Something picked up. September 1, 2008
In 1931, Daddy left. The banks closed; and so did the town. No jobs. Then, Daddy was gone. He worked in the bank, and now it was closed. Momma cried. Daddy was there for a while. Word would go round the town of jobs somewhere else and lots of daddies disappeared. Then, Daddy went. Momma just had herself a new baby and Daddy was gone. Momma said he’d come back. But he didn’t. Momma cooked and washed for neighbors. She sewed with her hands and rocked the cradle with her foot. Granny and Pop came to live with us. Momma just bundled us up tighter and we all somehow fit in the house.
There were seven of us all together. I was nine. And it was my turn Momma said. My sisters helped Momma with the washing and baby, Granny made the stew, and Pop fixed things. So, now it was my turn. She heard tell of jobs in the city, so she patched my trousers and jacket, and slicked down my hair. She told me it was time to get a job and walked me to the ferry. I don’t remember all the instructions she gave me, expect that I was to be polite and talk nice. She said I was to get a job. She gave me some crackers wrapped in cloth for my lunch, a penny for the crossing and her good luck penny. I paid the ferry man and shoved the other way down in my pocket. I watched Momma as the ferry pulled away. She was Momma, then she walked away.
My dogs were so tired. I couldn’t find no job. I was too big; I was too small; I was too young. I put my hand in my pocket and fingered Momma’s penny and looked around. There in front of me was a little shed, and it was busy, men going in and out. It was the construction shed for the bridge next door being built from the city to the town across the harbor – to my town. An ugly mug grabbed hold of my collar and wanted to know what I wanted. I said a job – didn’t know nothing else to say. He let go, looked long at me, then asked if I could tote. I said yes, sir. He said then get started and handed me a bucket. I carried a water pail all day, back and forth over the bridge. I pumped water and toted to each worker. All day. Back and forth. The ugly man came and got me, said I done a good job. And that if I came back tomorrow I could do it again. He gave me a nickel and two pennies. Told me them’s my wages.
I ran to the ferry, paid the ferryman a penny and watched the city get smaller and my town get bigger. I fingered the three coins in my pocket. I took out Momma’s lucky penny and turned it over in my hand. It was an 1898 with an Indian on it. I did’t know what it said, ‘cepting those words seemed important to put on the penny. There used to be a deep cut across the Indian’s face, but it was dull now. I rubbed it, and then tossed it up into the air. I meant to catch it, but it hit the deck and bounced into the water. I stood there against the rail looking at the water, then I across at the bridge, and it was still standing. What was I gonna tell Momma?
In 1995, my husband accompanied our two sons on a weekend camping trip to a Boy Scout camp. This was a regular occurrence with the troop and my husband went on many trips, becoming as much a scout as the boys were becoming. These weekends are loaded with camaraderie and badge-work. It is the pride of a scout to wear a sash loaded with badges, each badge representing proficiency in some area such as first aid, swimming, or outdoor cooking. For leaders and chaperones the work is purely the oversight of scouts. Yet my husband always had more fun being one of the boys than one of the leaders.
Included in any of these weekend trips is a hike. After a morning of cooking and badge work, the scouts take a hike before lunch. This particular weekend hike went out the road toward the camp’s entrance. This is an old camp; and access to the camp is by way of a dirt road that must be re-graded every time it rains. However, recently the camp had contracted with some company to dump new material on the road in an effort to improve its condition. So the contractor came in with a mixture of gravel, dirt, sand and debris. It was a fresh dump and therefore had a peculiar odor. One of the boys bent down and picked up a shark tooth. This changed the nature of the hike from looking around to looking down and from walking to lingering. The boys learned from the camp director that the road had recently been re-graded with dredgings from the nearby harbor. One of the fathers on the trip worked at the port and said that a big vacuum is used to bring up the dirt, sand and debris from the bottom of the harbor in order to clear channels so that big ships could access the docks. The debris is then dumped onto a barge which is floated to a dump site where ditch-diggers loaded the debris into dump trucks which then head for construction projects all over the tri-county area.
The scouts lost interest in the story and went back to hunting shark teeth. Then a scout shouted out he had found a penny. Now pennies are not unusual finds. We find them everywhere and tend to dismiss them as valueless. We toss them in jars, overboard, and at each other. But this one was to turn out to be different. My husband had a look at the penny. It was an 1898 Indian Head, with a bad scar across the Indian’s face. My husband returned the penny to the scout with an offer to buy it for a dollar. The scout turned down the offer, saying that this penny was gonna be his lucky penny. My husband conjured up a likely future for the penny: once home it would be tossed in a penny jar or used in a gumball machine. He also thought about what historical, personal, or emotional events may have played into that moment when the penny entered the water only to end up at the camp some 60 miles inland. For my husband this was not just a penny with a tad bit of value, there was a story here, and history.
To my beloved son, some extra research on a penny and a possible new hobby:
Today (2008), an 1898 Indian Head is worth one dollar. That’s a ten-thousand percent increase in value. In 2008 a penny is virtually worthless. Its primary value is in education – such as in math and history lessons. It certainly is not financial as it costs $1.26 to make a penny. However in 1938, that penny could purchase a ride on a ferry or trolley car. And a loaf of bread or a pound of sausage cost nine cents. The minimum wage law was enacted by Congress in 1938 setting the minimum wage at twenty-five cents an hour: Children were not the target of the law, however, adult male workers were.
Yet a penny does have more value than its one cent:
“A penny saved is a penny earned.”
“A penny for your thoughts.”
“See a penny, pick it up: all the day you’ll have good luck.”
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Son: Something Picked Up
The homeless man picked up the lid of the trash can gingerly, sure not to make a noise so that no one would notice him. He reached into the trash can, pulled out a half-empty pop and toop a deep swig.
All of us sitting on the short wall watched in horror.
Not seeing our disgusted stares, he set the pop down slowly, picked the lid back up and put it onto the can. Grabbing "his" pop, he started moving away with eyes downcast as if to disapppear into the background of the city.
Strange, I thought, he thinks he's being discreet.
SMACK.
I saw the pop bottle go flying across the street, the top coming off and the cola spraying onto the rain-drenched asphalt. The homeless man was staring, stunened, at his empty hand whilst a roundish black woman loomed over him. She was only half his height, but her stature dominated the scene.
"That's disgusting, man!" She was digging furiously into her oversized handbag hanging off one shoulder. She wore a scrube top with Care Bears on it. Hm, I thought. She thrust her hand out and push a wad of bills into the man's hands. "Go buy yourself something .... Shi-eeeet."
She walked paost him, tennis shoes pounding the pavement, one arm clutching her bag strap, and the other swinging almost wildly in rhythm with her steps. He was stunned for a moment -- his crazed eyes reading someone noticed me... -- before moving on himself.
I stopped the lady. "That was the nicest thing I've ever seen done." I was already plotting how to pay the good deed forward.
"Man, shoot. That was disgusting. I was gonna vomit if he dran'anymore." And off she went.
---
Later that night, I was back on the short wall with a cigarette. No one was out there.
All the trash lids were off. Apparently, he's only that precise or that careful when other people were around.
I picked the lids up and put them back where they came from.
All of us sitting on the short wall watched in horror.
Not seeing our disgusted stares, he set the pop down slowly, picked the lid back up and put it onto the can. Grabbing "his" pop, he started moving away with eyes downcast as if to disapppear into the background of the city.
Strange, I thought, he thinks he's being discreet.
SMACK.
I saw the pop bottle go flying across the street, the top coming off and the cola spraying onto the rain-drenched asphalt. The homeless man was staring, stunened, at his empty hand whilst a roundish black woman loomed over him. She was only half his height, but her stature dominated the scene.
"That's disgusting, man!" She was digging furiously into her oversized handbag hanging off one shoulder. She wore a scrube top with Care Bears on it. Hm, I thought. She thrust her hand out and push a wad of bills into the man's hands. "Go buy yourself something .... Shi-eeeet."
She walked paost him, tennis shoes pounding the pavement, one arm clutching her bag strap, and the other swinging almost wildly in rhythm with her steps. He was stunned for a moment -- his crazed eyes reading someone noticed me... -- before moving on himself.
I stopped the lady. "That was the nicest thing I've ever seen done." I was already plotting how to pay the good deed forward.
"Man, shoot. That was disgusting. I was gonna vomit if he dran'anymore." And off she went.
---
Later that night, I was back on the short wall with a cigarette. No one was out there.
All the trash lids were off. Apparently, he's only that precise or that careful when other people were around.
I picked the lids up and put them back where they came from.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Surfing
Surfing August 25, 2008
We are coastal people. We live on a beach just south of Charleston, South Carolina. We eat shrimp, crab, and grits morning, noon, and night. We tote coolers to the beach loaded with bottled water, Kool-aid, and apples in the daytime. In the night, we sit around illegal campfires with friends drinking beer, reminiscing bygone days of shagging and high school pranks. On some of those evenings we just sit and listen to the waves moving in and out. Good company, peaceful world, summer and winter.
Our waves are small, not like those seen on TV at those beach competitions. We don’t have the large violent, loud crashing waves conducive to sports or thrill-seekers. Our waves are small, perfect for young children and weary adults. While the daytime brings playful laughter and busy families onto the beach and drowns out the noise of the waves, the nighttime is different. The nighttime is quiet and all that can be heard is the sound of the waves.
Our waves come in with small rushing, tumbling noises, end, over end, over end. You can feel something coming toward you like a gentle push backwards. Then you hear a little crash as the wave is played out, grips at the sand and tries to hold on. The water flows back out to the ocean and you, the beachcomber, feels the gentle sucking pull of that wave back out to sea. I often sit on the beach at night just to have the day’s problems solved by this washing of my soul. We do have big waves once in a while; they come with the hurricanes. These waves are big and powerful, ripping sand right off the beach. Dangerous. It is then that the locals turn out with their surfboards to challenge Mother Nature. These waves don’t happen often but we all have boards.
Life is good. We give our address as “On the Beach, South Carolina”. We treat our house as a temporary shelter; since the beach is more home than the house. Our house is a place where we sleep and store our clothes. Otherwise it is just a series of laundry lines and porch railings that are decorated with beach towels and bathing suits. Our lawns are decorated with plastic buckets, shovels, and sand castle molds. There are sand shoes, boat shoes, plastic boots, bathing suits, visors, reed mats, plastic fishing poles and a Wal-mart four-foot pool in the back yard with a layer of sand covering the bottom. The garage is just an extension of the yard except we keep bigger stuff in there like boogie boards, skis, surfboards, fishing poles, shrimpin’ baskets, waders and two boats - one for the ocean, and one for trolling creeks.
Our life and that of our children is so intertwined with the ocean that we were surprised when our daughter decided to go to school in Chicago. Her mind was made up and the school had accepted her long before she told us. Her father and I had four weeks notice that she was leaving, hardly any time to think or to talk her out of it. She is twenty-two, and fully an adult. After graduating high school, she chose to get an undergraduate degree from our local college having lived with us instead of in the dorm. It was a good arrangement – for us and for her. Many of her friends came and stayed with us, adding to the commotion in the house and the excitement of the beach. During her college years, three hurricanes skirted our coast. She and her friends got good on their surfboards. They practiced on the little waves in the days prior to the storm, then rode the gradually increasing hurricane waves for twelve hours, sought refuge in the house for the peak of the storm, then, went back out to the ocean until the waves petered out. In preparation for those hurricanes, my job had been to stock the frig; however those were some starving college surfers. After the storm, I was re-stocking the frig as soon as the grocery store opened back up. Thank goodness, we were never directly hit by the storms, so those times ended up being good times and good memories.
Our daughter was moving to Chicago. We couldn’t talk her out of it, wouldn’t have tried anyway, so we just worried about the little stuff. We worried about how our daughter would survive way out there in the “Great Plains” region - the Midwest. There are no oceans, beaches, or waves. Chicago is on Lake Michigan, and it’s very placid. Chicago’s cooler in the summertime and absolutely freezing in the winter. Our neighbors are from south of Chicago; they moved to South Carolina to get away from the cold. They told us about the wind off the lake and how no winter coat could stop the cold. They told us to have our daughter stock up on sweatshirts, long johns, thick socks, boots with good traction, scarves, gloves, ear-muffs, and hats: None of which are familiar to us here on our beautiful coast. I remember one time when she was in kindergarten and I didn’t even double shirt her for cool days until January. Our neighbors told us about frost bite, occasional brown-outs, and frozen transportation systems. But what got us was the mention of frozen nose hairs and how quickly that could occur to a person standing in a strong blast off the lake. I had nightmares of breathing through icicles. She was going to Chicago, a frozen tundra compared to our beautiful beach. She was leaving everything she knew. We tried to be supportive, but all I could see was disaster for both of us.
She packed everything. She said this was more than a move to another college; it was probably going to be her official move away from home. She’d be gone for three years and if things went well she’d probably stay in Chicago and work afterwards. The college had a good placement rate and there were lots of big law firms in the city. So we packed up her bed, desk, and lamps. I re-covered the old loveseat sofa she had studied on while here at school. She would probably need it to study on up there. Dishes went, as did the coffee pot. Things went that we had shared for twenty-two years. It was almost unbearable. I walked away from the packing many times. I went to the garage on those occasions to cry. All that garage stuff was there – boards, boats, buckets.
