The Neils

Dan's adventures with Greek Myth, the Neils, and real life.

[twoneils]

Crossing Over...With the Neils

So now here I am at the Neils front door, waiting on Neil to let me in so we could gather the others and search for Turtle. He just stood there ,though, door slightly ajar, mouth hanging open, staring at me like I was the one that was crazy. I repeated myself: 

“Neil, let me inside and get the others. I need help right now. Turtle has disappeared.”...I ...repeated, pushing against the door with my outstretched hand. I met resistance. Neil was holding the door to with his foot actively pushing back against me. He still had that incredulous look on his face, one that clearly said I was insane and talking nonsense. He continued to stare at me for a few more moments, the slowly started closing the door in my face, never breaking eye contact. I cried out and slammed myself against the door but it was no use, he was stronger than I had suspected. As he pushed it to with a decisive click my face fell and I slumped my shoulders, defeated. I turned away, starting back across the trip wire infested porch. When I was half way through the maze of wires, i heard the door open behind me. Turning around, I witnessed Neil exiting the house with an oddly bulging burlap sack slung over his shoulder and a floppy wide brimmed hat perched atop his head.

“Ho there, Dan. Wait up, I am coming with you!” Neil shouted at me from the doorway. “We have a short way to travel and a long way to go. Since you are in such a state of distress, we should probably get going post haste.” He said this while picking his way through the tangle of trip wires. “You know, I was pondering, why is it call posthaste? Why would we want to be hasty AFTER the need for an expedited egress? And of course, pre-haste would be impossible, how would you know to be hasty before the need? Mayhaps it should be just called haste haste. Or something of the sort. These things weigh on me you know. These questions of linguistics and syntax. Weigh very heavily on me.” He pondered this, leading me across the moat, directing us towards the labyrinth. What the in the hell was he going on about? Why was he worried about the entomology of the phrase post haste? It was a reference to the postal service anyway. The real issue is that his DAUGHTER was missing. Didn’t that concern him? At all? I told him as much. Angrily. 

“Dan, do you really not know? Of course you don’t, I always forget how the transition effects the memories of mortals. No matter how important they may be to continuity of Real and Myth. This will all become much clearer soon. I hope. Neil has been working on way to negate the effects of crossing over, but I know not how close he is. All will be apparent soon son.” Neil responded in a soothing voice, not unlike the way a horse whisperer speaks to a errant stallion.

“Alright Neil. Look. I came to you and Neil for help finding Turtle. She’s GONE Neil. Gone. We need to go to the police or the sheriff or the FBI or NASA or the President, or...something!” I babbled, my anxiety making me say nonsense. “This isl serious Neil. I don’t have time to deal with you and your brother’s ridiculous nonsense right now. We have to DO something, something that will actually help find Turtle.”

Neil looked down his noes at me, over his round spectacles perched on top of it. “Dan, do you really, really, not know whats happening? Where she went? Like I said, the crossing does effect mortal memory, but you really remember NOTHING? At all?” Neil sounded concerned and more than a little surprised. We had made it to the looming entrance of the labyrinth now. “Ah, here we are. Now, Dan, since apparently you remember nothing, which, seems to me, should be impossible, we need to walk the ‘byrinth. This is a PoI, that is - Point of Ingress, for Myth. Once through, you should remember everything. At least that’s my hope. You seem to have lessened a bit since you moved to Real with Turtle all those years ago.” Neil stated this so matter of factly, so that all I could do was gape at him. 

Not caring that I was sounding like a broken record, I yelled: “What the HELL Neil. What in the gods holy names are you talking about. We need to get HELP Neil. We need to go to the authorities. We need to stop whatever this nonsense is and actually DO something.” I was shaking with rage. What was Neil’s game? Just what was he going on about. Again, I said as much to him. 

“Dan..” he said gently. “Dan, I need you to walk the Labyrinth. I need you to do this more than anything. It is an imperative.  A moral, ethical, industrial, amazing, sudden, immediate, imperative. If you do not do this, I cannot, will not, help you find Turtle. I promise you, I guarantee you, that once you have walked the ‘brynith everything will become clear. Everything.” He said all this very calmly, very soothingly, gesturing towards the entrance. “I promise Dan, this will help us find her.”

