Headless: Linguist (Chs 1-6)

[Abishai100]

Headless Horseman series.


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CHAPTER 1: Cherry-Hill


Friends, I found myself winding my way from Princeton to Cherry Hill (New Jersey) to form my special homeschool-project of linguistics energy for young bright students whose parents invested in post-hours interests for unusual study and education for things of communication philosophy for enhanced language-arts and English training for spiced class readings of literature and folklore reflective of Earthling (American) knucklebones (for doubt!). I found quick acceptance and great appeal and parents interested in their junior high school and high school students of the Jersey-area acquiring special 'extra credit' intuition for the branches and trees of language for aesthetics and formal cognition of statements-formation. The parents began to call me the homeschool-kingpin of Jersey-helmets (ha).

Soon after establishing my homeschool structure excellence for the suburban town of Cherry Hill (New Jersey), a town of great shopping area and bank conveniences and residential life and spread-out walkways and a park and small lake and two quite-nice schools for American oculus, I rather liked donning the mantle of the alias-angel afforded me by the parents investing in my homeschool project ('Kingpin') and started feeling a nature-curiosity about the town's populist imagination and campfire chatter about its modest but human-language charm of pedestrian readings and superstitions too. I started asking parents of my pupils of Cherry Hill understandings of superstition, for education. They began to tell me of the Headless Horseman.

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)

[Abishai100]

I didn't know what to make of this Jersey-lore about this so-called Headless Horseman. According to the parents who indulged my nature-curiosity about that suburbia-area's campfires of superstitions and keratin I think, this so-called Headless Horseman was (somehow) 'spotted' by varied residents and pedestrians, but only at night. According to chatter, the Horseman was seen as a shadowy-silhouette riding across with a menacing road, wielding some axe-like weapon and simply boasting his threat to everyday 'consciousness' of Earthling life...but apparently with no head on his poor shoulders.

There was one story in which a resident spotted the Headless Horseman near a shopping plaza near 11pm simply seeing who was wandering around as a Jersey-pedestrian after shops closed their doors and shut their windows (tight!). There was another story in which a librarian disappeared but whose notebook was left-behind, containing 'doodles' of the Horseman (hmmm). Another story was of a couple, quite-young and gorgeous, of a sad-note tale, relayed of course by the survivor who insisted her boyfriend was decapitated and whose corpse was carried off into some 'dominion' of midways-kaleidoscope by an infuriated Headless Horseman who seemed irritated by the young man's chuckling laugh about his girlfriend's pretty-hair (damn).

[Abishai100]

Now, I had found myself courting a lovely library-lady in this new town of Jersey that I forged ahead a cool path of linguistics-education for my eager and energized homeschool-students as an educated teacher (ok). This librarian-woman, Danica, knew of the Horseman and of the mystery of his visage and specter-shape, mostly from town-talk. I asked her what she'd think if she and I were walking lovely in the town shopping area at night, perhaps not too late at night, and encountered the horrifying presence of the Headless Horseman now 'linked' to a story of bloody-murder not worth a whisper of a prayer, given its shape of an American tragedy and graphic blood-loss (wow).

I told Danica that I thought she'd become my special education class muse or 'angel' of Romanticism in this Jersey suburbia-area and knew we'd nothing but the best to optimize for our simple life and things like shared/cooked Saturday's Eve suppers in my modest but very cozy American apartment. I knew Danica thought the Horseman was anything but normal but also discovered she remained reticent talking-much about the evil specter, perhaps for nature-goosebumps of the feminine-sensitivity variety! I didn't know we'd be parted for a brief moment, while I carried home groceries to cook dinner as she waited at my place, when I would have my first encounter with the evil being.

I relay this tale in my journal, and I furiously scribble its details for my newfound Homeland-Jersey life of suburbia-homeschool fun and bright-education genius for linguistics-shape for the good brain of American dreams. I beheld the Horseman before my eyes as I walked home with groceries for supper and watched as he held high his axe and roared at me, forcing me to drop everything and run for loss of mortal thoughts. I reached my apartment and screamed to Danica we'd have to flee in her truck to report the sighting to the authorities of the town; of course, she agreed like a horrified butterfly.

[Abishai100]

Friends, I thought myself something of a veteran of the 'affairs' concerning the monstrous beast of bloody-murder chatter in my new Homeland-Jersey suburbia town, a monster we called the Headless Horseman (indefinitely!). Sure, I had heard of the superstitious chatter for campfires and then courted a lovely-lady to forget of such dark shadows as a homeschool-teacher of linguistics matter in the States and then encountered the hideous headless axe-wielding roaring horse-riding humanoid while seeking only to be with my lovely-lady (a librarian) near a shoppers' area (wow). I had to wonder if this Headless Horseman rode an animal, a creature, a horse, no-doubt as 'kaleidoscope' as he had become (somehow), but I didn't really want to refer to the horseman as a 'he' (since 'he' had no blooming head!).