The packing was finished. She looked around for anything else, but she had got it all. The last act of packing was to sit on her suitcase and zip it up. The truck was in the driveway, mostly loaded. She was going to drive herself to Chicago in one of those rental trucks. I followed her down the stairs and through the garage. She set the suitcase in the last remaining open space in the back of the truck. At the very top of the truck, on top of piles, lay her surfboard.
“Daughter,” I chuckled, “there are no waves where you’re going,” pointing up at the board.
She pulled the rolling door down and locked it. “I know,” she said.
“Then what are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“There’s skiing up there.” She pulled her phone out of her purse. “Well…” She said like an announcement for the good-byes to start. I wasn’t finished.
“Wait. Skiing?”
“Yeah. Those people up there ain’t seen nothing yet till they see me surfing down the mountain.”
My baby:)
We are coastal people. We live on a beach just south of Charleston, South Carolina. We eat shrimp, crab, and grits morning, noon, and night. We tote coolers to the beach loaded with bottled water, Kool-aid, and apples in the daytime. In the night, we sit around illegal campfires with friends drinking beer, reminiscing bygone days of shagging and high school pranks. On some of those evenings we just sit and listen to the waves moving in and out. Good company, peaceful world, summer and winter.
Our waves are small, not like those seen on TV at those beach competitions. We don’t have the large violent, loud crashing waves conducive to sports or thrill-seekers. Our waves are small, perfect for young children and weary adults. While the daytime brings playful laughter and busy families onto the beach and drowns out the noise of the waves, the nighttime is different. The nighttime is quiet and all that can be heard is the sound of the waves.
Our waves come in with small rushing, tumbling noises, end, over end, over end. You can feel something coming toward you like a gentle push backwards. Then you hear a little crash as the wave is played out, grips at the sand and tries to hold on. The water flows back out to the ocean and you, the beachcomber, feels the gentle sucking pull of that wave back out to sea. I often sit on the beach at night just to have the day’s problems solved by this washing of my soul. We do have big waves once in a while; they come with the hurricanes. These waves are big and powerful, ripping sand right off the beach. Dangerous. It is then that the locals turn out with their surfboards to challenge Mother Nature. These waves don’t happen often but we all have boards.
Life is good. We give our address as “On the Beach, South Carolina”. We treat our house as a temporary shelter; since the beach is more home than the house. Our house is a place where we sleep and store our clothes. Otherwise it is just a series of laundry lines and porch railings that are decorated with beach towels and bathing suits. Our lawns are decorated with plastic buckets, shovels, and sand castle molds. There are sand shoes, boat shoes, plastic boots, bathing suits, visors, reed mats, plastic fishing poles and a Wal-mart four-foot pool in the back yard with a layer of sand covering the bottom. The garage is just an extension of the yard except we keep bigger stuff in there like boogie boards, skis, surfboards, fishing poles, shrimpin’ baskets, waders and two boats - one for the ocean, and one for trolling creeks.
Our life and that of our children is so intertwined with the ocean that we were surprised when our daughter decided to go to school in Chicago. Her mind was made up and the school had accepted her long before she told us. Her father and I had four weeks notice that she was leaving, hardly any time to think or to talk her out of it. She is twenty-two, and fully an adult. After graduating high school, she chose to get an undergraduate degree from our local college having lived with us instead of in the dorm. It was a good arrangement – for us and for her. Many of her friends came and stayed with us, adding to the commotion in the house and the excitement of the beach. During her college years, three hurricanes skirted our coast. She and her friends got good on their surfboards. They practiced on the little waves in the days prior to the storm, then rode the gradually increasing hurricane waves for twelve hours, sought refuge in the house for the peak of the storm, then, went back out to the ocean until the waves petered out. In preparation for those hurricanes, my job had been to stock the frig; however those were some starving college surfers. After the storm, I was re-stocking the frig as soon as the grocery store opened back up. Thank goodness, we were never directly hit by the storms, so those times ended up being good times and good memories.
Our daughter was moving to Chicago. We couldn’t talk her out of it, wouldn’t have tried anyway, so we just worried about the little stuff. We worried about how our daughter would survive way out there in the “Great Plains” region - the Midwest. There are no oceans, beaches, or waves. Chicago is on Lake Michigan, and it’s very placid. Chicago’s cooler in the summertime and absolutely freezing in the winter. Our neighbors are from south of Chicago; they moved to South Carolina to get away from the cold. They told us about the wind off the lake and how no winter coat could stop the cold. They told us to have our daughter stock up on sweatshirts, long johns, thick socks, boots with good traction, scarves, gloves, ear-muffs, and hats: None of which are familiar to us here on our beautiful coast. I remember one time when she was in kindergarten and I didn’t even double shirt her for cool days until January. Our neighbors told us about frost bite, occasional brown-outs, and frozen transportation systems. But what got us was the mention of frozen nose hairs and how quickly that could occur to a person standing in a strong blast off the lake. I had nightmares of breathing through icicles. She was going to Chicago, a frozen tundra compared to our beautiful beach. She was leaving everything she knew. We tried to be supportive, but all I could see was disaster for both of us.
She packed everything. She said this was more than a move to another college; it was probably going to be her official move away from home. She’d be gone for three years and if things went well she’d probably stay in Chicago and work afterwards. The college had a good placement rate and there were lots of big law firms in the city. So we packed up her bed, desk, and lamps. I re-covered the old loveseat sofa she had studied on while here at school. She would probably need it to study on up there. Dishes went, as did the coffee pot. Things went that we had shared for twenty-two years. It was almost unbearable. I walked away from the packing many times. I went to the garage on those occasions to cry. All that garage stuff was there – boards, boats, buckets.
The packing was finished. She looked around for anything else, but she had got it all. The last act of packing was to sit on her suitcase and zip it up. The truck was in the driveway, mostly loaded. She was going to drive herself to Chicago in one of those rental trucks. I followed her down the stairs and through the garage. She set the suitcase in the last remaining open space in the back of the truck. At the very top of the truck, on top of piles, lay her surfboard.
“Daughter,” I chuckled, “there are no waves where you’re going,” pointing up at the board.
She pulled the rolling door down and locked it. “I know,” she said.
“Then what are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“There’s skiing up there.” She pulled her phone out of her purse. “Well…” She said like an announcement for the good-byes to start. I wasn’t finished.
“Wait. Skiing?”
“Yeah. Those people up there ain’t seen nothing yet till they see me surfing down the mountain.”
My baby:)
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Topic; Due the week of 9-1-08
SOMETHING PICKED UP (as in physically, not metaphorically "picked up")
Let's stop the whole "due Monday" thing and just say that it's due the week of, since yours and my schedules are now so crazy we can't even talk on the phone most days. :-)
Let's stop the whole "due Monday" thing and just say that it's due the week of, since yours and my schedules are now so crazy we can't even talk on the phone most days. :-)
Son: Surfing, 8-27-08
HA! I totally wrote this in English class today.
The beach.
He was leaning back against his board, his feet buried in the sand his his knees drawn up to his chest. The sun was going down, and the silence of human noise -- this moment was shared mostly by lovers and romantics and the lonely hearted -- was punctuated only occasionally by the sounds of an incidental tourists' child or passing cars. Paradisio.
He stroked his surf board lying behind him. It was a relatively new skill he had acquired but found easy. He liked guiding the board across the wave, carefully balancing the forces of the water against gravity, constantly in danger of falling over and introducing his head to one of the many rocks that dotted the coastline.
It fit his personality.
"Margarita, baby?" asked his beautiful Samoan woman -- Keku -- as she stepped over the mini-sand dunes caused by foot traffic and wind. Full hips, large breasts, soft skin, and dialectic English that he found engorging.
They had met on a business trips. He been slumming it one evening -- drab Hawaiian shirt and shorts in a dirty local bar, complete with palm frond ceilings and a 300-lbs Pacific Island bartender. The drinks had been cheap and the lies had come easily.
He was looking to move here, he told people. He didn't work, the yarn went, and he was seeking the sort of personal greatness only the Bohemian crowd around him at the bar that night would appreciate. He was a star, and left with the promise of a job and with Keku on his arm.
That was nine months ago, when he had made $100,000+ a year, had a quaint house in the suburbs of a big city, drove a nice car, had a beautiful wife, and was awaiting twins. He was climbing the corporate structure. But he knew that his past was beginning to catch up with him, and when he got here, he knew it was time and the balancing act at "home" had become too treacherous. So, he left paradise for the suburbs, and immediately set about a plan to fake his own death.
A motorcycle accident. Over 50 people had been killed or seriously injured. His body was missing, and he was listed as "presumed dead." He had watched his own funeral from across the street, and he saw the cops there. They had caught wind, suspicious of who the dead man was and trying desperately to connect him.
But, like so many before, the local cops dropped it as "it doesn't matter, he's dead now." Always so easy, just don't get the FBI involved.
This was the third identity he had taken on; he wondered sometimes what happened to the handful of kids he had fathered and left behind. It was that first one -- Anna -- whom he had loved so much and whose unabashed adoration for him had so embarrassed and scared him, and shamed him into feeling his own humanity -- that made him run. She would be eight now.
Keku's belly was growing, and the questions had begun. He felt the past coming upon him.
The plan would be easier than ever, than any time before. He had been idly working out the details while she walked up and offered him a drink. "Sure thing, darling," he had affected a West Coast accent here. He didn't remember what his original voice sounded like.
She reclined back on the board, she was not skinny by American standards, and her stomach had begun the pooch of a pregnant woman. He ran a single finger across her stomach and down her legs.
"I love you," she said.
He grunted. This was the hard moment, when he realized, too, that he loved her and would have to give this us. "They say hurricane season will be rough this year -- good waves, starting any day now."
"We'll invite my sister and her kids -- you can show them how to surf. They just adore you."
He signed and laid his head down on ehr stomach, ear down as if listening. She entwined her fingers into his hair affectionately. For a moment, he was comfortable, and he thought, here, here at last he would stay, and screw whatever may come. He wanted so bad, then, to just be here for ever here in paradisio.
"Papa," she whispered, dreamily.
Or not.
----
I had problems with writing this one, so I thought I'd share the list of "free association" words I wrote down while I tried to brainstorm ideas: Surfing. Channel surfing. Television. Couch potato. Starches. Carbohydrates. Fat. Obesity. Diabetes. Loss of Feet. Foot-less. Footloose. What a feeling. 1980s. Bad hair. One-sie. Bikini. Minnie Driver is Preggers. OBGYN. Planned Parenthood.
Just so you see where the idea came from. :-) Literally, this is the sixth or seventh attempt at writing this; the rest were blah. Interestingly enough, I even went on Urban Dictionary and tried for two definitions they have there for Surf: 1) Stuck-Up, Rich F*ck; and 2) vomiting out a window of a moving car while drunk.
Neither of them did much for me.
"I love you," she said.
He grunted. This was the hard moment, when he realized, too, that he loved her and would have to give this us. "They say hurricane season will be rough this year -- good waves, starting any day now."
"We'll invite my sister and her kids -- you can show them how to surf. They just adore you."
He signed and laid his head down on ehr stomach, ear down as if listening. She entwined her fingers into his hair affectionately. For a moment, he was comfortable, and he thought, here, here at last he would stay, and screw whatever may come. He wanted so bad, then, to just be here for ever here in paradisio.
"Papa," she whispered, dreamily.
Or not.
----
I had problems with writing this one, so I thought I'd share the list of "free association" words I wrote down while I tried to brainstorm ideas: Surfing. Channel surfing. Television. Couch potato. Starches. Carbohydrates. Fat. Obesity. Diabetes. Loss of Feet. Foot-less. Footloose. What a feeling. 1980s. Bad hair. One-sie. Bikini. Minnie Driver is Preggers. OBGYN. Planned Parenthood.
Just so you see where the idea came from. :-) Literally, this is the sixth or seventh attempt at writing this; the rest were blah. Interestingly enough, I even went on Urban Dictionary and tried for two definitions they have there for Surf: 1) Stuck-Up, Rich F*ck; and 2) vomiting out a window of a moving car while drunk.
Neither of them did much for me.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Mom: Shakespeare
Shakespeare August 18, 2008
The old woman came in quietly on the arm of her daughter. She wore beige capris, a white button-down and sturdy moccasins. Her hair was curly and thinning at the forehead and temples. Her eyes were the most distinctive of all: They were the eyes of the un-dead, seeing but not caring. There was no response as I greeted her and motioned to a chair. She stood still until her daughter moved her toward the chair. I asked the old woman how she was. She just looked through me. I looked at the daughter and asked her to tell me again what had happened that brought them to my office.
She began.
The daughter had arrived home from work two days ago to find Mother sitting in the swivel chair in her office, distracted and repeating a phrase as though she were a stuck record – “A horse.” In fact, Mother was pulling on a piece of thread and swiveling slowly back and forth repeating “a horse” while staring out the window. She didn’t respond to the daughter’s greeting. Daughter tried to get Mother’s attention by swiveling the chair around and away from her focus on the window. But to no avail, Mother just swiveled it back and stared out the window. The daughter feared some kind of stroke. She called EMS and Mother was transported to the hospital. Mother’s response was to cooperate, but she spoke not a word. She responded in a stiff, almost unnoticing manner. She hadn’t had a stroke. No problem could be diagnosed, so she was released from the hospital. The attending physician had recommended a psychologist for an evaluation and the daughter called, i.e. the appointment we were now having.
