The summer sunlight filtered through the trees and warmed the straw roofs of the huts. As soon as the first rays shone through the skylight windows, the children leapt from their sleeping places and came running out to meet the day, laughing and tumbling their way to the village water trough. There they splashed, teased, shared scraps of dreams, watched fondly by mothers and fathers already about their own morning tasks.
Arunj laughed along with the rest, tying up long, glossy black hair before putting face to refreshingly cool water: laughed, but with a new wariness in the keen brown eyes.
For Arunj was thirteen, and today was Deciding Day. Come nightfall, life would be different.
Breakfast for the children was the usual meal: yoghurt from sheep's milk, fresh red berries, fire-baked bread, kaff, a hot drink made from a bean that grew nearby, that made young children alert and ready to learn. Arunj savoured every bite, every swallow, thinking: Today is the day. After today, I will not be a child. I will not eat with them, nor sleep with them. I will have a different life.
Breakfast was particularly sweet, as Arunj secretly studied the faces of companions who would soon be companions no more, still children...and the face of contemporaries who would be going along on the journey, the thirteen-year-olds who shared their Deciding Day.
In particular, Arunj caught the eye of Cics, a dear friend and constant companion. The two smiled at one another, and then looked quickly away. Perhaps Cics, too, was wondering, as Arunj was wondering? Each hoping that the other had decided...?
It was forbidden to tell before the Deciding. It would displease the gods, Grandmother Olana said. It would make a child Decide wrongly, snorted Grandfather Brunjo, that was all.
No matter. Forbidden it was, although Arunj could see it in the faces of the other Deciders - the hope, the fear. And in the faces of the adults. Perhaps a mother secretly wished...? Perhaps a father had always wanted...? No matter. The Decision was made on Deciding Day. The child must decide.
After breakfast, Arunj ran across the square, child's bare feet pounding on the hard-stamped ground, to the house of Arisha, the weaving instructress. This was a class Arunj enjoyed very much. All the children loved Arisha, the patient way in which she taught her skills. They loved, too, her jokes, the stories and songs she shared while they practised the weaving that all the tribe learned as children, that clothed them and gave them goods to trade. Arisha looked up from her loom and smiled as she saw Arunj.
'Come here, little one, ' she said. 'Are you ready for tonight? Do you have your clothing ready?'
Arunj nodded, eyes solemn. 'May I show you now, Arisha?' Arisha nodded, smiling.
Arunj went to the wicker chest in the corner - each pupil had one assigned - and took out the two sets of garments made, carefully, over the last year - the garments for the Deciding - one to wear, and one to give away, one yellow, one green. Arunj carried them carefully to Arisha, who touched them gravely, examining the patterns of the duol woven in lines of shining thread, the pattern that celebrated the passage from childhood to adulthood. She looked at her pupil, eyes shining.
'They are beautiful,' she murmured. 'And you are beautiful, my child.' She held out her arms. 'Come, let me embrace you. After today, you will no longer be a child. After today, perhaps, who knows, I may not...' She left the sentence unfinished, but both knew what she meant. A last embrace between pupil and teacher, and Arunj took the new clothes home to store, taking the back stairs to the children's loft, not wanting to see Mother, because Mother was not easy to talk to lately, Mother was preoccupied...
So Arunj went to see Eralto, the gruff trainer, who sat polishing copper breastplates on the steps of the armoury. Feared by the fiercest warrior in the village, Eralto was beloved of all the children. Arunj somersaulted across the practice yard and landed, laughing, beside the grey-haired old fighter, who pretended to be angry at the disruption in his day's routine, but only for a moment. Then he invited Arunj to sit beside him and help with the work. They did not speak much, but the companionship itself was more eloquent than words. Arunj loved this teacher, and knew that Eralto would never speak of what was in his mind - what he, perhaps, hoped for from a star pupil, the best runner, the most agile...but Deciding was not for discussion. They finished the work and shared a lunch of bread and goat's cheese, almost in silence. Then Arunj impulsively embraced the old man before turning and running...
...away, out of the village, toward the river, away from the village landing and its fishing boats, downstream a bit, around the bend, where no one could see...past the gate to the fenced garden, the garden whose trees produced a special fruit....above all, Arunj did not want to think about that garden and that fruit, not just now...
Arunj lay down on the bank and cried, just a little.
Deciding. How to Decide? What to become, what to choose? Would the choice make one friend happy, one unhappy? Would the choice make the village stronger, weaker? What talents were best?
Which garment to wear to the council fire tonight - the yellow or the green? Which to wear, which to give away to a beloved friend?
With eyes closed, Arunj could see the two sets of duol patterns - the intricate patterns, weaving in and out, that spoke of choosing and of destiny. But how to know? With eyes opened, Arunj looked up and saw two butterflies dancing above the tall grass, dancing as butterflies dance in summer. Arunj smiled.
The butterflies seemed almost identical, large, with white wings...but one had a green spot on each wing, the other a golden one. Together they danced, their fluttering wings kissing the air as they skimmed the top of the grass. Arunj gazed at them, at the spots which appeared and disappeared as they flew, until they flew away up the ridge behind the river.
Eyes closed again, Arunj saw the two sets of spots...green, yellow, yellow, green...one brighter than the other.
Arunj smiled. The Deciding had come. And with it, the need to jump up and run, run fast, back home to bathe and dress and prepare for the ritual of Deciding.
The elders were solemn as they led the singing at the council fire. The songs told of choice, of joy, of responsibility. The parents waited nervously, holding hands tightly, as their children, soon to be children no more, approached and announced their decisions.
Arunj waited in the shadows as, one by one, the others stepped before the Elders, showed themselves to the tribe, and received their First Fruit. Arunj was sometimes surprised at the choice, sometimes not...but one choice in particular brought a surge of joy to the heart.
Finally, the master of ceremonies called Arunj's name.
Stepping out of the shadows, Arunj could hear Father gasp as the firelight caught the shine of the golden threads in the green shirt and trousers. Arunj addressed the assembled group in prescribed, formal speech:
'My fathers and mothers, I have decided. My name is Arunj-o.'
Tears were shining in Mother's eyes, whether of joy, pride, disappointment, there was no time to learn.
'I bring a gift for my friend, and I ask for the birthright I have chosen. I ask for the green fruit of manhood.'
A smiling elder handed Arunjo the fruit - the green fruit from the special garden - that would trigger the physical process that would make him what he had chosen to become.
And great was Arunjo's joy as he solemnly offered the other garment - a bright yellow dress, lovingly made - to his dearest friend, the beautiful woman-to-be, his own Cics-a.
04 December 2010
01 December 2010
Teleportation - An Inside Look
As someone - I can't quite remember who - once said, the secret to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Teleportation (or quantum locomotion, if you prefer) operates on a similar principle - forget that you have a body.
The first thing that is difficult for those who were brought up on planets to understand is that you are not your body. Those beings raised in a eco-dependent biosphere have trouble believing this, because it is counterintuitive. After all, you came into existence on the planet as the result of some sort of reproductive process on the part of your parent or parents, be it sexual congress, spawning, cloning, or simply spitting on the sidewalk(1). You live within the biosphere, subject to its laws of energy exchange, requiring food and liquid to maintain your body(2), and then, finally, your body gives out, and you die - that is, you disappear from your native biosphere, and all your friends and relatives are unhappy, and hold a funeral(3). And, as far as anyone within the biosphere can tell, that is that. End of story.
The truth of course is quite different, as it so usually is in these chronicles. For, by dying, by exiting the shell with which you have interfaced with your native biosphere, you perform your first quantum leap. Because it is then - and, for most sentients, only then - that you discover what you should have suspected all along. You are not your body(4).
A sentient being is in reality a nexus of energy fields in space-time which reacts to materiality generated by dimensional gravity wells in the multiverse by attaching itself and forming a material interface in accordance with the narrativium(5) of the material dimension. It is the nexus - itself a complete noncorporeal entity - which constitutes sentience per se - the rest is window dressing, as it were.
The fact that so many beings in so many dimensions expend so much time, energy, and fan email on the window dressing part is subject for another essay(6).
Be that as it may, the desideratum of the teleporteur in spe should be to be able to change dimensional loci without first undergoing bodily dissolution - largely because it is painful, expensive, and basically no fun at all.
The first step to this - one which is mere child's play to anyone who has managed to read this far(7) - is a lively imagination. After all, you can't go anywhere unless you look up your destination first.
The second step is more difficult. You must become aware of your mind. Not your brain, not your thoughts, not the part of you that does the Times crossword in ink every Sunday afternoon(8), but the nexus. And that, too, is easier than you think. It simply requires you to be completely absent-minded.
The nexus is actually just the part of you that knows what it's like to fly, even if you have never fallen off the roof. The part that knows how a peanut butter milkshake would taste(9) - and acts accordingly.
The nexus knows - but the narrativium-obsessed interface mind, the one that remembers how to tie shoelaces and find the blasted car keys - does not.
For this reason, most space stations have transporter equipment. After all, a few hundred thousand poscreds' worth of hardware - and a tech to push the buttons - is cheaper than an army of Jungian gurus tasked with persuading the unwilling into taking the leap(10).
The purpose of the equipment is twofold. One - to inspire confidence in the traveller. There's nothing like a strobe light, hologenerator, and a bit of neon to convince your average sentient that he is in the capable hands of Science.
The second is to accomplish the real task of teleportation - that of moving the focus of the nexus off the current location in space-time. The destination coordinates are preset, and are no problem at all(11). This the transporter does by creating an unnatural, contrary-to-fact state in the mind of the sentient.
'Oh no!, he thinks. I'm going to leap out of reality! But I can't! But I must - Aunt Tilda is waiting on Betelgeuse with cakes and jam! Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh...IS THAT A PURPLE COW??? Leap.
You see? Nothing to it!
May all our problems be so simple to solve. And may technology pave our way to a brighter tomorrow - or yesterday - in the space-time locus of our choice.
Happy wanderings, friends!
FOOTNOTES:
1 Which, besides being in contravention of the Gross Indecency Act of 2555, violates Good Housekeeping rules, so don't do it. You have been warned.
2 And often being required to do the most awful things to obtain them - such as work.
3 Your enemies are glad, and throw a party. Unfair. I know. We live to make our friends happy, and our enemies sad - we die to make our enemies happy, and our friends sad.
4 A fact hitherto suspected only by dieters.
5 Or plot-rules.
6 And, occasionally, sadness.
7 Or, indeed, any other of the demented screeds of this writer.
8 What else is there to do until teatime?
9 De gustibus non disputandum, as the hummingbird said to the fish.
10 Have you looked at what kind of salaries those fellows pull these days? Ye gods.
11 See Carlos Castaneda, complete works.
The first thing that is difficult for those who were brought up on planets to understand is that you are not your body. Those beings raised in a eco-dependent biosphere have trouble believing this, because it is counterintuitive. After all, you came into existence on the planet as the result of some sort of reproductive process on the part of your parent or parents, be it sexual congress, spawning, cloning, or simply spitting on the sidewalk(1). You live within the biosphere, subject to its laws of energy exchange, requiring food and liquid to maintain your body(2), and then, finally, your body gives out, and you die - that is, you disappear from your native biosphere, and all your friends and relatives are unhappy, and hold a funeral(3). And, as far as anyone within the biosphere can tell, that is that. End of story.
