figure came rushing toward Jacob. The warrior’s green eyes were wild with rage, as both hands griped a huge bastard sword, raised for its killing assault. Jacob's heart pounded in his chest, as if it were about to burst. A voice called out to the running knight, "Barad, slay that creature!" When the sword came down a pain shot through Jacob’s entire body and everything went black.
Out of the blackening silence, Jacob made his way through the low lying tree limbs, trying not to get hit in the face again. Up ahead he saw a twisted mangled-forest. It was smothered in the smoky-haze of a moonless night, with only a lone cricket‘s annoyance sounding nearby.
All too human eyes stared back from their embedment within a tree’s rough trunk. Jacob’s sleeping mind whirled with a horribly throbbing head ache. As his dreaming eyes tried to focus in on the tree before him, he saw a contorted grayish-face beginning to stare back at him.
From out of a mouth that had not yet formed came a wicked, hoarse laughter. Its ensuing roared louder as though it hid knowledge of some cruel joke about to be played out. The laughing grew into a growling yell of rage as its tooth decayed mouth blared open. The tree faded away while the face slowly began to be flushed with color and a long, unkept beard grew, and its face morphed with aged features.
From out of the flickering shadows a torch’s light drawing closer, revealing that Jacob was now standing at the end of a long stone-corridor. With the increasing light about the wrinkled face, he saw a bearded man’s crouched figure; sitting in the corner of a cold, sandstone-tiled prison cell.
Through rusty bars Jacob could see the small figure, dressed in tattered worn-rags, looking up at him in utter shock. At first, Jacob could not tell if the crazed prisoner had seen him or had looked through him. Then -- jumping to his feet, the ragged man leapt toward Jacob in an almost vicious attack. He was there in a single motion at the wall of bars, which stood between him and Jacob; grabbing the rusty cage with his face struggling to press through. He shouted, “Why are you here?” Both of his bleeding ankles were shackled to a chain laced through a ring in the middle of his cell floor. The wild, hairy little man was half Jacob’s stature.
A Little Person, Jacob thought to himself, as him moved back with a start asking, “What?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, you heard what I said! Why are you here, Dreamer? I thought I was the only one who could enter that way.” With a panicked half-glance down the hallway the dwarf interrupted any reply Jacob might have had with, “You have to leave at once. If they find you, it’ll be too late! Don’t be a fool and get trapped here, like me.” Then yelling, “Trapped I tell you! Get me out of this hell hole!”
The little man began violently shaking the locked door of his cell, and shouting at the top of voice, “Leave - leave before it’s too late you fool!”
The flickering light grew brighter and brighter as everything became illuminated with its own inner glow. Within seconds the blinding white consumed everything.
Jacob now saw himself appear to walk into a formless sterile-white room of nothingness, and stopped. Alone, and emotionless he stood there for what seemed like hours. Then, as if from the other side of a stage, Miriam approached across from him. They were both dressed as before, and were standing in the empty void of white, just a few arms length from one another.
In a flat, monotone voice Jacob asked her, “Miriam, I won’t be seeing you again after this, will I?”
But she only smiled slightly, and ignored his question, “After the flooding rains, we came out of the ark, that my father-in-law had built. My husband, Shem, found my mother‘s book, and was angry with me that I had kept something from the old world, and forbade me to speak of such things again.
“Then a man came secretly to me in the woods. He was called, Silvermane, and wanted to see the scrolls I carried. In returning them to me, I saw that they were all blank, and began to cry at their loss. He bade me not to worry, saying that a concealing-mark was placed on them, and only when a messenger came to me would my words be revealed to him. For he would proclaim them before the world as a requiem of our time.
“Afterwards, I hid the scrolls of my mothers lore away in a jar, and sealed it with the Eye of Silvermane, in the hopes that one day his words would come true; that our lives before the pouring rains, would not be forgotten -- even though they are now forbidden.” She was quiet for a second, then added.
“For me, that was seventeen years ago; but for you, Jacob I fear a greater amount of time has passed. I believe Silvermane’s prophecy is now fulfilled, and that you are that messenger. Answer me this: Who is the key?”
Without hesitation, Jacob held up the tablet and said, “Balthenorn.”
