MYSTERY MAN

(Prose)

   
Joash was in the midst of his detective novel based on a recurrent dream that forced him into

an entry of a bar up town but he never drank or rarely got into an argument with someone else.

Yet he was here unknown to anyone else. He noticed the movie director Dr. Coyne who directed

his own plays and translated his poetry into four languages when he was a Duke undergraduate.

Jaosh recognizes his professor who he hadn't seen since Dr. Coyne had taped an archeological film of a joint excavation when Joash was in the holy land. His former student has a recurrent dream about it whenever he tries to sleep.

Dr. Coyne carefully watches him and Joash tells him is now a visiting professor and teaching a course on Poe.

There is a mystery between them as Joash spies Coyne who drink heavily and is weeping.

Next to him is his daughter the film maker Flannery Coyne who asks pardon for her father's over indulging.

"I am Flannery Coyne. I recall you, Joash, from years ago from the day I was with you at the Duke University archaeological  dig in the holy land with my dad who was filming our dig that mid semester when we miraculously stumbled on and found  the remains of an exiled Sephardic body posited in the grave site outside the walls of Jerusalem along with a box of teffilin with
bags for the arm and head."

"You Flannery if I may remember from a decade ago you lead us all away so you could find the treasure yourself. Your mind was keen on this special place for future historians.

"Dad and I found two gold coins from the book of King's time with gold letters from the Roman occupation with no mucus and no address Then we found a body with the letters Dad translated
from the Spanish and you into Hebrew. Just as the body, the box, the letter were all about exile it became my major theme of my life too. I reburied the stuff together in the Kidron Valley with Bat Aaron another film student and resumed my own courses at Duke that Fall semester."

"I never knew you were Jewish , professor."

"Not till the find, when we found out our own past. In those days of my grandfather he had a big row with antisemitism that was so rampant with fascism, not obviously in my own father who hid
own identity even from us so he could not express his love for my secretive adventure dig in Israel, since he working high up in the always pro-Arabist pro oil State Department yet he has always helped me in a special strange way yet he could never speak up either in D.C. or in North Carolina."

"Whose body did we discover?"

"A sephardic poet along with a body of his work we discovered after a long life search of research. I traveled to Spain, France with my exotic rare recherche.

"Did the international police investigate you or Flannery for stealing the body, the coins, the now translate Spanish letter."

"What did we steal from, an open vault of history, when now I know we are part of that history and that there are rarely accidents of fate, Joash."

"I never came over here  at this part of town until this new year's night but have a recurrent dream of that Sephardic poet coming alive."

"But that is what my  last book is about."

The professor brings back his book entitled "The Mystery Man".

"His last name was Levi or some derivative in Spanish".

"But, Flannery you recall that is my name or how about you Professor Coyne. You gave me the highest mark on my grades. Surely you remembered my name."

" What are our names, but our hidden identities and ties to the past.Our grandfather if you can believe it became Eustache Coyne, he changed it in America. So Joash Levi you have crossed my
mind and father's on occasion but it is a common name that needs our persuasion."

" You suspect ,Joash, you have a personal connection to the body. I found out my name is close to Cohen and has a holy priestly even royal connection as well that my own father would not disclose."

"Why do I constantly have a recurrent dream about that find at the dig. I want to find out."

" Through Freudian, Jungian, hypnosis, spiritualism or how"?

" Perhaps from either one of you or through you may hold the high tech or psychological key."

"How so?"

"I began writing of poetry around the same time of the dig."

"And you think the dead poet gave off vibes to you or transmits words to you or phrases."

" I have my last collection  "Olive Tree Days" with me in my bag. Here take a look."

" We writers carry our works in our heads or backpacks. Its theme is a poet is always in exile."

Jaosh removes the bag and shows the professor and Flannery who start to be amazed.

"These same phrases you have marked off are identical with the dead man, Joash Levi."

" Now I'm beginning to understand my dream and why we met up tonight."

" This is extraordinary! You may expect Joash you are chosen in your profession, in your faith,

and in your mission?"

" Yes in my admission to you, to the past program at Duke at your and my life's like's work was

to uncover and discover the truth that no words or souls or bodies ever disappear die or are

by history , religion or language are biodegradable."

" That tonight we have a humanly divine appointment."

" For anyone who puts their trust in the anointed ones of history."

" What a story as a sequel and equal to "Mystery Man" who is you, Joash, you yourself, my

friend are now a part of the mystery man who has been located and scrolled and by your hand of

poetry. May I shake your hand."

"Yes and may I kiss Flannery."

The end.