The Peacock 1998

Says Jesus, "The creative imagination is not merely an excuse for inventing fantasies and lies and fiction",  And now Aaron is carefully regarding him.  "It has nothing to do with wish fulfillment.  Neither is it merely a door opening to the unconscious.  Perhaps onto what my servant the famous Swiss psychotherapist coined the Collective Unconscious...but that was merely his early stumbling at grasping and identifying a much larger and much more complex reality than what is commonly understood among human beings.  Aaron, you do touch upon the truth when you mention different dimensions.  Remember, I have many sheepfolds.  How could they all possibly be contained in and confined to this tiny but exquisite jewel of a planet that I breathed, sung and birthed into being in order to be populated by such as yourselves?" "Lord", says Aaron, "Do you mean to tell us that there is life on other planets, other galaxies...Other universes." "There has been so much useless speculation, Aaron, among such things as your kind, and your kind is also my own kind, has speculated, theorized and fantasized.  Like my servant Carl Gustave Jung, a few of you have stumbled across a little bit of insight, but so little to be understood.  Rather like pulling a lit candle from a birthday cake and expecting it to light your way through a labyrinth.  Only after taking two or three steps, the candle has gone out and you remain every bit as lost, confused and unknowing as ever..." Aaron stares slack jawed and bewildered at our Lord. "The creative imagination, Aaron, is, or ought to be, a portal.  A door opening on to other realities, other possibilities.  These are not things of your inventing, rather you are seeing, you are catching glimpses of such deep, beautiful and complex truths as have yearned over and remained thoroughly perplexed the sages and prophets of old." "How is this like the Collective Unconscious?" "I said that the Collective Unconscious is a stumbling first step towards understanding that which must always remain obscured from your vision, from the vision of humanity.  It is not withheld from you by Divine caprice, but Divine Mercy.  Mortal humans, created of dust, do not have the faculties nor the ability nor the strength in order to grasp such wonders.  to have this light shined on you would be to snuff you out of existence..."

The Peacock 1997

Of course, as some of you well know, I am a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ, here, our gracious and loving host.  You may wonder why I have written my  Lord as having the aspect of a sixteen year old youth.  That was not intentional.  In my earlier work of literary fiction, Thirteen Crucifixions, from time to time this same beautiful boy would appear in the novel.  I did not have a name for him, because I hadn't named him yet.  I simply didn't know.  But, Jesus, this has been you yourself appearing to me in the novel and so as I was in the early stages of the Peacock, it occurred to me that this was your true identity, something that you revealed to me, Lord, but how could I possibly write you this way, but then much later it occurred to me that your own disciples didn't recognize you after your resurrection not just because they were still in a state of unbelief, but that they were seeing you in a lovely, innocent,  and transfigured form. And so, Lord Jesus, this is your novel, and I have done my utmost to take my cues from you, and write you, not as we imagine nor as I imagine, but...as you yourself most truly are, gracious Lord. "But what about us?" says Carl.  "How did you do it?" "Jesus was introducing me to each one of you, and I only got to know each one of you gradually as I wrote.  That is also why I kept appearing in the novel, so we could actually come to know one another.  Every time I sit down to write, whatever next move or direction or plot device I might have in mind, it suddenly gets moved around.  I am not in the least in control of this project.  I seem to have tapped into a different or alternative reality here that is just gradually unfolding to me...

Te Peacock 1996

Our Lord turns to both Carl and Melissa who are seated side by side.  "Your mother has returned to hospital.  She will experience a remarkable recovery and will be out of there within three days, and you will both be ready to receive her." Then, turning to Aaron, he says gently but also a bit portentously, "Aaron, you have some things you would like to say to everyone here."  His shirt has suddenly changed from pale blue to another shirt of vertical light blue, pale yellow stripes, set off with black, light green and white.  Another day must have already passed for him, though this happened just five minutes ago. "Hello, everyone.  I am so glad to see so many of you here right now.  I think it is time I made it clear to everyone just what is going on from my end as I have been writing your story these past five years.  Yes, it has been a long time, and you are all just into your third week now, and for you it is still May, 2021.  My original motive for writing the work was largely influenced by the covid pandemic that was still in its first year.  i thought, how interesting it would be to write a modern version of the Decameron, in medieval Italy during the bubonic plague, when a collection of persons of wealth were all finding refuge in an elegant, Florentine, I think, villa, and how they spent their time entertaining one another with quite the collection of stories. From the very onset, it was quite clear to me that this work of literature had already taken on a life of its own.  I was no longer, never was the creator, and found myself demoted to scribe and collaborator.  From the onset it was clear that I was writing about real people, and that I was no longer in control of the narrative.  The creative process really needs to be reexamined and re-explored, because the artist is not the creator, but an accomplice to other, more powerful and eternal forces.

