MORE COMPELLING RAL STORY CONTENT…
For Your Consideration; A Select Collection Of Remarkable Story Properties From The Brillant Mind Of Richard Arthur Love.
This section of the website presents other works by the author that, along with TSL, have been under development over recent decades.
These represent well thought out & structured stories, each with its own unique voice, character archetypes, & perspective.
Some are pure fiction while others are based on true events. All have a distinct connection to famous literary motifs. Their genres are broadly diverse, some intended for pure popular entertainment, and others for their sense of adventure, intrigue, and rich historical context.
Certainly, each possesses the core of what makes for a powerful & delightfully entertaining story.
Other Stories, Other Projects…
Foxy Roxy's Riches
The Voyage Of The Dawn
Tales Of The Temporary Immortals
Of Gods, Myths, & Legends
Click Images above To Expand View
Foxy Roxy’s Riches
When a beautiful & seriously overweight Las Vegas furniture dealer who can’t get a handsome date to save her life abruptly loses both her business & unknowingly inherits a dead mobster’s massive hoard of diamonds & cash she suddenly becomes an object of intense interest and the feigned affections of every major mobster in the country.
This rollicking transcontinental retro romantic comedy is a mix of the classic cinematic High-Jinks of legendary films like Ocean’s Eleven and It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World – it’s sweet, hilarious, crazy, and naturally, never a dull moment!
Current Form; Full-Length First Draft Screenplay
The Voyage Of The Dawn
A thrilling, romantic, and mysterious sci-fi adventure story of a mountain climbing expedition’s quest to find a mythical peak on a seemingly invisible ancient Mid-Atlantic continent.
With a core motif equivalent to a Jules Verne story or an Indiana Jones film, this is both a powerful spiritual allegory and a fabulous journey of high adventure, intrigue, and treasure.
Set in New York, London, the French Riviera, and a mysteriously lost island kingdom, an extraordinary & eclectic cast of characters are thrown together on a sea voyage & expedition that leads them to a place beyond time where their lives will be changed forever – if they survive!
Current Form; Short Story & Treatment
Tales Of The Temporary Immortals
A remarkable collection of compelling, mysterious, delightful, and personal nonfiction stories collected over five decades of the author’s international travels.
This title highlights the charmed lives of an entire sybaritic subculture of globetrotting surf explorers, inspired psychedelic pirates, major artists & celebrities, legendary gurus, real ghosts, and utterly strange & inspirational coincidences that weave a tapestry of the unprecedented freedom & beauty – and the high prices that were paid for it – of an entire 20th-century generation.
Current Form; Collected Short Stories And Journal Entries
Of Gods, Myths, & Legends
Both a detailed cultural and brilliantly dramatized anthropological study of the origins surrounding a diverse iconic pantheon of ancient Far Eastern deities, and the legends of perfected/enlightened devotees who embodied these mystic traditions in their own lives and who are the source of incredible & seemingly miraculous tales.
The Far East has always been considered a bastion of ancient mystery & mysticism. Here are stories explaining the lives that are the point of origin of these legends, and tales of true incidents over the centuries that only add to the modern fascination & wonder surrounding the ancient esoteric practices of the Mystic Arts.
Current form; collected historical & literary works, as well as existing documentation from myriad sources.
All Story Content Copyright 2000-2024 Richard Arthur Love
Foxy Roxy’s Riches…
An Extended Synopsis;
Haunted by the ghost of Preston Sturges, this epic Action Adventure/Screwball Romantic Comedy covers all the bases in its hilarious take on the dream of quick fortunes, fat people longing for love, misplaced mafia treasure, perpetual dieting, and the nuances of kitschy furniture.
A major ensemble star vehicle with lots of room to move, FOXY ROXY’S RICHES is a modernized heist/chase remix in the style of 1963’s Hollywood comedic epic It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, as well as zany romance heist films like A Fish Called Wanda; or Married To The Mob; the legendary & popular Ocean’s Eleven films, both the original and recent versions.
The main star of this story is the Las Vegas ‘Queen of Affordable Furniture’, Roxanne Singleton is a beautifully vivacious, hard-working, and seriously overweight gal who can’t seem to land a man to save herself.
After her no-good business partner drains Roxy’s kitschy furniture company’s bank accounts and blows town leaving her in the lurch with the IRS Roxy is facing total financial ruin, and is forced to rely on some of her more shady customers to find a solution to her pressing dilemma.