The truth of course is quite different, as it so usually is in these chronicles. For, by dying, by exiting the shell with which you have interfaced with your native biosphere, you perform your first quantum leap. Because it is then - and, for most sentients, only then - that you discover what you should have suspected all along. You are not your body(4).
A sentient being is in reality a nexus of energy fields in space-time which reacts to materiality generated by dimensional gravity wells in the multiverse by attaching itself and forming a material interface in accordance with the narrativium(5) of the material dimension. It is the nexus - itself a complete noncorporeal entity - which constitutes sentience per se - the rest is window dressing, as it were.
The fact that so many beings in so many dimensions expend so much time, energy, and fan email on the window dressing part is subject for another essay(6).
Be that as it may, the desideratum of the teleporteur in spe should be to be able to change dimensional loci without first undergoing bodily dissolution - largely because it is painful, expensive, and basically no fun at all.
The first step to this - one which is mere child's play to anyone who has managed to read this far(7) - is a lively imagination. After all, you can't go anywhere unless you look up your destination first.
The second step is more difficult. You must become aware of your mind. Not your brain, not your thoughts, not the part of you that does the Times crossword in ink every Sunday afternoon(8), but the nexus. And that, too, is easier than you think. It simply requires you to be completely absent-minded.
The nexus is actually just the part of you that knows what it's like to fly, even if you have never fallen off the roof. The part that knows how a peanut butter milkshake would taste(9) - and acts accordingly.
The nexus knows - but the narrativium-obsessed interface mind, the one that remembers how to tie shoelaces and find the blasted car keys - does not.
For this reason, most space stations have transporter equipment. After all, a few hundred thousand poscreds' worth of hardware - and a tech to push the buttons - is cheaper than an army of Jungian gurus tasked with persuading the unwilling into taking the leap(10).
The purpose of the equipment is twofold. One - to inspire confidence in the traveller. There's nothing like a strobe light, hologenerator, and a bit of neon to convince your average sentient that he is in the capable hands of Science.
The second is to accomplish the real task of teleportation - that of moving the focus of the nexus off the current location in space-time. The destination coordinates are preset, and are no problem at all(11). This the transporter does by creating an unnatural, contrary-to-fact state in the mind of the sentient.
'Oh no!, he thinks. I'm going to leap out of reality! But I can't! But I must - Aunt Tilda is waiting on Betelgeuse with cakes and jam! Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh...IS THAT A PURPLE COW??? Leap.
You see? Nothing to it!
May all our problems be so simple to solve. And may technology pave our way to a brighter tomorrow - or yesterday - in the space-time locus of our choice.
Happy wanderings, friends!
FOOTNOTES:
1 Which, besides being in contravention of the Gross Indecency Act of 2555, violates Good Housekeeping rules, so don't do it. You have been warned.
2 And often being required to do the most awful things to obtain them - such as work.
3 Your enemies are glad, and throw a party. Unfair. I know. We live to make our friends happy, and our enemies sad - we die to make our enemies happy, and our friends sad.
4 A fact hitherto suspected only by dieters.
5 Or plot-rules.
6 And, occasionally, sadness.
7 Or, indeed, any other of the demented screeds of this writer.
8 What else is there to do until teatime?
9 De gustibus non disputandum, as the hummingbird said to the fish.
10 Have you looked at what kind of salaries those fellows pull these days? Ye gods.
11 See Carlos Castaneda, complete works.
28 November 2010
Colossus
The day the Giant Alien Head showed up in the back forty, I knew we were in for a heap of trouble.
I suppose it's usual to say 'It was a day like any other', but it wasn't. About three a.m. there'd been an earthquake.
Just a tremor for us, and in Greater Hudsie we're used to it, it's a seismic area, but what with the rumbling and the bed vibrating, it woke me up - not my wife Manuela, she sleeps through anything - and I got up to check on the livestock in the pen, but they settled down pretty quickly, and there were no signs of sinkholes, so I reckoned we'd got off easy this time. Later I heard it had been a bigger shock over in Hattie, where it had knocked down a shack or two on the outskirts, and even made a new crack in the pavement in Greenglass. But the cows seemed contented enough, so I went back to bed, which is when Manuela woke up a bit and grumbled at me. She likes her sleep.
I'd been up for the second time, to move the cows over to the summer pasture, and was having a caff in the kitchen, when I looked out the window and saw It, reared up from behind the bobwire in the field where I was cultivating sandgrass, trying to get some more pastureland to take hold. Like I said, we're desert.
The kids saw it, too, and got excited. 'Hey, Da, ' said Jose, my eldest, 'You been buying scrap again? That is the biggest, and ugliest, thing I've ever seen in my life.' We moseyed out to see it.
Jose was right. I'd never seen the like of it, and I hope I never do again. There in my field was a Giant Alien Head. It was huge. It was green. And it was like nothing we'd ever seen before
My daughter Juanita craned her neck to look up at it. 'What kind of crittur is it, Da?' she asked. I scratched my head.
It stood on its shoulders, this head, standing up out of the sparse grass. It was hideous - its neck seemed too thin to support the head, which sported a ribbed bone plate with seven vicious-looking spikes sticking out from it. Underneath that were ropy appendages tucked behind protruding organs where its ears should have been. Two sightless eyes looked out at the pasture above a sharp probiscis, and underneath, two fat slugs that must have been lips curled in a sneer.
As if it knew a secret about us, I thought, and didn't think much of it.
'A ugly one, that's for sure, ' I said aloud. 'Big, green, ugly monster.' Carlito, my youngest, liked the sound of that, and kept chanting it until Manuela, who'd come out to look, told him to shut up.
She shook her head. 'This is trouble, chico. Big trouble.' I nodded in agreement. Big, ugly monsters are trouble. Big, ugly monsters mean big, ugly archaeologists, with big, ugly equipment.
Big, ugly equipment means I don't get my back forty back till they're through studying the Phenomenon. And writing papers. I'd be lucky to get a dollar-fifty compensation out of them tightwads in the government, too. I sighed.
'Jose, get on your bike and go to Garcias'. They've got a phone. Tell 'em to call Hattie, let 'em know what we found. And don't let Mrs Garcia feed you. You got food at home.' As Jose, grumbling, went to get his motorbike out of the shed, Juanita turned to me, curious. 'How'd it get here, Da?' I shrugged again, though I had a theory.
When I was a kid, a possum had scared the life out of me. I was visiting my aunt and uncle down South, where it's wetter, and they got a bait of them things. Possums are ugly, but that wasn't why it had scared me.
It was just after a rainstorm, you see, and I was sitting on the front porch, looking around for a rainbow for the novelty of it, when the bushes at the side of the house started rustling. They shook and shook, and then this possum just emerged from inside the bush, not like he was climbing out, but like he just rose from the bush. Like the bush gave birth to him. He must've got wetter than he liked, and just come out.
I figured the Giant Alien Head was like that. The earthquake must've disturbed it, and the sands shifted, and then it just worked its way on up into the field.
I just wished it'd been somebody else's field. I needed that pasture grass come winter.
As I'd feared, trouble came in waves, and with official stamps all over it. The environmental folks checked for lead. Nope, it was copper, hence the green, they said. I shrugged, what's copper? Some old metal, it turned out. Okay by me, but apparently it was safer than lead.
The guys from the local paper showed up, too, and took our picture in front of the Head. We made it to the front page, just above the story about the new schoolhouse. Manuela was proud, went to the beauty parlour for it, and all.
Then the archaeologists showed up in droves. They measured. They took soundings. They sat around our kitchen, drinking up our caff supply, and argued about what it all meant.
Vandermolen, the big noise from Hattie, was sure he knew what it was. 'It's proof of Alien Visitation,' he claimed. 'I have long been of the opinion that this planet was visited by terribly advanced aliens from outer space, who seeded our civilisation. Look at the pyramids. Look at...'
'Balderdash,' said Rickerts, the guy from out west. 'It represents an ancient, but totally native, development.' The alien appearance of the statue is merely due to a religious idea. It represents some ideal of the ancient civilisation - however repugnant its visage is to us.'
Vandermolen snorted. 'So we put it in the museum with the usual sign, eh? 'Cult object'? I am not ready to concede defeat so easily, my dear colleague.'
They went on like this for days, while I moved my cattle over to my brother-in-law's to keep 'em out of the way. Too many archaeologists spoil the milk, I've found.
Then came the shocker: there was more of the blasted thing underground. It just hadn't come up yet. I didn't want to think about what the body of that monster would look like. Even less did I like to think of what my pasture was going to look like when they finished digging. I was ready to dig in my heels and send for a lawyer.
Then the cavalry arrived, in the form of Juan Sanchez, Simon's oldest boy, who had gone to college and was now working for the government up in Hattie. He showed up with a government grant in one hand and a reimbursement form in the other. Seems the government thought this discovery was so big - it was big, all right, too big, in my opinion - that it 'warranted further on-site study'. And so they were willing to buy us out.
I had no complaints about the settlement. We got a nice price for what amounted to 200 acres of scrubby, sandy soil, and we moved over to my brother-in-law's while we scouted around for a new place to start a spread. The kids were closer to the new schoolhouse, Manuela got along with her sister-in-law like a house on fire, and I helped Pablo with the cows and watched the Big Dig from a safe distance. It was a win-win situation, in my book.
After the first big shock, the paper people left me alone - after all, I had nothing interesting to say except 'yup, I seen it' - and hung around the dig itself. But one day, Dr Vandermolen came by to drink some of my sister-in-law's caff, and told us how it was going.
They'd dug up the whole shebang, except for a piece that was broke off. They hadn't found that yet, but they were still hoping. The whole thing was so huge you could get inside it. And it had writing at the bottom. They were still arguing about the writing, and what it meant.
Over his second piece of shoofly pie (and his third cup of caff), Vandermolen told us that they were going to make a museum out of the site as soon as they'd finished, and we'd all be able to go over and see it - right now there was a big wall around it, maybe they didn't want to spoil the surprise.
Vandermolen still believed in his alien theory, and was glad to explain it to an audience that didn't fight back with footnotes. 'I think these aliens were flesh-eaters,' he said. 'The statue served as some sort of collection point for human sacrifices.' He gestured in the air with his fork, and I dodged shoo-fly crumbs. 'First, because the staircase inside could hold a lot of people. They probably forced them up and out the holes at the top, letting them fall to the their deaths. It was probably presented as a religious sacrifice.
I was glad the kids were in bed - I didn't want them to be thinking about how they'd grown up on top of something like that.
Vabdermolen continued 'At least, that is how I interpret the verse at the base of this Juggernaut.'
The verse was in some ancient language, but they'd sort of puzzled it out. Vandermolen handed me a copy of the translation his graduate student had made. It read:
'Give me the tired ones, the poor ones, The big crowds that can't breathe [well], Give me the garbage, too [?], that washes up on the tide, Give them all wet from the ocean to me. I hold up my light beside the Golden Gate.'
Professor Vandermolen explained that last bit. 'We think the Juggernaut promised the victims a better life in the world to come. That might have made them more willing to be sacrificed.' He went on to say that the diggers were pretty sure that when they found the missing piece of the statue, it would have a lantern, or a torch, in its upraised paw.
