SOMEONE PLEASE SHOOT ME FOR BEING A HOPELESS ROMANTIC. I can't help myself. I hate sappy books that are over-the-top, but I feel like that is how my stories always end up. Do you agree? And did that disparaging comment give everything away about every story that I write for myself? (It seems so obvious to me when I go over my own stories that I honestly cannot tell anymore. In any case, I always hope that the beauty lies not in the end, but the journey there.)
In my mind, writing is like growing up. When I read my old work, I own it with the same contempt that I direct towards my twelve-year-old self. The greater the distance I put between myself and when the piece was written, the more I loathe it. When writing my own plot or description, there is no other tale that I would rather hear. Later though I can hardly set my eyes on that word file without experiencing the scuttling crawl of disgust up my spine. Yet I continue to love the idea of it as I love my own self. For in many ways, my writing is me more than I am. It is the spirit that looks back when I glance within, the reflection in the mirror, the hum of my parallel processors.
When I was young, I used to have a dream, a nightmare, where nothing happened. A boat glided across a surface of water, but no ripples touched the surface and it was so like a mirror, silken and smooth. A deep voice would echo across this space, words unintelligible, the intent of warning or forbidding evident in the tone. A man’s voice. I would wake crying from this dream, upset to the point of calling out to my sleeping parents. They would come to try and reassure me, ask me what the dream contained. I was without explanation though, because this fear was without name or thought. It was not fear of the lake, the boat, the voice. It was fear of the absence of ripples.
In some ways it is at the same time interesting and ironic to me that my mental image for myself is not a face, but this very lake. Deep blue and grey, it is wholly unremarkable, with an appearance not dissimilar to that of a photograph of a puddle taken in black and white, the contrast on high. This lake though is full of ripples, ripples that hardly move, but ripples nonetheless. These disturbances are a reflection of my emotion. If I am at peace, then the lake itself begins to still, grow too more pacific. When I am upset, waves crash on the invisible shore. And when I am beyond either of these emotions, in the land of depression merging on catharsis, I imagine that the lake is draining, losing some of itself. Perhaps I should not say such things, should not tell you that, but there it is.
I have been thinking for a while now that this is less a rant or a discussion, than it is a stream of thought. Think on that.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Forget-me-not
Here is another story that I have been thinking on. As you may have noticed, most of my personal projects are only beginnings. They also share characters or at least names. Truthfully, I can't decide if they are all part of one big tale or if I should cut them apart. I was thinking that the first post I put up under "Nighttime" (The Crowe's Wing, which if no one noticed, I lengthened) would be more of a fairytale/memory within the following story. I am still not sure. It is all quite convoluted, but here goes. BTW, general knowledge of flower meanings makes the first sentence clearer. (I wish flowers still meant something to people.) Also, the words that seem to be out of order are on purpose.
"My mother Pilar found once in her high-walled garden a sweet-faced stranger to sugar her day. He offered her a red, thornless rose at which she smiled, but refused. A peach rose she gave him in stead and did not think once till the morning next. When dawn did come, slipping gentle fingers across her face and beneath her eyelids, she found by her side no man, but a bundle of forget-me-nots in his shape. She placed him about the house in every vessel she owned, but he withered soon enough, and she understood that his thoughts had left her just as all true remembrance of him had disappeared that lost morning. She sought to rid herself of the withered flowers, but in their midst she found a flourishing Daisy, and so it was that she first knew my name. I did not come into her life until many months passed, but I had always been a friend to her.
When I crawled from death into the beginnings of life, Pilar gave up her strangers and her high walls. Though I was just blooming, petals just opened to the sun, her life had moved into summer, a time for picking and plucking and sowing seeds. In the country, away from the bustle and life of tall cities, we grew up together as friends often do, she to be my mother and I to be her child. There was never a father for me, but it mattered not. There was enough love in our lives to bloom a field of wildflowers on a winter’s day. More than just each other, we adored the life of the country and all of the beautiful living things that reciprocated our affection. Vines caught up my glowing sunshine skin, given me by a father I never met, helping me along as I learned to walk, as that mysterious man never would. I would spend mornings watching the flowers open to the day’s sun and ferns uncurl their feathery arms to the world. Evenings, I collected the seeds that the plants dropped and placed them in small jars, each seed to its own, though sometimes I mixed the seed and scattered them, a blend of flowers appearing as if by magic months later. It was magic, in its own way, a form of magic that is no longer acknowledged. I enchanted my own life with these small, wonderful spells, some times with Pilar, others without. We loved without clinging and she came and went from my world as elusively as a summer wind.
There was always something about Pilar that enchanted, and so it came to be that in her wanderings she acquired something of a magical touch, more than was hers already. Our house was a fire-lit world of possibility and illusion, not the chill of truth. The magic of the world wandered in after her like the powder of snow tracked in on a shoe or the seeping of cold through a thin wooden door. In morning, I would walk into our kitchen to find something ever so slightly different. Never anything obvious that our bloodhound neighbors would sniff out in their short, infrequent visits. A light, turquoise teacup would sit to the side, where the day before it had been a squat, red mug. Or the flowers that were withered were again filled with life. I began to see the signs for when something would change. “This pan is not to my liking,” she might say of a tarnished skillet, riddled with burnt crumbs. The next day a new saucepan would hang from its peg, as if the blackened, old thing had never been. Her small magics did not always work. The turquoise teacup, a lovely little thing, perched on its shelf for a full sennight, but when at last I resolved to use it, it forgot that it was small and turquoise, reverting to the speckled, heavy-set mug in my hands. When I told her of it though, she doubled over herself with laughter. “Why, Child, you did not think it was real, surely?” and that was that.
So it was that our lives were filled by a flowering assortment of busy nothings, all of them many times more meaningful than the prosiness that occupied the lives of our unhappy neighbors. I did not socialize often with the local girls – they were not to my taste in all their grandiloquence, empty and superficial as the turquoise teacup. The boys were more interesting, working the magic of land and helping small things grow into living greenery. Those they always killed though, and when harvest time came it was always apparent that their life giving was an action borne of greed and ignorance. I do not mean to say that I had no friends. Mine were with me always in the cool earth that cushioned my step and the wind that picked at my hair, twirling it into braids, murmuring secrets to my heart. I did not need any other kind of friend, never really have. When I have been gifted with them dawn was always the giver.
Just as that rose-fingered man woke my mother to find me in a vase of flowers, he also pushed a tired black crowe over the red-rimmed horizon one fine spring morning, just after I had passed my nineteenth summer. Wings that flapped as weakly as tree leaves in a light fall breeze alerted me to his presence. They haunted the edge of my vision, as I looked down that dawn at a small, red friend of mine who roved busily about my hand. He was unavoidable, as much as I tried to resist the allure of deep black night that thrived under his feathers. So I looked at him and saw, truly saw. His heart of hearts fled to me, though we had never known one another before. I would know him ever day after to forever. Despite his blackness, eyes shone from under midnight brows with the same intensity as the sunlight reflecting off of a snow-capped mountain. They were the same blinding white, and as my own simple green eyes met them my heart let out a startled cry of shocked recognition. Mine, it cried out and moments later the crowe let out an equally exultant cry of triumph. Mine, he seemed to reply, for I knew without doubt that this shadow on the horizon was male, just as I knew that somehow a last part of my life had fallen into place like a piece of puzzle or a line of song.
In that moment, I could do naught but look into the snowy gaze and ask myself what love was? It seemed to me a flighty patch of wind that guided the wings of the heart in unexpected directions full of treacherous, pinwheeling turns. This was not quite it though. It was not the flush of heat and blood that is Desire nor was it the light, warm, skin-deep glow of Friendship. Love seemed the experience of encountering a face in the dark and recognizing the soul that it hid as part of yourself. Love was looking into the mirror and seeing a face that was stranger, yet dearer than your own. As I would know this crowe every day henceforth, I would too never see my face in the mirror again, but this small shadow. My heart, stranger as it was to this silhouette and this feeling, unable to understand either, felt the beat of pure, unconditional love nonetheless. This crowe, I knew, would take my heart and offer it back to me with a smile. In a way, he already had. My heart had found a friend at last. My eyes looked into white a moment more, and then he was gone."
Goodnight, reader.