I sighed. The Neils were difficult and weird and annoying. They were strange and random and completely bananas. But never once, in my years of knowing them, had they been liars. I signed again and looked towards the entrance. I strode forward, past the tall arch of greenery that marked the beginning of the maze. Then...everything changed. 

This sort of thing has happened before and will happen again. 

[twoneils]

Turtle’s Fight.

Yesterday I had gone over to the Neils house, attempting to recruit them in my search for Turtle. She had disappeared earlier that day, after we had had a fight. Well, I guess we had a fight. Turtle DEFINITELY had had a fight. Though, fighting with Turtle is...odd. Sometimes she yells, sometimes its cold anger, sometimes its fencing, sometimes its Olympic sports. One time she had challenged me to a 100 meter breast stroke down at the local Y. With no preamble. We were watching TV when she suddenly stood up, gracefully hopped onto the back of the couch, raised her leg in an imitation of the Karate Kid “Crane-Style” kick and announced to nobody in particular; “I challenge you all to a feat of strength! The fastest to swim one hundred meters using a maneuver called the ‘breast stroke’ (she actually made the little air quotes with her fingers when she said breast stroke) will be victorious and will win my heart! And I will be competing for my own heart!” She concluded and then slide off the back of the couch and back in to her seat on the cushion next to me. Then we went out for ice cream. She usually forgets about getting upset almost immediately after she gets mad. Yesterday was different though. Something had really riled her up. This is what happened.

“ARRGH. I am so FU...GODDA...ahhhh...MAD!” Turtle shouted...angrily, slamming the window as she came inside. She doesn’t like to curse, says it is very un-turtle like. Whatever that means; I think she’s is referring to ACTUAL turtles when she says stuff like that. “Every TIME i go over there. EVERY time. I cannot TAKE it anymore.” She kept shouting from downstairs. “Dan! DAAAN! They did it again, just like last time! I need you down here NOW! Please!” I could here her stomping around, rattling the windows and shaking the tables. Shaking the tables seemed a bit much to me honestly. I put down the book I had been reading and started heading down the stairs. Either I was not fast enough or she didn’t hear me shuffling around upstairs. There was a soft clang as she grabbed...something...out of the front closet and then a loud bang as she slammed the side window, leaving the house. I ran as quickly as I could down the stairs the slinkys softly slinking past me up the stairs. I hit the ground floor at a run and push my way out our front double doors. 

“Turtle? Turtle! Wait!” I yelled out at the surrounding lawn, startling the local flora. “Turtle!? Where are you?!” I tore down our front path to the street, wildly look up and down. There was absolutely no sign of her and her car was still in the driveway. “TURTLE!!” I screamed, causing several dogs to start barking from their back yards kennels. She was gone, somehow, somewhere. That’s when I decided to visit the one set of people that may know where she went, or at least would help me search for her. The most annoying and unpredictable and people I knew. Her parents. 

This sort of thing has never ever happened before.  

[twoneils]

The House of Neils

Yesterday the Neils came over. Actually that is inaccurate. I went to see the Neils. Something horrible and dreadful  had happened. I needed their help. I do not know what they could possibly do, other than say something ridiculous and then offer me fish. I had to try though. I drove myself over to their [house]. The three story monstrosity sits at the very back of their five acre lot, behind a massively over grown and neglected garden. The tomato plants are growing long and sideways into the patches of okra and the pumpkins are creeping and crawling all around and through the rosemary bushes. I am still unsure exactly what kind of garden they are going for. 

Blocking the actual entrance to their stupendously large manse is a strangely well manicured labyrinth. Why pay attention to the labyrinth but ignore the garden? Why IS there a  labyrinth? I had asked once and the best answer I got was this; “The Gorgons said that it would come with coco and pie. So we built it. Alas I have never once seen any pie and certainly no cereal. Also, as it happens, would you like some cereal? I just poured a bow.” A lot of conversations with Neil went like that. Not that anything was ever explained. Though i feel obliged to tell you that the Gorgons are not the snake headed, turn-you-to-stone starers of myth, but in fact the Neil’s wives. And all three hate being called The Gorgons. The Neils have three wives between them because at some point during Neil’s life he apparently forgot he was married. He found another woman, wooed her, married her, and moved her in. His first-and-still wife also apparently never noticed that he was married again and now all three live with Neil and his wife in the Mansion. It’s a strange affair that I do not like to speak of because it really doesn’t make any sense. They also hate the labyrinth and probably would never have said anything about pie, or building and maintaining one. Building a labyrinth that is, not building a pie. The Gorgons love building pies. They are delicious. 