Mother didn’t respond to my questions. “A horse.” She sat stiff, looking out the window and whispered “a horse.” So I interviewed the daughter. Her mother was a writer with three books to her credit – romance novels by literary classification, but not young romance. They were romances for the elderly. According to her daughter these novels were not Fabio-Harlequin romances but funny, down-to-earth stories of love among the elderly. It was a fairly undeveloped field as most readers think romance belongs to the young. Mother’s main characters were elderly, sexual, hungry, and viable; loving life in ways not available to the young. I have to admit Mother’s topic made me a little uncomfortable as a picture of my own grandmother came into mind. I pushed it out: The idea of my gran naked, sexual, and on the prowl. Mother made a living with this topic. However, the daughter said that recently Mother had stopped typing. Her computer was on but the white screen remained blank. Twice Mother forgot to plug in the power cord and the daughter had come home, only to spend the evening re-booting the machine.
“A horse.” Mother had turned her head to look at the wall. The only things there were theatre posters and licenses.
I asked the daughter questions that might have indicated a possibility of Alzheimer’s. But the daughter seemed to believe that Mother’s condition was too sudden. I asked about any other recent events in Mother’s life. The daughter had to think. Nothing suddenly she said, but some things that had caused a change in Mother’s lifestyle. I asked what. Mother’s husband, daughter’s dad, was still alive, but suffered from cancer and arthritis. He recently went through chemo which had been unsuccessful and his body was now advancing toward death, with a lot of pain and need. The bills were mounting for his care. The daughter lived with them to help take care of Daddy and Mother and she had been a help, but the daughter had a son who recently came for a visit. He did drugs and to pay for his habit stole from his grandmother. The pearl and sapphire brooch her husband had given her on their 25th anniversary was gone. The loss was never discussed out loud. The son, grandson, disappeared. Then, Mother had gone to the bank for a loan to help with the mounting expenses. She was a long time customer of this bank; they only gave her a thousand dollar loan. Only enough to make the late payments on the medical equipment she had rented to care for her husband. But she had been robbed coming out of the grocery store. The thousand was gone, along with the few groceries she had managed to purchase.
Mother was now staring at one particular poster on the office wall. “A horse?” she said.
I looked at the daughter, “A horse?” I asked.
The daughter shrugged her shoulders.
“A horse.” Mother repeated, getting out of the chair slowly, her focus on the one poster. It was a poster of a play that I had enjoyed in my student days, a Shakespeare play – Richard III, about a king who possibly killed his brother and two nephews – rightful kings of England - to gain the throne for himself and started a civil war.
The office was deafeningly silent. I looked up at the poster, then back at the old woman and her words suddenly made sense. She was telling us all the time what the problem was in those fateful words: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.”
The old woman came in quietly on the arm of her daughter. She wore beige capris, a white button-down and sturdy moccasins. Her hair was curly and thinning at the forehead and temples. Her eyes were the most distinctive of all: They were the eyes of the un-dead, seeing but not caring. There was no response as I greeted her and motioned to a chair. She stood still until her daughter moved her toward the chair. I asked the old woman how she was. She just looked through me. I looked at the daughter and asked her to tell me again what had happened that brought them to my office.
She began.
The daughter had arrived home from work two days ago to find Mother sitting in the swivel chair in her office, distracted and repeating a phrase as though she were a stuck record – “A horse.” In fact, Mother was pulling on a piece of thread and swiveling slowly back and forth repeating “a horse” while staring out the window. She didn’t respond to the daughter’s greeting. Daughter tried to get Mother’s attention by swiveling the chair around and away from her focus on the window. But to no avail, Mother just swiveled it back and stared out the window. The daughter feared some kind of stroke. She called EMS and Mother was transported to the hospital. Mother’s response was to cooperate, but she spoke not a word. She responded in a stiff, almost unnoticing manner. She hadn’t had a stroke. No problem could be diagnosed, so she was released from the hospital. The attending physician had recommended a psychologist for an evaluation and the daughter called, i.e. the appointment we were now having.
Mother didn’t respond to my questions. “A horse.” She sat stiff, looking out the window and whispered “a horse.” So I interviewed the daughter. Her mother was a writer with three books to her credit – romance novels by literary classification, but not young romance. They were romances for the elderly. According to her daughter these novels were not Fabio-Harlequin romances but funny, down-to-earth stories of love among the elderly. It was a fairly undeveloped field as most readers think romance belongs to the young. Mother’s main characters were elderly, sexual, hungry, and viable; loving life in ways not available to the young. I have to admit Mother’s topic made me a little uncomfortable as a picture of my own grandmother came into mind. I pushed it out: The idea of my gran naked, sexual, and on the prowl. Mother made a living with this topic. However, the daughter said that recently Mother had stopped typing. Her computer was on but the white screen remained blank. Twice Mother forgot to plug in the power cord and the daughter had come home, only to spend the evening re-booting the machine.
“A horse.” Mother had turned her head to look at the wall. The only things there were theatre posters and licenses.
I asked the daughter questions that might have indicated a possibility of Alzheimer’s. But the daughter seemed to believe that Mother’s condition was too sudden. I asked about any other recent events in Mother’s life. The daughter had to think. Nothing suddenly she said, but some things that had caused a change in Mother’s lifestyle. I asked what. Mother’s husband, daughter’s dad, was still alive, but suffered from cancer and arthritis. He recently went through chemo which had been unsuccessful and his body was now advancing toward death, with a lot of pain and need. The bills were mounting for his care. The daughter lived with them to help take care of Daddy and Mother and she had been a help, but the daughter had a son who recently came for a visit. He did drugs and to pay for his habit stole from his grandmother. The pearl and sapphire brooch her husband had given her on their 25th anniversary was gone. The loss was never discussed out loud. The son, grandson, disappeared. Then, Mother had gone to the bank for a loan to help with the mounting expenses. She was a long time customer of this bank; they only gave her a thousand dollar loan. Only enough to make the late payments on the medical equipment she had rented to care for her husband. But she had been robbed coming out of the grocery store. The thousand was gone, along with the few groceries she had managed to purchase.
Mother was now staring at one particular poster on the office wall. “A horse?” she said.
I looked at the daughter, “A horse?” I asked.
The daughter shrugged her shoulders.
“A horse.” Mother repeated, getting out of the chair slowly, her focus on the one poster. It was a poster of a play that I had enjoyed in my student days, a Shakespeare play – Richard III, about a king who possibly killed his brother and two nephews – rightful kings of England - to gain the throne for himself and started a civil war.
The office was deafeningly silent. I looked up at the poster, then back at the old woman and her words suddenly made sense. She was telling us all the time what the problem was in those fateful words: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.”
Monday, August 18, 2008
Topic: due 8-25-08
SURFING
An addenda from from mom as she told me on the phone: Just because we're from Charleston doesn't mean it has to be about the immediate kind of surfing you're thinking about. Not necessarily about waves and boards and stuff.
Response to the addenda from son: Methinks you have an idea about something that doesn't refer to literal surfing.
An addenda from from mom as she told me on the phone: Just because we're from Charleston doesn't mean it has to be about the immediate kind of surfing you're thinking about. Not necessarily about waves and boards and stuff.
Response to the addenda from son: Methinks you have an idea about something that doesn't refer to literal surfing.
Son: Shakespeare
Where did we go wrong?
As she peered slyly over the edge of her book in which she was reading The Taming of the Shrew, she had seen his brief moment of sadness.
Their conversation had been perfunctory. He had barely sat down before he started, "It's not you, it's me." It was a disgustingly typical line, and she quietly hated him for playing it off as a real conversation starter.
Less than two minutes later, he was up and out the door of the coffeehouse, laughing and joking and catcalling with his buddies on their way down the street.
With him, though, she had learned to watch for the private moments where he thought no one was looking. She had caught it, a brief downward glance at his shoes where he had unexpectedly communicated his loneliness. The look was not meant for anyone, especially not for her.
It had all been very romantic, the kind of love story they make teenage romantic comedies out of. She hated men, and he loved a lot of women. He was on half a dozen sports teams; she read poetry. Yet, through a blinding and absurd series of events, they had met, flirted, and had a romantic prom night kiss. Perhaps, for that night, even fallen in love.
It was the set-up for a beautiful thing.
Except it hadn't been. In fact, the apex of their relationship was the peak and everything else was just a slow tumble down.
The glow fades, the novelty dies, and then you have to settle into a the strange and bizarre world known as dating. They settled into the great Now what.
They were from different worlds, and their attempts at being together had failed gloriously. She brought books to his games, while he snored loudly in the lobby of her art galleries. They had tried to have sex, but it turned into glorified, naked cuddling that left them both with the hangover of failure the next morning.
They hadn't spoken to each other for a week after that attempt.
She was attracted to him, in some way, but it seeemed they couldn't adjust enough or correctly to fit into each other's lives.
Which left her here, at the coffeehouse, single again, and watching him steal a quick glance at his shoes and expressing more than he would ever say.
She tried to cry, even a little, shed a little tear for the discarded relationship. But it was the now open feelings that she had observed that touched her more. She flipped another page in her Collected Works of William Shakespeare, having somehow forgotten to read the last couple lines -- common, she was convinced of most people attempting to read the Bard. No one understood 90% of what he wrote these days, anyways.
Rather, she pondered her own situation and wondered where the two of them had gone wrong, and was found wanting for an answer.
As she peered slyly over the edge of her book in which she was reading The Taming of the Shrew, she had seen his brief moment of sadness.
Their conversation had been perfunctory. He had barely sat down before he started, "It's not you, it's me." It was a disgustingly typical line, and she quietly hated him for playing it off as a real conversation starter.
Less than two minutes later, he was up and out the door of the coffeehouse, laughing and joking and catcalling with his buddies on their way down the street.
With him, though, she had learned to watch for the private moments where he thought no one was looking. She had caught it, a brief downward glance at his shoes where he had unexpectedly communicated his loneliness. The look was not meant for anyone, especially not for her.
It had all been very romantic, the kind of love story they make teenage romantic comedies out of. She hated men, and he loved a lot of women. He was on half a dozen sports teams; she read poetry. Yet, through a blinding and absurd series of events, they had met, flirted, and had a romantic prom night kiss. Perhaps, for that night, even fallen in love.
It was the set-up for a beautiful thing.
Except it hadn't been. In fact, the apex of their relationship was the peak and everything else was just a slow tumble down.
The glow fades, the novelty dies, and then you have to settle into a the strange and bizarre world known as dating. They settled into the great Now what.
They were from different worlds, and their attempts at being together had failed gloriously. She brought books to his games, while he snored loudly in the lobby of her art galleries. They had tried to have sex, but it turned into glorified, naked cuddling that left them both with the hangover of failure the next morning.
They hadn't spoken to each other for a week after that attempt.
She was attracted to him, in some way, but it seeemed they couldn't adjust enough or correctly to fit into each other's lives.
Which left her here, at the coffeehouse, single again, and watching him steal a quick glance at his shoes and expressing more than he would ever say.
She tried to cry, even a little, shed a little tear for the discarded relationship. But it was the now open feelings that she had observed that touched her more. She flipped another page in her Collected Works of William Shakespeare, having somehow forgotten to read the last couple lines -- common, she was convinced of most people attempting to read the Bard. No one understood 90% of what he wrote these days, anyways.
Rather, she pondered her own situation and wondered where the two of them had gone wrong, and was found wanting for an answer.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Mom: Bucket List
His wife died while he was in class giving a lecture.
“The ramifications of the Lord Admiral’s decision to go forward with the plan for the Gallipoli campaign were to create a crisis of confidence in the leadership of the Lord Admiral and his cronies who directed all naval campaigns. The public-darling’s political career was stalled until the 1940s when memory and world peace was lost in a holocaust of horror, disillusionment, and death.”
He used big words, spoke in complex sentences, and implied a huge disaster. But he droned, making it hard to take notes and harder still to maintain one’s attention. I’m sure there was excitement at one time in the information he was sharing, but it wasn’t there that day and hadn’t been there all semester.
The arrival of the departmental chair was a welcomed relief to the vocal monotony. I had already begun watching the clock on the wall where time seemed to have stood still. Another professor followed the departmental chair into the room. I recognized both – one taught the African history classes, the other the Latin American classes.
The chair stood in the doorway. My teacher looked up from his notes, noted the direction of the class’s attention and looked over at the doorway. The chair apologized to the class for the interruption, then asked my teacher if he might have a word with him and pointed into the hallway. I watched the little conference. The noise in the classroom was typical of student attention – rustling papers, closing books, whispers. The little conference took a turn as my teacher slumped against the wall and put a hand to his forehead. The second professor – the one that taught Latin American history - entered the classroom and dismissed us.
We gathered up our things and dropped our weekly assignment on the table next to the podium. The Latin American teacher was writing on the board that class was cancelled and to watch for an e-mail regarding the next class and assignment. We filed out of the room, past my professor who now appeared frail. I was one of the last one to exit the room; and as I exited the three professors entered the room. I walked up the stairs and out of the building, around the front, passing the windows that looked down into my classroom. My professor stood there alone, a piece of paper in his hands. He looked at it, tore it up and threw it on the floor. He went to the podium and collected his notes, walked through the pieces of paper and exited the room. Moments later he passed by, not seeing me.
