Here we go again. Welcome to the blog blast of the section that I call The Kingdom from the book Reality of the Unreal Mind, Vol. 3: The Keep. The Kingdom is an explanation of the work itself. You can’t understand any writer unless you know their work. So Friday we began at 6 p.m. and I will release one blog every two hours and fifteen minutes. That means we’ll finish the story of my work and its future, my work and its past, at 7:30 on Sunday evening. There are some crazy things in here. Some setbacks we never could have made it past without the people who care about me. There are some crazy things in here. Plans that I have and things that I’m doing that, simply put, are impossible. But everything’s impossible until it’s finished, until it’s been done or accomplished. There are some crazy things in here. Dreams so wild and so immense that to think they’re within reach you have to be a little unhinged. And while reading this small collection of blog posts, you’ll hear the rantings of the Lunatic of Fantasy. You’ll find in these posts the past, present, and future of the writing of Jesse Teller.
And everything comes down to this right here. The Keep. The Bastion of Hope and Serenity.
It was first mentioned to us by a financial advisor who knew I wrote fantasy before he came to make his first presentation. He himself was a fantasy lover. In fact, he had bred fantasy into his son, Burg, who was always a friend of mine. Fantasy ran all the way through this relationship, from the beginnings of my friendship with Burg. Then we can jump back further to his father’s studying at West Pointe, of basic defenses, that sparked his love of fantasy. Let’s leap forward to the Dungeons and Dragons games I ran with Barric and Bryant. Forward further, after Rayph was born, we’re talking to Burg’s father, who wants to be our financial advisor. While he is putting together his presentation, he decides he will name our dream home The Keep.
The name stuck.
It has gone from being a dream to a goal in the fourteen years we have been bouncing it around. From a “wouldn’t it be cool?” to a “one day when.”
The front door will be double, the tops rounded off like a dome. But again, as I sometimes do, I am getting way ahead of myself.
The Keep sits on over a hundred acres of property. A long road has to be taken to get to it and it is outside of Springfield proper, of course. When you get there, you will see a wall. This wall encircles about ten acres of land. It can be walked on like the parapets of a walled city.
The first thing you see is the four towers, one sitting in every cardinal direction. They are at least five stories tall, and the top level is covered on all sides by windows so that the raging of thunderstorms can be watched and the proper awe can be captured. Because The Keep is all about awe.
Below the towers, two stories is all we will ask for. The first story has everything you might expect. Living room. Kitchen. Bath. Dining room. Large pantry. Den. Library.
The top story is mostly dedicated to a private suite for just Bekah and I and our bedroom. This is our floor and no one is allowed here.
The back door is round and opens to a widespread garden. There will be a statuary here one day, but that has to be earned. The backyard is full and flat and has a few trees for fruit and one big weeping willow. There might be a pond. We haven’t decided.
See The Keep is in flux. We try on new things all the time. We fashion new rooms and we plan on new areas, for The Keep is a goal and must be kept fresh in our minds.
There are three wings coming off of The Keep. One for us and one for each kid. All are designed basically the same.
Long wide hall leads to a suite. Master bedroom. Living room. Kitchenette. Bathroom and Master Bath. Two guest rooms for each of the boys’ wings. Our wing will have a living room, bath, kitchenette, two offices and a studio.
The studio is none of your business. That is for a dream that might happen one day if my mind survives the second and third acts. But off of my office, you can find an elevator that goes to the top of the tower. Because age comes for us all.
The drinking hall is out back.
This is a full on Ragoth drinking hall that Yenna would be proud of. Yes, Gerber would be grumbling and Helena would be yelling at Ruggamon. But here is a piece of my world. Here is the spark of my fantasy, my family’s future, and this monument must be respected. It has two thrones. Massive tables. Two fireplaces. A kitchen in the back, two bathrooms. From the rafters hang flags of honor from the fantasy world Bekah and I have created. But above the thrones hangs the Teller family crest.
I will not get into the bowels of The Keep. There is not much but shadows for you down there. We have spoken about it, us four, over the dinner table as we gnashed our teeth on meat and scooped fleeing peas from our plates. Because nothing escapes us. And the four of us have made the decisions on what will lie beneath The Keep.
You have no business there. In those shadowed rooms, where Adam sits after writing his world, where our rebel screams stories of running with werewolves and stinking of gasoline, in those rooms where only sand can be found, you do not wish to look. But, I will give you this glimpse. Talk has been had about a vault. A time or two it has been said that rooms for each of the alters would be down there. What I can tell you about for sure is the tunnel.
There is a tunnel down in the basement that goes underground. It will be dry and well lit. It will have a golf cart. And when company comes, this tunnel will take them to the guest house outside of the walled-in grounds.
The Teller family has not discussed the guest house. Even we do not know the wonders and the darkness that our guests will sleep amongst.
Part of me wants a large stone staircase rising up to a massive cliff that overlooks a magnificent vista. This would have a one-room building in it. All the walls would be windows. There would be a reed mat and maybe a couch. Here will be the things that drive the Lunatic mad. Scraps of old stories he has never written. Shades of old characters he never created. Sketches of the Nameless Boy. Drawings Willow made of a nun with a finger to her lips, because Adam knows he’s scaring the children.
Not only does the Lunatic know everything that happened in all of his books, but when he was writing Fa La-may’s party, he knew all the stories that were never told. He heard every whisper he never had time to write down.
In this room in the sky, The Lunatic will allow himself to scream.
Every Lunatic needs to let out his crazy every now and then.
This chapter is from Reality of the Unreal Mind, Vol. 3: The Keep, available on Amazon.
Jesse Teller 