An answer seems to fall in her lap when by a stroke of sheer luck she’s given the task of emptying out a deceased mobster’s New Jersey mansion. Roxy is told by the gangster’s dingy widow that as a friendly favor if she can clear the Jersey place out within 10 days then Roxy can keep all the furnishings, and sell them off to help pay the IRS debts and save her business.
Roxy jumps into action and rounds up her dependable long-term moving crew to drive three of her furniture delivery trucks across the country and pick up the contents of the house, bring it all back to Vegas, and hopefully sell it before her deadline to pay off the IRS times out.
But when she unknowingly inherits the allegedly dead mobster’s secret fortune in cash & diamonds stashed in the furniture somehow the smart guys in the criminal underground figure it out, and suddenly everyone knows about the tens of millions in sparkling lost mobster’s loot – everyone that is but Roxy!
The mayhem starts when what should be an ordinary four-day drive back from the East Coast to Vegas turns into a rolling fiasco of one hilariously perilous event after another as the crooks & the cops trailing her try to close in on the load.
Unbeknownst to Roxy she’s leaving a wake of dead wannabe suitors, angry Russians, uppity Navajos, bumbling FBI agents, Elvis impersonators, and a very angry Purple Gang trailing behind her.
Miraculously Roxy and her moving crew arrived back in Las Vegas unscathed and safely stash everything in the sea of furniture inside her massive warehouse.
There’s a few sweet days of normalcy before things turn seriously dangerous as the bad guys’ efforts to find and seize the treasure shift into high gear.
None of the major Vegas gangsters she’s known for years are certain as to the exact location in her huge warehouse or in which pieces the missing loot is potentially hidden.
The first crooks to turn up try to make nice and sweet talk the information out of Roxy – using dinner dates as an alternative to actually killing this effervescent, pretty woman that, being among her past customers, they’ve already become casual friends with.
Roxy still can’t figure out why every major Vegas hood & heist gang sharpie suddenly all want to date her.
She naïvely thinks it’s just the natural result of her tenacious nature & charm, that her fortune is about to turn around, and has no complaints about the sudden avalanche of flattery – until things begin to get really out of hand and she figures out that something is up.
Meanwhile, complex and now strained professional friendships between Roxy and members of her long-standing, devoted, & dependable moving crew come into focus and play a key element in saving both her sanity and her life.
Eventually push comes to shove as seriously dangerous forces seeking out Roxy and the treasure converge on Vegas, and none of them with any interest in the niceties of romance or polite negotiations.
The jeopardy ramps way up as these dangerous factions set on grabbing the loot and permanently disposing of Roxy shift into action, and adding to the mayhem they’re all at war with each other in a race to get their hands on a hundred million dollars worth of diamonds and nearly as much in cash.
Roxy only survives with a helping hand from some dangerous but benevolent guardian angels, and when the chips are down a decades-old working relationship with her trusted warehouse manager turns out to be something way more personal & important.
But please – don’t be confused; While this sounds like a heist film at its core it’s very much a Romantic Comedy, with intense character arcs and an in-depth take on the illusions of ideal, superficial love, and the pitfalls of confusing our aspirations for perfect love with the reality of the rather broken, ordinary, and deeply rewarding state of what real love actually is.
There’s three major romantic relationships that unfold over the course of this story, and the final chapter/scenes contain a twisted reversal of fortune and unexpected resolution for all of the major characters involved.
This classically hilarious & dynamic story is the perfect setup for a remarkable ensemble cast of characters – thus the easy comparison to Stanley Kramer’s legendary 1963 Oscar & Golden Globe winning madcap comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, – which became a critical and commercial smash hit, and nominated for six Academy Awards.
After all the chases, near misses & stolen kisses, explosions, intrigues, and inept henchmen, an unexpected twist brings Roxy’s saga to a dramatic & delightful head.
Like a speeding red 1959 Cadillac convertible slamming into a two-ton stack of hundred dollar bills, Foxy Roxy’s Riches delivers an Oscar worthy ‘Moral of the Story’ about the folly of looking for happiness everywhere but in your own backyard…
The Voyage Of The Dawn…
The Opening Excerpt;
It all started the day a strange letter arrived in the life of Nick Avanti…
It was an unusual envelope made of gently textured rich linen paper, with Nick’s full name & home address written in deep royal blue ink, with an obvious odd calligraphic bent that could only originate from the use of an old fashioned broad nibbed fountain pen, and in handwriting possessed of an elegant archaic flourish typical of bygone eras.
Clustered against the top edge was a collection of large colorful stamps bearing the classic profile of Queen Elizabeth II – obviously a letter from the UK – and apparently, hand postmarked from London.
