Seven Short Stories and Selected Poems

By Lauren Merritt

LAUREN MERRITT is a retired Aerospace (Electrical) Engineer. He started
his career by earning a BSEE and MSE from the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, CA. His designs are now circling the earth, rusting
away on the moon, and drifting away far beyond the orbit of Pluto. His career
was cut short, having accumulated 12 patents and written 13 trade journal
articles, in 2004 due to the onset of Parkinsons disease. He has published a
book of his poetry and continues to write poems and a weekly newsletter for
Valley Presbyterian Church of Portola Valley, CA, at which he serves as Poet
Laureate. He shares his postal zip code with his 2 sons and 4 grandkids. His
e-mail address is [e-mail].

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469144061

Lauren Merritt

Lauren Merritt is a retired Aerospace (Electrical) Engineer. He started his career by earning a BSEE and MSE from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA. His designs are now circling the earth, rusting away on the moon, and drifting away far beyond the orbit of Pluto. His career was cut short, having accumulated 12 patents and written 13 trade journal articles, in 2004 due to the onset of Parkinsons disease. He has published a book of his poetry and continues to write poems and a weekly newsletter for Valley Presbyterian Church of Portola Valley, CA, at which he serves as Poet Laureate. He shares his postal zip code with his 2 sons and 4 grandkids. His e-mail address is [e-mail].

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Contents

In The Beginning

Marvin the Magician

The Yucatan Babe

The Dance of the Virgins

My Dad’s Last Photographs

My Negril Girl

Treasure

Meeting Diva

Diva Dreams

Adieu, Diva

Henry

Epilog

Ocean of Love

Selected Poems

Tapestry

`Morning, Lily!

Sounds

Sailing

Where It’s At

Sermon for a Fledgling

Christmas Meditation 2009

Christmas Meditation 2010

Defining God

All of the stories are real, in the sense that I wrote them.

Some of them are partly factual.

Some contain mature material.

As for the poems: they’re cute!

. . . . "I must say that he is a man of perspicacity and depth . . . not to mention sophisticated sociological analysis. From such a base, what a bunch of stories!"

Tom Carter, Voice Coach

In The Beginning

2/4/1995

He became aware of sounds first. High pitched chirps, from what he soon learned to call birds, were the most obvious. The changing melodies of a hum that sometimes was in his ear, sometimes more distant, were next. When he opened his eyes, there was a multicolored array that moved. It took a while to figure out depth perception, separation of objects from background, and that he was able to move around to change his point of view. His later description would be of a grove of trees next to a mountain meadow with a stream flowing through the middle from an apple orchard. Each day, as his strength grew, he would explore further from the grove and became acquainted with the other mobile creatures in the valley.

The creature that fascinated him most was the one that made the humming sounds which, with a little practice, he could duplicate. This creature looked much like him, though certain body parts were different. It was there in the morning when he awoke, lying close to him. And she lay down close to him at night as he went to sleep. There was always something to eat near by, either fruit that she brought from the orchard or vegetables picked from several plants in the surrounding meadows. In time they shared language, and she rejoiced in the tales of his explorations, but never went with him. She only warned him to stay in the sunlight, and to be back home by evening. When he pressed her for details, or asked where she had come from, she would only shake her head, and admonish him to stay in the sunlight.

One day, deep in a hanging valley close to a mountain pass, he found an opening between two rocks that had no back side to it. Sliding between the rocks, he found that the opening went into the mountain for some distance; he couldn’t tell how far. It was dark, at first, but his eyes became accustomed to if he went slowly enough. He remembered her warning as he rounded a corner