"My mother Pilar found once in her high-walled garden a sweet-faced stranger to sugar her day. He offered her a red, thornless rose at which she smiled, but refused. A peach rose she gave him in stead and did not think once till the morning next. When dawn did come, slipping gentle fingers across her face and beneath her eyelids, she found by her side no man, but a bundle of forget-me-nots in his shape. She placed him about the house in every vessel she owned, but he withered soon enough, and she understood that his thoughts had left her just as all true remembrance of him had disappeared that lost morning. She sought to rid herself of the withered flowers, but in their midst she found a flourishing Daisy, and so it was that she first knew my name. I did not come into her life until many months passed, but I had always been a friend to her.
When I crawled from death into the beginnings of life, Pilar gave up her strangers and her high walls. Though I was just blooming, petals just opened to the sun, her life had moved into summer, a time for picking and plucking and sowing seeds. In the country, away from the bustle and life of tall cities, we grew up together as friends often do, she to be my mother and I to be her child. There was never a father for me, but it mattered not. There was enough love in our lives to bloom a field of wildflowers on a winter’s day. More than just each other, we adored the life of the country and all of the beautiful living things that reciprocated our affection. Vines caught up my glowing sunshine skin, given me by a father I never met, helping me along as I learned to walk, as that mysterious man never would. I would spend mornings watching the flowers open to the day’s sun and ferns uncurl their feathery arms to the world. Evenings, I collected the seeds that the plants dropped and placed them in small jars, each seed to its own, though sometimes I mixed the seed and scattered them, a blend of flowers appearing as if by magic months later. It was magic, in its own way, a form of magic that is no longer acknowledged. I enchanted my own life with these small, wonderful spells, some times with Pilar, others without. We loved without clinging and she came and went from my world as elusively as a summer wind.
There was always something about Pilar that enchanted, and so it came to be that in her wanderings she acquired something of a magical touch, more than was hers already. Our house was a fire-lit world of possibility and illusion, not the chill of truth. The magic of the world wandered in after her like the powder of snow tracked in on a shoe or the seeping of cold through a thin wooden door. In morning, I would walk into our kitchen to find something ever so slightly different. Never anything obvious that our bloodhound neighbors would sniff out in their short, infrequent visits. A light, turquoise teacup would sit to the side, where the day before it had been a squat, red mug. Or the flowers that were withered were again filled with life. I began to see the signs for when something would change. “This pan is not to my liking,” she might say of a tarnished skillet, riddled with burnt crumbs. The next day a new saucepan would hang from its peg, as if the blackened, old thing had never been. Her small magics did not always work. The turquoise teacup, a lovely little thing, perched on its shelf for a full sennight, but when at last I resolved to use it, it forgot that it was small and turquoise, reverting to the speckled, heavy-set mug in my hands. When I told her of it though, she doubled over herself with laughter. “Why, Child, you did not think it was real, surely?” and that was that.
So it was that our lives were filled by a flowering assortment of busy nothings, all of them many times more meaningful than the prosiness that occupied the lives of our unhappy neighbors. I did not socialize often with the local girls – they were not to my taste in all their grandiloquence, empty and superficial as the turquoise teacup. The boys were more interesting, working the magic of land and helping small things grow into living greenery. Those they always killed though, and when harvest time came it was always apparent that their life giving was an action borne of greed and ignorance. I do not mean to say that I had no friends. Mine were with me always in the cool earth that cushioned my step and the wind that picked at my hair, twirling it into braids, murmuring secrets to my heart. I did not need any other kind of friend, never really have. When I have been gifted with them dawn was always the giver.
Just as that rose-fingered man woke my mother to find me in a vase of flowers, he also pushed a tired black crowe over the red-rimmed horizon one fine spring morning, just after I had passed my nineteenth summer. Wings that flapped as weakly as tree leaves in a light fall breeze alerted me to his presence. They haunted the edge of my vision, as I looked down that dawn at a small, red friend of mine who roved busily about my hand. He was unavoidable, as much as I tried to resist the allure of deep black night that thrived under his feathers. So I looked at him and saw, truly saw. His heart of hearts fled to me, though we had never known one another before. I would know him ever day after to forever. Despite his blackness, eyes shone from under midnight brows with the same intensity as the sunlight reflecting off of a snow-capped mountain. They were the same blinding white, and as my own simple green eyes met them my heart let out a startled cry of shocked recognition. Mine, it cried out and moments later the crowe let out an equally exultant cry of triumph. Mine, he seemed to reply, for I knew without doubt that this shadow on the horizon was male, just as I knew that somehow a last part of my life had fallen into place like a piece of puzzle or a line of song.
In that moment, I could do naught but look into the snowy gaze and ask myself what love was? It seemed to me a flighty patch of wind that guided the wings of the heart in unexpected directions full of treacherous, pinwheeling turns. This was not quite it though. It was not the flush of heat and blood that is Desire nor was it the light, warm, skin-deep glow of Friendship. Love seemed the experience of encountering a face in the dark and recognizing the soul that it hid as part of yourself. Love was looking into the mirror and seeing a face that was stranger, yet dearer than your own. As I would know this crowe every day henceforth, I would too never see my face in the mirror again, but this small shadow. My heart, stranger as it was to this silhouette and this feeling, unable to understand either, felt the beat of pure, unconditional love nonetheless. This crowe, I knew, would take my heart and offer it back to me with a smile. In a way, he already had. My heart had found a friend at last. My eyes looked into white a moment more, and then he was gone."
Goodnight, reader.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Conceptual Snakeskin
Conceptual Questions from my False Memory:
My story is obviously mostly fictional. It springs from a memory from my childhood where my father killed a young rattlesnake with our household sledgehammer to save me from potential danger. It was an event very important to myself and my parents, but one that went more or less unnoticed by the world at large. A small ripple in a stagnant lake, the world easily recovers from such things. In fact it moves on without thought. This event however continues to be significant to me. Most of my ideas on the subject spring from the death of that rattlesnake.
Living in places where such beasts are common, we are told that the younger ones are the most dangerous – they know the least control and know not what amount of venom incapacitates versus what kills. I often wondered about the truth of this, though I would not have wished to test the idea that deadly afternoon. Perhaps it would have taken fright, but it is also possible that it was thoughtless in the way that human children are thoughtless, less easy to frighten with true danger, yet skittish of things that hold no harm. Are young animals the darling, personified creatures with large baby eyes that are shown us through popular culture in Disney films? The snake itself is never trusted. A man killer, it is never shown with the innocent eyes. We think it naturally to be the seducer, malignant and nefarious. This led me to my first question: are all young things necessarily innocent? It is possible that this snake was all that my quaint imaginings painted it to be, but it is more than likely not.
I also wondered at the right we have to kill what we deem lesser, but harmful. What is it about an animal that makes it lesser than humans? Self-knowledge one might say, but this is not true. In many ways animals know there own minds better than humans do. They are unhindered by shame, pretentiousness, and morals. To be human is to attempt to rise above the base despite internal desires. Is this simply a form of self-denial and deceit? This led me to the following: are all lives equal or are some valued more highly than others? What is the value of a life dependant on? My answer to the first is certainly, in the idea that some lives are more valued than others. I cannot rightly say whether there is truth in the values that we assign specific lives.
This last made me question what right have we to kill without grief when we have no idea on what the worth of a life is judged. As humans we try to rise above the animal instinct, yet when we kill or hurt, we justify our actions with the rationale of survival. Here follows my last set of questions: is killing to save a life morally acceptable? Is it better to allow things to take their natural course?
- Are all young things necessarily innocent?
- Are all lives equal or are some valued more highly than others? What is the value of a life dependant on?
- Is killing to save a life morally acceptable? Is it better to allow things to take their natural course?
My story is obviously mostly fictional. It springs from a memory from my childhood where my father killed a young rattlesnake with our household sledgehammer to save me from potential danger. It was an event very important to myself and my parents, but one that went more or less unnoticed by the world at large. A small ripple in a stagnant lake, the world easily recovers from such things. In fact it moves on without thought. This event however continues to be significant to me. Most of my ideas on the subject spring from the death of that rattlesnake.
