Stalking the Design of Destiny
(Volumes 1, 2, 3)
Copyright © 2013 John Axelson
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the written consent of the author: Limited permissions are available at http://www.accesscopyright.ca.
Cover by Geri Nolan Hilfiker.
See www.axelson.ca for background pictures, video clips.
ISBN 9781301096596
Acknowledgments:
This work would not have been possible without the forty-three years of overt friendship and surreptitious guardianship of Ed Koenig. It is dedicated to JBM, the loving memories of Eric and Mary Lee Axelson, Paul and Elizabeth Koenig, and Michael Monty, each of whom left this place better off than they found it.
Special thanks to Britta Young, Brenda MacPherson, and Lia Avalos for their support, Geri Nolan Hilfiker for reasons contained in this work, and to Manny Alvarez—a multi-beer stranger, whose insights and actions probably saved my life a couple of times. You can decide.
Volume 1: Stalking the Average Man
Chapter 3- The Nature of Events
Chapter 5- The Magic of Mankind
Chapter 6- The Bridge of Reason
Chapter 9- Beauty, and the Beast
Chapter 11-The Message and the Messenger
Chapter 18- Remodeling Beliefs
Chapter 23- Cataloguing Discord
Chapter 25- The Road to Damour
Chapter 27- A Question of Sanity
Chapter 32- Assumptions of Physical Reality
Chapter 34- Patterns of Intent
Chapter 35- The Omen of Goodbye
Chapter 36- The Designs of Intent
Chapter 39- The End of the Beginning
Chapter 40- The Descent of Spirit
Volume 2: Stalking the Bridge of Reason
Chapter 41- Elements of Delusion
Chapter 42- Enemies of Learning
Chapter 43- Saturdays’ Principal Players
Chapter 46- The Gesture: A Minimal Chance
Chapter 47- Undercurrents of Fear
Chapter 48- Deconstructing Personality
Chapter 50- Translating Reality
Chapter 54- Stalking the Assemblage Point
Chapter 56- Belief and Conviction
Chapter 61- Nantucket Sleigh Ride
Stalking Volume 3: The Fifth Intercession
Chapter 64- The Economy of Action
Chapter 65- The Origins of All That Is
Chapter 66- The Origins of Man
Lemuria : The First Intercession
Atlantia : The Second Intercession
Chapter 67- The Fourth Intercession
Chapter 68- The Christ Personalities
Chapter 69- The Magic of Mankind (Pt2)
Chapter 73- The Debacle of Truth
Chapter 76- The Design of Destiny
Volume 1: Stalking the Average Man
Three hours off the plane from working my first war, I was telling tales in the Cellar Blues Bar in an effort to come to terms with what I had seen; my mouth ran freely from fresh scents of death and obscene scenery for hours.
As colleagues fell silent, and subdued barmaids quietly served us, I began borrowing from ‘bang-bang’ folklore to create the sense of pending danger and revulsion that I had yet to realize had isolated me from their world. And when an otherwise indifferent beauty finally embraced the idea that I was a fascinating man, the template for my posttraumatic behavior was set.
Ironically, maybe inevitably, by my sixth sojourn into man’s dark side I was enduring real incidents I had previously borrowed from now familiar international crews, and had talked about at the Cellar as if they were my experiences. Then I had a déjà vu event: I was so familiar with what was happening that I had no doubt about the outcome. As a free spirit working in the staid business of television news it did not cross my mind that I had become far too familiar with irrational circumstances. To the contrary, I thought I was becoming uncommonly wise.
My twelfth foray into the madness became my last, when the winds of change blew a tornado across my path in the form of British Immigration authorities denying my work visa renewal. This unexpected event caused me to fly to Vancouver, Canada, to see my best friend, Ed, and to check out the freelance market for soundmen.
During this short stay, my polished tales of crappy ways to live and die enthralled his friend, Tom, an executive at a post-production company, who subsequently offered me contact numbers in the film and television industry. He also suggested that my experiences would make an excellent screenplay, an observation I received as schmoozing from a shameless visionary seeding new business.
Ultimately, I stuffed my worldly possessions into three nylon sail bags, and carrying an electronic typewriter boarded a flight to my hometown, Toronto, because I knew more people in the industry there. This reasoning turned out to be problematic, because events had changed me, and sixteen months later I was again considering moving to Vancouver: a regular call from Ed reminding me that he’d put me up gratis was a strong draw.
By this time I had stopped writing a book about covering wars, to script an innocuous screenplay about helicopter pilots working in bush country: on the suggestion of a good friend and mentor, I had applied for and been awarded a New Screenwriters Development Grant, which tipped the scales for me. I landed in Vancouver with a fifty percent advance toward expenses, six months to complete my project, and nothing standing in my way except my penchant to follow ‘insightful’ flashes that invariably led me away from developing established elements of my plot. As a result, I lost valuable time trying to make these flashes relevant to my climatic surprise, which, as it turned out was on me. With only three weeks to go, elements of the insights I had individually coaxed into my story merged to allude to a better climax than I had been crafting.
I was not as concerned about getting the balance of the money, as I felt gutted by the fizzle of an ending that screwed up the potential references offered by the review committee. This meant I had to consign my first professional credit to silence, and start over. Ed saw that I was troubled, by what he didn’t ask, and on his dime he invited me to join him, Tom, and two others at the Avalon Gentleman’s Club to find a broader view of life than my own colon was then providing.
Fortuitously, nearing the end of this evening Tom made a double entendre comment intended to have me speak about my version of the bang-bang, and I told him about an incident in a place I called Goodbye. Because it ultimately involved helicopters, this tale led me to explaining the problem I had with my screenplay. Tom dedicated brief seconds of thought to this before saying I should upgrade one of my helicopters. In two sentences, he explained how I could fuse my unintended implication to a slightly reworked climax, then offering me a business card on which he had scribbled a phone number, he said, "A friend needs help converting her book into a screenplay format. She’s a looker," he said seriously.
"Maybe later," I said to not seem unappreciative; I had a lot to do.
"That’s perfect," he replied, sliding the card between my fingers. "Bonnie is expecting to hear from you tonight… shit!" he exclaimed, looking at his watch as if it had bit him.
Dropping cash on the table, he left to meet his girlfriend.
Later at home, fueled by unnecessary nightcaps and thoughts of lacy undergarments, I made the call that would lead to the doom of everything I believed about free spirits, the winds of change, and how much baggage I really had brought with me.
Early the next morning, I inserted a floppy disk into my Atari 64 computer and called up files from my book in progress: Bonnie had suggested that we might exchange samples of our work, to see if we were creatively compatible, and as a courtesy act of trust by revealing ideas we had not copyrighted. Confidently pleased over the clever ease and causal humor we had shared in our first conversation, I read the best of my potential offerings without feeling I had to commit to showing it to her.
Axelson— You Taught Me Well