With that the dream ended.
Jacob sat straight up in bed, fully awake.
No screaming. No sweating.
Just an instant feeling, knowing that he would no longer dream of Miriam, and somehow that knowledge made him feel sad. Looking over to Arlene’s empty side of the bed, he turned as the fresh smell of brewed coffee entered the room.
Beaming a smile at his uncombed hair, Arlene greeted her husband with the offering, “Morning sleepy head. Need some wake up juice?”
He bemoaned, “Oh, you’re an angel.”
Blowing its brown-creamed surface, she reminded him, “Well, today’s the day.”
“Yeah, just wondering what they’re like: Stewart and Casey?”
“Stop being so insecure, they’re probably wondering the same about us.”
“Hey, if nothing else at least it’ll be a trip out-of-town, right?”
She smiled softly back with, “Yeah, it’ll be a great visit.”
Hurriedly putting the cup down and beginning to dress like a fireman responding to a three-alarm call, “Speaking of which I guess we had better get ready to go.”
They rushed around getting dressed, packed a few bags, and with the green footlocker slid onto the back seat on their Dodge Neon, they were off. Starting down Interstate 44, a stop over for breakfast at McDonalds, and four hours later they found themselves heading south along 183.
After getting the directions on the phone; Steward had facetiously mentioned to Jacob that the suburb of Early had recently gotten The Heart Land Mall, and that after seeing it on the left they were to turn right at the next up coming intersection.
The small, central Texas town of Brownwood was a lot quieter than what either Jacob or Arlene had anticipated. Not long after that they found their way down Austin Avenue, past Coggin Park into a fairly nice neighborhood, they located the quaint stone house on Elizabeth street. Jacob mentioned to Arlene, as they were getting out of the car, that he had not seen so many patched pot holes in all his life, and was glad he had replaced the shocks before they had left home.
While both were grinning from ear to ear the front door was being opened by a heavy set man chewing the butt of a thick, smelly Cuban cigar. Jovially he grinned back at them as his huge legs waddled out on to the porch with great effort, “You must be, Jacob, and this -- your lovely wife, Arlene.”
Jacob reached out for a hand shake but got a bear hug instead, “Right on both accounts. Stewart?” To which the man in blue slacks and pink shirt affirmed with a chuckle. His color blind eyes appeared tiny through their coke bottle Armani lenses, as his other hand‘s finger tips secured the smelly cigar bit.
The slim goddess next to him radiated, with a hiker’s thumb, “That’s him, and I’m Casey.” She looked like a Barbie doll come to life, looking down and picking up an enormous black Persian cat. “Yes, and this is Geronimo. Come on in, guys.” Winking to them both Casey turned to lead the way into their sparely decorated but lavish home. Her shinny short shorts caught both Arlene and Jacob’s eyes.
Stewart and Casey made an odd couple, yet their affections toward one another appeared genuine to their arriving guests.
Putting the monstrously bloated feline down, Casey motioned an extracted gesture toward the dinning table, as if she were a Price Is Right model introducing it like the next item up for bid, “You guys must be exhausted after your trip. Let’s have a seat in the dinning room.”
Stewart interrupted, “You have to excuse her. I bought the table last month, and Casey’s still showing it off like a prized birthday gift.”
She beamed, “Well, it was.” While continuing to set silverware for everyone.
“Very nice.” Jacob smiled back, “We took a few breaks along the way.”
Arlene sniffed the air, noticing steam erupting above the covered containers atop the stainless steel stove, “Smells great.”
Motioning for Arlene to join her in checking out the spaghetti’s progress, Casey grinned, “I’m glad you think so, Arlene ‘cause it’s just about ready.”
Sitting at the huge, intricately-carved table, across from his newly reunited brother, Jacob marveled at the table’s woven designs with a sigh, “Well, here we are.”
Just as astonished, Steward stared at his younger brother, “Yeah. Man its been worth it all just to see you again, Jacob. I’m really glad you answered my first letter.” He said with a smiling glance at Arlene, “You’re looking good, and married too.”
Jacob gave a raised eye brow nod in his sister-in-law’s direction as well, “Thanks, you too.” He tried to nonchalantly wave the cigar smoke out of his face, without showing his annoyance, but the ladies noticed.