On the back was a deeply embossed gold leaf emblem in the form of a bold & elaborate monogram, but bearing no name or return address. Below it, adding to the archaic nature of the letter, sat a small blob of blood-red stamped sealing wax hard pressed with the same monogram to secure the envelope’s point of closure.
Despite arriving in perfect condition with crisp pointed corners, the letter possessed an immediate aura of having been mailed from a previous century. And while not particularly heavy it certainly had a peculiar heft in his hand, the sturdy envelope oddly sized, like some unusual greeting card.
Immediately capturing his interest it clearly stuck out of the pile of machine printed bills, medical notices, and credit card offers that made up the unremarkable detritus of Nick’s everyday mail. Left on his desk by the housekeeper, the letter looked as out of place as a formally dressed debutante on a New York subway.
He swept the rest of the stack to one side, and lifting the odd correspondence close to his face turned it around in careful curiosity. It even held a distinctive musky fragrance about it, like the subtle smell of an old book.
It dawned on Nick that throughout a lifetime of correspondence he couldn’t recall ever receiving mail resembling this, and that outside of Christmas cards and wedding invitations who actually hand wrote letters anymore?
With a sudden extraordinary sensation of both delight & mystery he paused before opening it, considering the sheer unexpected oddity of this wonderful looking letter in his hand.
Then he remembered the old formal letter opener he’d inherited from his late father. His stretched out fingers gently prodded towards the dusty back edges of the top drawer of the massive antique Empire style mahogany desk that dominated the center of his home office.
While searching for its long ignored bone handled beveled pewter blade, a split-second sense of foreboding flashed through his mind.
Not a thought really – and yet not entirely a feeling; perhaps a sort of portending – as if opening this letter might carry with it the potential of some truly life altering news.
425
The Voyage Of The Dawn…
Extended Synopsis/ Part One;
The Voyage Of The Dawn is a spectacular adventure tale imbued with a significant science fiction/mystical tone.
The story concerns an epic adventure, one of legendary treasures, and a journey of self-discovery that begins with an American writer named Nick Avanti.
A successful and popular journalist/novelist, Nick is also a serious rock climber and amateur mountaineer.
When asked to submit a piece to a premier US lifestyle sports magazine he writes a short story that presents a moral & ethical allegory based on climbing a mountain located on a mythical invisible continent, and despite the intense dangers and travails of such a climb, the rewarding search for rare treasures and personal fulfillment can be found there.
Nick uses the story of a journey to the mountain and climbing it as an allegorical tale of life. The adventure to find the mysterious island is really a journey of self-discovery – the search for our higher self.
The arduous climb to a dangerous summit symbolizes the tremendous difficulties associated with growing, learning, and gaining the essential life experience required to find one’s own true nature.
A successful piece for the magazine, it’s well received & widely praised, and prominently featured in the world’s leading outdoor sporting magazine as part of a special issue devoted to travel, yoga, health, consciousness, and sustainability.
Nick’s piece is so apropos to the theme of this special issue the editors choose to make it the cover feature, and as a result, his story receives widespread press and TV coverage.
The real strangeness begins when some eight months after the story is published, Nick receives a handwritten letter from a retired professor in London, who is not only a celebrated Alpine climber but is the author of best-selling books on psychology and science of the mind.
In this letter, he proposes to Nick that the allegorical, mythical mountain he’d written of in his popular short story was in fact a real place, and that the professor had located a route to the inaccessible mountain and was launching an expedition to go there and climb it.
Furthermore, he invited Nick to come to Europe to discuss his participation in the expedition!
Naturally, since Nick’s story was an entirely fabricated work of fiction the letter seemed beyond ludicrous. But the now-retired Oxford professor who’d sent it was a well-known & and highly respected, albeit eccentric, academic authority. Indeed, a prestigious Man Of Letters.
Against his better judgment, Nick takes advantage of the offered all-expenses-paid trip to Europe to meet the scholar and to hear his improbable explanation of how Nick’s fabricated mythical mountain could in fact be real.
Nick departs for London, and at Heathrow is met by a driver and then taken to Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, where he’s ensconced in a deluxe top-floor suite. There are some small gifts, and another handwritten note – an invitation to lunch with the professor the next day, with instructions on where & when.
Upon arriving at the nearby Knightsbridge address to meet the professor he finds it’s actually a two-century-old private mountaineering & science fraternity occupying a remarkable, somewhat foreboding looking building.
