Charles Pendelton

	Charles Pendelton
	© 2008 Marty Langdon

Chapter 34

                       Metamorphis face

Over and over, that scene ruminated through my mind as I walked along the
dirt path that stretched out into the unfiltered gloom. As we rallied on, I was
unable to stop my mind from destroying me, and in return, I could do nothing
but contemplate why it happened. I wanted nothing more than to just sit down
in a room with Christ himself and resolve this whole matter once and for all
rather than live my life feeling like a descendant of the great betrayer.

Maddening thoughts, they were indeed, but these are the things
we think of when we are beginning to lose our minds.

My conscience was provoking my spirit,
yet the only thing I was guilty of was existing.

A Native American Indian man who befriended me several years ago once said,
“If you should ever become worried or guilty about something you know is right,
do not fear; it is only your heart telling you to be brave. However, should you
ever feel uneasy or have second thoughts about doing something you feel in
your heart is questionable, then that is something you must walk away from.”

I thought about his words as I walked the dirt trail into nothingness.

When we reached the street, I noticed it was moving in a strange kind of way. The
abstracted levels seemed to change the tar and pebbles in the road, aided by plains
that shifted, before coming together again. It was fascinating to see. Similar to
watching a mirage form on a hot summer day. When the sweltering heat bakes
the earth, you can see the steam emanating from the black tar road.

The lake of water off in the distance is your illusion.

Trying to reach it is like attempting to find gold at the end of a rainbow.
Unless, of course, the end of your rainbow should hover ever so gracefully
above a banking institution.

Certainly, this was much more enjoyable than science class.

Becoming the experiment was a lot cooler than playing with evaporators and
filtration devices. If you don't become a chemist, then what the hell's the point?

Shouldn't we have been learning something that was going
to advance us in the future, like a trade of our choice?

“Maybe you're just not trying hard enough.”

That was the answer I'd get when I needed help with something.

“Maybe you should stop listening to that stupid music
and focus on your math and science class you're failing.”

Maybe...

Maybe, if she didn't have so much stress, she wouldn't
have gotten sick, and we could have still been together.

Sometimes, I wonder if I should have told them.

I am sure they would have only used it like a blade
to cut my heart out with.

                                                               Pg 250
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The one thing I can honestly say is that I am happy I no longer have to see
the inside of a schoolroom again. I would usually enter feeling lost and leave
knowing I had endless pages of homework to complete before nightfall,
homework pertaining to subjects that had no relevance being taught to us
in the first place rather than focusing on what attracted our attention.

They worked on provoking us; simply because they could.

Since we were learning about it in school, there didn't appear to be a reason for
us to take it home and do it again. That should be optional for the student. Anyway,
the school didn't teach us anything we wouldn't have learned in the real world.

But now I was free.
Free to live life as it comes.

Satan laughed, delighted.

“Ah yes,” he said, “but with no one to live for.”

After my torment subsided, I began to focus all my energy on trying to fully comprehend
every aspect of this mystical and insightful drug. If this substance has the uncanny ability to
make the sane go insane, then couldn't it, for all intents and purposes make an insane person
sane? Aside from being obvious, it was as logical as a simple mathematical equation.

I closed my eyes briefly, swelling with pride. “What an astonishing thought,”
I heard myself say as I came to realize all the people I could help should my theory
prove to be correct. All the lives I could change for the better. The dinner party
many will attend, and everything wrong in my life would suddenly be made right.

The unremitting sound of hands clapping put me in the spotlight as the masses
rose to a standing ovation in the amphitheater of my brain. I was beaming with
joy, for I was not who I was before. Finally, I was someone of importance!

Then like an approaching storm, the dark clouds
of reason came to wash away my happiness.

Do you honestly believe you are the first person to try and find the miracle hidden within
psychedelic drugs? The Indians used it for thousands of years, with guidance, and have had
positive results. To this day they still use it but have not cured the afflictions of the insane.