'I think I can prove that Earth was the victim of an invasion of man-eating aliens, ' he concluded. I nodded, convinced by this smart man.
'I'm just glad they're gone, ' I said, putting out my arm and pulling Manuela to me, nuzzling the soft fur on the back of her neck. 'They look like they were a nasty species.'
Manuela growled softly in agreement, and lashed her tail.
I suppose it's usual to say 'It was a day like any other', but it wasn't. About three a.m. there'd been an earthquake.
Just a tremor for us, and in Greater Hudsie we're used to it, it's a seismic area, but what with the rumbling and the bed vibrating, it woke me up - not my wife Manuela, she sleeps through anything - and I got up to check on the livestock in the pen, but they settled down pretty quickly, and there were no signs of sinkholes, so I reckoned we'd got off easy this time. Later I heard it had been a bigger shock over in Hattie, where it had knocked down a shack or two on the outskirts, and even made a new crack in the pavement in Greenglass. But the cows seemed contented enough, so I went back to bed, which is when Manuela woke up a bit and grumbled at me. She likes her sleep.
I'd been up for the second time, to move the cows over to the summer pasture, and was having a caff in the kitchen, when I looked out the window and saw It, reared up from behind the bobwire in the field where I was cultivating sandgrass, trying to get some more pastureland to take hold. Like I said, we're desert.
The kids saw it, too, and got excited. 'Hey, Da, ' said Jose, my eldest, 'You been buying scrap again? That is the biggest, and ugliest, thing I've ever seen in my life.' We moseyed out to see it.
Jose was right. I'd never seen the like of it, and I hope I never do again. There in my field was a Giant Alien Head. It was huge. It was green. And it was like nothing we'd ever seen before
My daughter Juanita craned her neck to look up at it. 'What kind of crittur is it, Da?' she asked. I scratched my head.
It stood on its shoulders, this head, standing up out of the sparse grass. It was hideous - its neck seemed too thin to support the head, which sported a ribbed bone plate with seven vicious-looking spikes sticking out from it. Underneath that were ropy appendages tucked behind protruding organs where its ears should have been. Two sightless eyes looked out at the pasture above a sharp probiscis, and underneath, two fat slugs that must have been lips curled in a sneer.
As if it knew a secret about us, I thought, and didn't think much of it.
'A ugly one, that's for sure, ' I said aloud. 'Big, green, ugly monster.' Carlito, my youngest, liked the sound of that, and kept chanting it until Manuela, who'd come out to look, told him to shut up.
She shook her head. 'This is trouble, chico. Big trouble.' I nodded in agreement. Big, ugly monsters are trouble. Big, ugly monsters mean big, ugly archaeologists, with big, ugly equipment.
Big, ugly equipment means I don't get my back forty back till they're through studying the Phenomenon. And writing papers. I'd be lucky to get a dollar-fifty compensation out of them tightwads in the government, too. I sighed.
'Jose, get on your bike and go to Garcias'. They've got a phone. Tell 'em to call Hattie, let 'em know what we found. And don't let Mrs Garcia feed you. You got food at home.' As Jose, grumbling, went to get his motorbike out of the shed, Juanita turned to me, curious. 'How'd it get here, Da?' I shrugged again, though I had a theory.
When I was a kid, a possum had scared the life out of me. I was visiting my aunt and uncle down South, where it's wetter, and they got a bait of them things. Possums are ugly, but that wasn't why it had scared me.
It was just after a rainstorm, you see, and I was sitting on the front porch, looking around for a rainbow for the novelty of it, when the bushes at the side of the house started rustling. They shook and shook, and then this possum just emerged from inside the bush, not like he was climbing out, but like he just rose from the bush. Like the bush gave birth to him. He must've got wetter than he liked, and just come out.
I figured the Giant Alien Head was like that. The earthquake must've disturbed it, and the sands shifted, and then it just worked its way on up into the field.
I just wished it'd been somebody else's field. I needed that pasture grass come winter.
As I'd feared, trouble came in waves, and with official stamps all over it. The environmental folks checked for lead. Nope, it was copper, hence the green, they said. I shrugged, what's copper? Some old metal, it turned out. Okay by me, but apparently it was safer than lead.
The guys from the local paper showed up, too, and took our picture in front of the Head. We made it to the front page, just above the story about the new schoolhouse. Manuela was proud, went to the beauty parlour for it, and all.
Then the archaeologists showed up in droves. They measured. They took soundings. They sat around our kitchen, drinking up our caff supply, and argued about what it all meant.
Vandermolen, the big noise from Hattie, was sure he knew what it was. 'It's proof of Alien Visitation,' he claimed. 'I have long been of the opinion that this planet was visited by terribly advanced aliens from outer space, who seeded our civilisation. Look at the pyramids. Look at...'
'Balderdash,' said Rickerts, the guy from out west. 'It represents an ancient, but totally native, development.' The alien appearance of the statue is merely due to a religious idea. It represents some ideal of the ancient civilisation - however repugnant its visage is to us.'
Vandermolen snorted. 'So we put it in the museum with the usual sign, eh? 'Cult object'? I am not ready to concede defeat so easily, my dear colleague.'
They went on like this for days, while I moved my cattle over to my brother-in-law's to keep 'em out of the way. Too many archaeologists spoil the milk, I've found.
Then came the shocker: there was more of the blasted thing underground. It just hadn't come up yet. I didn't want to think about what the body of that monster would look like. Even less did I like to think of what my pasture was going to look like when they finished digging. I was ready to dig in my heels and send for a lawyer.
Then the cavalry arrived, in the form of Juan Sanchez, Simon's oldest boy, who had gone to college and was now working for the government up in Hattie. He showed up with a government grant in one hand and a reimbursement form in the other. Seems the government thought this discovery was so big - it was big, all right, too big, in my opinion - that it 'warranted further on-site study'. And so they were willing to buy us out.
I had no complaints about the settlement. We got a nice price for what amounted to 200 acres of scrubby, sandy soil, and we moved over to my brother-in-law's while we scouted around for a new place to start a spread. The kids were closer to the new schoolhouse, Manuela got along with her sister-in-law like a house on fire, and I helped Pablo with the cows and watched the Big Dig from a safe distance. It was a win-win situation, in my book.
After the first big shock, the paper people left me alone - after all, I had nothing interesting to say except 'yup, I seen it' - and hung around the dig itself. But one day, Dr Vandermolen came by to drink some of my sister-in-law's caff, and told us how it was going.
They'd dug up the whole shebang, except for a piece that was broke off. They hadn't found that yet, but they were still hoping. The whole thing was so huge you could get inside it. And it had writing at the bottom. They were still arguing about the writing, and what it meant.
Over his second piece of shoofly pie (and his third cup of caff), Vandermolen told us that they were going to make a museum out of the site as soon as they'd finished, and we'd all be able to go over and see it - right now there was a big wall around it, maybe they didn't want to spoil the surprise.
Vandermolen still believed in his alien theory, and was glad to explain it to an audience that didn't fight back with footnotes. 'I think these aliens were flesh-eaters,' he said. 'The statue served as some sort of collection point for human sacrifices.' He gestured in the air with his fork, and I dodged shoo-fly crumbs. 'First, because the staircase inside could hold a lot of people. They probably forced them up and out the holes at the top, letting them fall to the their deaths. It was probably presented as a religious sacrifice.
I was glad the kids were in bed - I didn't want them to be thinking about how they'd grown up on top of something like that.
Vabdermolen continued 'At least, that is how I interpret the verse at the base of this Juggernaut.'
The verse was in some ancient language, but they'd sort of puzzled it out. Vandermolen handed me a copy of the translation his graduate student had made. It read:
'Give me the tired ones, the poor ones, The big crowds that can't breathe [well], Give me the garbage, too [?], that washes up on the tide, Give them all wet from the ocean to me. I hold up my light beside the Golden Gate.'
Professor Vandermolen explained that last bit. 'We think the Juggernaut promised the victims a better life in the world to come. That might have made them more willing to be sacrificed.' He went on to say that the diggers were pretty sure that when they found the missing piece of the statue, it would have a lantern, or a torch, in its upraised paw.
'I think I can prove that Earth was the victim of an invasion of man-eating aliens, ' he concluded. I nodded, convinced by this smart man.
'I'm just glad they're gone, ' I said, putting out my arm and pulling Manuela to me, nuzzling the soft fur on the back of her neck. 'They look like they were a nasty species.'
Manuela growled softly in agreement, and lashed her tail.
27 November 2010
Mother Tongue
The last Bo speaker has died. Her name was Boa Sr, and she lived in the Andaman Islands. With her died one of the 10 languages belonging to a group of people who have been living in the same place — and in much the same way — for about 65,000 years. The news agencies differ as to whether they are Paleolithic or Neolithic. Anyway, they're Stone Age, and they're cool people.
They say she was lonely, not having anybody to talk to in her own language. I can imagine that, though from the videos she seems to have been a cheerful woman with an infectious laugh. Her singing is remarkable — hey, maybe that's what our ancestors sounded like, once upon a time, back before Madonna and Elvis?
The Andaman Islanders have always intrigued me. The ones that haven't gone uptown don't wear much of anything. The Jarawa, for instance, wouldn't talk to anyone until about 1997, but now they do. Their neighbours, the Sentinelese, are infamous for chasing tourists away at spearpoint — I know the feeling, usually when the Jehovah's Witnesses show up on a Saturday. Andaman Islanders are attractive people who don't need clothes to look good. They have beautiful black skin and are short and muscular. I wonder: were all our ancestors like that once? Is pale and freckled and silly-looking just the result of a bad genetic accident?
These people have skills I can only dream of. Not only do they know how to handle a bow and arrow, but they know when tsunamis are coming. Not one of them got caught in that big tidal wave in 2004. You see, they know more about wave amplitude than your average physics teacher. Like I said, they are cool people.
It's sad when a language dies. You don't know where to send the sympathy card — or how to word it. We're going to need a lot of sympathy cards in the next hundred years. Languages are dying out at the rate of 10 a year.
Of course, this is not new. In the course of human history, languages have been born and died. The rate is unprecedented, though. That has some people worried. They say that no language can survive unless at least 100,000 people speak it — and half the world's languages are spoken by 10,000 people or fewer. By the end of the century, up to 90% of the 6,000 languages spoken today may be extinct.
Most people who read this will shrug. What's the difference? We're all using the internet, anyway, and it's all one language, isn't it? If I weren't writing this in English, you probably wouldn't be reading it, would you?
English is my native language. Sort of. Actually, my grandparents were dialect speakers, and all of my family members speak varieties of regional American English. They are mostly unaware of this. I once had this hilarious conversation with my uncle:
Uncle: What are you learning at college these days?
Me: Old English.
Uncle: My grandmother spoke Old English.
Me (choking): Uh, huh.
Uncle: What does sugain mean?
Sugain, of course, is Irish, and so was my great-grandmother.
I wish I had not listened to my mother. She told me I shouldn't try to tape my great-aunt talking, because someone might be offended. One morning in the 1980s, I woke up with my great-aunt's cheery mountain voice in my head. I later learned she'd died that day.
I wish I could hear my great-aunt speak again. I wish I could hear my mother speak again.
The language of our birth is the language of our hearts. Mine might be called English — and so might yours. But I bet they aren't the same at all.