Living in places where such beasts are common, we are told that the younger ones are the most dangerous – they know the least control and know not what amount of venom incapacitates versus what kills. I often wondered about the truth of this, though I would not have wished to test the idea that deadly afternoon. Perhaps it would have taken fright, but it is also possible that it was thoughtless in the way that human children are thoughtless, less easy to frighten with true danger, yet skittish of things that hold no harm. Are young animals the darling, personified creatures with large baby eyes that are shown us through popular culture in Disney films? The snake itself is never trusted. A man killer, it is never shown with the innocent eyes. We think it naturally to be the seducer, malignant and nefarious. This led me to my first question: are all young things necessarily innocent? It is possible that this snake was all that my quaint imaginings painted it to be, but it is more than likely not.
I also wondered at the right we have to kill what we deem lesser, but harmful. What is it about an animal that makes it lesser than humans? Self-knowledge one might say, but this is not true. In many ways animals know there own minds better than humans do. They are unhindered by shame, pretentiousness, and morals. To be human is to attempt to rise above the base despite internal desires. Is this simply a form of self-denial and deceit? This led me to the following: are all lives equal or are some valued more highly than others? What is the value of a life dependant on? My answer to the first is certainly, in the idea that some lives are more valued than others. I cannot rightly say whether there is truth in the values that we assign specific lives.
This last made me question what right have we to kill without grief when we have no idea on what the worth of a life is judged. As humans we try to rise above the animal instinct, yet when we kill or hurt, we justify our actions with the rationale of survival. Here follows my last set of questions: is killing to save a life morally acceptable? Is it better to allow things to take their natural course?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Questions for Tobias Wolff
- What did you imagine the real problem was with the school in "Nightengale"?
- How do you reconcile the use of realism with the almost fantastical events that your short stories contain?
- What statement about morality as opposed to personal ties were you trying to make in "The Night in Question"? If so, what does this say about love in general?
- What was the purpose of the self-indulgence of characters of "Hunters in the Snow"? (Kenny with shooting everything, Frank with the babysitter, Tub with the pancakes).
Monday, September 21, 2009
Snakeskin and Screwdrivers
Though there would be snakeskin by the end, in truth it all began with a screwdriver. Telling you that is jumping ahead by rather an essential amount of time. Perhaps it is called for to start at the beginning. What you really must know is that there was, in the not so distant past, a house perched amongst houses on a hill of hills. It was all edged up in the feet of Mount Diablo. So happy were those innocent shelters on the feet of the devil, his fiery wrath bringing them the clear of blue skies and rolling golden grass across the rise of the ridge. There were many families that lived in the midst of that expanse of glistening wealth, but our house in particular was inhabited by a small one, parents and a single child. This family was a young one yet, the child, a girl, only just nosing her ingenuous way into a sixth year. So big though she seemed already to her parents, clinging to the small thing she had been such a short time before. She was so eager to do and be, to wonder and hope. So it was, that on a warm afternoon in October the father and his little girl took it upon themselves to fix the shelf that had long wobbled on its own in the study.
Father and daughter were together in that room of the house when inspiration for this project came upon them. Make believe was then their purpose, and the two of them danced about the room, she in front and he following, when the girl leant her hand against the errant shelf. It gave readily beneath her small weight, causing her pause in her prancing gait. She was enchanted by the mysterious wobble of this thing of wood and metal. It had always seemed to her that things of such materials were invincible in and of themselves, unable to support a moment of weakness such as she had just felt. Magical it seemed to her, and she beheld her hand for a moment with awe. She prodded the desk to her left with the lightest of touches, expecting it too to shimmer and shake. It stood resolute, causing her no small disappointment, and she turned her head back to the offending shelf. She regarded it now with all the petulance of child that age, disquiet etched into her small features, for she felt now that there was something unutterably wrong about the entire episode. Such things should not happen; the earth did not open and close on itself, the sky did not turn from black to blue. Shelves did not shudder in their brackets like things alive. Though she would not have known to express it thus, the child felt that the fabric of space and time had for a moment faltered, allowing this transgression of universal law. The wrongness of the entire quagmire engulfed her, filled up her petite frame, until it came out in words. Into the air it spilled in a somewhat less articulate form, reaching the ears of her father. He took a step closer to examine the shelf that seemed to have displeased his joy so thoroughly. The malady was soon ascertained to be several loose screws along the sides. The remedy too was found; father and daughter would go to the garage to fetch a screwdriver, fixing this err in the proper conduct of shelves.
The screwdriver was something easily enough found, as demand for it was high in that house; there was always something else that needed fixing. Looking at this event alone, simply as one of many, the dissatisfactory shelf was not so extraordinary. This day however was different, and the adventure was all in the finding of a plain screwdriver. Said tool made house of the lustrous, red utility box that rested on a dresser that wanted painting. This dresser, in turn, lay in front of the edifices of cardboard and tape, closer to the heat of devil. All of this was encompassed by the dark, closing walls of the garage itself.
It is in the garage that this story truly begins and ends. The garage too had always been an unsolved mystery in the mind of the little girl. No matter the time passed, that place always lay untouched, stagnant; accumulating tiny particles of nothing, dust. Boxes rose in the back like the deserted skyscrapers of a once-great city. This was a scene worthy for the entry to hell, and this is the place that brought ill will in to that sunlit day. Upon entering the garage, the father lightly tapped the button to raise the garage door. It rose monumentally slowly, prolonging a poorly made decision that would soon be regretted. In came the sun, filtering from under the eaves, illuminating the boxes, the dust, the pure neglect. Something in it drew the young rattlesnake that had that day ventured far too far from its home in the sultry, swaying grass. It oscillated, moving as if the pendulum of the clock that stood in the hall had nudged parts of its squirming body in. Ticking its way to the concrete directly below the eave, it curled about itself to sit quietly, observing the scene. Neither daughter nor father knew this then though, being human and therefore exceptionally unobservant. Together they tripped to the dresser, the red box, the screwdriver. The daughter stepped lightly and quickly, coming out further into the sun, further from her father and safety, and further towards the curious snake.
An exposed ankle was all that it could really see. Skin stretched smooth and taut, the color of dough that has been cooked to golden perfection. Small toes bulged sweetly and roundly from an equally small foot. No calluses yet marred the velvety softness of her sole and the indent seemed somewhat flat, as if still learning to curve away from the fleshy earth. In all, it seemed an innocent foot, one that meant no harm, did not really mean to crush living things into the earth with a step. It did, but there was no intent behind this devastation. The young snake saw all this easily, recognizing something of its own youth and ingénue in this female, human counterpart. The snake respected such things, thought they should last. This girl was of no real concern in his miniature mind, the place itself being the only draw on his attention.
The father however, had no way of knowing the internal structure of this snake’s mind. When at last his own thoughts were drawn by this darting, brown form, he was as if paralyzed. He whispered urgently to his endangered daughter, imparting some of the alarm that troubled him. Don’t move. He cast about; what could defend against such a wily, unpredictable thing as a young rattlesnake? He hit upon it soon enough, or you might say the sledgehammer did, for this was precisely the tool he found with which to implement his only plan.
That sledgehammer was by far the oldest thing in the house, brought from Canada with the father’s parents and given to their son as one of the essential items necessary to a proper home. As it arced up into the air, it seemed surrounded by an air of antediluvian sagacity. To the small child, this seemed the most formidable of weapons, something that might at one point have been wielded by the great god Hephaestus or even Zeus himself. In short, it was perfect, a weapon worthy of defending her. It carved a quarter of a sun from the air before coming down with a low thud on the head of the rattlesnake. It was in no way a clean blow, but it was certainly well aimed enough to leave a pattern of red across the slippery cement floor. The snake’s skin and blood mingled with dust and despair in that house of hell alone. Something innocent had been killed that day in defense of one equally harmless. A life for a life, but it was in no way fair.