But equally remarkable are the detailed written directions in a sealed note he’s handed by the doorman at the prestigious headquarters. Nick is not allowed to enter the front doors. Giving Nick some hint of the strangeness to come the Professor’s note states he’s required to climb up the side of the building and enter from the third floor!
Somewhat shocked by this odd request, he still succeeds in the marginally (for him) challenging climb to a high white marble terrace, and once inside is greeted by the Professor, and warmly welcomed.
It’s an opulent setting, just as he’d imagined a private 19th-century London men’s club to look, with formally dressed staff and rich interiors full of massive framed oil painted portraits of ranking club members lining the dark wood paneled walls, lots of books & maps, and the odd marble bust of Sir Isaac Newton. Nick half expects to find Sherlock Holmes lurking around the potted palms.
Pleasantries are exchanged as a silent tuxedoed waiter holds a silver tray of cocktails. The Professor offers Nick some welcome refreshments, then leads him to a nearby small lecture room with a large chalkboard.
They’re now alone, and without delay the Professor, chalk in hand, proceeds to both explain and diagram the physics of how it’s possible that the allegorical mountain of Nick’s popular short story actually exists.
If it wasn’t for the gin & tonic in his hand Nick might have dismissed the entire presentation as some kind of tosh, a practical joke, but the beauty & elegant mathematical feasibility of what was being suggested, although entirely impossible & improbable, seemed to have the potential to be real.
Nick is dumbfounded that he’s even considering the possibility.
The professor, seeing his quizzical expression, proceeds to further entice Nick with an extremely handsome offer, one that includes a substantial sum of money, a lifetime membership to the fraternity, and a key role in an all-expense paid expedition to prove his theory.
And in addition, he promises the participation of a diversified group of internationally recognized figures in mountain climbing, physics, medicine, and psychology also coming on the journey.
It takes less than 30 minutes for the professor to explain it all, and afterward the still astounded Nick is given a tour of the secret Raleigh Club Climbing & Science Explorers Academy. He discovers it’s an extremely luxurious six-story property with the classic trappings of a Victorian-era men’s club, reminiscent of the legendary Royal Geographic Society.
Nick is then escorted by the formally dressed staff and allowed to depart the building in a normal fashion, exiting through the grand marble columned front entrance on the ground floor.
He’s been invited to a dinner in two days to meet the other potential members of the expedition.
All of Nick’s expenses have been fully covered, and it’s now up to him to wander around London to consider and decide whether he should have any part in this mad adventure.
Had it not been for the prestigious surroundings, the reputation of his host, and the seeming soundness of the science of his explanation, Nick would have dismissed the entire prospect out of hand.
He opts for joining the dinner party, where he’s suitably impressed by the other invitees to the proposed expedition. All of them are remarkable in their own right, and prior to this dinner none of them had previously met, and seemed equally astonished and impressed by the professor’s offer.
Over an exceptional dinner with fine wines & champagne flowing the professor sweetens the bargain, offering to double the rewards for each participant, and upon their return from the journey proposes to present them with a multi-million-dollar grant given in their name – given they fully participate in ensuring the eventual success & completion of the expedition.
Nick is impressed and admittedly swayed, but still too amazed at the improbable nature of the offer. Everyone invited to go on the expedition is given two weeks to look at their calendar and consider the possibility of going, and to provide their answer within those 14 days.
Then the professor tells them if they do not decide to participate they will receive no benefits beyond this dinner and their immediate travel expenses, that the expedition will go forward without them, and regardless of their choice, they each need to sign a document swearing total secrecy regarding the existence of the expedition.
Nick returns to New York and his home in Connecticut to seriously consider the offer, eventually deciding that whether it’s successful or not it would be too great an opportunity to lose – not only because of the financial incentive but the chance to write the story of such a bizarre adventure.
The rest of the hand-selected expedition members all decide to join in as well. Plans and arrangements are made, and they’re all instructed to rendezvous in Paris, then carry on to the French Riviera where a large private luxury sailing yacht named the DAWN is anchored and fully outfitted for their departure.
Simultaneous to all of these goings on we learn of a certain secret antagonist, a self-obsessed billionaire who holds a keen interest in the professor’s obscure knowledge of how to find the island, and who intends to usurp it for the purpose of claiming the legendary treasure of the ages purported to be on the mythical, mysterious mid-Atlantic island.
A result of this shadow conspiracy is that there are spies not only following the Dawn during preparations for the expedition’s departure, but the billionaire has already managed to plant a crew member on board the 160-foot Dawn to spy as it journeys to this lost invisible island allegedly sitting in the exact center of the Atlantic Ocean, and although known of in ancient eras, remains invisible & unknown to the modern world.