I do get tired of people being insistent that their version of a language is the only right one. I get tired of the trendy, bossy attempts to make us all speak the same. Of course we need a common language — it's a global economy, and all that.
But it is wearisome to hear the same sad stories in the same sad tones, over and over, as if this old, sad world were really a village, as if there weren't enough room for us all, when we know there is, there's plenty if we'd just share...as if it would take something away from somebody if I call it a poke and you call it a sack, or my great-grandmother thinks a rope bed is a sugain...
I mourn the loss of diversity because I treasure diversity more than sameness, always have, always will. I agree with Mr Carl Schurz (who had to learn English when he got to the US) that the best way to make sure you have liberty is to give it to someone else. And I mourn the loss of Boa Sr.
John Donne said, Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. The loss of a language is the loss of a way of thought, the loss of an image, an idea, a flexing muscle in the mental body of mankind. The death of another mother tongue calls for mourning. The bell tolls for us and we feel something.
Even if we can't remember the word for it.
They say she was lonely, not having anybody to talk to in her own language. I can imagine that, though from the videos she seems to have been a cheerful woman with an infectious laugh. Her singing is remarkable — hey, maybe that's what our ancestors sounded like, once upon a time, back before Madonna and Elvis?
The Andaman Islanders have always intrigued me. The ones that haven't gone uptown don't wear much of anything. The Jarawa, for instance, wouldn't talk to anyone until about 1997, but now they do. Their neighbours, the Sentinelese, are infamous for chasing tourists away at spearpoint — I know the feeling, usually when the Jehovah's Witnesses show up on a Saturday. Andaman Islanders are attractive people who don't need clothes to look good. They have beautiful black skin and are short and muscular. I wonder: were all our ancestors like that once? Is pale and freckled and silly-looking just the result of a bad genetic accident?
These people have skills I can only dream of. Not only do they know how to handle a bow and arrow, but they know when tsunamis are coming. Not one of them got caught in that big tidal wave in 2004. You see, they know more about wave amplitude than your average physics teacher. Like I said, they are cool people.
It's sad when a language dies. You don't know where to send the sympathy card — or how to word it. We're going to need a lot of sympathy cards in the next hundred years. Languages are dying out at the rate of 10 a year.
Of course, this is not new. In the course of human history, languages have been born and died. The rate is unprecedented, though. That has some people worried. They say that no language can survive unless at least 100,000 people speak it — and half the world's languages are spoken by 10,000 people or fewer. By the end of the century, up to 90% of the 6,000 languages spoken today may be extinct.
Most people who read this will shrug. What's the difference? We're all using the internet, anyway, and it's all one language, isn't it? If I weren't writing this in English, you probably wouldn't be reading it, would you?
English is my native language. Sort of. Actually, my grandparents were dialect speakers, and all of my family members speak varieties of regional American English. They are mostly unaware of this. I once had this hilarious conversation with my uncle:
Uncle: What are you learning at college these days?
Me: Old English.
Uncle: My grandmother spoke Old English.
Me (choking): Uh, huh.
Uncle: What does sugain mean?
Sugain, of course, is Irish, and so was my great-grandmother.
I wish I had not listened to my mother. She told me I shouldn't try to tape my great-aunt talking, because someone might be offended. One morning in the 1980s, I woke up with my great-aunt's cheery mountain voice in my head. I later learned she'd died that day.
I wish I could hear my great-aunt speak again. I wish I could hear my mother speak again.
The language of our birth is the language of our hearts. Mine might be called English — and so might yours. But I bet they aren't the same at all.
I do get tired of people being insistent that their version of a language is the only right one. I get tired of the trendy, bossy attempts to make us all speak the same. Of course we need a common language — it's a global economy, and all that.
But it is wearisome to hear the same sad stories in the same sad tones, over and over, as if this old, sad world were really a village, as if there weren't enough room for us all, when we know there is, there's plenty if we'd just share...as if it would take something away from somebody if I call it a poke and you call it a sack, or my great-grandmother thinks a rope bed is a sugain...
I mourn the loss of diversity because I treasure diversity more than sameness, always have, always will. I agree with Mr Carl Schurz (who had to learn English when he got to the US) that the best way to make sure you have liberty is to give it to someone else. And I mourn the loss of Boa Sr.
John Donne said, Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. The loss of a language is the loss of a way of thought, the loss of an image, an idea, a flexing muscle in the mental body of mankind. The death of another mother tongue calls for mourning. The bell tolls for us and we feel something.
Even if we can't remember the word for it.
26 November 2010
At the Gates of the Celestial City
'People who are born even-tempered, placid and untroubled - secure from violent passions or temptations to evil - those who have never needed to struggle all night with the angel to emerge lame but victorious at dawn, never become great saints.' - Eva Le Gallienne
'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice...' - Matthew 12:7
The man stood before the alabaster gates, which iridesced like mother-of-pearl against the incredibly cerulean sky. He gazed up expectantly.
It had been a long, hard journey, fraught with bitterness and frustration, but fueled by hope. He had wasted the first years of the quest in fruitless meandering, the second part in stubborn misreading of the map, and the last leg in dogged struggle up a seemingly endless slope - only to discover at the summit that a much easier path, well-marked, had been carved on the other side of the mountain. Now, as he caught his breath and drank the last sips from his water bottle, filled at the spring a few miles down the slope, he felt a sense of self-congratulation and contempt for those who had come up the easy way.
'Only those who struggle have truly earned the prize,' he thought, as the gates opened, flooding the summit of the mountain with an impossible light. A figure gradually became visible, backlit against the splendour within, a man in a long, white robe, aged but ageless, with kind, blue eyes and a long, white beard. He walked slowly to the new arrival, his hand raised in universal greeting.
'Welcome, friend,' he said, his voice as deep and calm as a sunlit lake. 'From your appearance, your journey has been a long one.'
The man smiled broadly at this recognition of his effort. He had dreamed of this day all his life, and this made it perfect. 'Yes, sir,' he said, and launched into a thorough description of his travels: the clues he had so cleverly deciphered, the setbacks along the way that he had borne with fortitude, the faith in his goal that he had never abandoned. He left out no detail, particularly stressing the courage and ambition that had marked his quest for the Celestial City. The stranger from within the gates, nodding encouragement, sat down with him on a bench by the gate - placed there perhaps for the purpose - and listened with patient attention until the man was finished. Then he smiled, rather sadly, the man thought.
'I am afraid you are going to be sorely let down,' the sage said. 'After all that excitement, this isn't going to be very interesting.'
The man was astounded. 'How could you say that?' he stammered. 'Is the Celestial City not as beautiful as they say?'
"Oh, yes, indeed. As beautiful, and more.'
'Is the City not at peace, and full of delights?'
'Oh, yes. More pleasures than you can imagine, and all at peace.'
'Are not the best people there, the very finest and kindest?'
'The people are indeed kind, and good, and clever.'
The man almost shouted. 'Then how could you say I would not love it here? This is what I have sought all my life.'
The sage patted the man's knee, and spoke kindly. 'The Celestial City is full of beautiful palaces. But you are used to dingy taverns, where your presence makes the place seem brighter. The City is at peace. But you are accustomed to struggle and war. The people are kind, and good - they take this for granted. Your goodness will not be noticed there. They will expect...more.'
His eyes twinkled, though his voice was solemn. 'This is not a sad, troubled world, where the light of a single candle pierces the darkness. This is a bright city. We have no challenges to offer you, such as you are accustomed to. We have no stage on which you can shine alone. It troubles me to think that you have come so far, only to be disappointed. Are you sure that you can live in a place where your hard-won achievements will be found unremarkable? Please think before you answer.' The sage clapped hands upon his thighs, and stood, and made his way back into the City. The gates closed.
The man hesitated. He thought a long time. As the sun sank low behind the mountain in glorious crimson, he was still thinking. As the stars began to peek through the velvet night - the most beautiful he had ever seen - he was still thinking.
The sage sent out servants with dinner, and a warm blanket, for he was kind at heart.
'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice...' - Matthew 12:7
The man stood before the alabaster gates, which iridesced like mother-of-pearl against the incredibly cerulean sky. He gazed up expectantly.
It had been a long, hard journey, fraught with bitterness and frustration, but fueled by hope. He had wasted the first years of the quest in fruitless meandering, the second part in stubborn misreading of the map, and the last leg in dogged struggle up a seemingly endless slope - only to discover at the summit that a much easier path, well-marked, had been carved on the other side of the mountain. Now, as he caught his breath and drank the last sips from his water bottle, filled at the spring a few miles down the slope, he felt a sense of self-congratulation and contempt for those who had come up the easy way.
'Only those who struggle have truly earned the prize,' he thought, as the gates opened, flooding the summit of the mountain with an impossible light. A figure gradually became visible, backlit against the splendour within, a man in a long, white robe, aged but ageless, with kind, blue eyes and a long, white beard. He walked slowly to the new arrival, his hand raised in universal greeting.
'Welcome, friend,' he said, his voice as deep and calm as a sunlit lake. 'From your appearance, your journey has been a long one.'
The man smiled broadly at this recognition of his effort. He had dreamed of this day all his life, and this made it perfect. 'Yes, sir,' he said, and launched into a thorough description of his travels: the clues he had so cleverly deciphered, the setbacks along the way that he had borne with fortitude, the faith in his goal that he had never abandoned. He left out no detail, particularly stressing the courage and ambition that had marked his quest for the Celestial City. The stranger from within the gates, nodding encouragement, sat down with him on a bench by the gate - placed there perhaps for the purpose - and listened with patient attention until the man was finished. Then he smiled, rather sadly, the man thought.
'I am afraid you are going to be sorely let down,' the sage said. 'After all that excitement, this isn't going to be very interesting.'
The man was astounded. 'How could you say that?' he stammered. 'Is the Celestial City not as beautiful as they say?'
"Oh, yes, indeed. As beautiful, and more.'
'Is the City not at peace, and full of delights?'
'Oh, yes. More pleasures than you can imagine, and all at peace.'
'Are not the best people there, the very finest and kindest?'
'The people are indeed kind, and good, and clever.'
The man almost shouted. 'Then how could you say I would not love it here? This is what I have sought all my life.'
The sage patted the man's knee, and spoke kindly. 'The Celestial City is full of beautiful palaces. But you are used to dingy taverns, where your presence makes the place seem brighter. The City is at peace. But you are accustomed to struggle and war. The people are kind, and good - they take this for granted. Your goodness will not be noticed there. They will expect...more.'
His eyes twinkled, though his voice was solemn. 'This is not a sad, troubled world, where the light of a single candle pierces the darkness. This is a bright city. We have no challenges to offer you, such as you are accustomed to. We have no stage on which you can shine alone. It troubles me to think that you have come so far, only to be disappointed. Are you sure that you can live in a place where your hard-won achievements will be found unremarkable? Please think before you answer.' The sage clapped hands upon his thighs, and stood, and made his way back into the City. The gates closed.
The man hesitated. He thought a long time. As the sun sank low behind the mountain in glorious crimson, he was still thinking. As the stars began to peek through the velvet night - the most beautiful he had ever seen - he was still thinking.
The sage sent out servants with dinner, and a warm blanket, for he was kind at heart.