Father and daughter were together in that room of the house when inspiration for this project came upon them. Make believe was then their purpose, and the two of them danced about the room, she in front and he following, when the girl leant her hand against the errant shelf. It gave readily beneath her small weight, causing her pause in her prancing gait. She was enchanted by the mysterious wobble of this thing of wood and metal. It had always seemed to her that things of such materials were invincible in and of themselves, unable to support a moment of weakness such as she had just felt. Magical it seemed to her, and she beheld her hand for a moment with awe. She prodded the desk to her left with the lightest of touches, expecting it too to shimmer and shake. It stood resolute, causing her no small disappointment, and she turned her head back to the offending shelf. She regarded it now with all the petulance of child that age, disquiet etched into her small features, for she felt now that there was something unutterably wrong about the entire episode. Such things should not happen; the earth did not open and close on itself, the sky did not turn from black to blue. Shelves did not shudder in their brackets like things alive. Though she would not have known to express it thus, the child felt that the fabric of space and time had for a moment faltered, allowing this transgression of universal law. The wrongness of the entire quagmire engulfed her, filled up her petite frame, until it came out in words. Into the air it spilled in a somewhat less articulate form, reaching the ears of her father. He took a step closer to examine the shelf that seemed to have displeased his joy so thoroughly. The malady was soon ascertained to be several loose screws along the sides. The remedy too was found; father and daughter would go to the garage to fetch a screwdriver, fixing this err in the proper conduct of shelves.
The screwdriver was something easily enough found, as demand for it was high in that house; there was always something else that needed fixing. Looking at this event alone, simply as one of many, the dissatisfactory shelf was not so extraordinary. This day however was different, and the adventure was all in the finding of a plain screwdriver. Said tool made house of the lustrous, red utility box that rested on a dresser that wanted painting. This dresser, in turn, lay in front of the edifices of cardboard and tape, closer to the heat of devil. All of this was encompassed by the dark, closing walls of the garage itself.
It is in the garage that this story truly begins and ends. The garage too had always been an unsolved mystery in the mind of the little girl. No matter the time passed, that place always lay untouched, stagnant; accumulating tiny particles of nothing, dust. Boxes rose in the back like the deserted skyscrapers of a once-great city. This was a scene worthy for the entry to hell, and this is the place that brought ill will in to that sunlit day. Upon entering the garage, the father lightly tapped the button to raise the garage door. It rose monumentally slowly, prolonging a poorly made decision that would soon be regretted. In came the sun, filtering from under the eaves, illuminating the boxes, the dust, the pure neglect. Something in it drew the young rattlesnake that had that day ventured far too far from its home in the sultry, swaying grass. It oscillated, moving as if the pendulum of the clock that stood in the hall had nudged parts of its squirming body in. Ticking its way to the concrete directly below the eave, it curled about itself to sit quietly, observing the scene. Neither daughter nor father knew this then though, being human and therefore exceptionally unobservant. Together they tripped to the dresser, the red box, the screwdriver. The daughter stepped lightly and quickly, coming out further into the sun, further from her father and safety, and further towards the curious snake.
An exposed ankle was all that it could really see. Skin stretched smooth and taut, the color of dough that has been cooked to golden perfection. Small toes bulged sweetly and roundly from an equally small foot. No calluses yet marred the velvety softness of her sole and the indent seemed somewhat flat, as if still learning to curve away from the fleshy earth. In all, it seemed an innocent foot, one that meant no harm, did not really mean to crush living things into the earth with a step. It did, but there was no intent behind this devastation. The young snake saw all this easily, recognizing something of its own youth and ingénue in this female, human counterpart. The snake respected such things, thought they should last. This girl was of no real concern in his miniature mind, the place itself being the only draw on his attention.
The father however, had no way of knowing the internal structure of this snake’s mind. When at last his own thoughts were drawn by this darting, brown form, he was as if paralyzed. He whispered urgently to his endangered daughter, imparting some of the alarm that troubled him. Don’t move. He cast about; what could defend against such a wily, unpredictable thing as a young rattlesnake? He hit upon it soon enough, or you might say the sledgehammer did, for this was precisely the tool he found with which to implement his only plan.
That sledgehammer was by far the oldest thing in the house, brought from Canada with the father’s parents and given to their son as one of the essential items necessary to a proper home. As it arced up into the air, it seemed surrounded by an air of antediluvian sagacity. To the small child, this seemed the most formidable of weapons, something that might at one point have been wielded by the great god Hephaestus or even Zeus himself. In short, it was perfect, a weapon worthy of defending her. It carved a quarter of a sun from the air before coming down with a low thud on the head of the rattlesnake. It was in no way a clean blow, but it was certainly well aimed enough to leave a pattern of red across the slippery cement floor. The snake’s skin and blood mingled with dust and despair in that house of hell alone. Something innocent had been killed that day in defense of one equally harmless. A life for a life, but it was in no way fair.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Guernica
“She waited for me to do something, and when I didn’t she rocked forward slowly and stood up” (Firelight, Wolff 260). She opened her mouth to say something, licking them to moisten dry lips. It closed abruptly though, no words. I looked away to the wall shamed, down to floor that had no eyes to look back at me with accusation. I stayed there on the floor crouched until the silence pushed me into nonexistence, until there was no peace in hiding, until I too stood and faced them both. I tried to find my mother below the long hair that had fallen over her face, but she turned away as if she could feel me searching. I too shifted away from her. No forgiveness for either of us then. My father met my eyes with ease, and they looked down into my soul with an uncaring cynicism, as if he expected nothing worthy within. He turned away his head and I feared that he had been right.
She turned away and I knew already where this would lead, my eye stretching to a place unknown. There was no longer a space in her eye for me any longer, no trust wasted on one who could give nothing back. I had let her down. My father would be worse than ever, consoling her from my betrayal, while his hate of me would intensify like light through a magnifying glass. He would never let her see though, not let on that no one was paying for my lunches any more or writing notes for being late to school. In a word he would abandon me without for a second having turned me out of his house.
Despite all of this I could remember a different time, a better one. I could see my mother and I in a park, autumn having already burned its fire through the trees, all a uniform auburn shade. I was placed carefully between my mother’s legs and they rose around me like twin peaks, yet so much smoother. I could still feel the warmth and comfort of her scent as she leaned over me, hands cupping my small, child’s hands. Together we patted the mud into small cakes, the wet dirt inching its way up our arms and beneath our fingernails. The products were slimy little things and as any sensible bakers would, we placed them in the sun to dry. There were five of them – five little cakes placed neatly in a row. It was my birthday. I knew though, that had we been able to afford a cake, I would have been no happier blowing out those small flames and consuming the mass of food, so sickly sweet, than I was there, nestled so safe in her arms.
My thoughts flew near and away, and all the while I could again hear the tick of the mantelpiece clock, counting the seconds until my life would begin again to fall apart. In each tick was a ray of light that flew through it all, enlightening. A dust mote hovered in the air before my face, illuminated by the sharp glare of the desk lamp. I wondered if my father who sat benignly beside it had pointed it at my face on purpose, the intent to bathe me in light of retribution. All around me the world was chopped into squares and triangles by the pattern of shadow and light. Those bright rays left this assortment of opaque objects to shine into the rods of my eyes, giving me an impression of their beauty. It shined too onto me for all the world to see. The colors seemed to bleed though. It was all white, too mixed, and too bright. Pale and dark, I was the subject of Picasso’s Guernica, painted in dark grey geometric shapes, weeping the luminescent glare that left behind a swathe of black, dark from lack of warmth. Just as hard, just as sad. To the viewer that is. As the glow seemed to intensify under my scrutiny, I wondered: is white the better for seeming full of color, or black for taking such a rainbow of happiness into itself, absorbing it to keep hidden within?
She turned away and I knew already where this would lead, my eye stretching to a place unknown. There was no longer a space in her eye for me any longer, no trust wasted on one who could give nothing back. I had let her down. My father would be worse than ever, consoling her from my betrayal, while his hate of me would intensify like light through a magnifying glass. He would never let her see though, not let on that no one was paying for my lunches any more or writing notes for being late to school. In a word he would abandon me without for a second having turned me out of his house.
Despite all of this I could remember a different time, a better one. I could see my mother and I in a park, autumn having already burned its fire through the trees, all a uniform auburn shade. I was placed carefully between my mother’s legs and they rose around me like twin peaks, yet so much smoother. I could still feel the warmth and comfort of her scent as she leaned over me, hands cupping my small, child’s hands. Together we patted the mud into small cakes, the wet dirt inching its way up our arms and beneath our fingernails. The products were slimy little things and as any sensible bakers would, we placed them in the sun to dry. There were five of them – five little cakes placed neatly in a row. It was my birthday. I knew though, that had we been able to afford a cake, I would have been no happier blowing out those small flames and consuming the mass of food, so sickly sweet, than I was there, nestled so safe in her arms.