The expedition gathers on board the Dawn, and casts off, heading west over the Mediterranean, passing the Straits of Gibraltar, then proceeding to position itself at a point somewhere beyond & between the Azores and Madeira, eventually arriving at a precise position where the Dawn can approach the legendary island.
The professor has postulated a very specific window in time, one involving mere minutes, that requires a perfect seasonal planetary alignment, and special positions of the sun, stars, moon, tide & wind to potentially approach the island.
He’s stated that the island is normally invisible because of a strange trick of physics that bends light around it in such a manner as to render time and space temporarily inverted – so that under normal conditions any ship or anyone in an airplane passing by the island doesn’t experience the warping of light and gravity that wraps the island in a cloak of invisibility.
Ships believe that they are following a straight course, and everything seems totally normal. Even compasses and radar, affected by the phenomena, work to support the illusion that there is only an open sea.
But the odd phenomena of physics causing this illusion and rendering the island invisible can actually be pierced by a ship moving at a very precise speed and on a very specific course towards the exact point in time when for mere moments a portal can open and be entered – that one can pass through, theoretically arriving at this hidden, mythical point on the planet.
The professor had spent years collecting rare ancient records from Greek, Phoenician, Portuguese, and Dutch manuscripts describing the existence of what sea captains had described as a hole in the ocean, a place where ships just vanished, and the legends of shipwrecked sailors who’d told of their ships breaking into pieces and sinking while others in their fleet had just vanished in the morning light.
The professor’s extensive research even discovered references to it in bamboo logbooks of legendary Chinese pirates who operated a thousand of ships out of the South China Sea in the 16th century.
Because of these stories he’d christened the yacht Dawn, as this was apparently the exact hour when the portal could open.
He said the popular myths of the Bermuda Triangle had originated with legends associated with the invisible island and its ability to seemingly swallow ships or even entire fleets.
WC 1892
The Voyage Of The Dawn…
Extended Synopsis/Part Two;
Cont.
After about two weeks, and despite the luxury & comfort of the Dawn, the expedition members were wearying of sailing around in what were large circles, seemingly going nowhere at all.
Unbeknownst to the expedition & crew, the Dark Star, a stealthy modern ship was following the Dawn from just beyond the horizon, watching and waiting as the sailboat repeatedly attempted to approach some point of passage to the mythical island, tracking the exact pattern of their movements.
After dozens of failed attempts, looping around in frustrating circles in the middle of a temperamental ocean 1500 miles from both Bermuda and the Canary Islands, and with expedition members rapidly losing faith & patience, the professors postulated time warp phenomena actually happened.
At a precise moment less than an hour before sunrise while sailing slowly in near calm conditions the Dawn passed through a sudden and mildly violent portal of searing light and was immediately enveloped in an exceptionally fierce electrical storm with roaring waterspouts. Everyone onboard hung on for dear life as one of the forward sails ripped in half and the now driving rain seemed to originate from the ocean and fall upwards into the sky.
After twenty minutes that felt more like hours, the Dawn stopped its shaking and surfing on a heavy swell suddenly pierced the veil of the storm and burst forward into fair skies and calm seas. Everyone & everything on the Dawn had been tossed into a state of chaotic disorder, and now they just stared stunned at each other & the suddenly serene ocean around them.
Far off toward the horizon sat what appeared in the thin bright haze to be a distant purple island capped in towering clouds, a sort of Shangri-La or Bali-Hai type of vision.
At first glance it was a massive apparition, certainly one of the largest islands on earth, with a measureless mountain at its center that seemed to reach beyond the heights of the Himalayas into an obscuring crown of silver & black cloud.
As quickly as it had started all traces of the storm behind them had entirely dissipated. With slowly rolling small, smooth seas with a slight breeze work began to repair the mess and keep the Dawn on a steady course. Everyone in the expedition and the crew remained dumbfounded, essentially rendered near speechless by the event they’d just witnessed & survived.
The sheer size of the island created an illusion of being much closer than it really was, and it took the better part of a full two days before the Dawn had approached close enough to see any real details of the island.
The conditions remained ideal, and by midmorning on the third day the expedition approached a deep sheltered bay where, surprisingly, a fairly large coastal city surrounded a harbor full of all manner of ships and boats.
When they eventually arrived at the entrance of the harbor they all are amazed that it was full of literally hundreds of ships that appear to be from every era and every empire or nation in the known history of the world, and strangely enough, all in reasonably good condition.