 I push past the ridiculous labyrinth, hopping over the moat (the moat, as they call it, resembles an actual castle moat as much as say, the Empire State Building resembles an actual empire. It is that bad. More like a cut in the dirt with some water splashed near  by it. There is a bridge though. It is actually parallel to the moat and only three fourths finished, but it is still technically there.) and trip up to the front door. Actually tripping, they have trip wires set up the entire length of the porch. They actually have a very good reason for setting them up and one that i agree with but I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it is. That is probably by design. I ring the doorbell. That’s about the only normal thing about the Mansion. A real, honest to goodness, working, modern, doorbell. I wait. I ring the doorbell again. From the depths of the house I hear a deep resonating CLANGGGK! and then, much closer, a softly muttered “fuck”. The sounds of many deadbolts unlocking and draw chains being removed greet my ears and  then ,after a moment, one of the Neils greets my eyes. 

“Ah! Master Dan! What brings you to our country estate at this hour?” Neil looks at me over the top of his overly magnified bifocals. 

“Neil, let me inside and get Neil and the Gorgons too. I need help right now. Turtle has disappeared.”

This sort of thing does NOT happen as often as you think...

[twoneils]

Tea with the Neil’s.

So the Neil’s came over for tea this morning. They announced this to the entire house as they came banging though the front double doors. They exclaimed “TIME FOR TEEEEEE!” and “TEA TIME” simultaneously and harmoniz-ed-ly (it was quite lovely to hear, had it not been 4:30 in the morning on a Tuesday). We have never had, held, haven holden?...either way, we have never recognized “tea time” in our household. Well, maybe Turtle has/does, but she’s never told me about it. I start down the stairs to attempt to kick the Neil’s out (not that this has ever worked) when a slinky passed me, slinking UP the stairs. 

I stopped. 

I turned. 

Up?? UP the stairs? I looked again. Perhaps the hour of the morning and the amount of sleep I had recently was affecting my visual representation of my confirmation of reality. (Turtle says that when I say sentences like that that , one, I sound like an idiot, two, I AM an idiot, and three, nobody knows what the hell it is I am talking about. Which is this; I thought i was seeing things.). Yet the there was the slinky. Moving up the stairs. I turn to complete walking down the rest of the steps when another slinky starts it’s journey up the flight of stairs. Of it’s accord. And again, moving UP. This one though was the brightest, most distressing, pink you can imagine. It was difficult to look at and difficult to look away from. Dumbfounded I finish my trek down the stairs more determined than ever to find the damned Neil’s. As I am opening the window that connects the hallway at the bottom of the stairs to the dining room (Turtle says doors are too old fashioned and for racists, whatever that means. I haven’t ever heard of a racist door, but then Turtle tells me that I didn’t know that showers were masochist, so what the hell did I know? Apparently not a lot.) I am immediately met with a face full of Neil and a nose full of lilac, honey, garlic and ... onions. I almost lost the breakfast I hadn’t had yet. 

“Ah, hallooooo there Dan. You really shouldn’t be almost misplacing your breakfasts. They are terribly difficult to find again and they are quite important. Most important break of the day!” Neil says this to me while braiding para-chord and apparently guessing my gastrointestinal distress. I begin to ask how he knew about breakfast, or the lack thereof, and just what the hell they think they are doing when he interrupts me. “ We are here to make tea, to answer your unasked question. Also Neil figured out how to create a small “reverse gravity and light force vector field” around our slinkys! Now they can go UP stairs! Its SCIENCE!”

Now I have two slinkys that will not stop going up the stairs on their own, the Neil’s won’t leave and I still haven’t seen or had any tea. 