The Peacock 1995

"Finally", says Astrid in clear Dutch-accented English, "I can see you both.  My two children.  Oh, if I could tell you both how proud I am of you.  Of how much I love you both.  Carl, I have never once preferred Melissa over you. I love you both deeply. so deeply, my dear son and daughter.  I never told you.  Never told you this.  Please forgive me.  A mother's love is an imperfect love.  Please do what you both feel is right.  Follow Jesus who is our gracious host. He will direct you.  I release everything to both of you..." and here she is starting to fade... Jesus approaches the frail sick woman, places both hands on her shoulders, kisses her forehead, and now she is gone...

The Peacock 1994

"Come in, please beloved Aaron", says our lord.  "If anyone should find himself at home here it would be you." Slowly, cautiously. while carefully eyeing every single person in the room, Aaron makes his way to a chair that Jesus has just pulled up for him in the centre.  We are seated in a semicircle.  Our author is facing all of us. "Won't you please address us, Aaron." Our author opens his mouth.  He is a bit on the portly side but not fat. He is dressed in a pale blue button down shirt and dark bluejeans.  He doesn't appear to have aged noticeably. "I am right now in Costa Rica, the city of Alajuela near the airport.  It is December 27, 2025 where I live, a time difference of more than four and a half years between our dimensions.  Please accept my apology for having taken so long to write all of you.  This has been slow work, and any attempt to rush it would have served us all a grave injustice.  But first, Lord Jesus, is it really necessary that Astrid be here.  She is very frail, and should still be in hospital." "I wanted badly to be here", says Carl and Melissa's mother.  Her graying dark hair is lank hanging over her face, and she appears thin and very pale in her pale blue hospital gown. "Mom", says Melissa, "It is so good to see you here..But Aaron is right. We want you to get better...Carl?" "Mom, Melissa is right... And you are already starting to fade...Jesus?" "Astrid, there is something  you want to tell your children.  Say it now, and just briefly, to save your strength, and you will wake up in your hospital room...

The Peacock 1993

Suddenly, Jesus is here, standing in our midst, which is just as well, given that all the chairs are now occupied. "You will not be leaving yet, not without the others.  More will be arriving tonight.  They are already here."  And now Melissa, accompanied by a frail older woman who must be their mother is holding on to her arm.  As Carl appears to be struggling to know just what to say to them, Jesus says "let us return to the meeting room. and we are now being led out through the dining room and the now unoccupied table and back to the meeting room where we all began.  Everyone else is seated, awaiting us, including Sheila, Michael, Matthew and Glen. "I believe that everyone is now accounted for", he says, just as Carol is staggering through the doorway.  "Except for your author, and now here he is", and it truly is Aaron who is standing in another doorway, as though waiting to be invited in to sit down.

The Peacock 1992

Curiouser and curiouser"say I. "I assumed we would be staying at least a few days." "Following breakfast tomorrow", says Amaris, "We are to leave, all of us." "I am a bit annoyed", says Francois, " That we can't be magically teleported back to where we were abducted from." And he is visibly indignant right now, as I am also struggling to not feel. "That's the way it alway works", says Kenny. "The way he explained it to me, it is so we can re enter normal life more grounded in concrete reality. That's the way it's always been for me, because, like Amaris here, I also live part time outside of here." "You're still part of the real world?" say I. "Oh yes, but under a different name and identity of course because Kenny is now legally dead. I live three weeks every month in Duncan where I run a flower shop..."