My thoughts flew near and away, and all the while I could again hear the tick of the mantelpiece clock, counting the seconds until my life would begin again to fall apart. In each tick was a ray of light that flew through it all, enlightening. A dust mote hovered in the air before my face, illuminated by the sharp glare of the desk lamp. I wondered if my father who sat benignly beside it had pointed it at my face on purpose, the intent to bathe me in light of retribution. All around me the world was chopped into squares and triangles by the pattern of shadow and light. Those bright rays left this assortment of opaque objects to shine into the rods of my eyes, giving me an impression of their beauty. It shined too onto me for all the world to see. The colors seemed to bleed though. It was all white, too mixed, and too bright. Pale and dark, I was the subject of Picasso’s Guernica, painted in dark grey geometric shapes, weeping the luminescent glare that left behind a swathe of black, dark from lack of warmth. Just as hard, just as sad. To the viewer that is. As the glow seemed to intensify under my scrutiny, I wondered: is white the better for seeming full of color, or black for taking such a rainbow of happiness into itself, absorbing it to keep hidden within?
Monday, September 14, 2009
An Empty Road
“She waited for me to do something, and when I didn’t she rocked forward slowly and stood up” (Firelight, Wolff 260). There was a vacant sort of look in her eyes as she did this, as if somehow she had been let down or shocked into oblivion. Her mouth hung slightly open and I saw her small pink tongue flit out delicately to wet her lips, so like a cat. She pursed them and opened again to say something, break the silence that was stretching between us like a long and empty road. We had walked it together not moments before, mother and daughter, but I hadn’t spoken when she needed a voice, not given a hand to her when it was most necessary. It had only been moments ago, but it was a distance to great to remedy – the time for repair had come and gone, disappearing to that dark realm of regret.
I looked away and found something fascinating on the wall, anything to keep me from looking at my mother’s lost look, my father’s indifference. Look, look, look, I told myself, but each passing second increased the temptation of searching her face for something that was known, remembered. Look. Small, light blue diamonds were filigreed into the wallpaper, a treasure trove that spanned the width and length of that small room. They projected ever so slightly from the flat edge and in the stark light from the overhead their shadows seemed to lengthen and sharpen, pointing into small daggers that threatened to fly at me from the quivering, stationary spot. I stared at this malignant beauty until even the sharpest point blurred, wavered, then disappeared completely, lost from focus along with the rest of the world. For all the riches in the world I wished to be elsewhere. Anywhere but in that space so enclosing and suffocating that I felt I could die with how stifled I felt.
I could not acknowledge these trapping, confining walls any longer, so I turned my head down to the carpet on which I still kneeled. If the circle of my sight remained small enough I might be able to forget that I was not alone, lose myself in silence and nothingness. It lay there, inanimate and uncomplaining beneath me. It did not stretch and grow, did not aspire to any unreachable goal such as sunlight or happiness. It was uncomplaining below our cruel weights. Our. For they were cruel. Nothing should hold such a weight on unprepared shoulders. Perhaps I was being foolish, but the unfairness of it nearly took my breath away. I shifted slightly in my spot as if I might fix this at least, only to find new discomfiture. The rug that had always felt so soft under my hard feet irritated and scraped at my bare knee, making it restless, inspiring it with a need to move to flex. If I did that though I might be seen, noticed, so I remained crouched like a small animal hiding from some unknown danger. I stayed as I was, low to the ground, hidden away in a world where I hoped I could never be found. One that I could never escape.
I looked away and found something fascinating on the wall, anything to keep me from looking at my mother’s lost look, my father’s indifference. Look, look, look, I told myself, but each passing second increased the temptation of searching her face for something that was known, remembered. Look. Small, light blue diamonds were filigreed into the wallpaper, a treasure trove that spanned the width and length of that small room. They projected ever so slightly from the flat edge and in the stark light from the overhead their shadows seemed to lengthen and sharpen, pointing into small daggers that threatened to fly at me from the quivering, stationary spot. I stared at this malignant beauty until even the sharpest point blurred, wavered, then disappeared completely, lost from focus along with the rest of the world. For all the riches in the world I wished to be elsewhere. Anywhere but in that space so enclosing and suffocating that I felt I could die with how stifled I felt.
I could not acknowledge these trapping, confining walls any longer, so I turned my head down to the carpet on which I still kneeled. If the circle of my sight remained small enough I might be able to forget that I was not alone, lose myself in silence and nothingness. It lay there, inanimate and uncomplaining beneath me. It did not stretch and grow, did not aspire to any unreachable goal such as sunlight or happiness. It was uncomplaining below our cruel weights. Our. For they were cruel. Nothing should hold such a weight on unprepared shoulders. Perhaps I was being foolish, but the unfairness of it nearly took my breath away. I shifted slightly in my spot as if I might fix this at least, only to find new discomfiture. The rug that had always felt so soft under my hard feet irritated and scraped at my bare knee, making it restless, inspiring it with a need to move to flex. If I did that though I might be seen, noticed, so I remained crouched like a small animal hiding from some unknown danger. I stayed as I was, low to the ground, hidden away in a world where I hoped I could never be found. One that I could never escape.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Criticism of Amuricanism
Critiques:
(The errors that are in the original text are not mine. I directly translated them from the story.)
• There were numerous instances of repetition of words, or cases where a similar word was used. For example, “vision” and “envisioned” within a line of each other, as well as “unoriginal” twice in two lines. This was also an issue with phrases used twice (“I even autograph” on the same line two times).
• “All that I have done has been lies and I feel as though I am not even an arteest any longer.” There really isn’t any huge problem with this sentence, I just think that it would sound better if it were the following: “All that I have been and done has been lies. I feel as though I am no longer an arteest.” I made these changes because I feel that they are two completely different ideas and should not be in the same sentence.
• “ ‘You suck, merdre!’ My eyes turned to look at the accidental missile launch button.” This idea has absolutely no intro. When did this button appear out of nowhere? Perhaps more description or background is necessary in between to explain why Jacques-Luis has this button.
• “Pshhhhhhhhh steam rose out of the missile silo as the nuke head began to erupt out of the silo in the backyard. Pshhhhhhhhhhh, it sounded as the misslle flew yards into the air and as the homing device begun to activate, it flew downwards soaring ever so gracefully to hit it’s mark.” This pair of “sentences” is fraught with errors. I would rewrite it like this: “Pshhhh. Steam rose from the missile as the nuke head began to erupt out of the silo in the backyard. Pshhhh, it continued to sound as the missile flew yards into the air. As the homing device began to activate it flew downwards, soaring ever so gracefully to hit its mark.”
• I have no suggestion for a better ending. The one that is present has nothing at all to do with the story. There is no evidence in this story that such an ending would unfold. I don’t know what to say
I agree with the given moral: that life is too transient a thing to waste upon something that comes to no point. The main character Jacques-Luis (or should I say Owen?) has a revelation to this effect in the second paragraph where he realizes that “everything that [he has] created or that defines [him], is unoriginal.” This continues with the idea that “all that [he has] said and done has been lies” and he begins “wondering how everything that [he has] done could be for nothing.” In this comical and simple story where the character is not very developed, this is of no concern. Sadly this problem can occur in the real world as well. An example of said occurrence might be the midlife crisis, the sudden realization of one’s age and situation. More often than not, this trouble can find you in a very different place than you imagined for yourself when young, throwing you into a fit of worry and a sudden change in lifestyle. The moral: time is short. Don’t waste it.
(The errors that are in the original text are not mine. I directly translated them from the story.)
• There were numerous instances of repetition of words, or cases where a similar word was used. For example, “vision” and “envisioned” within a line of each other, as well as “unoriginal” twice in two lines. This was also an issue with phrases used twice (“I even autograph” on the same line two times).
• “All that I have done has been lies and I feel as though I am not even an arteest any longer.” There really isn’t any huge problem with this sentence, I just think that it would sound better if it were the following: “All that I have been and done has been lies. I feel as though I am no longer an arteest.” I made these changes because I feel that they are two completely different ideas and should not be in the same sentence.