This kind of thing happens more often than you would think…

[twoneils]

Breakfast with the Neils, but mostly Turtle.

So the Neals came over for breakfast this morning. Well, I suppose since they never left, they just woke up and demanded breakfast. Assuming they went to sleep. Which is questionable. Also I do not recall offering them a room or even space on the couch to sleep. Such is life with the Neils. 

Upon waking and realizing that both Neal G and Neil S were STILL in our house AND up and about, making all kinds of odd sounding racket. The faint waft of a penny whistle; the one-after-another soft smash/crash of what was most certainly Turtles priceless collection of Japanese porcelain dolls being dropped over a banister; the squishy plop-plop of a yoga ball covered in - is that motor oil? - bouncing across the freshly polished wood laminate assaulted my ears as I rose for my morning rituals. Turtle would not be pleased. At all. 

Actually it was odd that Turtle had not already yelled at me for the noise (as if I was the one breaking all OUR stuff). She must be in her “studio”. The scare quotes are needed because it’s actually the bathroom. The only one in the house. Apparently she finds her, as she puts it, “inner peace and tranquility” there. I think its cause shes just going number 2 all the time. But what do i know. 

Padding down the hallway (so I wear fully footed pajama suits to bed, what would YOU have me wear?) i knock on the bathroom - read studio - door. 

“Turtle?”

“Neil?”

“No-Dan”

“Who?!”

“Oh come on, every time?”

“Of course. Come in I suppose, I am ‘working’. “

I walk in. She’s painting on the back of a canvas that has a finished out painting on the front. It’s a painting of Turtle painting on the back of another painting. This confuses my eyes for a moment. It confuses my brain for longer. 

“Whatcha doing?” I request of her.

“Painting” She returns. I roll my eyes. I roll them again, harder this time. 

“Keep doing that and you’ll roll them right out of your head.” She regards. 

“How did you even see that? Never mind, what are you painting? Also, have you heard the ruckus downstairs” I answer and postulate simultaneously. 

“Of course I heard it. I am choosing to ignore it until I can be properly upset. Also I am painting cranes. Obviously.” 

“Oh, cranes huh? That’s new.” I turn slowly in place looking at all of paintings, drawings, clip art, finger paintings, and doodles of cranes that filled her cramped bathroom/studio. 

“Super new.” I turn to leave, notice a still drying hastily drawn crane outline on the back of my hand -when did she do that with her back to me?- and come face to face with the Neils. They are both wearing a matching set of ridiculously colored golf shorts and mesh tops of the most pungent orange. Both are dripping wet and smell like day old lake and silt and...cumin? Cumin. Neil S raises his arm and dangles a fishing line with a bit of blue glass and dried out frog legs tied to it. With a pink bow. 

“We brought fish!”

This kind of thing happens more often than you would think…  

[twoneils]

Dinner with the Neals.

So, last night the Neils came over for dinner. Again. For the ninth time this week. How does one have dinner nine times in a seven day week you ask? That’s a story for another time, unfortunately. At this point I am starting to think that they are homeless. And unemployed. 

I digress. Neil One brings over a smoked turkey, sliced, and already sealed in refrigerate friendly containers. Apparently he had already eaten and brought his left overs...over. This is the second time he has done this. Today. 

Neal Two saunters in wearing nothing but a pair of rubber overalls -where’d he get those?- and oven mitts. I am pretty 100% positive that he was not wearing anything underneath the rubbero’s (lovingly named)...and he smelled. Something like hot-left-in-the-car orange juice crossed with two day old dead rat snake and a pinch of gas station restroom. If you have ever owned a Dachshund, you know this smell well. 

Left over turkey and olfactory overload aside, Turtle and I set the table for dinner. This would be a fairly mundane task had it not been for Neil Two insisting he was King of All that is TabLUE-hoodoo (I swear to you that’s how he said it), shucked his rubbero’s off and proceeded to dance frantically -some kind of pop’n’lock technique I am unfamiliar with- on the table, singing “Louie, Louie” at the top of his vocal range. Neal One just sat in the corner, nodding appreciatively, smoking a pipe I am quite sure he did not arrive with. 

This kind of thing happens more often than you would think...