I went back into the classroom and picked up the eight pieces of paper and put them back together. It was a little slip of a paper that had been folded and folded. It had been torn from one of those tiny top wired notepads and showed age. It was dated 10 years earlier and it certainly looked 10 years weathered. It was a list; a list of things to do and see. There was written ‘clean out garage,’ ‘visit Magnolia Gardens,’ ‘find her sister,’ ‘make will,’ ‘visit Washington DC’….and so forth. Twenty items, all but one had been crossed off.
My class was cancelled the next week, but my professor was back in the podium the following. No life in him, but lecturing again.
“A bipolar world is a world of exact opposites in which no sides agree except to prevent the other from expanding. And while they never directly touch each other in violence, they do touch each other through other countries like Korea and Vietnam. It is…” He droned on and I found myself watching the clock – thirty minutes more - big words, complex sentences and another huge disaster.
Students tell teachers when the end of class is approaching and today was no different. My teacher heard the rustling, looked up, and concluded with a rapid line about trade sanctions and our next assignment. I waited to be last to leave. I cleared my throat and my teacher looked up.
“Yes?” he said.
“Professor.” I stood near my desk. I pulled the now-taped piece of paper from my bag and handed it to him. His face turned an angry red and his brow knitted in question. I said, “I saw…” and pointed to the paper. “This list?” I handed it to him.
He looked at it and said, “Well, what about it?”
“I noticed it’s unfinished.” I said.
“What’s your name?” he said.
“Harper, Carolyn Harper. I sit front seat, there.” I pointed to my book bag still on my desk.
“Well, Miss Harper. I can’t see what business this is of yours?” And he flicked a finger at the paper in his hand.
“Professor. Your list… it has one more thing on it to do.” I cleared my throat and started again. “John, I’m her sister.”
“The ramifications of the Lord Admiral’s decision to go forward with the plan for the Gallipoli campaign were to create a crisis of confidence in the leadership of the Lord Admiral and his cronies who directed all naval campaigns. The public-darling’s political career was stalled until the 1940s when memory and world peace was lost in a holocaust of horror, disillusionment, and death.”
He used big words, spoke in complex sentences, and implied a huge disaster. But he droned, making it hard to take notes and harder still to maintain one’s attention. I’m sure there was excitement at one time in the information he was sharing, but it wasn’t there that day and hadn’t been there all semester.
The arrival of the departmental chair was a welcomed relief to the vocal monotony. I had already begun watching the clock on the wall where time seemed to have stood still. Another professor followed the departmental chair into the room. I recognized both – one taught the African history classes, the other the Latin American classes.
The chair stood in the doorway. My teacher looked up from his notes, noted the direction of the class’s attention and looked over at the doorway. The chair apologized to the class for the interruption, then asked my teacher if he might have a word with him and pointed into the hallway. I watched the little conference. The noise in the classroom was typical of student attention – rustling papers, closing books, whispers. The little conference took a turn as my teacher slumped against the wall and put a hand to his forehead. The second professor – the one that taught Latin American history - entered the classroom and dismissed us.
We gathered up our things and dropped our weekly assignment on the table next to the podium. The Latin American teacher was writing on the board that class was cancelled and to watch for an e-mail regarding the next class and assignment. We filed out of the room, past my professor who now appeared frail. I was one of the last one to exit the room; and as I exited the three professors entered the room. I walked up the stairs and out of the building, around the front, passing the windows that looked down into my classroom. My professor stood there alone, a piece of paper in his hands. He looked at it, tore it up and threw it on the floor. He went to the podium and collected his notes, walked through the pieces of paper and exited the room. Moments later he passed by, not seeing me.
I went back into the classroom and picked up the eight pieces of paper and put them back together. It was a little slip of a paper that had been folded and folded. It had been torn from one of those tiny top wired notepads and showed age. It was dated 10 years earlier and it certainly looked 10 years weathered. It was a list; a list of things to do and see. There was written ‘clean out garage,’ ‘visit Magnolia Gardens,’ ‘find her sister,’ ‘make will,’ ‘visit Washington DC’….and so forth. Twenty items, all but one had been crossed off.
My class was cancelled the next week, but my professor was back in the podium the following. No life in him, but lecturing again.
“A bipolar world is a world of exact opposites in which no sides agree except to prevent the other from expanding. And while they never directly touch each other in violence, they do touch each other through other countries like Korea and Vietnam. It is…” He droned on and I found myself watching the clock – thirty minutes more - big words, complex sentences and another huge disaster.
Students tell teachers when the end of class is approaching and today was no different. My teacher heard the rustling, looked up, and concluded with a rapid line about trade sanctions and our next assignment. I waited to be last to leave. I cleared my throat and my teacher looked up.
“Yes?” he said.
“Professor.” I stood near my desk. I pulled the now-taped piece of paper from my bag and handed it to him. His face turned an angry red and his brow knitted in question. I said, “I saw…” and pointed to the paper. “This list?” I handed it to him.
He looked at it and said, “Well, what about it?”
“I noticed it’s unfinished.” I said.
“What’s your name?” he said.
“Harper, Carolyn Harper. I sit front seat, there.” I pointed to my book bag still on my desk.
“Well, Miss Harper. I can’t see what business this is of yours?” And he flicked a finger at the paper in his hand.
“Professor. Your list… it has one more thing on it to do.” I cleared my throat and started again. “John, I’m her sister.”
Friday, August 8, 2008
Topic: due 8-11-08 (ish)
Topic: Shakespeare
I don't know what I'm going to write about this one... Came up randomly after reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead -- Barry
I don't know what I'm going to write about this one... Came up randomly after reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead -- Barry
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Son: Bucket List, 8-7-08
Simplicity
and its willful pursuit --
rather than the ongoing worship of false gods --
Finding a means to an end of happiness rather than accumulation.
To love and put people first,
Stressing more the gifts other bring into your life rather than your needs they fill,
Chastise priorities of fun nights and choose, instead, great times and meaning.
Accomplishment,
in your own right,
Rather than those things to be talked about at high school reunions and family get togethers,
Even now,
Identify that you want this so you can feel better than everyone else.
Strive for "you look happy"
OR
"you sound happy"
OR, better,
"I am happy,"
instead of the awful and ill fated wow factor that comes with the creation of want.
A covetless life,
not to want,
but to succeed in self.
Abandon suffering and learn meaning,
Relieve evil and do good,
Express everything and hide nothing.
Accept and rejoice,
Move on and pass awy.
Make no plan for death,
or a to-do list for the end,
but
Make it matter to yourself that you live.
and its willful pursuit --
rather than the ongoing worship of false gods --
Finding a means to an end of happiness rather than accumulation.
To love and put people first,
Stressing more the gifts other bring into your life rather than your needs they fill,
Chastise priorities of fun nights and choose, instead, great times and meaning.
Accomplishment,
in your own right,
Rather than those things to be talked about at high school reunions and family get togethers,
Even now,
Identify that you want this so you can feel better than everyone else.
Strive for "you look happy"
OR
"you sound happy"
OR, better,
"I am happy,"
instead of the awful and ill fated wow factor that comes with the creation of want.
A covetless life,
not to want,
but to succeed in self.
Abandon suffering and learn meaning,
Relieve evil and do good,
Express everything and hide nothing.
Accept and rejoice,
Move on and pass awy.
Make no plan for death,
or a to-do list for the end,
but
Make it matter to yourself that you live.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Mom: Dictionary word
Dictionary Word
I have wanted to start a blog for sometime, but my working knowledge of a computer made any start-up scary and daunting. The expertise I thought one had to have to just operate the machine left me feeling left-behind, old, and alone. Besides if I ever needed anything from the computer or needed my problems fixed I had children and a husband who could tap a few buttons and I was back in operation. Now my children (let me brag: there are four of them; all incredible) are out of the house, off to college, out in the real world and I’m left home. The job that once defined me – the stay-at-home mom job - has been downsized to the occasional telephone call or visit. I am no longer needed to run children to piano lessons or scouts. I no longer have willing dates for the ballet or shopping. My husband is a good sport and attends some cultural events with me but draws the line at shopping and ballet. I have a new girlfriend-in-law (can we way that?); she lives with one of my sons. She joined me and my two daughters this past Christmas when the Russian Ballet came to town and performed the Nutcracker. She loved it, but she (they) are two hundred miles away.
I’ve strayed from my point and that was that I was feeling sorry for myself and needed a new direction, something to get me up in the morning, some friends to talk to.
This blog process did not come easy. I had to educate myself on what a blog was first, so I looked up the word. Wikipedia has a nine page discussion of the word, and it’s written in small print. Wikipedia says that blog comes from the phrase web log and can be a noun or verb. And the word’s only been around since 1997. After surfing cyberspace, I discovered all kinds of users and creators of blogs from big corporations to individuals; and all kinds of reasons to blog. There was one blog written by a woman in Alaska who was showing off her yard. It had commentary and pictures. I didn’t know you could grow flowers in Alaska; I thought it was all cold and white up there – you know, ice and snow and frozen nose hair. She had hits on her site; people were looking at her yard. I didn’t see a comment card to respond, but she had over a thousand hits. That’s a conversation without words.
So I wanted a blog, too. I tried to do this on my own, but it’s the same computer – scary, daunting, and very frustrating. I mentioned all this to my other son who lives twelve hours away. He came up with the site, created it, and advises me on it. We both submit stories to it. And we can comment on it. AND it’s got a “hit” counter on it. So here I am! With a blog! The child has become the parent! I am connected. I have new friends to talk to. And pretty soon, I’m gonna have Skype (is that how it’s spelled?) – you know that camera that sits on the computer. I’ll be able to see my kids when I talk to them! Well, I’m here now: I’m modern and I’m hip. So check us out; leave a comment; talk to me; I’m listening. However, I gotta go just now; gotta look up the word Skype.
I have wanted to start a blog for sometime, but my working knowledge of a computer made any start-up scary and daunting. The expertise I thought one had to have to just operate the machine left me feeling left-behind, old, and alone. Besides if I ever needed anything from the computer or needed my problems fixed I had children and a husband who could tap a few buttons and I was back in operation. Now my children (let me brag: there are four of them; all incredible) are out of the house, off to college, out in the real world and I’m left home. The job that once defined me – the stay-at-home mom job - has been downsized to the occasional telephone call or visit. I am no longer needed to run children to piano lessons or scouts. I no longer have willing dates for the ballet or shopping. My husband is a good sport and attends some cultural events with me but draws the line at shopping and ballet. I have a new girlfriend-in-law (can we way that?); she lives with one of my sons. She joined me and my two daughters this past Christmas when the Russian Ballet came to town and performed the Nutcracker. She loved it, but she (they) are two hundred miles away.
I’ve strayed from my point and that was that I was feeling sorry for myself and needed a new direction, something to get me up in the morning, some friends to talk to.
This blog process did not come easy. I had to educate myself on what a blog was first, so I looked up the word. Wikipedia has a nine page discussion of the word, and it’s written in small print. Wikipedia says that blog comes from the phrase web log and can be a noun or verb. And the word’s only been around since 1997. After surfing cyberspace, I discovered all kinds of users and creators of blogs from big corporations to individuals; and all kinds of reasons to blog. There was one blog written by a woman in Alaska who was showing off her yard. It had commentary and pictures. I didn’t know you could grow flowers in Alaska; I thought it was all cold and white up there – you know, ice and snow and frozen nose hair. She had hits on her site; people were looking at her yard. I didn’t see a comment card to respond, but she had over a thousand hits. That’s a conversation without words.
So I wanted a blog, too. I tried to do this on my own, but it’s the same computer – scary, daunting, and very frustrating. I mentioned all this to my other son who lives twelve hours away. He came up with the site, created it, and advises me on it. We both submit stories to it. And we can comment on it. AND it’s got a “hit” counter on it. So here I am! With a blog! The child has become the parent! I am connected. I have new friends to talk to. And pretty soon, I’m gonna have Skype (is that how it’s spelled?) – you know that camera that sits on the computer. I’ll be able to see my kids when I talk to them! Well, I’m here now: I’m modern and I’m hip. So check us out; leave a comment; talk to me; I’m listening. However, I gotta go just now; gotta look up the word Skype.
Friday, July 25, 2008
SON: Last Word I Looked Up, 7-28-08
Holding my cocktail in one hand, I stepped away from my current boyfriend. George had an audience, and he was going off on some obscure point in central African politics.
I had sat through enough of his diatribes, and, whereas I had once enjoyed playing along in this game, I had grown bored with the practice. George and I had been to Africa, but I always thought the far more interesting stories were the flight delays, the weird food, and the growing Americanization of the local cultures. He, meanwhile, picked up on minor points and then expounded on them with great affect to anyone who would listen.
And, since we were in a political crowd this evening, he pulled some minor occurrence about an election in Mali or Malawi or Madagascar -- no one would bother to check, and I don't even think he was keeping track at this point -- and used it as the basis for a massive speech on the faults of developing world Democracy.
He had no background in the topic, and he made up most of his facts, but he kept his audience. I watched the dark-skinned, blue-eyed twink who was gazing at George with lust. Oh boy.