• “ ‘You suck, merdre!’ My eyes turned to look at the accidental missile launch button.” This idea has absolutely no intro. When did this button appear out of nowhere? Perhaps more description or background is necessary in between to explain why Jacques-Luis has this button.
• “Pshhhhhhhhh steam rose out of the missile silo as the nuke head began to erupt out of the silo in the backyard. Pshhhhhhhhhhh, it sounded as the misslle flew yards into the air and as the homing device begun to activate, it flew downwards soaring ever so gracefully to hit it’s mark.” This pair of “sentences” is fraught with errors. I would rewrite it like this: “Pshhhh. Steam rose from the missile as the nuke head began to erupt out of the silo in the backyard. Pshhhh, it continued to sound as the missile flew yards into the air. As the homing device began to activate it flew downwards, soaring ever so gracefully to hit its mark.”
• I have no suggestion for a better ending. The one that is present has nothing at all to do with the story. There is no evidence in this story that such an ending would unfold. I don’t know what to say
I agree with the given moral: that life is too transient a thing to waste upon something that comes to no point. The main character Jacques-Luis (or should I say Owen?) has a revelation to this effect in the second paragraph where he realizes that “everything that [he has] created or that defines [him], is unoriginal.” This continues with the idea that “all that [he has] said and done has been lies” and he begins “wondering how everything that [he has] done could be for nothing.” In this comical and simple story where the character is not very developed, this is of no concern. Sadly this problem can occur in the real world as well. An example of said occurrence might be the midlife crisis, the sudden realization of one’s age and situation. More often than not, this trouble can find you in a very different place than you imagined for yourself when young, throwing you into a fit of worry and a sudden change in lifestyle. The moral: time is short. Don’t waste it.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The Lies I Lie
Everyone lies. Even people of shining honor and purity do, if not to others, then to themselves. This is the worst sort of lie. The funniest thing about these untruths that we scatter about ourselves is that we can never remember what they are. If the subject was important enough to lie about, shouldn’t we be able to remember what it is we said? More often than not though, this is very difficult. I cannot remember having lied to others, although I am very sure that I have because everyone does.
There are many different realms falsehood. To stretch the truth in order to make someone feel better is not a bad form of it - the white lie is sometimes the best. To mislead so as to render oneself in a better light is simply vain and foolish. To lie until the real world begins to fall apart and stitch itself in entirely new patterns is to be a writer. To make believe is to be a child, no matter your age. The greatest defining factor over the type of liar you are is your motive for committing the crime. If there is no rationale, then there really should never have been a deception.
What kind of liar am I? The hurtful kind - the kind that lies to themselves through, around, and over teeth. I tell myself all sorts of things. I say that I am ugly, stupid, weak. I tell my mind that it is worthless, foolish, naïve, and conceited. I tell myself the worst, painting a portrait of an unskilled, thoughtless monster. I don’t mean to, but every doubt or fear that I have speaks to me with my own voice. If I believe it when I tell myself these things, is it still a lie? For I do believe firmly, until the person that I truly am emerges to stop the massacre. I know I am superlative in nothing, but I know these to be untruths as well and in no way can I justify telling myself these things. Few can. I love who I am, but I fall into my own web of lies often and turn to hate.
So I know that it is true when I say that lies can be a form of entrapment or of escape. It just depends on how they are used.
There are many different realms falsehood. To stretch the truth in order to make someone feel better is not a bad form of it - the white lie is sometimes the best. To mislead so as to render oneself in a better light is simply vain and foolish. To lie until the real world begins to fall apart and stitch itself in entirely new patterns is to be a writer. To make believe is to be a child, no matter your age. The greatest defining factor over the type of liar you are is your motive for committing the crime. If there is no rationale, then there really should never have been a deception.
What kind of liar am I? The hurtful kind - the kind that lies to themselves through, around, and over teeth. I tell myself all sorts of things. I say that I am ugly, stupid, weak. I tell my mind that it is worthless, foolish, naïve, and conceited. I tell myself the worst, painting a portrait of an unskilled, thoughtless monster. I don’t mean to, but every doubt or fear that I have speaks to me with my own voice. If I believe it when I tell myself these things, is it still a lie? For I do believe firmly, until the person that I truly am emerges to stop the massacre. I know I am superlative in nothing, but I know these to be untruths as well and in no way can I justify telling myself these things. Few can. I love who I am, but I fall into my own web of lies often and turn to hate.
So I know that it is true when I say that lies can be a form of entrapment or of escape. It just depends on how they are used.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
The Bokononist View
Lunch
“Cinco de Mayo!” proclaimed the sign on the far wall. It’s ecstatic message and vibrant, ebullient coloring was not quite enough to make the drab, bleak wall it covered happy. Even the yellow paper drooped a little about the edges, as if shying away from the institutional white sullied by the even, grey smear of dust and grubby, children’s hands. I looked down to my poorly wrapped burrito, engulfed in a sea of snowy white sour cream. The edges I pulled down and set to re-wrapping, my hands bleaching as they became increasingly covered with the cream, the burrito no closer to wrapped than before. I valiantly pursued my goal for another minute, sighing as I finally allowed it to flop down. A wet sort of slap met my ears and I gazed desolately at my shirt, finding myself speckled with a fine shower of the white goo. I looked up to my fellow inmate. “Do they use sour cream in Mexico?”
No reply came as the dreamy sort of boy who sat across from me turned a churro in his hands. He took a bite and, as I reached for a napkin, he told me, “I do so love rice pudding.” I nodded in acknowledgment and proceeded to wipe my front, only aggravating the mess. I dipped the napkin in my lemonade and brought it back to my shirt to scrub harder when a sudden uncontrollable thought stayed my hand. "Rice pudding," I whispered. "Rice pudding," I exclaimed, standing and putting my hands on the table, the idea too great to contain seated, too heavy to bear on one's own.
The pinched, sallow girl to my left turned to me abruptly. “Sour cream,” she stated, “do Mexicans use it?” I shook my head. I don’t know. I looked at my hands on the table. I could no longer remember what I was thinking before. That girl was undeniably my wrang-wrang.
Assembly
“This school,” proclaimed the teacher proudly, “This school is like a family. Yes! A family, where we all respect and cherish each other as we work to the same goal: higher education.” He continued in his speech, but my ears involuntarily rejected the foma that he persisted in sharing with us, attentive and eager students all. Granfalloon. False. I turned to a contemplation of my true karass. Not these students, certainly, I thought. Maybe the churro boy though – he held promise. Across the gym from where I sat, two girls leaned against each other releasing sobbing, hiccuping, titters while braiding each other’s hair, deep in vociferous conference. I watched them a moment, but my attention was drawn by casual clap. In another section this noise was echoed a small responding applause from a boy wearing a look of undisguised vacuity. I stared blankly at his foolish grin. He clapped again, the smile spreading wider as if it was the sound itself that entertained him so. Down in the center, the teacher had reached a point of rapture, his face glowing, eyes shining and lit by some inner vision. He brought his hands together and the noise echoed across the now silent room, hitting the walls. CLAP. The sound jarred the teacher, snapping his reverie like a pencil in its grip.
Now, Bokonon tells us in The Books of Bokonon, "Do not disturb the foolish man, he has found his foma and lives by it foolishly. This man is very wise." What can one do for the wise and foolish man who lives foolishly and disturbs himself?
Schoolish ramblings. Don't mind me.
“Cinco de Mayo!” proclaimed the sign on the far wall. It’s ecstatic message and vibrant, ebullient coloring was not quite enough to make the drab, bleak wall it covered happy. Even the yellow paper drooped a little about the edges, as if shying away from the institutional white sullied by the even, grey smear of dust and grubby, children’s hands. I looked down to my poorly wrapped burrito, engulfed in a sea of snowy white sour cream. The edges I pulled down and set to re-wrapping, my hands bleaching as they became increasingly covered with the cream, the burrito no closer to wrapped than before. I valiantly pursued my goal for another minute, sighing as I finally allowed it to flop down. A wet sort of slap met my ears and I gazed desolately at my shirt, finding myself speckled with a fine shower of the white goo. I looked up to my fellow inmate. “Do they use sour cream in Mexico?”