24 November 2010
A Change in Plans
Author's note: Don't read this story until you've read the previous one, Planning. This story is in response to angry readers. First they said they hated Robert Thigpen, who was a nasty, manipulative little so-and-so. One woman even said she'd like to hit him with a blunt instrument. Robert Thigpen is probably my most hated fictional character. Then somebody else demanded that I tell the story from Dolores' point of view. So here it is, with a shift in focus. Don't shoot the messenger. I hope it fills in a few gaps in the Thigpen saga.
She had sworn she would never become a Baptist.
But as Dolores Thigpen kicked open the bedroom door, and viciously kicked off her high heels, throwing herself backwards on the bed in total disregard for her designer dress (80% off at Dillard's, she was a killer shopper), all she could think of to say was 'gosh darn it', so thoroughly had proper verbal habits crept in.
Obadiah the Cairn terrier (son of Amos, sire of Jonah, pets of Gideons with a sense of humour) stuck a cautious nose from under the bed as Dolores heaved a frustrated sigh. In her mother's words, she was 'feeling like her name'. Too much shopping, too many ladies' coffees, too many good works filling up her empty time.
Dolores sighed again, jumped up to avoid an overaffectionate cat, and changed her dress before going into the kitchen to start dinner.
Slicing okra for vegetable soup, Dolores tried to put discontent from her mind, but without success. 37 next week, good figure...she started the broth, salted it, tasted it, nodded, opened a can of tomatoes, twisting off the Mason lid with practised strength...still healthy enough, she laughed to herself. It was...
It was what Robert had said about babies. Dolores knew what it was, had been dreading the conversation long before it happened. She had been to the doctor, knew there was nothing wrong on her side. When Robert had brought the subject up, a wistful look in those puppy-dog eyes of his...
She tossed in peas, carrots, corn, a pinch of salt and pepper...when he had mentioned babies, Dolores had just frozen up, a catch in her throat and a catch in her mind, as she had suddenly realised what she was afraid of.
He was going to mention adoption. She couldn't stand it. How could she tell that sweet, kind man who was always there for everybody, who never had a cross word for his worst enemy, that although she wanted a child more than anything else in the world...
...it had to be hers? She couldn't face him with that, so she had fluffed him off with inconsequential remarks, all the while petting Puff, and wishing that the cat were...oh, well, what was the use of wishing? Watching the pot boil, Dolores tossed her head angrily, and remembered to salt the soup before putting the rolls in the oven.
Things got livelier the evening Robert brought Geoff home for dinner. Geoff was a different kettle of fish from Robert - tall, muscular, handsome in an almost movie-star way, with a boyish charm that belied his 40 years.
What endeared Geoff Hayes to Dolores from the first was the way he made Robert laugh. Geoff, who somehow managed to make even bookkeeping seem glamorous, handed Robert some papers to sign, then studied the signature with mock earnestness.
'W. Robert Thigpen, Jr, ' he mused. 'I get the Junior. What's the W stand for?'
Robert, five-foot-five of dapper Southern gentleman, from the top of his wiry ginger hair to the soles of his size 9AAA brogans, blushed. "William.' And Geoff roared with laughter.
'Don't,' warned Dolores jocularly. 'His mother gets high-toned livid if you call him Billy Bob.'
Robert laughed his self-deprecating laugh. 'I'm too short for a Billy Bob,' he opined. 'Billy Bob is six-six, with a beer belly out to here...' he gestured, 'and a girlfriend named Towanda.'
This set Geoff off even more. 'Billy Bob,' he suggested, 'has a big ol' Ford pickup with a gun rack, and a Rebel flag on the bumper.'
Robert agreed, pouring more iced tea. 'Billy Bob's got a hound dog, and Towanda's hair was ruined by a ceiling fan...' This went on for quite a while, and Dolores' heart was won by the two of them.
They were inseparable on the weekends, and then, when Robert's printing business got busy, she and Geoff became...well, inseparable. When it started, it surprised them both, not only with the intensity of their need for one another, but for the way it all seemed...well, inevitable.
Dolores seemed to be waking from a long sleep. Geoff aroused feelings in her that she had not known existed. Where Robert was a lamb, Geoff was a tiger. Mondays, she blushed, and covered the scratch marks with makeup and long sleeves. Where Robert never raised his voice, Geoff was passionate about almost everything - tastes, ideas, plans...they shouted, threw things, kissed, made up.
And went home feeling guilty. Dolores sat smiling through the ladies' missionary meeting, but secretly winced at the Bible study of Proverbs. Proverbs 9:17 had become her verse...bread eaten in secret was truly pleasant, but was that all it was?
Christmas the three spent together, watching 'Camelot' on the widescreen tv. Robert sang along, unmusically, while Dolores exchanged what she hoped were unreadable looks with Geoff, finally having to run out of the living room for a good cry when Robert Goulet sang, 'If Ever I Would Leave You'. This she explained away as an eyelash in her eye.
Dolores almost gave it up the night of the first spring rain, when the thunder drove Obadiah under the bed in a snit, and Dolores, reminded of an event from their honeymoon, first clung to Robert, then made love to him with a passion she'd all but forgotten she felt for him. When she woke the next morning, determined to tell him the truth, he was gone.
Then came the call from the doctor, and matters were settled. Geoff had been brave, offering to break the news, but in the end it was they who were surprised by Robert's reaction.
Sitting over a farewell dinner Robert had made, Dolores looked at her ex-husband with a mixture of sadness and exasperated love.
'Why?'
Robert smiled gently as he reached across the table and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. 'Because I love you too much to hold onto you,' he said simply.
'Besides, I want to play with the babies.'
The wedding was a joyous affair. Dolores wore green to match her eyes, and thought that - to two men there, at least - she looked pretty good. But later, when they came to open the gifts, Dolores burst into tears.
'Darn that man! He would give us a gas grill for a wedding present!'
She didn't know about the christening gift yet.
She had sworn she would never become a Baptist.
But as Dolores Thigpen kicked open the bedroom door, and viciously kicked off her high heels, throwing herself backwards on the bed in total disregard for her designer dress (80% off at Dillard's, she was a killer shopper), all she could think of to say was 'gosh darn it', so thoroughly had proper verbal habits crept in.
Obadiah the Cairn terrier (son of Amos, sire of Jonah, pets of Gideons with a sense of humour) stuck a cautious nose from under the bed as Dolores heaved a frustrated sigh. In her mother's words, she was 'feeling like her name'. Too much shopping, too many ladies' coffees, too many good works filling up her empty time.
Dolores sighed again, jumped up to avoid an overaffectionate cat, and changed her dress before going into the kitchen to start dinner.
Slicing okra for vegetable soup, Dolores tried to put discontent from her mind, but without success. 37 next week, good figure...she started the broth, salted it, tasted it, nodded, opened a can of tomatoes, twisting off the Mason lid with practised strength...still healthy enough, she laughed to herself. It was...
It was what Robert had said about babies. Dolores knew what it was, had been dreading the conversation long before it happened. She had been to the doctor, knew there was nothing wrong on her side. When Robert had brought the subject up, a wistful look in those puppy-dog eyes of his...
She tossed in peas, carrots, corn, a pinch of salt and pepper...when he had mentioned babies, Dolores had just frozen up, a catch in her throat and a catch in her mind, as she had suddenly realised what she was afraid of.
He was going to mention adoption. She couldn't stand it. How could she tell that sweet, kind man who was always there for everybody, who never had a cross word for his worst enemy, that although she wanted a child more than anything else in the world...
...it had to be hers? She couldn't face him with that, so she had fluffed him off with inconsequential remarks, all the while petting Puff, and wishing that the cat were...oh, well, what was the use of wishing? Watching the pot boil, Dolores tossed her head angrily, and remembered to salt the soup before putting the rolls in the oven.
Things got livelier the evening Robert brought Geoff home for dinner. Geoff was a different kettle of fish from Robert - tall, muscular, handsome in an almost movie-star way, with a boyish charm that belied his 40 years.
What endeared Geoff Hayes to Dolores from the first was the way he made Robert laugh. Geoff, who somehow managed to make even bookkeeping seem glamorous, handed Robert some papers to sign, then studied the signature with mock earnestness.
'W. Robert Thigpen, Jr, ' he mused. 'I get the Junior. What's the W stand for?'
Robert, five-foot-five of dapper Southern gentleman, from the top of his wiry ginger hair to the soles of his size 9AAA brogans, blushed. "William.' And Geoff roared with laughter.
'Don't,' warned Dolores jocularly. 'His mother gets high-toned livid if you call him Billy Bob.'
Robert laughed his self-deprecating laugh. 'I'm too short for a Billy Bob,' he opined. 'Billy Bob is six-six, with a beer belly out to here...' he gestured, 'and a girlfriend named Towanda.'
This set Geoff off even more. 'Billy Bob,' he suggested, 'has a big ol' Ford pickup with a gun rack, and a Rebel flag on the bumper.'
Robert agreed, pouring more iced tea. 'Billy Bob's got a hound dog, and Towanda's hair was ruined by a ceiling fan...' This went on for quite a while, and Dolores' heart was won by the two of them.
They were inseparable on the weekends, and then, when Robert's printing business got busy, she and Geoff became...well, inseparable. When it started, it surprised them both, not only with the intensity of their need for one another, but for the way it all seemed...well, inevitable.
Dolores seemed to be waking from a long sleep. Geoff aroused feelings in her that she had not known existed. Where Robert was a lamb, Geoff was a tiger. Mondays, she blushed, and covered the scratch marks with makeup and long sleeves. Where Robert never raised his voice, Geoff was passionate about almost everything - tastes, ideas, plans...they shouted, threw things, kissed, made up.
And went home feeling guilty. Dolores sat smiling through the ladies' missionary meeting, but secretly winced at the Bible study of Proverbs. Proverbs 9:17 had become her verse...bread eaten in secret was truly pleasant, but was that all it was?
Christmas the three spent together, watching 'Camelot' on the widescreen tv. Robert sang along, unmusically, while Dolores exchanged what she hoped were unreadable looks with Geoff, finally having to run out of the living room for a good cry when Robert Goulet sang, 'If Ever I Would Leave You'. This she explained away as an eyelash in her eye.
Dolores almost gave it up the night of the first spring rain, when the thunder drove Obadiah under the bed in a snit, and Dolores, reminded of an event from their honeymoon, first clung to Robert, then made love to him with a passion she'd all but forgotten she felt for him. When she woke the next morning, determined to tell him the truth, he was gone.
Then came the call from the doctor, and matters were settled. Geoff had been brave, offering to break the news, but in the end it was they who were surprised by Robert's reaction.
Sitting over a farewell dinner Robert had made, Dolores looked at her ex-husband with a mixture of sadness and exasperated love.
'Why?'
Robert smiled gently as he reached across the table and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. 'Because I love you too much to hold onto you,' he said simply.
'Besides, I want to play with the babies.'
The wedding was a joyous affair. Dolores wore green to match her eyes, and thought that - to two men there, at least - she looked pretty good. But later, when they came to open the gifts, Dolores burst into tears.
'Darn that man! He would give us a gas grill for a wedding present!'
She didn't know about the christening gift yet.
23 November 2010
Planning
The soup looked wonderful - picture-perfect vegetables from the summer garden, swimming in a rich, red broth. Robert Thigpen smiled as he inhaled the inviting aroma and brought the spoon to his mouth.