It was my fault; I had let him get this bad. I had even played along, after he wowed me with enough of these yarns. I had bought into them when we were dating.
Five years later, the constant grandiloquence annoyed me. I could see right through it, and I had become familiar with the taste of his tales when they went off on fairy tale. Five years later, I found myself with a man who was far from the urbane and interesting man I believed I was dating, who was rather the bastard child of his own cleverness and the cocaine culture of short attention spans, superficiality, and instant gratification.
And, tonight, after a few cocktails, I was just over it. I left his circle of adoration and stepped out onto the balcony.
It was a cool night, and I sipped my rum and coke. I heard steps behind me.
"This is too much drama, even for you." I spun around, expecting George and not finding him.
"Well, I'm sorry, I hadn't intended on saying anything, I just needed a cigarette."
I back down from my fighter's stance. I had assumed it was George, following me out to have a "romantic moment." This would be the perfect set-up -- in front of the big windows so that everyone could see how devoted he was to his partner of years. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else..."
He inhaled and exhaled a lungful of smoke. "Apparently I am someone else." He smiled, extended his hand. "I'm Robert."
I took his hand and responded absentmindedly, "Paul." I kept my eyes over Robert's shoulder on George, who was pointing at the walls and gesticulating wildly with his right hand -- What the hell is he talking about now?I thought -- while his left arm was around the neck of that twink boy. "Cute," I dropped the word, and went back to leaning against the balcony rail, leaning forward on my elbows.
"I am, thanks for noticing."
"You'll forgive me if I'm not too interested in sarcasm this evening." I leaned forward heavily, my feet barely touching the ground as I put all of my weight on my elbows.
"That's OK," he said with a snort, pushing the bluish smoke out of his nostrils and towards me. "You'll forgive me if I'm not too interested in pretentious queens this evening." He flicked his cigarette over the rail, began to walk back inside, but stopped and said, "You don't know that guy, do you?"
He was pointing at George, who was huddled privately in a corner with the twink boy, speaking frantically and moving his hands. I felt a tinge of jealousy, and I wondered if I would be alone in bed that night while he ran off with some crowd to "look at the stars." I suppose you can see the stars when you're on your back, granted there's a skylight. "Yea... a little. Why?"
"I'm looking for a good word to describe him, but I can't quite put my finger on it."
"Phony? Fake? Pretentious? Bombastic..."
"Wait, isn't that a good thing... bombastic?"
"Um, no."
"Oh." Robert considered the scene inside, slowly rolling the word over his tongue. I could barely hear him whispering, "bombastic, bombastic," as if repeating the word would bring the definition to light. "You sure that's not a good thing -- I mean, maybe, subconsciously, you meant it as a compliment." He turned his head towards me. "Hm? Friend? Admirer? Jilted lover?"
"Something like that, but, if it does mean something good, that was not my intent."
He took a swing of the rest of his drink, made a face, and dumped the rest over the railing. "Not suitable for human consumption."
Distractedly: "What? My boyfriend?"
"No I meant the wine." He laughed. "Boyfriend -- 'something like that,' indeed. Too bad about the relationship. I have a great dictionary at home and we could have settled our debate. Besides, you seem far too interesting for him. All the same, good night." And, with that, he set his glass down on the edge and walked into the house and towards the exit.
I watched Robert go, and let my eyes linger on George. The two of them were too close, gazing a little too long at each other, touching each other just so, and I knew I would be alone, again. I made the decision that I was going to choose to be alone, at least tonight, and the next. And I knew that I was done with him.
I caught up with Robert on the front lawn. "Is it Webster's or American Heritage... your dictionary?"
He smiled, and I knew it would all be better.
---
"Who was that guy?" the blue eyed twink asked me -- what was his name? Javi? Bobby? Whatever. He had seen my gaze follow Paul out the door, chasing the trick I had sent in his direction. Finally, I though, he gets the cajones to leave. Paul had been fun for a while, but I had been bored with him. I thought he would have left me long ago, especially after that fiasco with the Latin body builder, but I had underestimated his lack of self-respect. It had taken months to finally get the boy to go. Now, the break up would be clean because Paul had found his wings. Very little mess.
I smiled and turned back to the twink. We'll go with Bobby. "No one, Bobby... no one important."
I wasn't corrected on the name; that was a good guess.
I had sat through enough of his diatribes, and, whereas I had once enjoyed playing along in this game, I had grown bored with the practice. George and I had been to Africa, but I always thought the far more interesting stories were the flight delays, the weird food, and the growing Americanization of the local cultures. He, meanwhile, picked up on minor points and then expounded on them with great affect to anyone who would listen.
And, since we were in a political crowd this evening, he pulled some minor occurrence about an election in Mali or Malawi or Madagascar -- no one would bother to check, and I don't even think he was keeping track at this point -- and used it as the basis for a massive speech on the faults of developing world Democracy.
He had no background in the topic, and he made up most of his facts, but he kept his audience. I watched the dark-skinned, blue-eyed twink who was gazing at George with lust. Oh boy.
It was my fault; I had let him get this bad. I had even played along, after he wowed me with enough of these yarns. I had bought into them when we were dating.
Five years later, the constant grandiloquence annoyed me. I could see right through it, and I had become familiar with the taste of his tales when they went off on fairy tale. Five years later, I found myself with a man who was far from the urbane and interesting man I believed I was dating, who was rather the bastard child of his own cleverness and the cocaine culture of short attention spans, superficiality, and instant gratification.
And, tonight, after a few cocktails, I was just over it. I left his circle of adoration and stepped out onto the balcony.
It was a cool night, and I sipped my rum and coke. I heard steps behind me.
"This is too much drama, even for you." I spun around, expecting George and not finding him.
"Well, I'm sorry, I hadn't intended on saying anything, I just needed a cigarette."
I back down from my fighter's stance. I had assumed it was George, following me out to have a "romantic moment." This would be the perfect set-up -- in front of the big windows so that everyone could see how devoted he was to his partner of years. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else..."
He inhaled and exhaled a lungful of smoke. "Apparently I am someone else." He smiled, extended his hand. "I'm Robert."
I took his hand and responded absentmindedly, "Paul." I kept my eyes over Robert's shoulder on George, who was pointing at the walls and gesticulating wildly with his right hand -- What the hell is he talking about now?I thought -- while his left arm was around the neck of that twink boy. "Cute," I dropped the word, and went back to leaning against the balcony rail, leaning forward on my elbows.
"I am, thanks for noticing."
"You'll forgive me if I'm not too interested in sarcasm this evening." I leaned forward heavily, my feet barely touching the ground as I put all of my weight on my elbows.
"That's OK," he said with a snort, pushing the bluish smoke out of his nostrils and towards me. "You'll forgive me if I'm not too interested in pretentious queens this evening." He flicked his cigarette over the rail, began to walk back inside, but stopped and said, "You don't know that guy, do you?"
He was pointing at George, who was huddled privately in a corner with the twink boy, speaking frantically and moving his hands. I felt a tinge of jealousy, and I wondered if I would be alone in bed that night while he ran off with some crowd to "look at the stars." I suppose you can see the stars when you're on your back, granted there's a skylight. "Yea... a little. Why?"
"I'm looking for a good word to describe him, but I can't quite put my finger on it."
"Phony? Fake? Pretentious? Bombastic..."
"Wait, isn't that a good thing... bombastic?"
"Um, no."
"Oh." Robert considered the scene inside, slowly rolling the word over his tongue. I could barely hear him whispering, "bombastic, bombastic," as if repeating the word would bring the definition to light. "You sure that's not a good thing -- I mean, maybe, subconsciously, you meant it as a compliment." He turned his head towards me. "Hm? Friend? Admirer? Jilted lover?"
"Something like that, but, if it does mean something good, that was not my intent."
He took a swing of the rest of his drink, made a face, and dumped the rest over the railing. "Not suitable for human consumption."
Distractedly: "What? My boyfriend?"
"No I meant the wine." He laughed. "Boyfriend -- 'something like that,' indeed. Too bad about the relationship. I have a great dictionary at home and we could have settled our debate. Besides, you seem far too interesting for him. All the same, good night." And, with that, he set his glass down on the edge and walked into the house and towards the exit.
I watched Robert go, and let my eyes linger on George. The two of them were too close, gazing a little too long at each other, touching each other just so, and I knew I would be alone, again. I made the decision that I was going to choose to be alone, at least tonight, and the next. And I knew that I was done with him.
I caught up with Robert on the front lawn. "Is it Webster's or American Heritage... your dictionary?"
He smiled, and I knew it would all be better.
---
"Who was that guy?" the blue eyed twink asked me -- what was his name? Javi? Bobby? Whatever. He had seen my gaze follow Paul out the door, chasing the trick I had sent in his direction. Finally, I though, he gets the cajones to leave. Paul had been fun for a while, but I had been bored with him. I thought he would have left me long ago, especially after that fiasco with the Latin body builder, but I had underestimated his lack of self-respect. It had taken months to finally get the boy to go. Now, the break up would be clean because Paul had found his wings. Very little mess.
I smiled and turned back to the twink. We'll go with Bobby. "No one, Bobby... no one important."
I wasn't corrected on the name; that was a good guess.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Next Topic,
Due Date: 7-28-2008
Topic: What was the last word you looked up, and why?
(From: The Imagination Prompt Generator)
SON'S COMMENT: I've started looking up some writing prompt generators online. It feels a little like cheating, but, in all honesty, most of them are pretty generic and boring. If we use them, I think we should challenge ourselves to make our responses as creative as possible, yes?
Topic: What was the last word you looked up, and why?
(From: The Imagination Prompt Generator)
SON'S COMMENT: I've started looking up some writing prompt generators online. It feels a little like cheating, but, in all honesty, most of them are pretty generic and boring. If we use them, I think we should challenge ourselves to make our responses as creative as possible, yes?
Son: Chapstick, 7-21-08
We are at some bus station in the middle of Ohio, and you are luxuriously applying chapstick to your lips -- they are pale red, the color of dawn. Almost a peach.
Now, you are lighting a cigarette placed where the greasy stick was just moments before. Small, pale hands control your movements. Flicking on the lighter, fire delights your face. It's hot out, and the meager flame reflects off 100s of small droplets of sweat that are rolling down your cheek. Your angular, Roman-esque features provide a water park of rivulets until they meet at your jaw bone, where they disappear for a moment and reappear at your neck.
Breathe in, breathe out, blow smoke.
The girl with you makes some comment and she laughs at her own cleverness. You are broken away from the privacy of lighting and puffing the first puff, and your downy blue eyes refocus on her.
You smile, those chapstick flavored and nicotine stained lips curl in the form of a half-smile. You are turned away, so I can't see your full expression, but I know you are conscious of me, and can still feel my presence inside of you.
I left it there. You had tried to refuse but couldn't. A dirty, quick fuck in the bathroom stall, your teeth biting deep into the handle of your bag strap to keep you from screaming.
You had made a half-assed attempt at a few protests, but the time together was short and the need was so great that it left little ability to do anything but pull our pants down and bend you over.
I owned you for a minute, and that is still my sweat mixed with yours dripping down your back.
Those perfect lips, that fair, hairless facial skin that I, have no doubt, has been worshipped by the dumpy, hippy girl you are with was contorted and mangled just moments before for me.
And I know you are feeling my eyes burn into your back.
We have hours to go, and many more bus stops together.
Now, you are lighting a cigarette placed where the greasy stick was just moments before. Small, pale hands control your movements. Flicking on the lighter, fire delights your face. It's hot out, and the meager flame reflects off 100s of small droplets of sweat that are rolling down your cheek. Your angular, Roman-esque features provide a water park of rivulets until they meet at your jaw bone, where they disappear for a moment and reappear at your neck.
Breathe in, breathe out, blow smoke.
The girl with you makes some comment and she laughs at her own cleverness. You are broken away from the privacy of lighting and puffing the first puff, and your downy blue eyes refocus on her.
You smile, those chapstick flavored and nicotine stained lips curl in the form of a half-smile. You are turned away, so I can't see your full expression, but I know you are conscious of me, and can still feel my presence inside of you.
I left it there. You had tried to refuse but couldn't. A dirty, quick fuck in the bathroom stall, your teeth biting deep into the handle of your bag strap to keep you from screaming.
You had made a half-assed attempt at a few protests, but the time together was short and the need was so great that it left little ability to do anything but pull our pants down and bend you over.
I owned you for a minute, and that is still my sweat mixed with yours dripping down your back.
Those perfect lips, that fair, hairless facial skin that I, have no doubt, has been worshipped by the dumpy, hippy girl you are with was contorted and mangled just moments before for me.
And I know you are feeling my eyes burn into your back.
We have hours to go, and many more bus stops together.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Mom: Chap Stick
CHAP STICK
They dressed to go out for a walk around the neighborhood. His doctor told him to get more exercise. Diabetes. The doc warned him of the consequences if ignored: There would be problems with kidneys, heart, swelling, blindness, all of it. But he didn’t hear the part about exercise – a deliberate oversight, until his feet started to swell and ankles disappeared. Not a particularly fastidious man but it was beginning to hurt to walk. So his solution was to bombard his feet with exercise: walking fast, walking slow, while standing he would go up on toes and come down on heels, anything to keep the feet moving. But it wasn’t enough. Then more problems: The stress test came back. His heart rate was fast; pumping way too hard for the slow workout the technicians had put him through at the med-lab. Additional blood tests turned up high levels of cholesterol. He was a heart attack just waiting to happen. He was taking vitamins, aspirins, heart medicine, calcium tablets, and insulin shots; not to mention all the extra meds he took for the side effects to control diarrhea, constipation, and sleeplessness. Then there was the pain killers to help with the pain in his feet.
