“It Whispers” by Lem

(August 4th, 2024 – Morning)

The other day Lacey had to go to the doctor. And while she was there she had an extremely unusual interaction with someone. They admitted to her…that they weren’t as wealthy as her and her doctor. …They openly acted very uncomfortable. Ashamed. Sad. …Possibly even hopeless. …And it is something she’s never…experienced before.

…Lacey’s parents raised her to feel…openly lower middle class…but subconsciously Old Money Upper Class, which is really what they are. …So…Lacey references the vacations she spent as a child for two weeks every summer…but focuses on the Holiday Inn Hotel they stayed in, instead of the exquisite privacy of the rolling thousands of acres of land on the Nesheim Farm in 1997…where she’d take brisk, safe, serene walks at 10…alone…with the dog. She’d pick wildflowers. Listen to her Suzuki lessons cassette on her Walkman to hear the songs she’d be learning to play on her own viola later. After a rare, delightful breakfast served on old Fire King milk glass of local cheese, eggs, homemade jams, and the like. …She’d ignore the stories told. The antiques she’d take home after digging them out of closets upstairs. …Her family. …Her anxiety over perfection as a thing itself. …Because her parents raised her to ignore it and focus on the fact that they didn’t have more money for a nicer hotel. Sure, Holiday Inn was clean back then…but…they acted very ashamed that that’s all they could afford…after donating 10 to 20 % of their gross income to Christian charities, Christian missionaries, and their church.

“How much did they donate!?” asks one of her “friends” from that time.

They donated what today would be about $20,000 a year. Sometimes $10,000. Sometimes $15,000. But they acted as though it was absolutely necessary and therefore…they should be deeply ashamed by the lack of that $20,000 annually. So Lacey internalized that they were failures…who could and should have been donating $30,000 or more. …And so…when she’s related to people…she’s missed tons of information over the years. Not due to lack of self-awareness but…because of how she was raised.

But the other day…she was…shocked by how…upset this woman silently was.

“Oh dear. No that’s not me!” said Lacey involuntarily in her subconsciously.

“No. It is.” said God, possibly.

“That’s bizarre!” said Lacey.

“Not really.” said the woman, possibly, in her spirit.

“Oh dear!!” said Lacey. “Well thank you.” she said to the woman.

“Someone needed to tell you.” she said, possibly in her spirit.

And at that Lacey was momentarily given insight. But her thought processes are deeply embedded at this point in life. She’s 40.

“So…they’d have these elite annual vacation vacations…but focus on the things that made them feel poor.” says Casi.

“Yes! Like…that they chose to summer with relatives. And take local stops in Duluth or Montana or South Dakota or…what-have-you.” says Lacey.

“How much money did they spend every year in 2024 Dollars?” says Casi.

“About $2,500.” says Lem.

“That’s a cheap two week vacation!” says an Old Money reader.

“Yes!” says Lacey.

“But for a family of three?” says another reader.

“Still a cheap two week vacation.” says the Old Money woman.

“Well…were they getting money from family?” she asks.

“Yes.” says Lacey’s grandmother who raised her. “Although not much.”

She closes her eyes and nods her head. “But I bet everyone loved her parents.”

“We did.” says the grandmother who raised her.

“They didn’t get that much. …And they were very agreeable. …We had fun every summer.” she says.

“Yeah! Every summer. …We’d love it.” says another family member.

“She rode horses. Played with sheep. Took walks. …Took photographs. Wrote poetry. …The farm is very beautiful. Or was.” says a dead relative.

“So you lived in your parent’s house?” the woman asks Tonette.

“Yes!” she says. “And my brother lived next door in their house they built in the 1960’s.”

“Right across the gravel driveway.” says Tonette’s sister-in-law.

“I’d wander between the two houses. Barefoot. Talk with the dog. Stuff like that.” says Lacey. “And the sky was enormous. They call Montana Big Sky Country. …And you know my experience with Hunter S. Thompson and Amelia Earhart, not their ghosts necessarily, but their stories…is heavily influenced by my memories growing-up.” says Lacey.

“Why?” asks Hunter S. Thompson.

“Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas is about the Wild West. So is Amelia Earhart. And…The West. The unconquerable sky. The depths of the ocean. The unconquerable. …It’s too massive. …The death of the American Dream is possibly due in part to the…impossible nature of human existence in a vast, foreboding universe. …How do you tame outer space? No. It’s not possible. That was Kennedy‘a narcissistic delusion. …That was, possibly not ironically, the beginning of the end of the American Dream as it was originally intended. …Man is limited. …Drugs…we’re his folly. His tantrum in response to being told her was hopelessly mortal without Christ.” says Lacey.