The hippies used it with no guidance at all, and look at what happened to them.
A whole generation of people went raving.

They burned out like comets in an astral plain.

Once you lose something as precious as your mind,
you become nothing more than a zero.

Just think, if someone was awake their whole life, unable to interpret,
nor communicate a spoken language, then isn’t it safe to assume they
have no knowledge of anything around them?

I'm sure they understand their own individual language of
blatha' blatha', but what was a letter or a number to them?

What is a peach?
         (And)
What am I saying?

They would hear only blathering nonsense through the receptors
of their non-conformed minds, and I am sure that trying to convey
even the least bit of logic to these poor lost souls would be, in the
doctrine of all immanence, a precursor to disaster.

And so, once again, another wonderful idea of mine
would become as curdled milk in the noonday sun.

                                                               Pg 251
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As we walked to the train station, I noticed a long line of streetlights had
all been transformed into demon faces. The amber glow from them was
so relaxing that it looked like melted glass, drooping down in the form
of pulled taffy. Comparable to a pound of molten silica that had been
removed too soon from an annealing oven.

“We must carry on,” I said, and John nodded in agreement.

The street lamps were in a metamorphic stage. They were just
hanging out, being themselves, and I had no qualms about that.

Were we not doing the same thing?

I thought of the brown cocoons we see everywhere but could
not think of the name of those strange objects.

“Hey John, what do you call those small brown puffy things
about the size of a wine cork we see all the time in the woods?”
“Styrofoam balls!” John yelled out.

“That’s right,” I exclaimed, exhilarated. . . They’re Styrofoam!
(Actually, they were Praying mantis egg sacks, but who the hell
knew that back then?)

As we began walking, I would try to say morphing stage when I
pointed up at the streetlight and said, “Look at the metamorphis face.”

John loved it.

So much, in fact, that it became synonymous with the evening.

All night long, we were in animated form, looking up at the streetlamps
and saying metamorphis face, and then clamoring with glee.

It was good, I thought, that he saw them too.

Part of the reason was due to the fact that they were 3rd generation
Westinghouse OV 25’s, and when standing in the world of the surreal,
the hexagonal pattern in the thick plastic covering, when captured by
the eye, creates a unique and pronounced face.

A long line of conspicuous faces that look like they were
crafted in Hell to be an assemblage of mischief makers.

They are not.
They are, in fact, quite harmless.

John was staring at them when he uttered the following words,
“All the souls of lost children become light, and they know us.”

I then studied the glowing objects with great resolve.

These orange microdots were cool in the way that things were now
so relaxed and less distorted. Unlike the purple microdots, where
everything assumes a milky, more deformed character. Whether
they were orange sunshine acid or not shouldn’t even matter.

As the train pulled into the station, John refused to get on. He said
he would not be able to restrain himself from laughing in the conductor’s
face, so we had no other choice than to wait for the next train.

As it rattled down the tracks into the dark abandonment of a sinister night,
I do not think I could have exhibited more expression had it lifted off the rails
and taken to the sky, for I was mentally exhausted and completely burned out.

There were no signs of life at the station and nothing much to look at on
the other side. After what seemed like a good hour, another train pulled
into the station, where we abruptly walked in and found a seat.

                               Serpent Power - Endless tunnel

I began to think of that long psychedelic song by, The Serpent Power,
called Endless Tunnel and wished I had a cassette player to turn it on.

“Hey, Mr. Conductor tell me where are we going?”
“Hey, Mr. Conductor tell me where are we headed?”
“Hey, Mr. Conductor he just walked on by.”

Unfortunately, no one has the desire to listen to mind-bending music anymore.

The conductor, who was prancing through adjoining cars, was now
walking awkwardly as if he had a pint of whiskey in his back pocket.
I suppose it was due to the rocking motion of the train as it bumbled
along its tracks. To me, it appeared to look as though he’d been
drinking on the job, but of course, we knew better.