Good Lord, he told himself, he was only 60. In his second childhood: The kids were gone and the house was empty. Good Lord, he repeated, they could be having sex all over the house now, in any room or closet they wanted. He bent down to tie his sneaker and his spine clicked and his muscles groaned with the task. He left the bedroom while she put on her shoes.
He wandered down the hall and into the dining room. There was that huge dining room table and all those chairs, the scene of many family celebrations. Used and used and used – lots of memories around that thing. It was hard and non-conforming. It stood in front of the sliding glass door which opened into the back yard. The room was full of browns and greens, but in the middle was the deep blue table looking like a pool in the middle of forested nature with the odor of roses coming through the screen door. He rubbed his forehead and walked back down the hallway.
Good Lord, he repeated, his second childhood, and they were dressing to go for a walk for exercise.
He leaned against the bathroom door. His wife was applying chap stick to her lips. The pinkish balm was invisible; her lips were a soft brown. “Why you doin’ that?” he asked nodding to the mirror and chap stick.
“You know why, Silly,” she replied with another swipe across her lips. She looked good to him even after thirty-five years of marriage. Her body showed the evidence of time. He couldn’t pretend she was lithe and agile as she once had been, but she had raised three children, worked fulltime, and was the social director for the family now. Her interests had shifted.
“No, really, why?” he asked.
“The cold. Don’t want them crackin’ and bleedin’. You know this. Why you asking? ” She held out the tube to him. “Want some?”
It smelled like menthol. Like medicine. It smelled like what it was supposed to be. He jolted back; the odor was so strong. So mentholated. “No thanks. You ‘bout ready?” The odor made him feel old, like the old men he used to work with that smelled like Ben-Gay. Old and medicinal odors went together in his head. He wasn’t old; he was in his second childhood.
“Almost,” She replied and leaned up closer to the mirror.
He went back out to the hallway, to the dining room and stared at the table. He remembered a similar scene a couple of weeks past; same question, different answer. He had asked “why you doin’ that?” as another woman applied chap stick to her lips. She stood just over there at the head of the table, a different woman, brown from the sun and strong in his arms.
“For you,” she whispered.
The table was hard. The scent of roses wafted through the sliding glass door. The neighbors dogs barked. A cat rubbed up against the screen door and purred. There was a bombardment of scents and sounds, but he noticed nothing except the smell and taste of that cherry chap stick.
They dressed to go out for a walk around the neighborhood. His doctor told him to get more exercise. Diabetes. The doc warned him of the consequences if ignored: There would be problems with kidneys, heart, swelling, blindness, all of it. But he didn’t hear the part about exercise – a deliberate oversight, until his feet started to swell and ankles disappeared. Not a particularly fastidious man but it was beginning to hurt to walk. So his solution was to bombard his feet with exercise: walking fast, walking slow, while standing he would go up on toes and come down on heels, anything to keep the feet moving. But it wasn’t enough. Then more problems: The stress test came back. His heart rate was fast; pumping way too hard for the slow workout the technicians had put him through at the med-lab. Additional blood tests turned up high levels of cholesterol. He was a heart attack just waiting to happen. He was taking vitamins, aspirins, heart medicine, calcium tablets, and insulin shots; not to mention all the extra meds he took for the side effects to control diarrhea, constipation, and sleeplessness. Then there was the pain killers to help with the pain in his feet.
Good Lord, he told himself, he was only 60. In his second childhood: The kids were gone and the house was empty. Good Lord, he repeated, they could be having sex all over the house now, in any room or closet they wanted. He bent down to tie his sneaker and his spine clicked and his muscles groaned with the task. He left the bedroom while she put on her shoes.
He wandered down the hall and into the dining room. There was that huge dining room table and all those chairs, the scene of many family celebrations. Used and used and used – lots of memories around that thing. It was hard and non-conforming. It stood in front of the sliding glass door which opened into the back yard. The room was full of browns and greens, but in the middle was the deep blue table looking like a pool in the middle of forested nature with the odor of roses coming through the screen door. He rubbed his forehead and walked back down the hallway.
Good Lord, he repeated, his second childhood, and they were dressing to go for a walk for exercise.
He leaned against the bathroom door. His wife was applying chap stick to her lips. The pinkish balm was invisible; her lips were a soft brown. “Why you doin’ that?” he asked nodding to the mirror and chap stick.
“You know why, Silly,” she replied with another swipe across her lips. She looked good to him even after thirty-five years of marriage. Her body showed the evidence of time. He couldn’t pretend she was lithe and agile as she once had been, but she had raised three children, worked fulltime, and was the social director for the family now. Her interests had shifted.
“No, really, why?” he asked.
“The cold. Don’t want them crackin’ and bleedin’. You know this. Why you asking? ” She held out the tube to him. “Want some?”
It smelled like menthol. Like medicine. It smelled like what it was supposed to be. He jolted back; the odor was so strong. So mentholated. “No thanks. You ‘bout ready?” The odor made him feel old, like the old men he used to work with that smelled like Ben-Gay. Old and medicinal odors went together in his head. He wasn’t old; he was in his second childhood.
“Almost,” She replied and leaned up closer to the mirror.
He went back out to the hallway, to the dining room and stared at the table. He remembered a similar scene a couple of weeks past; same question, different answer. He had asked “why you doin’ that?” as another woman applied chap stick to her lips. She stood just over there at the head of the table, a different woman, brown from the sun and strong in his arms.
“For you,” she whispered.
The table was hard. The scent of roses wafted through the sliding glass door. The neighbors dogs barked. A cat rubbed up against the screen door and purred. There was a bombardment of scents and sounds, but he noticed nothing except the smell and taste of that cherry chap stick.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Son: If I ruled the world...
He considered the cathedral from where he stood on the turret. It was going up quickly -- the glistening, sweating bodies of slaves worked furiously to pile stones specially carved by the finest masons in the world. The statues and detailed story-pictures were created to explain the stories of this strange God to the masses. He could hear the single bell set up on wooden stilts calling the "flock" to the steps of the building for services, under the watchful eyes of the white robed priest with a booming voice and the oglden symbol of his sacrificed Lord around his neck. The cathedral would be a masterpiece -- perfect and glorious and filled with a spectrum of light.
It disgusted him.
That man's flock was his people. The mass's unified voice, singing hymns, was a challenge to his own power. His thoughts were tinged with jealousy -- it usually took more than a bell to get people to listen to him -- but mostly he was angry.
His father, the King of Earth and Heaven before him, the man who had conquered the known world, had converted on his death bed and ordered the cathedral built. As for the Empire, he had decreed that it would be left to the eldest son who converted with him and then would swear them to continue the building process.
Five sons had converted, but he was the only one to swear to the cathedral. While the other brothers debated the point, he took the opportunity and signed the order. The Lord Proector, chief minister of the Empire, was there, consecrated the succession, and his father had died.
Five minutes later, as Lord-to-be, he ordered the death of his brothers, cast out the priest, and converted back to his native gods. They had always served him well. The cathedral, meanwhile, was harder to get rid of. Flesh cuts easily, and blood is definitive, but stone was more difficult to pull down.
He cursed his father for the oath, and cursed more the order had been signed by him, that he had not waited the few minutes before his father had passed on.
He pushed his palms together and pulled them apart, feeling the glow of the fire ball he had formed there. He wished that he could simply throw it down and destroy the building, but it would be too obvious. It was weaker than ever, now. It may not have the same force. This new God forbade the use of magic. As people stopped using it, the power was dying.
It was just fading away.
I rule the world, and this religion is becoming a problem. And, that afternoon, it would go away. He extinguished the flame, turned on his heel and went back inside as rain clouds gathered.
----
He woke up to the expected boom.
His afternoon nap had been peppered with dreams of blood, of the aftermath of war, of bodies piled high until they blocked out the sun. And every last one of them wore a white robe.
The boom was a planned explosion by specialized assassins for the built environment. A signle lightning bolt during the storm -- magically arranged -- had struck a second spell that had exploded. He smile as he thought of addressing the crowd. This must be a sign that the gods of our forefathers are angry, he would say, we must repent! The use of this new God's own language was genius and a special touch he had planned to move them. The flock would be his, again.
He dressed alone, waving off servants. He wanted to do this slowly, the whole time humming one of their tunes. This would be his day.
His entourage left the castle to inspect the destruction, the rain softening in the early vening. Everything was dark, as the clouds still blocked out the dim light. His ministers were gossiping and begging for plans around him, a muting and umbrella spell covering all of them as they walked.
He hummed, ignoring them, and practically skipped up the hill to the sight of the now destroyed cathedral.
Clink. The sound started a few blocks away from the site. Clink. The sound of metal hitting stone rang through the streets sharply; he winced, knowing the sound and marking it as the same tone that kept him awake at night. Clink. "Sounds like they are rebuilding," one of the ministers said, and the Lord of Earth and Heaven noted that that man would have to die. Clink. His heart sank and his pace quickened, and he was no longer humming but could hear the music still in his ears.
He knew what to expect when he turned the courner. Thousands of people stood around the base of the steps at the flattened church, holding candles and singing hymns. At the front, the priest was leading them all. Slaves were picking up stones and moving them. They were rebuilding, and the crowd was growing by the minute. All singing.
For a moment, he was at a loss, but he knew what had to be done. To rule the world, you had to adapt, and he felt himself moving through the shocked crowd, which parted as he stepped forward. Every instinct screamed KILL KILL towards each of the startled faces, and he wanted to bury a knife in the heart of the bastard priest.
Which is why even he was surprised when he alighted the broken stairs, singing with the crowd, to embrace the white frocked pretender at what was once the doorway.
"If I ruled the world, truly," he whispered in the man's hear, "you would be dead."
"Ah," the priest shot back, "but you can't without the people's hearts -- my people's hearts." He pulled away and turned towards the crowd, his voice booming over the song, "Your Lord is converting back! He, too, has seen the good that is our God, even in this dark hour!"
A cheer went up as the Lord of Heaven and Earth dropped to one knee and he signaled his ministers to do the same.
The toothy grin of the bastard priest looked down. "And now, you are my puppet. I rule the world."
It disgusted him.
That man's flock was his people. The mass's unified voice, singing hymns, was a challenge to his own power. His thoughts were tinged with jealousy -- it usually took more than a bell to get people to listen to him -- but mostly he was angry.
His father, the King of Earth and Heaven before him, the man who had conquered the known world, had converted on his death bed and ordered the cathedral built. As for the Empire, he had decreed that it would be left to the eldest son who converted with him and then would swear them to continue the building process.
Five sons had converted, but he was the only one to swear to the cathedral. While the other brothers debated the point, he took the opportunity and signed the order. The Lord Proector, chief minister of the Empire, was there, consecrated the succession, and his father had died.
Five minutes later, as Lord-to-be, he ordered the death of his brothers, cast out the priest, and converted back to his native gods. They had always served him well. The cathedral, meanwhile, was harder to get rid of. Flesh cuts easily, and blood is definitive, but stone was more difficult to pull down.
He cursed his father for the oath, and cursed more the order had been signed by him, that he had not waited the few minutes before his father had passed on.
He pushed his palms together and pulled them apart, feeling the glow of the fire ball he had formed there. He wished that he could simply throw it down and destroy the building, but it would be too obvious. It was weaker than ever, now. It may not have the same force. This new God forbade the use of magic. As people stopped using it, the power was dying.
It was just fading away.
I rule the world, and this religion is becoming a problem. And, that afternoon, it would go away. He extinguished the flame, turned on his heel and went back inside as rain clouds gathered.
----
He woke up to the expected boom.
His afternoon nap had been peppered with dreams of blood, of the aftermath of war, of bodies piled high until they blocked out the sun. And every last one of them wore a white robe.
The boom was a planned explosion by specialized assassins for the built environment. A signle lightning bolt during the storm -- magically arranged -- had struck a second spell that had exploded. He smile as he thought of addressing the crowd. This must be a sign that the gods of our forefathers are angry, he would say, we must repent! The use of this new God's own language was genius and a special touch he had planned to move them. The flock would be his, again.
He dressed alone, waving off servants. He wanted to do this slowly, the whole time humming one of their tunes. This would be his day.
His entourage left the castle to inspect the destruction, the rain softening in the early vening. Everything was dark, as the clouds still blocked out the dim light. His ministers were gossiping and begging for plans around him, a muting and umbrella spell covering all of them as they walked.
He hummed, ignoring them, and practically skipped up the hill to the sight of the now destroyed cathedral.
Clink. The sound started a few blocks away from the site. Clink. The sound of metal hitting stone rang through the streets sharply; he winced, knowing the sound and marking it as the same tone that kept him awake at night. Clink. "Sounds like they are rebuilding," one of the ministers said, and the Lord of Earth and Heaven noted that that man would have to die. Clink. His heart sank and his pace quickened, and he was no longer humming but could hear the music still in his ears.