And choked, loudly, on enough salt for a bag of crisps. Extra large.
Thigpen set the spoon down in the bowl, carefully, and regarded his wife - the love of his life, his companion of 15 happy years, his green-eyed goddess - through a blur of tears. He smiled, more weakly, as he reached for the iced tea. Obadiah, the Cairn terrier at his feet, jumped up in alarm, then had to run off his excitement by chasing the two cats around the dinner table.
Dolores frowned as she tried unsuccessfully to fend off the smaller cat, which sought refuge on her lap. 'Don't you like the soup? I followed your mother's recipe, it even has that okra in it.'
Robert nodded, waving one hand vaguely as he gulped down the tea. 'Too much salt this time.' He glanced at Dolores quickly, catching the look he'd expected - disappointment, followed by the desire for explanation, followed equally quickly by indifference. She shrugged. 'I'll make you something else, if you like.'
For a long moment, there was silence in the dining room, except for the loud ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Robert shook his head as he pushed away the offending dish. 'No, that's okay, honey. If I get hungry later, I'll make something.' He gave a light laugh and patted his flat stomach in mock demonstration. 'I need to lose weight, anyway.' Dolores shrugged again, but favoured her husband with a grateful smile as she stroked the purring cat, and went on with her meal, unfazed by its saline content. Robert grabbed a roll and a leash, and went off to walk Obadiah in the lingering sunlight.
Later, having been given a peck on the cheek before Dolores rolled over in bed and drifted off to sleep, Robert started to lie awake thinking about things. As his first thought was that tomorrow was going to be a big day at work, and that he owed it to his employees to be compos mentis, he put his ruminations off until further notice and, patting the dog at his feet, slipped into a dreamless slumber.
While showering the next morning (his own self-appointed brainstorming time, as he was not much of a singer), Robert went over the situation in his mind, a habit he had developed over the years, being a slow thinker who otherwise felt rushed in the company of others. He looked at his life, what he had to offer: good-natured guy, hard worker but not a workaholic, smart enough to bloom where he was planted, in his own Acme, North Carolina, backyard where the name Thigpen didn't make people laugh, but was a guarantee of honesty. Built his own little printing company, treated his 30+ employees like family, made a place for himself and the beautiful, educated city gal he'd snagged at college, kept the fun in things, remembered everybody's birthdays....
He reviewed the evidence: three spoiled dinners in one week, magazines and newspapers scattered everywhere, shoes in the bedroom for him to trip over...getting from bed to shower in the mornings was becoming like crossing a minefield, the arch of his foot still ached from stepping on a size seven Selby pump...the less-than-companionable silences...she was trying to tell him something...
Without telling him. That much was obvious. Whenever he'd ventured to ask, there was a shrug and that dazzling smile, and, 'No, of course I'm not mad at you. Are you mad at me?' Teasing. He'd quit asking.
Driving to work, Robert kept thinking as he waited for the lights at the intersection. They hadn't planned for children - or against them, either. They'd thought that sort of thing came naturally. When it didn't, well, it didn't. Until one day Robert had asked, and Dolores had shrugged, again, opined that there were advantages to not having to child-proof a house, and quipped, 'I'd be a terrible mother, anyway, probably scare the kids,' and continued petting a smugly purring cat.
Responsible as always, Robert had secretly visited a doctor, gotten the answer he was half expecting - although he cringed at the expression 'shooting blanks', which he privately thought would have upset his Baptist parents - and drawn his own conclusions about the relative merits of cats, babies, and clean houses.
Arriving at work, he set aside these considerations for a look at the morning's email, a round of checking up on the printing equipment (and the workers, without being obvious about it), and a conference with his investment counselor, a good-looking fellow about Robert's age who was kind enough to come by the office, rather than making Robert come to the bank.
Geoff Hayes was an honest broker, and charming (which, Robert thought, probably went with the job), but he was a lonely widower, so Robert concluded by inviting him over to supper on Friday for some company and a home-cooked meal. Robert then made a note to himself to a) warn Dolores about this, and b) get some steaks to grill. He could barbecue a mean steak, if he did say so himself, and put some 'taters and corn-on-the-cob (what his granny used to call 'roastin' ears') on the grill, and all Dolores would be stuck for would be a salad.
This worked pretty well, and soon Geoff was a fixture over at the house, sharing good food and a laugh or two, never talking shop, just mocking the world in general. They even broke out Robert's old croquet set. He'd almost forgotten how to play, but they had a good time checking out the rules inside the box, and avoiding Obadiah's attempts to steal anything as heavy as a croquet ball, barking at it in outrage when it refused to move for a sixteen-pound terrier. Summer was more fun that year, and Dolores' cooking got better.
Come fall, Robert noticed with satisfaction that Dolores a) got a new hairstyle, and b) seemed to spend a lot of time visiting a cousin over in Cary she used not to have much time for. Whenever he, a grass widower for the weekend, called up Geoff to see if he'd take in a round of golf, he was usually disappointed by the message on the answering machine, but he shrugged good-naturedly and took Obadiah to Jordan Lake with him, enjoying long walks and conversations so nonsensical that any human would have balked at them, but which Obadiah seemed to find completely satisfying.
Christmas that year was good. He bought Dolores a string of pearls, and Obadiah a new squeaky toy. He even remembered to get the cats some catnip mice. Geoff he gave the best present: a briar pipe and a seat by his fireplace, while Dolores showed them how to make popcorn over an open fire.
Robert's resolve almost slipped the night of the first spring rain, when the thunder drove Obadiah under the bed in a snit, and Dolores, reminded of an event from their honeymoon, first clung to him, then made love to him with a passion he'd all but forgotten. In the early morning light, he kissed her cheek gently and slipped out before she could waken, remembering a detail about his will he needed to call his financial planner about.
When Geoff finally came to see him, Robert pitied him for the look on his face: embarrassed, half fearful, half hopeful, and guilty, all at the same time. Robert thought that nobody should have to look like that - not for long, anyway - and put him at his ease as best he could.
The wedding took place in June. Robert attended, of course, gladly - he'd secretly wanted to give the bride away, but decided that would have been tacky, so he settled for sitting on the bride's side, behind her parents, and sending the couple a brand-new gas grill for a wedding present. He'd save the other present - the envelope in his safe - for the christening.
Coming home from the reception, Robert smiled as Obadiah came running up to him, tail wagging. 'Come on, buddy, let's go for a walk.'
Headed down the drive with Obadiah on his leash, Robert reflected that if the little dog missed those durn cats, he'd have to get him a kitten.
Robert Thigpen made a mental note to call the shelter.
And choked, loudly, on enough salt for a bag of crisps. Extra large.
Thigpen set the spoon down in the bowl, carefully, and regarded his wife - the love of his life, his companion of 15 happy years, his green-eyed goddess - through a blur of tears. He smiled, more weakly, as he reached for the iced tea. Obadiah, the Cairn terrier at his feet, jumped up in alarm, then had to run off his excitement by chasing the two cats around the dinner table.
Dolores frowned as she tried unsuccessfully to fend off the smaller cat, which sought refuge on her lap. 'Don't you like the soup? I followed your mother's recipe, it even has that okra in it.'
Robert nodded, waving one hand vaguely as he gulped down the tea. 'Too much salt this time.' He glanced at Dolores quickly, catching the look he'd expected - disappointment, followed by the desire for explanation, followed equally quickly by indifference. She shrugged. 'I'll make you something else, if you like.'
For a long moment, there was silence in the dining room, except for the loud ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Robert shook his head as he pushed away the offending dish. 'No, that's okay, honey. If I get hungry later, I'll make something.' He gave a light laugh and patted his flat stomach in mock demonstration. 'I need to lose weight, anyway.' Dolores shrugged again, but favoured her husband with a grateful smile as she stroked the purring cat, and went on with her meal, unfazed by its saline content. Robert grabbed a roll and a leash, and went off to walk Obadiah in the lingering sunlight.
Later, having been given a peck on the cheek before Dolores rolled over in bed and drifted off to sleep, Robert started to lie awake thinking about things. As his first thought was that tomorrow was going to be a big day at work, and that he owed it to his employees to be compos mentis, he put his ruminations off until further notice and, patting the dog at his feet, slipped into a dreamless slumber.
While showering the next morning (his own self-appointed brainstorming time, as he was not much of a singer), Robert went over the situation in his mind, a habit he had developed over the years, being a slow thinker who otherwise felt rushed in the company of others. He looked at his life, what he had to offer: good-natured guy, hard worker but not a workaholic, smart enough to bloom where he was planted, in his own Acme, North Carolina, backyard where the name Thigpen didn't make people laugh, but was a guarantee of honesty. Built his own little printing company, treated his 30+ employees like family, made a place for himself and the beautiful, educated city gal he'd snagged at college, kept the fun in things, remembered everybody's birthdays....
He reviewed the evidence: three spoiled dinners in one week, magazines and newspapers scattered everywhere, shoes in the bedroom for him to trip over...getting from bed to shower in the mornings was becoming like crossing a minefield, the arch of his foot still ached from stepping on a size seven Selby pump...the less-than-companionable silences...she was trying to tell him something...
Without telling him. That much was obvious. Whenever he'd ventured to ask, there was a shrug and that dazzling smile, and, 'No, of course I'm not mad at you. Are you mad at me?' Teasing. He'd quit asking.
Driving to work, Robert kept thinking as he waited for the lights at the intersection. They hadn't planned for children - or against them, either. They'd thought that sort of thing came naturally. When it didn't, well, it didn't. Until one day Robert had asked, and Dolores had shrugged, again, opined that there were advantages to not having to child-proof a house, and quipped, 'I'd be a terrible mother, anyway, probably scare the kids,' and continued petting a smugly purring cat.
Responsible as always, Robert had secretly visited a doctor, gotten the answer he was half expecting - although he cringed at the expression 'shooting blanks', which he privately thought would have upset his Baptist parents - and drawn his own conclusions about the relative merits of cats, babies, and clean houses.
Arriving at work, he set aside these considerations for a look at the morning's email, a round of checking up on the printing equipment (and the workers, without being obvious about it), and a conference with his investment counselor, a good-looking fellow about Robert's age who was kind enough to come by the office, rather than making Robert come to the bank.
Geoff Hayes was an honest broker, and charming (which, Robert thought, probably went with the job), but he was a lonely widower, so Robert concluded by inviting him over to supper on Friday for some company and a home-cooked meal. Robert then made a note to himself to a) warn Dolores about this, and b) get some steaks to grill. He could barbecue a mean steak, if he did say so himself, and put some 'taters and corn-on-the-cob (what his granny used to call 'roastin' ears') on the grill, and all Dolores would be stuck for would be a salad.
This worked pretty well, and soon Geoff was a fixture over at the house, sharing good food and a laugh or two, never talking shop, just mocking the world in general. They even broke out Robert's old croquet set. He'd almost forgotten how to play, but they had a good time checking out the rules inside the box, and avoiding Obadiah's attempts to steal anything as heavy as a croquet ball, barking at it in outrage when it refused to move for a sixteen-pound terrier. Summer was more fun that year, and Dolores' cooking got better.