As he enters our car, he shuffles over to where we are seated.

From there, we hand him the money. As he lumbers away, we begin
laughing and cannot stop. Upon entering the third car, he walks
methodically into that little room of his to say, “Next stop is Eltingville.”

We then exited the train and sat on the station's platform for a while.

During this time, a group of young miscreants
came by to do a rendering on somebody else's
tag, and I wondered if they'd start trouble.

We exited the train and sat on the station’s platform for a while.
During which time a group of young miscreants come by to do a
rendering on somebody else’s tag, and I wondered if they would
start trouble. These kids appeared to be a year or two older than
us, and one of them spoke like he may have been in college.

They did what they had to do and left
without upsetting the balance of time.

Rembrandt’s they were not, and I couldn’t understand why
they would bother wasting their time with such foolishness.

                        I guess they just weren't sure where to start in life.

           You start by putting down the paint can and putting on the work boots,
     but who was I to talk? I was nineteen years old, and my life was a powder keg,
                         rolling down the steep incline toward a raging fire.

                                                               Pg 252
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Reviews for chapter 34

Gina Mathers - Very good job!

Donald Pascal - Holy smoke, you have your own dictionary? That must have taken
forever because the definitions are not all from one source! And how do you know
about third generation Westinghouse OV 25's? Wow, talk about doing your homework!

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                                                              This review was posted on Apr/13/23

                                                     kanchanninawe's review

                             The Embryo Man and Other Tales of Woe: Chapter 34 - Metamorphis Face

Reader's Report by kanchan

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This review was posted on May/6/23
Reviewed by aamnaaaa

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This review was posted on May/7/23
Reviewed by yashodha_95

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                             This review was posted on May/8/23

                                      iqrabashir871 's review

The Embryo Man and Other Tales of Woe: Chapter 34 - Metamorphis Face

                                       Reader's Report by Iqra

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This review was posted on May/12/23
Hajranoor's review

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This review was posted on Jun/22/23
LR

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This review was posted on Jul/17/23
Reviewed by tawhida

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This review was posted on Jul/20/23
alits29's review

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This review was posted on Sep/15/23
Reviewed by suma303755
SM

This review was posted on Nov/7/23
Reviewed by pazkou

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This review was posted on Jan/21/24
Reviewed by hinaspatel

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This review was posted on Feb/9/24
Reviewed by sampriktaada813

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This review was posted on Apr/24/23

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This review was posted on May/8/23
Reviewed by mariya

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                                                            This review was posted on May/15/24
                                                                  Tayyaba17's review
                                              The Embryo Man: Chapter 34 - Metamorphis Face
                                                                 Reader's Report by Tayyaba

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This review was posted on Jun/26/24
Reviewed by sababaloch292

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Saleha Zainab - July 2 - Chapter 34

The language is descriptive and elaborate, with a rich use of adjectives and
metaphors. It conveys a sense of intellectual depth and emotional intensity.

The narrator frequently grapples with questions of purpose, guilt, and identity, reflecting
deep existential concerns. The text criticizes the education system and societal expectations,
suggesting a disconnect between formal education and practical life skills.

The streetlights transforming into demon faces symbolize the narrator's inner
demons and altered state of mind. The train journey represents a transition or
passage through different phases of consciousness.

There is an ironic tone in the narrator's critique of education and their own life's
trajectory, especially in phrases like "Becoming the experiment was a lot cooler
than playing with evaporators and filtration devices."

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This review was posted on Aug/20/24
Reviewed by nusratjahan603

Note: This chapter was particularly enjoyable to read.

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This review was posted on Sep/26/24
Reviewed by sarah1409

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This review was posted on Oct/20/24
Reviewed by adeeba

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This review was posted on Nov/4/24
Reviewed by poesiha

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This review was posted on Jan/9/25
Reviewed by swatigarg249

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