He knew what to expect when he turned the courner. Thousands of people stood around the base of the steps at the flattened church, holding candles and singing hymns. At the front, the priest was leading them all. Slaves were picking up stones and moving them. They were rebuilding, and the crowd was growing by the minute. All singing.
For a moment, he was at a loss, but he knew what had to be done. To rule the world, you had to adapt, and he felt himself moving through the shocked crowd, which parted as he stepped forward. Every instinct screamed KILL KILL towards each of the startled faces, and he wanted to bury a knife in the heart of the bastard priest.
Which is why even he was surprised when he alighted the broken stairs, singing with the crowd, to embrace the white frocked pretender at what was once the doorway.
"If I ruled the world, truly," he whispered in the man's hear, "you would be dead."
"Ah," the priest shot back, "but you can't without the people's hearts -- my people's hearts." He pulled away and turned towards the crowd, his voice booming over the song, "Your Lord is converting back! He, too, has seen the good that is our God, even in this dark hour!"
A cheer went up as the Lord of Heaven and Earth dropped to one knee and he signaled his ministers to do the same.
The toothy grin of the bastard priest looked down. "And now, you are my puppet. I rule the world."
Monday, July 14, 2008
Mom: If I ruled the world
If I ruled the free world:
There is so much anger and tension when one is an ordinary citizen. Just trying to survive in a period of rising fuel costs, unemployment, and lower wages is exhausting. Making decisions about where to spend one’s money finds all of us choosing between food and medicine. The struggle to survive and stay ahead of the curve – if only to have a few dollars more for a movie on Friday night – is frustrating. Work that should be rewarding has no rewards when all income is spent by Thursday. So who do we blame?
There is so much anger and tension felt when one is the leader of the free world. It is an inheritance from one struggling president to the next, and I am the next. The internal strife of the country’s citizens, the blame, and the slow movement of the Congressional process are obstacles to any rapid change or clear action I might propose to help alleviate desperate conditions. One of my predecessor, FDR, was a miracle worker, or he simply dazzled Congress into passing so many programs and acts to help the country during the depression of the 1930s. Passage of these programs was often accomplished on his say-so: He presented Congress and the country with a logical plan for success that to question him was almost tantamount to political heresy. By the time he was ready to fund the Manhattan Project (A-bomb) no one doubted his leadership and intent when he asked Congress to trust him and blindly fund a project they knew nothing about.
It is different today: Congress learned a valuable lesson about giving too much power to the President. And since FDR, there have been considerable restraints put on the executive office. So to be leader of the free world doesn’t seem to have the creativity, energy or power that it once had. It has become a government of red-tape, a juggernaut of paper with convoluted channels of processing and personal agendas. So as the leader of the free world with an opposition Congress, I am left to dance the dance with partners whose objective is to slow waltz me into the oblivion of minutiae. So I say “To Hell” with world peace, disarmament, gay marriage amendments, and mining oil in the Arctic: “It’s PB&J day!”
What we need is a break: Every one of us - Americans, Saudis, Israelis, Germans, Congolese, and Chinese – All of us. I propose PB&J day. I propose that on Tuesdays at noon we call off work, go home to our Moms and have them fix us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a glass of milk. And not just any PB&J: It’s got to be soft white bread, and thick peanut butter, and jelly that bleeds through to the outside. The milk has to be icy cold, with little ice crystals floating on top. Then after lunch everyone to bed – naptime! - with cuddly stuffed bears and lemony crisp sheets. Everyone, everywhere. For three hours no business is conducted. There’s no one in the office; no finger on the button anywhere: We’re asleep. There’s no anger, no tension, just a full tummy on sweet PB&J and a nap.
And I propose that this take place on Tuesdays. Why Tuesday? Nobody ever complains on a Tuesday. They complain on Monday that the weekend wasn’t long enough. Wednesdays are hump days with lots of energy as the weekend is in sight. Thursday is the “one-more day” day. And Friday is TGIF day. Then there are two days - Saturday and Sunday - with other jobs, such as the house, kids, a second job or just the continuation of the previous week’s job. We need to rest.
So this Tuesday, PB&J for everyone!!!!!!
There is so much anger and tension when one is an ordinary citizen. Just trying to survive in a period of rising fuel costs, unemployment, and lower wages is exhausting. Making decisions about where to spend one’s money finds all of us choosing between food and medicine. The struggle to survive and stay ahead of the curve – if only to have a few dollars more for a movie on Friday night – is frustrating. Work that should be rewarding has no rewards when all income is spent by Thursday. So who do we blame?
There is so much anger and tension felt when one is the leader of the free world. It is an inheritance from one struggling president to the next, and I am the next. The internal strife of the country’s citizens, the blame, and the slow movement of the Congressional process are obstacles to any rapid change or clear action I might propose to help alleviate desperate conditions. One of my predecessor, FDR, was a miracle worker, or he simply dazzled Congress into passing so many programs and acts to help the country during the depression of the 1930s. Passage of these programs was often accomplished on his say-so: He presented Congress and the country with a logical plan for success that to question him was almost tantamount to political heresy. By the time he was ready to fund the Manhattan Project (A-bomb) no one doubted his leadership and intent when he asked Congress to trust him and blindly fund a project they knew nothing about.
It is different today: Congress learned a valuable lesson about giving too much power to the President. And since FDR, there have been considerable restraints put on the executive office. So to be leader of the free world doesn’t seem to have the creativity, energy or power that it once had. It has become a government of red-tape, a juggernaut of paper with convoluted channels of processing and personal agendas. So as the leader of the free world with an opposition Congress, I am left to dance the dance with partners whose objective is to slow waltz me into the oblivion of minutiae. So I say “To Hell” with world peace, disarmament, gay marriage amendments, and mining oil in the Arctic: “It’s PB&J day!”
What we need is a break: Every one of us - Americans, Saudis, Israelis, Germans, Congolese, and Chinese – All of us. I propose PB&J day. I propose that on Tuesdays at noon we call off work, go home to our Moms and have them fix us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a glass of milk. And not just any PB&J: It’s got to be soft white bread, and thick peanut butter, and jelly that bleeds through to the outside. The milk has to be icy cold, with little ice crystals floating on top. Then after lunch everyone to bed – naptime! - with cuddly stuffed bears and lemony crisp sheets. Everyone, everywhere. For three hours no business is conducted. There’s no one in the office; no finger on the button anywhere: We’re asleep. There’s no anger, no tension, just a full tummy on sweet PB&J and a nap.
And I propose that this take place on Tuesdays. Why Tuesday? Nobody ever complains on a Tuesday. They complain on Monday that the weekend wasn’t long enough. Wednesdays are hump days with lots of energy as the weekend is in sight. Thursday is the “one-more day” day. And Friday is TGIF day. Then there are two days - Saturday and Sunday - with other jobs, such as the house, kids, a second job or just the continuation of the previous week’s job. We need to rest.
So this Tuesday, PB&J for everyone!!!!!!
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Next Topic
Due Date: 7-14-2008
Topic:
IF I RULED THE WORLD...
(used either as the subject or the first line of your piece)
Suggested by my coworker, Jori.
Topic:
IF I RULED THE WORLD...
(used either as the subject or the first line of your piece)
Suggested by my coworker, Jori.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Mom: Random Phone Number, 7-7-08
The scenario is the same. We, the out of work, out of money and homeless, use city services to do our dailies. We’re scary to the lone users and the desperate dancers in public restrooms, but we have a right to privacy when taking a dump. Public restrooms offer us a measure of decency that is lacking in our lives, a moment of relief from the cold weather, cold people, and cold system that we meet. Public restrooms offer warmth and a moment of clean-ness that we occasionally need in our lives. Public restrooms offer several forms of social services that we can tap into such as phone numbers, addresses, and names of people that can help. Many outreach agencies advertise on these walls using the big expansive public walls around the sinks. Cold, impersonal, helpful. Sometimes.
But, it is what is posted inside the stalls that is more personal and useful. Men’s and women’s restrooms are no different except for the urinals. Both have stalls for the sit-down customer and ample wall space for the budding literati of the city who work through philosophical arguments about the meaning of something in short verse, or philosophical questions about the meaning of life asked by one and answered by another. There are famous quotes from famous movies, often farcical because the can-sitter may need "… the force …" to be with him. There are cat-fights played out on stall walls in which the new Hatfields and McCoys eek out revenge on each other. One cat-fight begins by calling Sara a bitch. With the obligatory rebuttal and escalation, someone else writes "Well, your sister’s a double bitch." Then there is the delineation of Sara’s ancestry back to Sodom and Gomorrah. Then the response, "Well, your sister sucked cock on Clinton at the White House." While enjoying this pants-free moment behind a locked stall door, this modern interpretation of passive-aggressive behavior is nothing but a history lesson in religio-political enlightenment of 20th century insults, and just goes to show that what goes around comes right back around and is recorded on bathroom stalls for the next reader, who, by-the-way, hopes Sara’s phone number has been left behind.
If one is so inclined – and happens to be carrying pencil and paper into the stall with him or her – there are numerous phone numbers to be had. These are the private, individual social services that can only be had from inside stall doors and don’t usually make it to the big wall; evidence of the private nature of this information. Phone numbers usually are accompanied by someone’s name and nothing else. However, many of these numbers come with advice: "For a good time, call Betty, 265-8103," leaving a clue as to the social service provided – a good time. And in that squatting moment the sitter has hope: Warm, personal help. Immediately. Not the slow gears of government and community based welfare, but Betty’s private, personal, smiling good time welfare. "Betty" is the cameo literature of stall-walls: It is the short biopic created in the reader’s mind on the small amount of information provided, and suddenly there is a storyline playing out in the stall. There is the "Betty" sigh – Ah-h-h, Betty - that launches pleasant memories that occupy us through the dump.
We, the out of work, out of money and homeless thank the city for its services. The public restroom does its job, as an institution dedicated to cleanliness, providing refuge, and privacy and entertainment. The public restroom takes care of our physical needs; the stall walls take care of the rest. Movin’ on.
This author’s favorite cameo is about AIDS and appears in men’s rooms throughout Cincinnati:
"Get tested. Your life is in your hands."
*******************
There has been some discussion in my house over the above use of the phrase "cameo literature." It is considered bad form to legitimize a crime and give it credence when in reality it is graffiti, vandalism, and slogan-ism, none of which is true literature. However, I would argue that before building graffiti became a legitimate urban art form, pursued and protected by art connoisseurs and city councils, it was a crime. Cameo literature is the bit part a name or phrase plays in the individual’s life and can have as profound an effect as Kurt Vonnegut or AIDS does if the cameo’s information is acted upon. Or it can have as small an effect as to last only a moment like ice cream, as a warm pleasant memory. In the long run, this cameo appearance can re-write a person’s life story, can send that life on a tangent of explored (or unexplored) adventures therefore making one’s life story a biography and legitimate literature whether written down or not.
But, it is what is posted inside the stalls that is more personal and useful. Men’s and women’s restrooms are no different except for the urinals. Both have stalls for the sit-down customer and ample wall space for the budding literati of the city who work through philosophical arguments about the meaning of something in short verse, or philosophical questions about the meaning of life asked by one and answered by another. There are famous quotes from famous movies, often farcical because the can-sitter may need "… the force …" to be with him. There are cat-fights played out on stall walls in which the new Hatfields and McCoys eek out revenge on each other. One cat-fight begins by calling Sara a bitch. With the obligatory rebuttal and escalation, someone else writes "Well, your sister’s a double bitch." Then there is the delineation of Sara’s ancestry back to Sodom and Gomorrah. Then the response, "Well, your sister sucked cock on Clinton at the White House." While enjoying this pants-free moment behind a locked stall door, this modern interpretation of passive-aggressive behavior is nothing but a history lesson in religio-political enlightenment of 20th century insults, and just goes to show that what goes around comes right back around and is recorded on bathroom stalls for the next reader, who, by-the-way, hopes Sara’s phone number has been left behind.
If one is so inclined – and happens to be carrying pencil and paper into the stall with him or her – there are numerous phone numbers to be had. These are the private, individual social services that can only be had from inside stall doors and don’t usually make it to the big wall; evidence of the private nature of this information. Phone numbers usually are accompanied by someone’s name and nothing else. However, many of these numbers come with advice: "For a good time, call Betty, 265-8103," leaving a clue as to the social service provided – a good time. And in that squatting moment the sitter has hope: Warm, personal help. Immediately. Not the slow gears of government and community based welfare, but Betty’s private, personal, smiling good time welfare. "Betty" is the cameo literature of stall-walls: It is the short biopic created in the reader’s mind on the small amount of information provided, and suddenly there is a storyline playing out in the stall. There is the "Betty" sigh – Ah-h-h, Betty - that launches pleasant memories that occupy us through the dump.
We, the out of work, out of money and homeless thank the city for its services. The public restroom does its job, as an institution dedicated to cleanliness, providing refuge, and privacy and entertainment. The public restroom takes care of our physical needs; the stall walls take care of the rest. Movin’ on.
This author’s favorite cameo is about AIDS and appears in men’s rooms throughout Cincinnati:
"Get tested. Your life is in your hands."
