2 Psalms

By King Nicholas of America

Weaving pieces of history into interesting fictionalized vignettes, the author explores the secret and hidden facets of America’s present and past. This collection of eighteen stories contains an eclectic mix of what ifs, of little-known history, and of tribalism.

King Nicholas has assembled floating near-present scenarios, as in the revelatory “Life of Benjamin Ficklin X” and in the imaginative dystopia, “The Welsh Opera.” He has included stories of urban fantasy such as the nostalgic “Vogelsong” and in a sojourn to the past that might have been in “Powhatan Paramountcy.” The founding fathers are also represented in imaginative tales such as in “Madison’s Manifesto” and the investigation of who is amongst us, “Puppet Jefferson.”

A work of historical fiction that blends suspense, wry humor, and airships, 2 Psalms offers a collection of short stories that focus on the founding of the United States and presents one version of revisionist history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jan 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483424729

Book preview

AMERICA

Copyright © 2015 Nicholas Wright.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2471-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2473-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2472-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015900519

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 5/7/2015

Contents

1.   An Idyll Pantisocracy

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

2.   Latimer on the Boat

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

3.   Lawrence Scrip

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

4.   Life of Benjamin Ficklin X

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

5.   Madison’s Manifesto

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

6.   Powhatan Paramountcy

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

7.   Pseudo War

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

8.   Puppet Jefferson

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

9.   State of Confusion

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

10.   The 51st Regiment takes New Douglas [Glass Darkly Moral]

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

11.   The Ethology of the Rim

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

12.   The great tale of the Bermuda Dynasty

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

13.   The Happy Insurrection

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

14.   The House of Taylor

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

15.   The Jacksonian Epoch

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

16.   The Punchline

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

17.   The Welsh Opera

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

18.   Vogelsong

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

Dedicated to Sherri Lynn Steinert.

An Idyll Pantisocracy

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

FRIENDS OF LIBERTY COME NOW to America! Where there are over one-thousand square miles of land between four rivers! 700,000 acres in the Susquehanna Valley determined to be the Cooper-Priestly holdings! read the front page of the English Observer of September 14th, 1794. The front page article was likely the first of several promotional phenomenon written and paid for by Samuel Taylor The Talker Coleridge.

Samuel Coleridge, along with Robert Southey and William Wordsworth, were a band of Romantic poets who lived in the Lake District of Britain. They secretly referred to their selves as The Consortium and looked forward to reaching the heights of authority. Just the same day, Samuel penned On the Prospect of Establishing a Pantisocracy (Pantisocracy meaning in Greek: equal or level government by and for all), the Consortiums’ scheme was off to a good start.

The Cooper-Priestly holdings denoted to the lands of Thomas Cooper and the Priestly family, a large parcel of land once owned by Dr. Benjamin Rush before they bought it from him. Thomas Cooper was very clued-up on the running of a government, as well as the theory and practice of station. Back in England, Cooper was an anti-Jacobin editor from Manchester and was very well known. The Priestly family consisted of Dr. Joseph Priestly and his three sons, Joseph, William, and Henry. They did not have the name recognition of Mr. Cooper, but William was fluent in French, which would be valuable in the future.

The capital city of this colossal stake was dubbed Cooper’s Town, in Thomas’s honor. Located in the center of Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna Valley, the land was very much where four rivers met. Set on full emancipation in the name of the Pantisocracy, the Consortium took advantage of the small state’s meek beginnings. Their safety would be at a compromise considering the execution of Robespierre less than two months prior, but Coleridge and Southey would be the first to depart to the new world riding aboard the Samson.

The Social Colony was inevitable once the self-serving Romantics arrived spouting about Republics of Virtue and a Hall of Science, the belief that one could work less if it were distributed equally. This inevitability was clinched in July of 1795 when thousands of French Girondon refugees came to the Pantisocracy, to which they would form a town called Frenchtown. William showed his ability of French as he became their envoy, speaking the southwestern French of that people. Also, a trendy family by the surname of Owens moved into the colony.

The duo known as the Consortium took their opportunity to play the game of politics. They dispensed with a patronage situation and requested that a Treasury Order be established. The idea of Labor notes was to erase any over-payments to any certain workers, but in all regards was a hidden tax. Our donkeys have to eat and we need our tavern bills paid! Coleridge grieved (ignoring the fact that he had a year of unpaid malt). A bullion and a levy for changes of time.

Robert Southey, the more evident abstractionist, crusaded for a visible symbol for the colony; to which he found success. He was able to contract a flag of red, blue, and yellow overlaid with a golden reed as the flag to the organizational network of society. Evil counsellors believed it gave the colony the potential for statehood, and the Cooper-Priestly people viewed it with suspicion and reserve.

As the collective discipline of the community adapted to the new world setting, the Consortium became responsible for its becoming The Pantisocracy. This transition was done by means of a Pre-adaption, to new arrivals, they (the poets) called the Cooper-Priestley settlement as the Pantisocracy, and before inviting new entrants, they called her a Pantisocracy. This adaptation led to eleventh-hour men, those who would become the right hand of the managers of the workers.

Consequently, the land was divided into thirty-two boroughs by the Cooper-Priestly government act of 1863. Three of these boroughs were set aside as royal boroughs, two owned by Coleridge and Southey (the third I had a feeling). Also, Cooper’s Town became the City of Cooper’s Town in addition to a borough.

Over the next two-hundred years, the Pantisocracy became The Pantisocracy, as the mini republican state evolved into an independent Republican government. The Pantisocracy’s success as a nation was through luck of a civil war (where it was a diminutive tacit player) and strategic position. Once independence was established in 1864, the state became everything that America was not. The Pantisocracy became the precocious mission of the western world.

Latimer on the Boat

By Nicholas R. P. Wright

IN 1671, ROBERT LATIMER WAS on a seafaring ship when it got caught in some torrential weather. He was sixty-eight years old at the time and was probably lost at sea. A highly decorated man in his home country of Wales, his loss was profoundly disheartening. This is an account of that day:

The uninteresting boat ebbed to and fro on the waves of the great ocean, a speck on a vast blue sea. The leg of a man hung over the edge of the both skirting the water. The weather was fair now that the storm blew over but only left the searing sun in its woeful stead. The man was heaving, having taken some water into his lungs. Rolling over onto his side then up onto his knees, he looked over the edge of the boat and screamed.

Two days passed with Latimer sitting on his boat. For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellowwwww…that nobody can deny, he sang. Land…land…land, such a funny word, he said to himself. Don’t drink the salt water, he resumed. At least I didn’t die from a tree falling on me, as so happens to be the case for many a country bumpkin, he blustered. A few minutes passed with silence. Latimer spoke again, What are you fooling with that tree for, Robert?

Another day went by with Latimer sitting on the boat. He began to circulate deep conversations to himself. How did I get into this boat? he said looking around irritably, the vastness of the ocean being an annoyance. I can’t just have landed in the boat, nor do I remember taking shelter in the boat. It would be quite impossible to enter the vessel from the water. How in the world did I get into this boat? Of all boats, I must have been blasted into it. he resolved. God has spared me to live for some more miseries, he settled. If I was to have stayed on board the ill-fated ship, I may have been stuck in the cabin and found an air pocket, to suck that crude air with a stale, dank breath. I am superb, aren’t I. he delighted. Turning to his side he charmed himself, I don’t know, I’ll ask him.

The next day Latimer was sitting on the boat. I’m so very thirsty that just a patch of rain would be appreciated, Latimer complained. Almost as suddenly, a dark cloud approached from the south. It began to rain, and water started to fill the boat, Latimer with his tongue out held, Let me think about this one… It rained