For Nick this presents a sign of great foreboding, as it seems as if ancient mariners from all ages had somehow come to the island – but here was real evidence that none of them had ever left.
Soon a cluster of small boats came out to meet the Dawn. They hailed the expedition & crew and then guided them into a large waterfront wharf, where they were welcomed by a substantial gathering of local residents.
The expedition members remained in a mild state of stunned disbelief, but the harbor had a clean bright Mediterranean look to it, the weather was sunny & temperate, and the locals spoke in a unique dialect but were very articulate, as well as well-dressed and healthy looking.
There weren’t any military or police. There were no documents or serious questioning required.
In fact, the entire expedition was welcomed as if they had been expected, and it almost felt as if they were tourists that had just landed at a luxury holiday resort. It was all oddly serene, in total contrast to the violent drama of what it took to arrive at this fantastic place.
Once the formalities of greeting were dispensed with the entire expedition continued to be well received, and were each given personal attendants and led to luxury accommodations overlooking the harbor.
Over the following days it became apparent that the expedition’s plans to climb the mountain were already well-known on the island, and no one discussed it much or seemed in opposition to the Dawn’s presence. Their attractive young attendants spoke only when needed, and while cordial to a fault, offered little in the way of significant information.
On the third day an opulent official dinner was held for them by the community leaders, and it was here that the members of the expedition discovered something more of the deeper history of the island and the people that inhabited it.
In fact, they were all descendants of those who had previously arrived on the island by accident and had basically become stranded forever on the island.
Over the centuries there were those who had attempted to sail away, but nothing was ever heard of them again, and of those many had returned after total failure to be able to leave the island.
Because of the sublime beauty of the place, the perfect climate, and the delightful powers of restoration and health that seemed to fall naturally upon the residents, many had willingly chosen to stay and completely rebuild their lives in this place of opulent natural abundance with its towering clouds that clung to snowy heights of the inaccessible mountain at the center of the island.
And rumors of the legendary treasures were true, and expedition members learned about the fate of those who attempted to climb the mountain, and the serious dangers and pitfalls that awaited anyone trying to do so.
Meanwhile, the stealthy spy ship Dark Star and the billionaire nemesis tracking the Dawn were also looping around mid-Atlantic, attempting to replicate Dawn’s trajectory to the island.
It appeared they intended to complete the passage even though they’d repeatedly been rebuffed and were unsure whether they’d be able to follow the Dawn to the mysterious island.
What they did know was that the Dawn had just vanished in the sunrise, literally disappeared off their radar, and that was all the sign the billionaire needed to affirm he was on the right course.
As the Dawn expedition assembled its gear and prepared for the ascent some of the crew members began to realize they were not going to be able to leave the island in the foreseeable future, and started to form friendships with local people or experience waning faith in their participation or support of the expedition.
Nevertheless, the Professor was a powerful & articulate leader, and all the core members of the expedition planned to proceed to the best of their abilities with the ascent of the massive mountain.
One of the primary reasons for following through with the ascent, and verified by the professor’s initial research, was thanks to the story of a small purple flower that grew at the higher elevations of the peak, a flower that possessed nectar that instills what most certainly is a fair comparison to so-called immortality, or at least the ability to provide deep healing and the reversal of all manner of aging and infirmity.
The flower’s essence not only heals disease but can provide in some almost superhuman strength and mental acuity.
The island residents consider this far more valuable than any physical treasure, and even though the mountain is littered with strange and rare gems, with no illness or hunger, what use is there for emeralds? Expedition members, much to their amazement, had seen local residents using large diamonds for paperweights.
The locals apparently had some success with harvesting a limited annual supply of purple flower nectar, enough for them to live well on the ocean’s edge without having to venture far into the dangerous highlands. They had used this nectar to heal a broken wrist suffered by one of the expedition members during the violent storms in the portal passage. A few drops were all it took to heal the broken bones & bruises completely and in only two days’ time.
Members of the expedition were also warned regarding the bizarre, dangerous and seemingly invisible beings that live and move ghost-like inside the ice flows that cover the mountain, and whose sole purpose is to defend the mountain and to block anyone from ascending the higher elevations to acquire unlimited access to the purple flowers or reaching the massive caverns full of rare fist-sized gems.
Despite these stated dangers, everyone on the original expedition group remained resolute, determined to explore the mountain even though being told it could take more than a year to even get to the high foothills at the base where the actual real climbing begins, and that there’s a high probability that none of them will return or survive the ascent.
Regardless, they all remained committed to scientific research, and marveled over everything they’d learned from the people living on the serene shores of the island.