*******************
There has been some discussion in my house over the above use of the phrase "cameo literature." It is considered bad form to legitimize a crime and give it credence when in reality it is graffiti, vandalism, and slogan-ism, none of which is true literature. However, I would argue that before building graffiti became a legitimate urban art form, pursued and protected by art connoisseurs and city councils, it was a crime. Cameo literature is the bit part a name or phrase plays in the individual’s life and can have as profound an effect as Kurt Vonnegut or AIDS does if the cameo’s information is acted upon. Or it can have as small an effect as to last only a moment like ice cream, as a warm pleasant memory. In the long run, this cameo appearance can re-write a person’s life story, can send that life on a tangent of explored (or unexplored) adventures therefore making one’s life story a biography and legitimate literature whether written down or not.
Son: Random Phone Number, 7-7-08
We could dine for days off the meat in a single human. She had made the suggestion when we were hungriest and the first baby had died, of malnutrition as far as she knew.
She had been out and I was watching our sick, starving child -- Adam, we had named him, the first child of Earth. He was just crying and crying and my temper was short that day. Adam had not been fed for days, her breasts to dry to feed, and I took a pillow and smothered my son.
He cried, and then he was silent. And then he was gone.
She took it well, at first, accepting the inevitable death, but I saw the insanity growing in her eyes. Crazed fear behind dim brown. I imagined they were beautiful once, and I closed my eyes and thought of what they might have been whenever we fucked -- cold, meticulous, save the race sort of fucking.
We could dine for days off the meat in a single human, she had said after we had buried Adam in a small park down the street. We had imagined that, growing up, our son would love this park and play there.
I allowed the perversity, thought I know now the brief glimmer in her eyes was not hope but her growing insanity. It was practical enough -- dead bodies littered the landscape and we were able to salvage the occasional body that had not become carrion or decay-ridden.
Sometimes, with the right cooking and the right spices, we could almost believe that the hard, sinewy meat or a stew of innards came from the finest of chefs. But it was all we could eat, as neither of us excelled at the basic arts of survival we needed so desperately now.
I had vomited after the first time we ate -- hard, painful retching out of my own disgust. That's when I began to walk.
The first payphone I scratched the walls of was no further than two blooks up from where we were squatting. I held my breath when I reached it and picked up the receiver. I heard the comforting crackling dialtone. It gave me hope.
I scratched a note with a key on the wall of the booth -- STILL ALIVE, WHERE R U? -- and then dated it, scratching away the blue paint to expose the metal beneath with crude, large, capitalized letters.
It became an obsession after that and part of my daily routine. After we ate, I would wander the empty streets, seeking out working payphones. Cell phones had virtually wiped out the technology, and my range widened every day. I would wander well into the night along dead streets, empty except for the occasional individual invading wild life.
Since the miscarriage -- Adam II or, perhaps, Eve -- our attempts at repopulating the Earth were all but abandoned. My growing dependence on bottles of whisky -- found by breaking into bars and liquor stores at night -- was not helping the growing dystopia.
Months passed, and I varied my nights between carving new queries and checking the old ones. Sometimes, she would be up when I stumbled in. She would be fiercely cleaning something in their little house, her eyes blazing with obsession and fear, and I would take her from behind, wondering if she even noticed. Others, she would be gone -- at one stretch, she was gone for three days, and that was when I began the brutal work of feeding the two of us. I didn't know where she went, but we had long since stopped talking. I was never awake for the day -- rousing at dinner time and then walking away.
It was a silent existence. I would scream sometimes while I walked, believing that the echo off the empty buildings were other people screaming back. I knew my eyes were beginning to show the crazed fear I was seeing take her completely.
And I had developed a taste for human flesh, to the exception of all others. We had given up our half-hearted attempts at hunting or fishing or growing food. But the supply was dwindling, and the growing hunger was feeding our own dilapidation. Enough months had passed to reduce the supply to little more than insect ridden flecks left on now sun-bleached bones.
Some nights, that was enough.
I had given up hope. I stopped looking at old carvings. STILL ALIVE, WHERE R U? became STILL ALIVE became just the date, hatchmarks on a prisoner's cell wall. It was habit, nothing more. Thus, when a new date appeared on the first phone booth that I had carved, my heart jumped.
Two days before, two blocks from where we stayed, a new date. I felt hope surge, and I saw a light. There are others out there. My mind was beating back the insanity because someone else was out there. There was a phone number and time to be in the booth for me to call.
CALL ON... two days from that day.
Hope.
I was there that day, waiting for that exact moment. Reaching up, I shook as the receiver clicked off the rack and I heard the crackling dialtone. I had found two quarters in the drawer of a liquor store to make the call, and, taking a swig of the whisky I had swiped, I dialed.
Ring.
Ring.
Click. It took a moment to register in my head, to believe that a human voice was answering, and I fought off his first response of just screaming into the receiver. Then I heard a familiar voice:
"Hello?" It was her.
Hope died and the fear returned. It took me completely. I was finally, undoubtedly, alone and hungry.
And I wondered then what the taste of fresh human flesh was like.
She had been out and I was watching our sick, starving child -- Adam, we had named him, the first child of Earth. He was just crying and crying and my temper was short that day. Adam had not been fed for days, her breasts to dry to feed, and I took a pillow and smothered my son.
He cried, and then he was silent. And then he was gone.
She took it well, at first, accepting the inevitable death, but I saw the insanity growing in her eyes. Crazed fear behind dim brown. I imagined they were beautiful once, and I closed my eyes and thought of what they might have been whenever we fucked -- cold, meticulous, save the race sort of fucking.
We could dine for days off the meat in a single human, she had said after we had buried Adam in a small park down the street. We had imagined that, growing up, our son would love this park and play there.
I allowed the perversity, thought I know now the brief glimmer in her eyes was not hope but her growing insanity. It was practical enough -- dead bodies littered the landscape and we were able to salvage the occasional body that had not become carrion or decay-ridden.
Sometimes, with the right cooking and the right spices, we could almost believe that the hard, sinewy meat or a stew of innards came from the finest of chefs. But it was all we could eat, as neither of us excelled at the basic arts of survival we needed so desperately now.
I had vomited after the first time we ate -- hard, painful retching out of my own disgust. That's when I began to walk.
The first payphone I scratched the walls of was no further than two blooks up from where we were squatting. I held my breath when I reached it and picked up the receiver. I heard the comforting crackling dialtone. It gave me hope.
I scratched a note with a key on the wall of the booth -- STILL ALIVE, WHERE R U? -- and then dated it, scratching away the blue paint to expose the metal beneath with crude, large, capitalized letters.
It became an obsession after that and part of my daily routine. After we ate, I would wander the empty streets, seeking out working payphones. Cell phones had virtually wiped out the technology, and my range widened every day. I would wander well into the night along dead streets, empty except for the occasional individual invading wild life.
Since the miscarriage -- Adam II or, perhaps, Eve -- our attempts at repopulating the Earth were all but abandoned. My growing dependence on bottles of whisky -- found by breaking into bars and liquor stores at night -- was not helping the growing dystopia.
Months passed, and I varied my nights between carving new queries and checking the old ones. Sometimes, she would be up when I stumbled in. She would be fiercely cleaning something in their little house, her eyes blazing with obsession and fear, and I would take her from behind, wondering if she even noticed. Others, she would be gone -- at one stretch, she was gone for three days, and that was when I began the brutal work of feeding the two of us. I didn't know where she went, but we had long since stopped talking. I was never awake for the day -- rousing at dinner time and then walking away.
It was a silent existence. I would scream sometimes while I walked, believing that the echo off the empty buildings were other people screaming back. I knew my eyes were beginning to show the crazed fear I was seeing take her completely.
And I had developed a taste for human flesh, to the exception of all others. We had given up our half-hearted attempts at hunting or fishing or growing food. But the supply was dwindling, and the growing hunger was feeding our own dilapidation. Enough months had passed to reduce the supply to little more than insect ridden flecks left on now sun-bleached bones.
Some nights, that was enough.
I had given up hope. I stopped looking at old carvings. STILL ALIVE, WHERE R U? became STILL ALIVE became just the date, hatchmarks on a prisoner's cell wall. It was habit, nothing more. Thus, when a new date appeared on the first phone booth that I had carved, my heart jumped.
Two days before, two blocks from where we stayed, a new date. I felt hope surge, and I saw a light. There are others out there. My mind was beating back the insanity because someone else was out there. There was a phone number and time to be in the booth for me to call.
CALL ON... two days from that day.
Hope.
I was there that day, waiting for that exact moment. Reaching up, I shook as the receiver clicked off the rack and I heard the crackling dialtone. I had found two quarters in the drawer of a liquor store to make the call, and, taking a swig of the whisky I had swiped, I dialed.
Ring.
Ring.
Click. It took a moment to register in my head, to believe that a human voice was answering, and I fought off his first response of just screaming into the receiver. Then I heard a familiar voice:
"Hello?" It was her.
Hope died and the fear returned. It took me completely. I was finally, undoubtedly, alone and hungry.
And I wondered then what the taste of fresh human flesh was like.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Next Topic
Next posting: 7/7/08
Topic:
INVENT A CHARACTER WHO SEES A PHONE NUMBER ON A RESTROOM WALL. DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN HE OR SHE DIALS IT.
(from the Writer's Block book)
Topic:
INVENT A CHARACTER WHO SEES A PHONE NUMBER ON A RESTROOM WALL. DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN HE OR SHE DIALS IT.
(from the Writer's Block book)
Mom's Post: Virus (6-30-08)
TOPIC: Virus
------
------
I have been working on this word since you gave it to me last week. I hate this word; it always spells problems. I tried to define the word, sympathize with the word, even eulogize the word, but nothing. Fear comes with the word: illness, disability, and death are synonymous with the word. Did you know there were hundreds of thousands of death from the flu virus in World War I? More American warriors were brought low or died from this virus than from battlefield casualties. If the Germans had had some immunity to the virus then the outcome of the war could have been different: We might be enjoying our German measles and sauerkraut.
Anyway, my response to the selection:
Virus
Invasive, deadly, conqueror
Supplanter, plagiarist, polluter, aggrandizer
Lover, daemon, creator
Virus.
I was trying to practice haikus, but found I had the wrong format and really was very ignorant as to what a haiku was. So the following is my tribute to the 3-line 5-7-5 syllabled haiku.
Virus
Corrosive demon
Deadly lover of all life
Destroyer of health
Avatar.Son's Post: VIRUS 6-30-08
TOPIC: Virus
---------
The final clone passed through, not yet conscious, not yet alive, in search of its own bright future.
---------
Two virii walked into a bar. They order a drink, discuss the varying mitochondria of the world, and then go home to clone.
Vince the virus had two million clones -- a moderate size family in a nice section of the GI tract. He was comfortable here. His clones merrily bounced off each other eithin their tiny cell at the end of a small cul-de-sac in a quiet part of the lower duodenum.
One day, they would become enough that they would burst free, encapsulate themselves in their own protein shell, and seek out a host cell of their own where the cycle would repeat itself.
Of course, the home of their RNA years would be destroyed in the process, and they would remember nothing of him, while he passed onto the Great Beyond. He would be unceremoniously buried in fecal matter and flushed down into the great watery grave of his people.
That's how it went, though, and he was ok with that.
Here in this part of the world, all was peaceful. Reports of bad tidings had come in from other parts via the intracellular web they had established. New creatures -- chemical, in nature, it appeared -- had begun attacking their quiet way of life. Some had been bullied out of new hosts, some had even reported break in's that stopped or destroyed clones so that they could not carry on to greener pastures.
Vince considered himself lucky. It had been a tough decision, choosing a host where he did. The night he had met with Roberto in the bar, his friend had talked exitedly about the action going on in the lymph nodes that were growing quickly, mostly north of where he sat in his comfy chair.
But the fast growth had attracted this bad element. He wasn't sure if Roberto was there anymore, or if his clones had ever made it out. Vince had, on a whim, chosen to go back to the place of his own clone years for its peace and simplicity. The newness did not attract him. His family had lived here for hundreds of life-cycles, here in the suburbs, and that was OK with him.
Roberto may already be gone. By his own internal clock, it was becoming about that time, anyways. But there was no way of knowning. Vince hoped that his friend's clones hadn't mutated like the Others, strong and more evil copies to beat back these new invaders.
He understood the need of the mutants. Their leaders insisted via the intracellular network that they were for the survival of the race. To Vince, they were pantomimes of good citizens designed for nothing more than survival. Disgusting and awful super-virii with the ability to evade and perhaps even destroy these invaders.
They made Vince sick. He was all for survival, but it was nice that his clones had maintained proper purity.
This was his thought before the first clone hit the cell wall and began to bud off. He watched the sky open up in a terrible shower of ripping protein, the cell collapsing around him. He wished his clones well.
The great sleep was overcoming him. His clones would spread racial purity. Hopefully, they would stay nearby and forego the speed and excitement of these new places. Vince believed it was these places that led to the awful mutations.
"What the hell," he thought, at the last, "we're all dead anyway, even this whole world will die, too."
Friday, June 27, 2008
First Post
This is a test to see how everything looks.
In theory, this will be a place where my mom and I can post our weekly writing assignments to each other.
Next posting: 6/30/08
Topic: Virus (from the Writer's Block book)
We'll see how it goes.
In theory, this will be a place where my mom and I can post our weekly writing assignments to each other.
Next posting: 6/30/08
Topic: Virus (from the Writer's Block book)
We'll see how it goes.
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