Casey, seeing Jacob’s reaction, gently took the cigar out of her husband’s mouth while waving an index finger at him. Crushing the smoldering butt in an ashtray, she said, “Jacob, you don’t know how many times he rewrote that letter so you wouldn’t think he was a nut.” Stewart blushed a bit at Jacob’s head shaking at the dissipating smoke with a false grin that gave his thoughts away. The blonde headed goddess poured two drinks as her brunette counterpart stirred the meat-sauce mixture.
…………………………Dialogue NOTES
c-here you go, hope you like iced-tea?
a-love it, hum nice and cold.
So where do we start?
How about we start with this ----dinner
“Well,” Stewart began, “Guess I’ll go first. . . . . . . .”
After Stewart’s summary, Jacob started off with, “I’ve been an manager of The Men’s Taylor, a tuxedo rental shop…” But after a bite of food he gave a delicious moan, then divulged, “I love spaghetti, this is great Casey. My twin foster sisters: Diane and Cynthia use to do all the cooking, in-between arguing and dating every guy in school. They were characters; uh, and there was Rollin, my first dad, a retired Navy cook and drunk, but boy could he cook -- awesome Lasagna.”
Arlene was a little surprised by his sudden burst, she had never heard Jacob talk about the people from his past in such favorable light before, it made her grin for some reason, maybe because the bitterness of his lost childhood was beginning to fade. Arlene had also begun to notice that Stewart’s presence made Jacob genuinely smile more, and that was a good sign to see.
……………………………….
And Casey
==g=g=g=g=g=g=g=
What have you been up to?
- - --,sks scabs’’s sk’b’sk’;sbh skh’ls’ ‘’’skhsfg;ldfl ;
And Arlene
=b=s==f=s=f=g==
Pushing his empty plate aside, Jacob confessed, “You know Stewart, I’ve had so much going on, that to be quite frank with you, I never thought in a million years I would ever know anything about my real family. Then, the very day I gave up on the idea altogether was the exact day your letter arrived in the mail.” After a sip of iced tea, added, “Strange.”
Stewart’s eyes beamed back through their huge lenses, “I know the feeling. The day I sent that letter off, I had the very same dream I had when I was a kid.”
“Dream?” Injected, Arlene as she shot a sharp glance down the mahogany table. Her spaghetti laden fork poised in the air with its last bite getting cold.
Catching her interest, Stewart elaborated, “Yeah. When I was 12 yrs old-” He started to reach for his ashed cigar, but got Casey’s gaze instead, then continued with his story, “I had a dream on my twelfth birthday that made it clear to me that I had to find you, Jacob. This, overwhelming feeling that I needed you, more than you ever needed me.
“In my dream I saw two boys arguing. The older one was rough, and very independent; said he could do everything by himself. When the younger brother asked about their mother the older brother said, “After all that she’s done to us how could you still love her? She beat us, and contrived stories against us to our father. She even loved her daughter more than us!” Then the younger brother said, “It is not about her, it is about us.”
“I can’t explain it, Jacob, but I woke up thinking about you, and how my life only had meaning when I thought about my little brother. So, I searched for you using every means possible.”
Trying to not let his tearing eyes be noticed, Jacob replied, “Thanks, that means a lot, Stewart.” After a quick sip of tea, he asked, “We -- had a sister?”
Stewart knew it was coming, “No.” Then a strange tone dropped into his voice, “But, it does get a lot stranger than you can imagine.”
Jumping to conclusions, Jacob caught the inference and asked, “-So, um, what other dreams have you had?”
Stewart ignored his wife’s disapproving pursed lips as he clipped the bit off a new Cuban, and ignited its flavor as a reward for his patience in waiting for this very moment to arrive. His jovial rolling voice took on a mysterious tone as though he was sharing a tale of mythical times.
As Stewart began sharing with his brother and sister-in-law all his dreams that he felt might have some bearing on their reunion, the kitchen filled with a light haze of cigar smoke. No one seemed to take notice this time around. For the visitors quickly became engrossed in their host’s stories, losing themselves in the picturesque details. Oddly enough, they not only turned out to be the identical ones Jacob had shared with Arlene in private, but occurred on the same days as well. With each telling the younger couple exchanged bewildering looks, that only validated Stewart and Casey’s exact experience.