As it turned out, as the expedition was soon to discover, some of the rarest gemstones found on the entire island are simply lying around the local topography, even within the shoreline area, gems so flawless that much like the island itself they cannot easily be seen, even when you’re holding them. Still, they are found from time to time, and are considered a great treasure by the island people.
Known as Arc Stones, they emulate the same illusionary effect that makes the island itself become invisible – by bending light around it so that even directly in front of you one can’t actually see it.
Either sailing around the island or walking around these stones, it’s the identical effect of it not being there because our vision is distorted, and light passing through the Arc Stones creates it’s own cloaking device.
The fact that while wandering around the local hills overlooking the harbor two of the expedition members accidentally found one of the larger Arc Stones was considered by the locals as an extremely good omen.
To the locals the value of the Arc Stone was dearer than any of the items the expedition brought with them on the Dawn, so the expedition was able to trade the Arc Stone for all the supplies & the assistance they need from the local residents, who were now actively ready to support the expedition thanks to the good omen of their finding a stone so close to the town – particularly given that even after all the centuries none of the local residents had ever happened upon it.
As the expedition eventually begins to get underway and starts their approach to the trail to the foothills of the mountain their nemesis who’d been trailing them at sea in the huge power yacht Dark Star managed to break through the portal of light using the information the professor devised.
They began to approach the long-hidden island with the intention of following the Dawn expedition and getting their hands on whatever treasure there is to acquire- at any cost.
At this point, most of the members of the Dark Star expedition are only aware of the massive amount of gems and precious metals on the mountain, but their leader was well aware of the myth of the purple flower and seeks it to gain immortality from its power.
It’s here where we come to a conclusion on this synopsis of The Voyage Of The Dawn.
The continuing saga of The Voyage Of The Dawn delves into the interpersonal relationships between members of the expedition, and their journey up the mountain on their quest for the sacred treasure of the nectar of the purple flower.
Their ascent involves tremendous danger, massive impassable rivers, bottomless crevasses, extreme & bizarre weather conditions, strange creatures, and glacial ice flows where they encounter evidence of the mysterious invisible beings that live in and travel through the ice and rock of the mountain, can traverse through stone almost like bubbles through water and pose a mortal danger to the entire expedition as these spirits ruthlessly assume their ancient role as guardians of the mountain.
My Thanks for reading to this point. I’m leaving the rest of this VOTD tale on hold for now – but suffice it to say this is an exceptional concept for any media production that thrives on stories of the magical, the mystical, the supernatural, the adventurous, the dangerous, and the truly wonderful.
This is an Indiana Jones film on steroids, beyond Sir Francis Richard Burton, an epic & mystical Journey To The Center Of The Earth in its scope, every bit as magnificent an adventure as it once was for the first mountaineers to summit Mt. Everest, or any other legendary tales of the first explorers of the world.
As Scheherazade would say, “I’m certain you’ll be interested in hearing the rest of the story…”
WC 2201
Tales Of The Temporary Immortals…
An Extended Synopsis;
As if life were not fantastic enough on its own, living the path of intentional adventure provides all the experience & wonder any genuine storyteller could ever need or want.
Without a doubt, I’m now compelled to view my previous life story as one of extreme adventure, and certainly not just based on my own opinion.
Whenever the occasion arises when I recall & recount any of these tales, the experiences I’ve encountered throughout my outrageously colorful & checkered past, people invariably question whether I’m writing it down. In fact they frequently demand outright, or at least plead, that I write it all down, to “write a book!”
I realized the true stories of my personal adventures bordered on the fantastic after a seriously high percentage of people thought them inconceivable, that what I was saying could have never actually happened, or could possibly be real.
That’s all the evidence I needed. I’ve never harbored any particular desire to write a memoir, in part because I enjoy writing fiction that, while enriched by my life experiences, were not tales about me per se. Strange as it may seem, I’m not my favorite subject.
Tales Of The Temporary Immortals is not what could rightfully be called a memoir, given that while being told from my point of view many of these stories are not about me in particular, but are just events that happened in my presence. I’m only the main character simply because I’m the narrator.
The title Tales Of The Temporary Immortals was chosen for a reason.
We’re all only human, and our mortal lives last only so long, yet these tales often touch on something that seems outside of time. They’re set in a rare window of human history I was privileged by fate to live through, one that eventually entailed an inordinate amount of adventure, glamour, and danger.
And blithely riding the wave of these incredible cultural forces there were moments when we all felt – and thanks to our youth also looked – as if we were truly living like mythical gods.