No reply came as the dreamy sort of boy who sat across from me turned a churro in his hands. He took a bite and, as I reached for a napkin, he told me, “I do so love rice pudding.” I nodded in acknowledgment and proceeded to wipe my front, only aggravating the mess. I dipped the napkin in my lemonade and brought it back to my shirt to scrub harder when a sudden uncontrollable thought stayed my hand. "Rice pudding," I whispered. "Rice pudding," I exclaimed, standing and putting my hands on the table, the idea too great to contain seated, too heavy to bear on one's own.
The pinched, sallow girl to my left turned to me abruptly. “Sour cream,” she stated, “do Mexicans use it?” I shook my head. I don’t know. I looked at my hands on the table. I could no longer remember what I was thinking before. That girl was undeniably my wrang-wrang.
Assembly
“This school,” proclaimed the teacher proudly, “This school is like a family. Yes! A family, where we all respect and cherish each other as we work to the same goal: higher education.” He continued in his speech, but my ears involuntarily rejected the foma that he persisted in sharing with us, attentive and eager students all. Granfalloon. False. I turned to a contemplation of my true karass. Not these students, certainly, I thought. Maybe the churro boy though – he held promise. Across the gym from where I sat, two girls leaned against each other releasing sobbing, hiccuping, titters while braiding each other’s hair, deep in vociferous conference. I watched them a moment, but my attention was drawn by casual clap. In another section this noise was echoed a small responding applause from a boy wearing a look of undisguised vacuity. I stared blankly at his foolish grin. He clapped again, the smile spreading wider as if it was the sound itself that entertained him so. Down in the center, the teacher had reached a point of rapture, his face glowing, eyes shining and lit by some inner vision. He brought his hands together and the noise echoed across the now silent room, hitting the walls. CLAP. The sound jarred the teacher, snapping his reverie like a pencil in its grip.
Now, Bokonon tells us in The Books of Bokonon, "Do not disturb the foolish man, he has found his foma and lives by it foolishly. This man is very wise." What can one do for the wise and foolish man who lives foolishly and disturbs himself?
Schoolish ramblings. Don't mind me.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Crowe's Wing
If you read this at the beginning of a story, what would you think?
"In the wide winter world beyond the sunshine of the witch’s home, a wizard and a princeling met for the first time amongst the snow. It was a widely acknowledged fact that the Prince was losing himself to the cold. His name and land are unimportant. They disappeared into the snow soon enough in any case. In the end he was called Crowe by those who knew of his disappearance – he had no friends to give him a happier name and it was given in speculation of his black heart, blacker than night-time which is simply a deep blue wave that sweeps over the world. No, he was truly black as the underside of a crowe’s wing, hidden from light. As is true of almost all persons, good or bad, he had his time of innocence, a period that stretched from youngest childhood and well into his years as a young man. It seemed, to those who were not well acquainted with him, that the change in his character happened gradually and could not be marked to any one moment in time, similarly to the way a flower does not wither overnight but loses its bloom over days. Those often in his presence, however, noted the first day, the first sign that he had lost his heart.
Crowe always loved the sun, the summer, and the way light glinted turning everything to gold. As a young boy, he pretended to be the King of a grand story and all that his child’s fingertips could touch turned to liquid gold, a pool of sunlight held in his small hand. So it came as no surprise to his staff that he lost a little of his heart the day the snow first came. It flew in on a morning mist, seeming to creep with the same steady step. In the early, grayish rays of light, the manservant woke himself to prepare the world for his young master, the Prince. He rushed to the sitting room, stirring a cloud of dust that seemed for a last time to reflect the sunlight and happiness. He stopped in the door, shocked, because there he found his Prince, hunched over the window, hands locked behind his back, many movements of sun before he usually rose. Later, in reflection, the manservant observed that it was almost as if the sun had called a goodbye to the Prince, as he was simply called before he earned the title of Crowe. It shined brightly out to him a last time at dawn before it was smothered by the white.
He stood there for much of the morning, though it was difficult to judge time at all as the sun did not mark a passage through the visible heavens. When at last he turned his folk could see what he had hidden. The shame of tears never came over him, but his face was such a mask of tragedy that they all stopped to comfort their beloved Prince until he raged at them to leave him be. So it was that he shut himself in his apartments for a good sennight before venturing into a world without warmth.
His first appearance revealed a Prince in a decidedly foul mood, terribly Crowe-like, though they would not have known to call it that then. To the staff he was unpleasant to say the least; his orders came fast and restless. When the servants complied with his demands at a regular pace they were reprimanded for indolence, but when too fast accused of carelessness. He was not to be satisfied and few went home without some bewilderment, upset, and thought to where the gentle and loving Prince had gotten to. Over the next days and weeks they continued to try and please, but to no avail – their Prince refused to come in from the cold. Still, all his changes came as a surprise: the first time he deliberately struck one of his own, banished some member of the staff, killed, and took up killing permanently. A great hunter he became. His will was indefatigable - no beast or man could escape his ruthless hounding. Despite these terrible changes, these rivulets of blood red through the pure, snow-like heart of the Prince, a glimmer of gold still shone through. Not often was it visible, but some found it, small flowers of people who felt the warmth of sunlight within him still.
One such was then only a young sapling of a girl, running wild in the winter wastes of the southern plateaus. Pilar they called her. The brutal winds that tore that rock-strewn land gifted her with a mother and father of ice, as well as an indifferent freedom stretching to forever, or at least the Prince’s Black Wood. She was no stranger to this freedom, disappearing into rock, air, a swirl of frost in the jewel-crusted dawn. The mother did not even twitch an eyebrow at this, staring endlessly into the swirling white beyond their hut’s thin walls, the father gazing sightlessly at the flickering flames of the hearth. The only emotion to touch their cold faces was in a watered reflection of the wildness of snow and fire. When Pilar returned, shadows flickered across the mother’s face: a smile, an inaudible question. “Where did you go?”
“Not far. Do not worry yourself.”
“I did not.”
“I know. When have you ever?” and the daughter turned and ran to the cold’s loving arms, warmer even than her mother’s, where the shadowed Black Wood of the lost, darkened Prince waited for her, singing her song, a music that played for few. The mother continued her silent vigil. The father did not look up.
In the Wood, Pilar grew to maidenhood. There was little that she could not find, those old trees worse than all the kingdom’s gossips. Histories were spread from one to the other; even the newest tales of their Crowe-prince shook travelers through the greenery. The moths strong enough to escape the wet frigidity kissed the old faces of bark and whispered new knowledge into their gnarled knolls. All they gave willingly to Pilar who listened and understood their ramblings, not in the human acknowledgment of the groans of aching trees, but in the understanding of snow and cold that reaches to center. So it was that Pilar recognized something of herself in the murmurings of the Black Prince."
Yes, I know that is not how you spell "crow" and that "princeling" is not a word. Microsoft Word (and now, Blogger) remind me of these things daily.
"In the wide winter world beyond the sunshine of the witch’s home, a wizard and a princeling met for the first time amongst the snow. It was a widely acknowledged fact that the Prince was losing himself to the cold. His name and land are unimportant. They disappeared into the snow soon enough in any case. In the end he was called Crowe by those who knew of his disappearance – he had no friends to give him a happier name and it was given in speculation of his black heart, blacker than night-time which is simply a deep blue wave that sweeps over the world. No, he was truly black as the underside of a crowe’s wing, hidden from light. As is true of almost all persons, good or bad, he had his time of innocence, a period that stretched from youngest childhood and well into his years as a young man. It seemed, to those who were not well acquainted with him, that the change in his character happened gradually and could not be marked to any one moment in time, similarly to the way a flower does not wither overnight but loses its bloom over days. Those often in his presence, however, noted the first day, the first sign that he had lost his heart.
Crowe always loved the sun, the summer, and the way light glinted turning everything to gold. As a young boy, he pretended to be the King of a grand story and all that his child’s fingertips could touch turned to liquid gold, a pool of sunlight held in his small hand. So it came as no surprise to his staff that he lost a little of his heart the day the snow first came. It flew in on a morning mist, seeming to creep with the same steady step. In the early, grayish rays of light, the manservant woke himself to prepare the world for his young master, the Prince. He rushed to the sitting room, stirring a cloud of dust that seemed for a last time to reflect the sunlight and happiness. He stopped in the door, shocked, because there he found his Prince, hunched over the window, hands locked behind his back, many movements of sun before he usually rose. Later, in reflection, the manservant observed that it was almost as if the sun had called a goodbye to the Prince, as he was simply called before he earned the title of Crowe. It shined brightly out to him a last time at dawn before it was smothered by the white.
