"'They seemed to say that they owed me nothing, that their deafness had provided me with a moral goal, that it had been my duty to struggle, to suffer, to bear - for their sake - whatever sneers, contempt, injustice, torture they chose to inflict upon me, to bear it in order to teach them to enjoy my work, that this was their rightful due and my proper purpose.'"

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

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by Edward Lacie

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Episode Twenty-Five

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Rimbaud had another sister, aged between himself and the youngest in the family, who died of illness before Rimaud. He wondered if he had what she had had. 

She lived to her late teens and kept a diary of her and her mother's visit to London. Rimbaud had just been abandoned by Verlaine. Rimbaud's mother and sister left when Rimbaud mysteriously got a supposed job in Wales or Ireland for which there are no records.

The months after this family visit are the most unaccounted for in Rimbaud's life, only one of his many mysteries. His trail picks up in Reading, where Oscar Wilde would be held in just a few short years at its "gaol". I imagine them meeting at the equivalent of a gay bar of the era, Rimbaud and Wilde. Wild.

How does Billy Zane rate special guest status while Heather Graham is only a guest star? Why does the cast list include James so often when he's seldom in "Twin Peaks" any more?

I've written a new introduction to "A New Rimbaud" but I don't know how to segue from the new to the old. 

I've also updated the explication of "A Real Education" to include references to Blaise Cendrars and poetry of the early French Cubists. I've added it to the "Supplemental Documents" page linked to this narrative at https://members.tripod.com/~myrightmind. I've also hacked into a page of old Baysans poetry ("Y2K Ramblings") and created a permanent "ghost" link to my pages!

The ghost of Josie is trying to kill Sheriff Truman (that explains why she is still in the opening credits though she died many episodes ago).

Asking Baysans anything is no help. He's so impassionate as to not care that I killed Poet X. I didn't tell him at first, only recently after tiring of his infernal, eternal remoteness. He didn't break. 

The good feelings we'd been developing changed immediately after Jim Post tried to kill Baysans. It wasn't my idea. In fact, I interrupted and prevented it. Since then Baysans a different person.

The drama of stopping Jim Post from killing Baysans isn't something that got mentioned when I was at group session earlier this week. Three days from now when I next have a session, I doubt I'll say that I have a captive at home.¹

It's time to move away from here anyway. I'm tired of the Northwest and all the coffee drinkers.² 

The Lipstick Killer of 1940s Chicago is an extreme example of making fiction real. (This excellent example is from today's Court TV show, Bill Kurtis, narrator.) The public, enflamed by the press accounts of three murders, demanded the police do their job, and that they did: fists, forced confessions, faked evidence. Heiren (mispronounced "HAIR-en" instead of the German "HI-ren") is the longest-serving prisoner in Illinois.

Besides the end of the "Twin Peaks" tapes coming up in a few viewing/writing hours, I'll be glad to be rid of Baysans and his extra mouth to feed.

My poverty is fueling my anger and tipping the scale on what I think I should decide to do with him. I will, I will, I will kill him. It will be easy, easy as cherry pie placed in front of Cooper at the diner. 

Every topic leads to my hunger. I've been really hungry. Baysans has had one meal a day for over a month now. He claims not to mind.

"Windham Earl was in the house yesterday."

It's easy to imagine being under the stars back home in Spokane.

We learn that Windham Earl was investigating UFOs before he cracked up. Windham Earl has bugged Truman's office and is listening to all his past being dredged up. He has Leo tied up in his cabin, his captive slave like I have Baysans.

Queen Donna, Queen Audrey, Queen Shelley. Windham Earl, in disguise, three disguises to be precise, has visited each of them, invited them to be at his ball. He means to kill someone Cooper loves like Cooper is responsible for the death of the woman they both loved, Cooper's wife.

"That's the kind of girl who makes you wish you spoke a little French," Gordon Cole yells to Cooper.

"You just tried to tell a joke," says Truman to Cooper, in love with Annie, the newest waitress (and Norma's sister). Gordon Cole plans an epic poem about pie.

Cooper wants to go to Owl Cave. It's there that the door to the Black Lodge or White Lodge (both?) most likely will be found. Because the series ends without resolution, Black Lodge might just as well be the Castle of No Return.³

Windham Earl tells Audrey he's a professor of poetry.

I'm adding last minute details to my fake biography of Blaise Cendrars before creating forged web pages for various web sites, thus creating my artificial precedent for Baysans: he lost an arm whereas Rimbaud lost a leg. Like Rimbaud he'll stop writing poetry but will write prose and fiction and become acknowledged, unlike Rimbaud.

My moving deadline has been set and Jim Post is looking at houses. Instead of watching these episodes of "Twin Peaks" at a slower pace, I'm having to pick up the pace again (or abandon the project? Kill Baysans and be done with it? Finish what I started how I should have finished it then?), the moth returned to peck at the flame.

The Major or General, whichever he is, was, Bobby's dad, shows up on UPN in an episode of the new "Twilight Zone" as I type this, February, 2003. Is this the show he's escaping to whenever he comes up missing on "Twin Peaks"?

It's most definitely the same character.

Something about counting outlets is ringing in my ears as if I've already written it in this narrative but I look back and find nothing. After having looked and not found it, I forget what it was about outlets I was going to say. I think it's Jim Post who has been counting outlets at the houses he's been looking at.

At last, the end of this episode.