Everybody was silent.
“Who turned on the TV?” The doctor asked.
No one responded.
“That’s funny,” I said pulling out my phone, “that formation, what did they call it…Amazon…and then the name of that famous thing in England…uh…”
“Stonehenge,” Lucas responded.
“Yeah,” I plugged the name into my phone.
“Hm, well there it is.” I remarked. “Looks just like the thing in Sam’s picture….”
I passed the phone around.
Everybody’s face registered recognition besides the faces of our three guests.
Graham’s response was strongest. He seemed to exult at seeing it only to return to the offputting laconic haughtiness of the past few hours.
“Sam’s picture?” Fabre asked.
“Yeah, it’s actually why we came to town.”
“Huh…?”
“Well, part of our project here is the use of hallucinogens, chants, and archetypal imagery. We’re studying the potentialities of what Jung called the collective unconscious. Earlier this afternoon we’d been engaged in ‘fire stoking’ which is a sort of call and response according to a certain Pythagorean ratio while loaded on mushrooms and absinthe.”
“Far out man…” Doc Pierce quipped.
“…Anyway, generally, one of us is moved to some form of expression. In this iteration, Sam was the one that had felt the pull. He sketched out some kinda weird jungle scene with this jaguar lying on a stone near a megalith that looks like the one we just saw. Normally, we would record the event and match its contents with others derived from the ‘stoking’ method. We search for things like continuity and coherency. You’d be surprised at how intelligible and teasing these things are…” My eyes got a little distant.
“So…”
“Well, so this time we couldn’t record anything, cause the moment old lanky Hoyt over there got a gander at it he spazzed out. And well…you know the rest…”
Our guests took a while to process the information.
“I’d like to see the picture.”
“It’s in the den.” I said rising to fetch it.
Before I made my way down the stairs I rounded back to the kitchen.
Just as I’d thought…
There was Jesse’s gun. It was a revolver. Smith and Wesson model 66 with four .357 magnum bullets in the chambers. You could definitely take down a pig with this. The big gun is what had given me that off feeling after my first trip to the kitchen. I picked it up and took it with me on my journey down to the den.
There it was, still laying on the table beside the couches we were sitting on.
I picked it up and turned on the overhead light comparing the stone formation to the one on my phone. They were similar, but the one in the picture was a bit more polished and the pattern seemed more evocative, the jaguar was really well drawn…
As I re-entered the sitting room I emptied the chambers and gave Jesse back his gun.
“I don’t know you from Adam so I ain’t takin’ any chances… but I’m no thief so here’s your piece.”
The bumpkin reacquired his arms with a quiet gratitude.
“Here’s the picture,” I said handing it to the Doctor. “Uncanny isn’t it?”
The Doctor examined the picture minutely and then looked over at Sam.
“You’re a great artist, this is a fantastic sketch.” He remarked as he passed the picture to the officer.
Sam beamed with undisguised pride.
“That is so strange! It is very much like that thing on TV we just saw…” Officer Fabre very nearly shouted, “To have that play just now, was it a tape or an internet clip, I did see that commercial….who turned on the TV….?”
None of us knew the answer.
“So what was this you were saying about Jung?” Doc Pearce inquired.
1.1 (Intro) The Sketch of Sam Monroe
1.2 The Cajun Prayer
1.3 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter One: The Cambridge Gable Scene (‘Gator is Waitin’)
1.4 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.4 – The Cambridge Gable Scene – (Horticulture)
1.5 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.5: ‘To Luckadoo Cove’
1.6 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.6 – ‘Is there anybody out there…’
1.7 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.7: ‘Jesse’
1.8 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.8: ‘Lungful of Bees’
1.9 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.9 – ‘Precedent’
2.0 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.0 -Calvinist Neuroses
2.1 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.1 – Mirage
2.2 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.2 – Estate Planning
2.3 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.3 – High Tech Summons
2.4 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 2.4 – Amazon Stonehenge
Image Credit: https://fractalenlightenment.com/14683/life/carl-jungs-psychological-diagnosis-using-mandalas