Come fall, Robert noticed with satisfaction that Dolores a) got a new hairstyle, and b) seemed to spend a lot of time visiting a cousin over in Cary she used not to have much time for. Whenever he, a grass widower for the weekend, called up Geoff to see if he'd take in a round of golf, he was usually disappointed by the message on the answering machine, but he shrugged good-naturedly and took Obadiah to Jordan Lake with him, enjoying long walks and conversations so nonsensical that any human would have balked at them, but which Obadiah seemed to find completely satisfying.
Christmas that year was good. He bought Dolores a string of pearls, and Obadiah a new squeaky toy. He even remembered to get the cats some catnip mice. Geoff he gave the best present: a briar pipe and a seat by his fireplace, while Dolores showed them how to make popcorn over an open fire.
Robert's resolve almost slipped the night of the first spring rain, when the thunder drove Obadiah under the bed in a snit, and Dolores, reminded of an event from their honeymoon, first clung to him, then made love to him with a passion he'd all but forgotten. In the early morning light, he kissed her cheek gently and slipped out before she could waken, remembering a detail about his will he needed to call his financial planner about.
When Geoff finally came to see him, Robert pitied him for the look on his face: embarrassed, half fearful, half hopeful, and guilty, all at the same time. Robert thought that nobody should have to look like that - not for long, anyway - and put him at his ease as best he could.
The wedding took place in June. Robert attended, of course, gladly - he'd secretly wanted to give the bride away, but decided that would have been tacky, so he settled for sitting on the bride's side, behind her parents, and sending the couple a brand-new gas grill for a wedding present. He'd save the other present - the envelope in his safe - for the christening.
Coming home from the reception, Robert smiled as Obadiah came running up to him, tail wagging. 'Come on, buddy, let's go for a walk.'
Headed down the drive with Obadiah on his leash, Robert reflected that if the little dog missed those durn cats, he'd have to get him a kitten.
Robert Thigpen made a mental note to call the shelter.
20 November 2010
Love on the Rhine
It was always noisy on the Rhine in the early morning. The freight barges that had spent the night moored along the bank started up all at once with a roar that penetrated the thin walls of the students' rooms, startling light sleepers so that they woke from their dreams without being quite sure what it was all about.
On this morning, the barges woke Jamison Douglass. He groaned, and rolled over to look at the alarm clock - five a.m., early twilight on this late-summer day - and cursed softly. He usually had to get up at this time, but it was annoying to do so on his last day of leave.
Yawning, he looked over at his sleeping partner, amazed at her ability to remain unconscious through all this carry-on. Oh, well, she wasn't used to reveille.
Christa lay, as always, on her stomach, in the dead centre of the bed, her light-brown hair across her face, snoring gently. It was warm enough that she had thrown off the covers, again as always, so that she lay with her arms over her head, naked, in her sleep, as always, completely carefree and uninhibited. Her body language expressed her philosophy of life…
Awake or asleep, her posture told the world what she thought of it.
Jamie sighed to himself and, now wide awake, went into the toilet - there was no bathroom - to dress without running the risk of waking Christa prematurely. She could get grouchy.
In shirt and jeans - uniforms were forbidden off-base - Jamie went down the stairs and left the house, turning right. Instead of walking along the Rhine, he chose as his goal the Schwarzrheindorfkirche, half a kilometer distant.
The morning was still cool, the shadows of the poplars long in the low morning sunlight. As Jamie walked along the tree-lined avenue, he reflected on his relationship with this creature - more a force of nature than a woman - with a renewal of surprise at himself. He was usually such a well-behaved young fellow, did everything by the book. How in the world had he ended up under the influence of such a siren as Christa?
He chuckled to himself and - since nobody was out on the meadow beside the avenue at this hour - gave in to the impulse to sing the appropriate song. After all, he was by the Rhine.
' Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, dass ich so traurig bin…' I don't know why I'm so sad...the old Lorelei number.
Jamie stood in the old Romanesque church. The paintings on the walls and ceilings were like an old friend to him, especially since he'd spent his whole life in some castle or another. He stood with his head craned upward and studied the dome, with its scene of the 'Marriage Supper of the Lamb', until the pressure in his neck brought him back to this world, and he went out, down the stone staircase and into the streets of Beuel, taking the long way back to Christa's place.
He decided to pass by his favourite bakery and pick up fresh rolls. That way, Christa wouldn't be cross if she woke up and missed him.
It occurred to him on the way that it had been almost ten months since Christa had scooped him up - on the open-house day at Bad Godesberg. Jamie had been playing tourist, visiting the 'Langer Eugen', Bonn's skyscraper, admiring the Bundestag, collecting tonnes of brochures he couldn't understand - not because he couldn't read them, but because he had exactly enough political savvy to know who the current prime minister was. He'd even stood in a queue for lunch at the Red Cross wagon along with the other well-dressed refugees.
Christa had found him on the Rhine promenade, as Jamie, tired of walking, was just thinking of stopping for coffee. She had collected him - Christa was a collector. She collected people, just as she collected facts, ideas, opinions. Everything she collected was tidily arranged into her world view - or else contemptuously rejected.
Jamie she folded into her life immediately. As a project, it seemed to Jamie. Christa summed him up as 'weak-willed, conformist, bourgeois, member of a gang of military terrorists, besides that too short, I hate freckles, and where did you get that awful red hair?'
Jamie was fascinated by her from the start - he'd known so few women in his life - and found himself dragged along in her wake.
Without knowing quite how it had happened, Jamie had found himself in bed with Christa. He had never so much as touched a woman before, and didn't know if this workmanlike procedure was, well, normal - not a word spoken, no kissing allowed, his tentative caresses brushed aside ('Don't be so wet'...)
In spite of this, Jamie believed himself in love. Wasn't that what normal people did?
Jamie entered the bakery and bought bread, two eggs, and small packets of butter, giving the elderly lady behind the counter his best smile, which caused her, as usual, to look at him closely and with deep mistrust. He'd lived in West Germany almost ten years, and he'd never learned to stop broadcasting his emotions.
He returned to the Rheinuferstrasse with his purchases in a plastic bag he'd pulled out of his jeans pocket - I learn something every once in a while, he thought - and opened the door to Number 6 with Christa's key. As he reached the second floor he heard the neighbour's radio playing a current hit, 'Sommersprossen' - 'Freckles'.
Afterwards, he could never hear that song without the most distressing feelings.
Jamie came into the room and started boiling water for the eggs, cutting bread, making coffee. As the smell of Melitta Gold reached her nostrils, Christa finally woke up.
She raised her head and looked at him drowsily.
'You're impossible. Can't you let a body sleep?'
Jamie smiled at her.
'Me? If the Battle of the Rhine out there would let up, I'd be quieter, too.'
Christa groaned, and got up.
'Okay, soldier boy, make breakfast. I'll be right back.'
She rummaged around under the bed and found the old, long t-shirt she wore as a nightshirt, pulled it on, and disappeared into the lavatory.
While Jamie was setting the table, he could hear Christa throwing up in the loo. That bothered him - they hadn't had that much to drink the night before. He heard water running, and when Christa came back, she seemed to be feeling better. She went to the washbasin, where she washed herself, thoroughly and without false modesty, put on jeans and a Pakistani shirt, and sat down to breakfast. Apparently her appetite was not affected by whatever had upset her stomach - she broke the shell on her four-minute egg and began slathering butter and jam on a roll.
Jamie looked at her with concern.
'Aren't you well?'
Christa smirked.
'Oh, I'm fine. Just a little morning sickness.'
She looked at him challengingly, apparently curious as to how he would take the news.
Jamie caught his breath. He set down the coffee cup carefully, as if he might break it. The quiet morning was suddenly a thing of the past. He felt he was being thrust into a crisis, one he'd been prepared for, to a certain extent, but still...
A thousand questions went through his mind - When? How? What now? Oh, lord, the parents. He didn't know Christa's at all, and his - they didn't even know he had a girlfriend, let alone a German one...his father and his war stories...
They'd just have to come to terms with it, and then...
He'd be a father. Him.
Some of what he was thinking must have been written on his face, because Christa suddenly burst into laughter.
'You should see yourself, my little man. What are you thinking? That I'll marry you now? You really believe that, don't you?
She leaned back in the armchair, crossed her arms, and laughed.
'You think I'd follow you meekly back to Scotland, and herd sheep?'
Jamie protested.
'But...we've got to think of the child...and I think...'
Christa laughed derisively.
'You? Think? Don't make me laugh. You never think. You just feel. What do you take me for, anyway? Do you really believe I'd tie myself down for life with a short-tailed, fat-faced Scots boy like you? I'm not that stupid.'
Jamie was speechless. He wanted to answer, but he simply couldn't find the words. Apparently, though, Christa wasn't at a loss for words.
'You dumb git. You don't get it, do you? Do you think a woman can't raise her child by herself? I'm finished with school. In a few weeks I'll be starting a real job. I'll be fine by myself, thank you very much, love.'
Jamie finally found his voice.
'But...why would you have to? Why can't we raise the child together? Okay, I get it, you don't want me. But I can give you money. I could help...'
Christa laughed again, scornfully. 'You, help. I can just see you now. My child is not going to become what you've turned into. Look at yourself, soldier boy - you follow orders. You even follow my orders. You don't know what to do with yourself without an order. I've just pulled the rug out from under you, and there you sit and have no idea how to react. If it's not in the regulations, you don't know what to do with yourself.
'You poor little beggar. You can't even hate me. And you call yourself a soldier. You're pathetic.'
Afterwards Jamie could never quite remember how he got out of there. Somehow he'd got his things together. Somehow he'd got out without falling down the stairs. Somehow he'd got into his car. Somehow he'd driven over the bridge at Bonn.
It wasn't until he was on the Autobahn that he came to himself - at least enough that he didn't drive back to the base, but into Cologne.
There he wandered mindlessly up and down the Hohe Strasse until he stopped in front of a shop selling children's clothing. Jamie's blood ran cold. He turned around so abruptly that he almost ran into a young couple. He excused himself absently, and made his way back down the street to the Cathedral. He sat there for hours, staring dumbly ahead, until the evening mass roused him. He left this comfortless sanctuary, and, retrieving his car from the parking garage, drove back onto the Autobahn, in the direction of the Kottenforst.
In the woods he wandered aimlessly and mindlessly among the huge, old evergreen trees. He didn't trust himself to examine his thoughts. Every time he told himself he must have an idea about what he should think of the events of the day, his subconscious mind shrank away - as if it were necessary to let a door close on all this without looking behind it.
The summer day was long, but finally, even in the Kottenforst, the sun went down. Jamie sat on a tree stump, listening to the birds, and suddenly began to sob bitterly.
This was the state he was in when the police found him. They'd been called by late-evening hikers. At first the police officers mistook him for a drug addict. But since he showed his military ID, and seemed to be sober, they accompanied him to his car.
On the way there, encouraged by their show of interest, Jamie told them what was bothering him. The policemen - bachelors both - were understanding.
One of them shook his head.
'You shouldn't take women like that seriously, buddy.'
The other policeman agreed.
'You'll be more careful next time. Think about it - you could have had to marry that harpy.'
Jamie thanked them for the good advice, and drove home to the base. After all, he was on duty in the morning.
In his room, alone, in the dark, it finally occurred to him what he'd been thinking all day.
'She's right. I can't even hate her.
'But I have one deep, heartfelt wish...