Throw in the basic fact that we’re all semi-cognizant creatures spinning through outer space on a multibillion-year-old water covered planet that’s part of a gigantic galaxy spinning through a cosmos full of billions of galaxies of uncountable stars & worlds, and I’d suggest there’s a high probability of fantastic events actually happening.
All it took for me to do was to remember and skillfully write them down.
And fantastic is an excellent way to describe the TOTTI collection of short stories, each a complete journey unto itself.
And while these tales are of varying lengths they all feature astounding occurrences, remarkable characters, and are set in equally remarkable locations. It’s the stuff legends are made of.
From early on my sense of wanderlust led me on a globetrotting pursuit of discovery, learning, pleasure, beauty, love, and the thrill of improbable & perilous accomplishments, and nonstop for decades.
These stories really started as a simple fact of history, with my sheer good fortune of being born in the USA shortly after the end of World War II.
This was an era of innocence, extreme freedom & opportunity, and comparatively widespread wealth, a perfect confluence of historic events enabling both myself and everyone I knew to head out on the path of jet-powered worldwide adventure.
Combined with a lucky upbringing including exposure to science, the arts, a solid sense of geography, and higher culture, we were inhabiting the seemingly unlimited cultural and geographic expansiveness of the overwhelming scale of 20th-century America.
Add into that a strong adolescent awareness of and interest in the ancient Mystic Arts of Asia and the cultures associated with them, as well as a period of intense widespread cultural disenchantment with the political status quo, and the rank militaristic & materialistic values of the Western world, and you get real fire.
I’m referring to the time shift that started with the murder of Jack Kennedy, the war in Vietnam, Nixon, Psychedelics, and the resulting alternative lifestyles that inflamed & informed a worldwide cultural renaissance. And the best of it happened before the world fully shifted from fuzzy Analog to impersonal Digital.
Time periods in this story collection range from the 1960s right up to the first part of the 21st century – providing an ideal setting for sybaritic, artistic, entrepreneurial, and spiritual journeys to collide.
My travels included a significant portion of the continental United States, the countries of Latin America, starting with Mexico, then journeys in Central & South America; as well as across the entire Caribbean region, including every island, every beach, and every country geographically connected to the Caribbean Sea.
And then there were the journeys involving the entire Pacific Ocean, which included sailing “Across The Pond” – circumnavigating half the planet over the largest body of water in the known universe.
The isles of the South Pacific provided an incredibly rich experience in a completely unique world, one ideal for the dedicated surfer I had become. Starting out in the Hawaiian Islands, and including such remarkable tropical destinations as the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, & French Polynesia; Fiji; Samoa; the Marshall Islands; and Palau. The Pacific Ocean is a place so massive that one could get lost forever. It’s that big!
Our continuous travels also took us to points encompassing nearly all of the Far East, both visiting & living in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal; Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia; Indonesia; China; Japan; Malaysia; Burma; and the Philippines. This included islands bordering the Pacific Ocean, the South China Sea, the Gulf of Malaysia & Siam, and the Indian Ocean.
Asia turned out to be the source of some of the most mystifying, otherworldly, and endearing encounters and became a place I chose to live in for decades, deeply admiring & immersing myself in the rich ancient cultures of the East.
The TOTTI collection of tales includes the humorous, the poignantly dramatic, the charmingly romantic, the just plain mysterious, the hair-raisingly perilous, and the outright supernatural.
One cannot help but recall in amazement life’s truly strange coincidences, and I’m writing these tales partly just so I can attempt to recall them all. And it wouldn’t be fair to have it all be delightful and not include the ominous, and the disturbing.
Readers Can Expect Ghosts; Treasure; Lost Temples & Volcanoes; Rock Stars & Royalty; Pirates, Smugglers, & Secret Agents; Wild South American Mardi Gras; 30+ Foot Waves; Antique Maps; Classic Ships & Aircraft; Shamans & Mystic Lamas; Ex-Military Pilots & Diplomats; Hollywood Stars In Beverly Hills Mansions; Dingy Jungle Prisons Stuffed With Burmese Fishermen; Mayan Indians & Jaguar Gods, Rare Gems & 200-Year-Old Gurus, And The Odd Butler.
And so, the Tales Of The Temporary Immortals is a rich collection of truly remarkable short stories and vignettes from a charmed life of excessive adventure, recounted for your pleasure, amazement, and entertainment.
Of Gods, Myths & Legends…
An Extended Synopsis;
THIS SECTION IS UNDER DEVELOPMENT…
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