Well, after establishing my normal sane life as a teacher and then hearing talk of the Horseman of no-head from parents of my pupils and then encountering the demon-on-horseback while walking to my apartment, I decided to make some nice and hospitable language-art readings of superstition and pedestrian-crossings security in the States (on social media!), after which I was confronted by some uneasy parents (of my linguistics homeschool-pupils) insisting I cease such 'jitters' grammar as a man of the respected class (ok). I realized now I had suddenly become something of a hearsay-antonym 'crafter' for the Horseman's dark honor/dishonor. What would I say to my respected fellow-humans of my Jersey-town, concerning my 'pronounced' social-media interest in headless-keratin.

Suddenly, I, an affable/idealistic man-of-languages and grammar and branches of linguistics reason, found myself wondering if I had become an omen-bearer of the Headless Horseman, now that the parents of my pupils suddenly found themselves frowning on what the respected town-teacher was blogging concerning the incomplete-arts of Earthling 'jitters' of headless-kill. Suddenly, I had become a hearsay-loner for the Horseman's bloody wish-line. Where would I find the 'antonym' to such English 'sport' now (hmmm)?

[Abishai100]

When I was a boy, things like baseball-cards filled my brain with energy for spending time. When I was a student, things of fantasy found in cool detective books and comics were the stuff of real intelligence. When I was a graduate, things of Rationalism comprised my work of intuition and everyday curiosities of the heart. When I moved into this new American Homeland suburbia to be a homeschool-teacher of linguistics, things of optimism were in my veins. It was the Horseman who changed all that, and maybe that's because I was (somehow) destined to become his only awful witness.

Sure, my darling Danica, courted library-lady, now fiancee, still had no-wish to become my accomplice or ally in this work for words to decode the Rationalism restorations magic worksheets to differentiate securities from accessible Hell created by this 'leviathan' of sightings and headless-malice. Sure, the Headless Horseman was still distant to me, having first become known through hearsay, and then through hideous encounter, and now through memory 'linked' furious journal-scribblings of an earnest quest to make sense of this all. I decided to confide all these 'jitters' feelings in a valiant policeman, as I had no-wish to mire lovely Danica in this bloody mess.

The policeman, Officer Charlie, was a respected man of work for the law in our cool suburbia in Jersey; and I thought he was the perfect angel to seek chat for sensibilities of how to make-sense of this accessible Hell in this Earthling town of everyday crossings and frills and foods and color. How would I have anticipated that the Horseman would hear me whispering words of paranoia of earnest patriotism to the law-man, drawing the very unfortunate cop to the blood-axe of this specter from the dark side of the unknown (damn). I said a prayer for Charlie at his funeral, now convinced my role as the only 'learned' witness of this 'Headless Horseman' would be as a ghost-writer...maybe for a pen and a lancet (for all).

[Abishai100]

What could I do now but run? I had to think all these inquiries and investigations leading me to intimations of what made me a reality-witness to the presence of the dark Headless Horseman required me to immediately seek some semblance of sanity. So, I resolved to flee to Brussels (Belgium), to Europe, with my wife-to-be (Danica), whom I met/courted/loved in this otherwise quaint and idyllic suburbia in the Homeland-Jersey area of residential and modestly commercial amenity life. I resolved to distance myself forever from any question of the origin of 'consciousness' of what made this Horseman a messenger of blood.

Danica didn't want to go to Europe at first, content with her library-work in this lovely town, but after much talk and stir in-town about the Horseman, with me at the center but only as a conversational philosopher and campfire-maker, she admitted there was some breath of fresh-sanity to think a completely different life distanced from any 'deep' superstition seemed somewhat wise. I told her our new life in Belgium would be safer and saner than the one she imagined was overground securities life. After all, I already knew of multiple bloody deaths 'linked' to the spooky Horseman, headless and riding in shadows on his ghost-magic horse creature.

I wasn't concluding this omen-humanoid had driven any American Homeland life sensibility out of my brain; but I did resolve that securities-life required a cooler dream sought in far-away Belgium, with darling-Danica. I knew that the Headless Horseman had made me somehow wiser and therefore made me feel moved to 'transform' my ground-feet stamping consciousness to envision a newer dream-pursuit in a place, for school things, away from the eerie bloody reach of the Horseman's axe, which surely symbolized all the fears of Earth-realm kite fall (ok). Before Danica and I departed, I visited the grave of murdered Officer Charlie; and I whispered the farewell-prayer (Catholic/American), "Blood is rippled like water, Charlie...I will miss your knucklebones."