The Road To Prosher

Since this novel is unwritten -- just in the process of being written for almost 50 years. I suspect it will never be finished. Here are some of the elements you will need to know about; you would have learned more about them had I actually written the novel. I will have to present them to you here now though. I will start at the beginning, as I experienced it, with the Neevenites, It was meant to become a novel, which today, after 50 years has never congealed.

I gave up on it and let it become merely a series of reveries that might develop into something, someday. I would, however, hate to die with none of it being "out there in the world" to tickle the imagination of others; one of whom might pick up on some strand of it and give birth to something bigger as a result.

I wrote some of what I hoped would develop into initial chapters, which I will present here. There is some crossover, which will be apparent here if I can place on this website all that I hope to.

For instance, I have written a short one-act play called Heracles. This is just one version of the play. I intend someday to rewrite it in order to elaborate on some aspects of it, especially the temporal Möbius strip nature of the story, which reflects the two versions of the Greek traditions behind the twelve labors of Heracles. This version, however, focuses on the origin of his name, "Heracles". A small part of this play is presented in an early chapter of The Road to Prosher. You might note, however, that the play begins with the ending of the twelve labors and ends with the beginning of them; and at the beginning of the play his name is Alceides, and at the end it is Heracles.

Please be patient; I will replace these on this website as time, if I still have any left, permits me to rewrite them.

Neevenites

The Neevenites were originally (in reality) presented to me as the Gratuitous Hole Diggers, in the form of the City of Lincoln digging up the intersection of 14th & R streets every summer for what seemed like three consecutive years from 1971 through 1974. This led eventually to the Neevenite Order, a quasi-religious order that subdivided the world into various "cultural holes,” each developing in unique directions; this eventually led to the idea for The Road to Prosher, in which a galactic influence was doing something similar to Earth and the realm in which it existed.

Taegenbo

This story takes place a little over 3,600 years in the future. The technology level is similar to that of the 19th century (Earth). The region is called The Tryth, which is composed of several Kingdoms, two of which are: Taeg (which corresponds roughly to central and southeastern Nebraska and, Rȏgmüd (pronounced "rogue-mood"), which corresponds, again roughly, to western Nebraska. Most of the action in Rȏgmüd takes place in and around a village called Sai (pronounced "say") , which has a largely unused Castle abutting it, It is northeast of what is now Sutherland Nebraska, just west of the confluence of Birdwood Creek and the Platte River (and yes, I have visited and mapped the site more than once).

Taegenbo, literally interpreted means, "tears in the cave," the cave being Robber's Cave, in southwest Lincoln.

In Taeg, the major town, where most of the action takes place, is Taegenbo, which corresponds to Lincoln Nebraska. There is a castle here, which is built in, and from, the ruins of the Nebraska State Capitol Building, and which contains a theater where you first meet the protagonist, Berman, a playwright and artist.

One major feature of life in The Tryth is the oneiric arts. "Tae," for example, are oneiric creatures, in effect puppets operated by "Spirit Tae" (puppeteers) who are ignored, as though they do not exist, much like puppet operators and Kabuki's kuroko ("black clad") stage hands. The Spirit-Tae are treated much like panhandlers or vagabonds, such as “carneys” used to be treated around carnivals; they were the ones who made the magic happen but were treated like mere trash floating about the carnivals.

Sai

This is a small village in the Sandhills -- today imaginary-- northwest of the confluence of the Bierood (Birdwood Creek) and what we know as the North Platte River. Specifically Alfie's, the local pub that becomes the convergence of several journeys which cement the story; the journeys to and from Alfie's traveled by: Alfie, Bernan, Yana, Raem, Bud, Lorraine and Lora (sisters), and some others.

From here Yana sets out for the World Portal, and dies along the way in a storm. Lorraine & Lora find her and as she dies she imparts to them a part of her being so it can live on in them.

Berman, who is (unwittingly) the legal heir to the Escovian/Terran Kingdom of Rȏgmüd, follows a trail of crumbs laid down by Escovians (who humans cannot see or sense in any physical manner) to find Yana (Berman's lost love, who made him heir to her throne) and lead him through the World Portal in an unwitting and unintended effort to end the Rȏgmüdian civil war have been searching for Berman, and now must make him able to lead their xountry as King -- a seemingly impossible task.

He is simply searching for a lost love, Yana. In this quest for Yana, he is accompanied by Raem, a local priest/healer/monk -- actually a Neevenite who has assumed those rolls -- and Bud, a brutalized and insane child from another region (in Colorado) who stumbled across the Zone and becomes Raem's ward -- as well as Blue & Purple, two soldiers from the nearby Castle Sai who supposedly guard the Zone.

The Zone

The Zone is a region of its own, which is a borderland that crisscrosses North America ... and all of Earth, for that matter. It is a sort of occupied no-man's land, a country all its own, commonly believed to be inhabited by wildmen who cannot be reasoned with and are viciously phobic of any intruders.

It is in fact, however, a Neevenite-administered country intended to keep the Zones ignorant of each other and to keep them culturally isolated by embedding myths and legends concerning the Zone.

These myths, legends, and rumors are designed to make the prospect of crossing it unpalatable. In addition it is guarded at various points by militaristic groups who enforce the region and mislead anyone attempting to cross.

Oneiric Art

A major element found in Prosher that is not found in our world is that of Oneiric Art, most notably represented in the novel by the Tae, as puppets, and as living sculpture. It is, however, in a larger sense meant to represent art whose medium lies just beyond the ability of our minds to grasp; culture itself. In the case of the Tae, The Tae are the characters represented in various arts; the physical media are invisible as media. The characters live directly in the universe of the viewer. At one level it is rather like the theatre, in which as you watch a play the characters are there, in front of you, alive, palpable, and real; but at another level, they are more like ads, in which the viewers believe that something being SOLD to them is real, and in some cases BECOMES real, because of the belief invested in the product by the consumer. These, however, are neither plays nor ads. Some would call it religion, myth, or cultural fantasy; only physically present and accessible to interact with.

Oneiric Art is then the attempt by humans to wield such phenomenon as an art medium, through the use of cultural practices (like advertisement, public relations, and propaganda in our world).

The feasibility of this is due, here, primarily to the reality of the Escovians, which humans do not comprehend, little less understand. Nonetheless their undeniable reality has impacted the understanding of human's grasp of the nature of reality.

If this were real, rather than fiction, it would account for our ancestor's folk beliefs that elves, fairies, gnomes, brownies, dragons, and the like were "real".

To better understand the basis for Oneiric art, see my (series of) poems On Oneiric Art in which I try to define it to myself!

Escovians

Escovians are an alien race. What is interesting about Escovians is (1) that they have been around for over 5,000 years, and (2) they are, effectively, invisible. They achieve this invisibility by exuding allomones (pheromones are a type of allomone). Their allomones have the effect of never letting you see them because once you are alerted to their presence, the allomones alter your brain chemistry to turn the awareness of them into whatever memory, fantasy, fear, or hallucination will best distract you from the reality that is right in front of you. It is a bit like generating a 'fight or flight impulse,' only this generates an ignore or deny impulse'. This has given rise to the very real belief in various sorts of things like “Sandhill Elves”.

The Escovians have come to Earth via a sort of wormhole that connects to Earth in the Sandhills, and they are in effect to Earth overall, what the Neevenites are to the isolated regions of Earth.