Just as Stewart began Jacob’s final meeting with Miriam, Casey suggested a break by clearing off the table, with Arlene’s help, and began a fresh kettle of water for coffee. It was edging into late afternoon, and a cold front had moved in dropping the temperatures outside down into the low thirties. With everyone settling about the kitchen table again, Stewart resumed, then finished his account of seeing the dwarf in prison and Miriam’s parting words.
After a moment of silence, Arlene interrupted Stewart’s melodramatic attempt to accentuate the mood with blowing smoke rings by declaring, “So, let me see if I can get this straight. You have both been having these weird dreams, independent of one another, about the daughter-in-law of Noah; and the scrolls she hid away, that came down to her through her maternal grandmothers, that told about meeting the angel from the Garden of Eden?”
Stewart and Jacob both looked like they had just been hit in the back of the head. Their opened mouths and wide eyes mirrored one another. Trying not to laugh out loud, she asked, “What - you didn’t get it till now?”
Smiling from across the table, Casey retorted, “Oh my God! Arlene, as smart as they are - I can’t believe it.”
Stewart remarked to the chewed bit of his cigar, “Hump. Noah?”
For Jacob it was somehow the missing piece, “Garden of Eden? - Ah!”
But Arlene persisted, “Well, that is what you’ve both are talking and dreaming about -- isn‘t it?”
Casey acted like her years in Sunday School had finally paid off, “I can’t believe it. Neither of them go to church and yet they both dream about the Bible.”
Yet, Stewart seemed to be holding a trump card and played it with the mysterious voice, “They still don’t understand. Jacob it goes deeper than that. Only after our father passed away, did I come across his personal papers, and learned that he and our grandfather both were having these same dreams. Dad speculated that they were all somehow linked to his father’s discoveries in the middle-east. Apparently, grandfather never spoke of the matter to him. Which is one of the reasons why I was so curious to see what was in the footlocker.’
Stewart finished with his point, being, “I believe there are deeper truths left unstated in the Scriptures, and only vaguely alluded to in other Sacred Texts as well.” Smiling, the big man returned to his smoke rings as if he had won a hand in cards. Stewart got up from the table to make himself a harder drink. Vodka and lime.
After their two and a half hours of conversations, and several cappuccinos, they were now all on the same page when, Casey asked, “Wow, and I guess that brings us up to -- what’s in the box?”
To which Arlene nervously laughed, “I was just going to say that, Casey.”
After restroom breaks, and rounds of mixed drinks, Jacob and Arlene found their way to a plushy decorated sunken-living room area. By now Jacob had retrieved the boxed legacy that had brought them all together.
While going through everything in the trunk and sharing what they had discovered or listening to Stewart fill in the blanks with family history, Casey interrupted everything.
Holding up an envelope that had been torn open long ago, she got the group’s attention with, “Hey, Stew, I think you might be wrong about your dad not knowing about things. Here’s a letter written to him while he was still away at college, it’s from your grandfather. Listen to this:
‘…Even more fascinating than the Salun Parchments in the amber box are, what I call: The Nephilim Scrolls; for they seem to be the very essence of everything missing from the Genesis account. You are aware, son, there were far older civilizations, many of which were never recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures… ,but my colleges think I am crazy, and have disregarded the speculations of my nineteen years of work.”
Interesting. Does it mention what his ‘work’ was, that he was referring to?
Yeah. He said it was ‘a narrative of a transliterated poem,’ written in a black leather-bound manuscript.”
This must be it here.
The four of them decided to take turns reading the manuscript aloud to one another. So, Jacob began reading aloud:
“The Requiem”:
“Like the terrified inhale of a sharp gasp,
I saw her life being extinguished and fade
as in the exhaustion of sorrow.
In the inhale of that crumbling moment
my life’s meaning faded away
as sorrow filled my heart with loneliness.
Cradled in my arms, she died so pale
a lifeless shell, void of expression;
yet forever, my only, one true love…”