He stood there for much of the morning, though it was difficult to judge time at all as the sun did not mark a passage through the visible heavens. When at last he turned his folk could see what he had hidden. The shame of tears never came over him, but his face was such a mask of tragedy that they all stopped to comfort their beloved Prince until he raged at them to leave him be. So it was that he shut himself in his apartments for a good sennight before venturing into a world without warmth.
His first appearance revealed a Prince in a decidedly foul mood, terribly Crowe-like, though they would not have known to call it that then. To the staff he was unpleasant to say the least; his orders came fast and restless. When the servants complied with his demands at a regular pace they were reprimanded for indolence, but when too fast accused of carelessness. He was not to be satisfied and few went home without some bewilderment, upset, and thought to where the gentle and loving Prince had gotten to. Over the next days and weeks they continued to try and please, but to no avail – their Prince refused to come in from the cold. Still, all his changes came as a surprise: the first time he deliberately struck one of his own, banished some member of the staff, killed, and took up killing permanently. A great hunter he became. His will was indefatigable - no beast or man could escape his ruthless hounding. Despite these terrible changes, these rivulets of blood red through the pure, snow-like heart of the Prince, a glimmer of gold still shone through. Not often was it visible, but some found it, small flowers of people who felt the warmth of sunlight within him still.
One such was then only a young sapling of a girl, running wild in the winter wastes of the southern plateaus. Pilar they called her. The brutal winds that tore that rock-strewn land gifted her with a mother and father of ice, as well as an indifferent freedom stretching to forever, or at least the Prince’s Black Wood. She was no stranger to this freedom, disappearing into rock, air, a swirl of frost in the jewel-crusted dawn. The mother did not even twitch an eyebrow at this, staring endlessly into the swirling white beyond their hut’s thin walls, the father gazing sightlessly at the flickering flames of the hearth. The only emotion to touch their cold faces was in a watered reflection of the wildness of snow and fire. When Pilar returned, shadows flickered across the mother’s face: a smile, an inaudible question. “Where did you go?”
“Not far. Do not worry yourself.”
“I did not.”
“I know. When have you ever?” and the daughter turned and ran to the cold’s loving arms, warmer even than her mother’s, where the shadowed Black Wood of the lost, darkened Prince waited for her, singing her song, a music that played for few. The mother continued her silent vigil. The father did not look up.
In the Wood, Pilar grew to maidenhood. There was little that she could not find, those old trees worse than all the kingdom’s gossips. Histories were spread from one to the other; even the newest tales of their Crowe-prince shook travelers through the greenery. The moths strong enough to escape the wet frigidity kissed the old faces of bark and whispered new knowledge into their gnarled knolls. All they gave willingly to Pilar who listened and understood their ramblings, not in the human acknowledgment of the groans of aching trees, but in the understanding of snow and cold that reaches to center. So it was that Pilar recognized something of herself in the murmurings of the Black Prince."
Yes, I know that is not how you spell "crow" and that "princeling" is not a word. Microsoft Word (and now, Blogger) remind me of these things daily.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Call Me Crazy
Plain Jane Fred
Call me Fred. Everyone else tries not to, but I can tell that you will manage it. It is not the name I would have given myself, but it is mine. If I had a say in the matter, I would have been an Adele or a Jane, something girlish and good. Something that is not masculine and strong. If I had a say. As it is, call me Alfred, the name given me by my father and many fathers before him.
The matter was decided long before I was born or even a distant possibility. It was decided when my father first heard that he was the umpteenth of a long line of Alfreds. He knew then that any child of his would have “Alfred” in its name. Any child. Almost twenty-five years later he was wheeling my mother into the hospital, already imagining the birth certificate laid out perfectly, a beautiful “umpteenth plus one” written out behind the child’s first name. The fine, fat baby boy was second in his thoughts, not yet quite able to win over my father’s love. There was no doubt in either of their minds though, that a small, virile Alfred the umpteenth and counting was to be delivered to their doorstep that night. Not that they had taken the tests. They just knew.
So it was that when the doctor pulled me cawing like a misshapen bird from my mother’s womb, she began to cry. My father, however, was untouchable, beaming happily on the scene, rushing to take me from the nurse when offered. His evening went exactly as planned, a lovely little “-a” tacked on to the name that had ever been his and became mine. As if somehow that made me a girl, that “a” defining me even more than the name “Alfred” defined my father. Because I am. A girl.
Flying High
Call me tomorrow. I am not there yet, but I will be. You’ll see. I’ll meet you there. For now, though, help me because I am trying to remember and it just won’t come. I used to believe in something, but there is nothing inside me anymore. I know that it was something stellar, something to fuel rocket ships off of. It could take me to the moon, but now I am sadly earth bound and all my ideas have fizzled out like helium from a balloon. That is what my head is now I suppose, a balloon that wants to roll right off and away, now that I cannot remember what it was that held me up. Age does that to you.
I am not so old though, only a few years past my first, maybe twenty. I am the sprightly youth and there are many things that I can recollect. If you’re quiet, I’ll tell them to you. At least, I thought I might. Maybe it was a bad idea to begin with.
Now, call me crazy, but I used to believe that it all meant something good and spectacular. I imagined that I meant something significant and appreciable, like an exclamation point attached to an eloquent voice. Now I know I am just the exclamation point. I used to see myself in the kitchen with a spatula and some eggs or at a café drinking iced tea with my crackers. I might have been that person once – you know the type – but not anymore. Now I am just a balloon. About. To. POP!
Call me Fred. Everyone else tries not to, but I can tell that you will manage it. It is not the name I would have given myself, but it is mine. If I had a say in the matter, I would have been an Adele or a Jane, something girlish and good. Something that is not masculine and strong. If I had a say. As it is, call me Alfred, the name given me by my father and many fathers before him.
The matter was decided long before I was born or even a distant possibility. It was decided when my father first heard that he was the umpteenth of a long line of Alfreds. He knew then that any child of his would have “Alfred” in its name. Any child. Almost twenty-five years later he was wheeling my mother into the hospital, already imagining the birth certificate laid out perfectly, a beautiful “umpteenth plus one” written out behind the child’s first name. The fine, fat baby boy was second in his thoughts, not yet quite able to win over my father’s love. There was no doubt in either of their minds though, that a small, virile Alfred the umpteenth and counting was to be delivered to their doorstep that night. Not that they had taken the tests. They just knew.
So it was that when the doctor pulled me cawing like a misshapen bird from my mother’s womb, she began to cry. My father, however, was untouchable, beaming happily on the scene, rushing to take me from the nurse when offered. His evening went exactly as planned, a lovely little “-a” tacked on to the name that had ever been his and became mine. As if somehow that made me a girl, that “a” defining me even more than the name “Alfred” defined my father. Because I am. A girl.
Flying High
Call me tomorrow. I am not there yet, but I will be. You’ll see. I’ll meet you there. For now, though, help me because I am trying to remember and it just won’t come. I used to believe in something, but there is nothing inside me anymore. I know that it was something stellar, something to fuel rocket ships off of. It could take me to the moon, but now I am sadly earth bound and all my ideas have fizzled out like helium from a balloon. That is what my head is now I suppose, a balloon that wants to roll right off and away, now that I cannot remember what it was that held me up. Age does that to you.
I am not so old though, only a few years past my first, maybe twenty. I am the sprightly youth and there are many things that I can recollect. If you’re quiet, I’ll tell them to you. At least, I thought I might. Maybe it was a bad idea to begin with.
Now, call me crazy, but I used to believe that it all meant something good and spectacular. I imagined that I meant something significant and appreciable, like an exclamation point attached to an eloquent voice. Now I know I am just the exclamation point. I used to see myself in the kitchen with a spatula and some eggs or at a café drinking iced tea with my crackers. I might have been that person once – you know the type – but not anymore. Now I am just a balloon. About. To. POP!
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