'I wish I had never laid eyes on Christa Biermann.'
AUTHOR'S NOTE: If a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client, what can you say about one who is his own translator? This story was originally written, with excellent editing advice by a friend, in German. My friend, like me a professional translator, quite intelligently refused to tackle this drivel on the grounds that anyone who would perpetrate the phrase ' ein schlafendes Götzzitat' in a short story deserved to have to figure out how to say it in English on their own.
I hope the result amuses, if only for the odd alienation effect of a story that's been back and forth between continents in more ways than one. -DG.
On this morning, the barges woke Jamison Douglass. He groaned, and rolled over to look at the alarm clock - five a.m., early twilight on this late-summer day - and cursed softly. He usually had to get up at this time, but it was annoying to do so on his last day of leave.
Yawning, he looked over at his sleeping partner, amazed at her ability to remain unconscious through all this carry-on. Oh, well, she wasn't used to reveille.
Christa lay, as always, on her stomach, in the dead centre of the bed, her light-brown hair across her face, snoring gently. It was warm enough that she had thrown off the covers, again as always, so that she lay with her arms over her head, naked, in her sleep, as always, completely carefree and uninhibited. Her body language expressed her philosophy of life…
Awake or asleep, her posture told the world what she thought of it.
Jamie sighed to himself and, now wide awake, went into the toilet - there was no bathroom - to dress without running the risk of waking Christa prematurely. She could get grouchy.
In shirt and jeans - uniforms were forbidden off-base - Jamie went down the stairs and left the house, turning right. Instead of walking along the Rhine, he chose as his goal the Schwarzrheindorfkirche, half a kilometer distant.
The morning was still cool, the shadows of the poplars long in the low morning sunlight. As Jamie walked along the tree-lined avenue, he reflected on his relationship with this creature - more a force of nature than a woman - with a renewal of surprise at himself. He was usually such a well-behaved young fellow, did everything by the book. How in the world had he ended up under the influence of such a siren as Christa?
He chuckled to himself and - since nobody was out on the meadow beside the avenue at this hour - gave in to the impulse to sing the appropriate song. After all, he was by the Rhine.
' Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, dass ich so traurig bin…' I don't know why I'm so sad...the old Lorelei number.
Jamie stood in the old Romanesque church. The paintings on the walls and ceilings were like an old friend to him, especially since he'd spent his whole life in some castle or another. He stood with his head craned upward and studied the dome, with its scene of the 'Marriage Supper of the Lamb', until the pressure in his neck brought him back to this world, and he went out, down the stone staircase and into the streets of Beuel, taking the long way back to Christa's place.
He decided to pass by his favourite bakery and pick up fresh rolls. That way, Christa wouldn't be cross if she woke up and missed him.
It occurred to him on the way that it had been almost ten months since Christa had scooped him up - on the open-house day at Bad Godesberg. Jamie had been playing tourist, visiting the 'Langer Eugen', Bonn's skyscraper, admiring the Bundestag, collecting tonnes of brochures he couldn't understand - not because he couldn't read them, but because he had exactly enough political savvy to know who the current prime minister was. He'd even stood in a queue for lunch at the Red Cross wagon along with the other well-dressed refugees.
Christa had found him on the Rhine promenade, as Jamie, tired of walking, was just thinking of stopping for coffee. She had collected him - Christa was a collector. She collected people, just as she collected facts, ideas, opinions. Everything she collected was tidily arranged into her world view - or else contemptuously rejected.
Jamie she folded into her life immediately. As a project, it seemed to Jamie. Christa summed him up as 'weak-willed, conformist, bourgeois, member of a gang of military terrorists, besides that too short, I hate freckles, and where did you get that awful red hair?'
Jamie was fascinated by her from the start - he'd known so few women in his life - and found himself dragged along in her wake.
Without knowing quite how it had happened, Jamie had found himself in bed with Christa. He had never so much as touched a woman before, and didn't know if this workmanlike procedure was, well, normal - not a word spoken, no kissing allowed, his tentative caresses brushed aside ('Don't be so wet'...)
In spite of this, Jamie believed himself in love. Wasn't that what normal people did?
Jamie entered the bakery and bought bread, two eggs, and small packets of butter, giving the elderly lady behind the counter his best smile, which caused her, as usual, to look at him closely and with deep mistrust. He'd lived in West Germany almost ten years, and he'd never learned to stop broadcasting his emotions.
He returned to the Rheinuferstrasse with his purchases in a plastic bag he'd pulled out of his jeans pocket - I learn something every once in a while, he thought - and opened the door to Number 6 with Christa's key. As he reached the second floor he heard the neighbour's radio playing a current hit, 'Sommersprossen' - 'Freckles'.
Afterwards, he could never hear that song without the most distressing feelings.
Jamie came into the room and started boiling water for the eggs, cutting bread, making coffee. As the smell of Melitta Gold reached her nostrils, Christa finally woke up.
She raised her head and looked at him drowsily.
'You're impossible. Can't you let a body sleep?'
Jamie smiled at her.
'Me? If the Battle of the Rhine out there would let up, I'd be quieter, too.'
Christa groaned, and got up.
'Okay, soldier boy, make breakfast. I'll be right back.'
She rummaged around under the bed and found the old, long t-shirt she wore as a nightshirt, pulled it on, and disappeared into the lavatory.
While Jamie was setting the table, he could hear Christa throwing up in the loo. That bothered him - they hadn't had that much to drink the night before. He heard water running, and when Christa came back, she seemed to be feeling better. She went to the washbasin, where she washed herself, thoroughly and without false modesty, put on jeans and a Pakistani shirt, and sat down to breakfast. Apparently her appetite was not affected by whatever had upset her stomach - she broke the shell on her four-minute egg and began slathering butter and jam on a roll.
Jamie looked at her with concern.
'Aren't you well?'
Christa smirked.
'Oh, I'm fine. Just a little morning sickness.'
She looked at him challengingly, apparently curious as to how he would take the news.
Jamie caught his breath. He set down the coffee cup carefully, as if he might break it. The quiet morning was suddenly a thing of the past. He felt he was being thrust into a crisis, one he'd been prepared for, to a certain extent, but still...
A thousand questions went through his mind - When? How? What now? Oh, lord, the parents. He didn't know Christa's at all, and his - they didn't even know he had a girlfriend, let alone a German one...his father and his war stories...
They'd just have to come to terms with it, and then...
He'd be a father. Him.
Some of what he was thinking must have been written on his face, because Christa suddenly burst into laughter.
'You should see yourself, my little man. What are you thinking? That I'll marry you now? You really believe that, don't you?
She leaned back in the armchair, crossed her arms, and laughed.
'You think I'd follow you meekly back to Scotland, and herd sheep?'
Jamie protested.
'But...we've got to think of the child...and I think...'
Christa laughed derisively.
'You? Think? Don't make me laugh. You never think. You just feel. What do you take me for, anyway? Do you really believe I'd tie myself down for life with a short-tailed, fat-faced Scots boy like you? I'm not that stupid.'
Jamie was speechless. He wanted to answer, but he simply couldn't find the words. Apparently, though, Christa wasn't at a loss for words.
'You dumb git. You don't get it, do you? Do you think a woman can't raise her child by herself? I'm finished with school. In a few weeks I'll be starting a real job. I'll be fine by myself, thank you very much, love.'
Jamie finally found his voice.
'But...why would you have to? Why can't we raise the child together? Okay, I get it, you don't want me. But I can give you money. I could help...'
Christa laughed again, scornfully. 'You, help. I can just see you now. My child is not going to become what you've turned into. Look at yourself, soldier boy - you follow orders. You even follow my orders. You don't know what to do with yourself without an order. I've just pulled the rug out from under you, and there you sit and have no idea how to react. If it's not in the regulations, you don't know what to do with yourself.
'You poor little beggar. You can't even hate me. And you call yourself a soldier. You're pathetic.'
Afterwards Jamie could never quite remember how he got out of there. Somehow he'd got his things together. Somehow he'd got out without falling down the stairs. Somehow he'd got into his car. Somehow he'd driven over the bridge at Bonn.
It wasn't until he was on the Autobahn that he came to himself - at least enough that he didn't drive back to the base, but into Cologne.
There he wandered mindlessly up and down the Hohe Strasse until he stopped in front of a shop selling children's clothing. Jamie's blood ran cold. He turned around so abruptly that he almost ran into a young couple. He excused himself absently, and made his way back down the street to the Cathedral. He sat there for hours, staring dumbly ahead, until the evening mass roused him. He left this comfortless sanctuary, and, retrieving his car from the parking garage, drove back onto the Autobahn, in the direction of the Kottenforst.
In the woods he wandered aimlessly and mindlessly among the huge, old evergreen trees. He didn't trust himself to examine his thoughts. Every time he told himself he must have an idea about what he should think of the events of the day, his subconscious mind shrank away - as if it were necessary to let a door close on all this without looking behind it.
The summer day was long, but finally, even in the Kottenforst, the sun went down. Jamie sat on a tree stump, listening to the birds, and suddenly began to sob bitterly.
This was the state he was in when the police found him. They'd been called by late-evening hikers. At first the police officers mistook him for a drug addict. But since he showed his military ID, and seemed to be sober, they accompanied him to his car.
On the way there, encouraged by their show of interest, Jamie told them what was bothering him. The policemen - bachelors both - were understanding.
One of them shook his head.
'You shouldn't take women like that seriously, buddy.'
The other policeman agreed.
'You'll be more careful next time. Think about it - you could have had to marry that harpy.'
Jamie thanked them for the good advice, and drove home to the base. After all, he was on duty in the morning.
In his room, alone, in the dark, it finally occurred to him what he'd been thinking all day.
'She's right. I can't even hate her.
'But I have one deep, heartfelt wish...
'I wish I had never laid eyes on Christa Biermann.'
AUTHOR'S NOTE: If a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client, what can you say about one who is his own translator? This story was originally written, with excellent editing advice by a friend, in German. My friend, like me a professional translator, quite intelligently refused to tackle this drivel on the grounds that anyone who would perpetrate the phrase ' ein schlafendes Götzzitat' in a short story deserved to have to figure out how to say it in English on their own.
I hope the result amuses, if only for the odd alienation effect of a story that's been back and forth between continents in more ways than one. -DG.
18 November 2010
Afterthought
Roger slipped out of the warm pub, buttoning his pea coat against the cold night. There was no snow, and the air was still, but the chill seeped past the artificial heat the beer had given him, heading straight for the bone.
In the lamplight he could see his breath, so he knew he was still alive. This thought did not comfort him.
He walked quickly down the alley to the main street, crossing to the pavement that ran along the river, keeping his head down, as if against an imperceptible wind. He was trying not to think, and finding it difficult.
He stopped in the darkest space between two streetlamps, and stood staring down into the black, turgidly flowing water, looking for a still place inside. It had been a hard day, the hardest he could remember.
Oddly, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
The same people had said the same predictably thoughtless things. The same amount of work had accumulated at his office job. The same customers had written in to complain about the usual things: all of them, obviously, his fault, and all of them his personal responsibility. His coworkers had ignored him - without knowing they were doing it, after all, they said hello - just as they always had.
Perhaps it was the cold and the early dark, Roger didn't know. But as the day had worn on, he had felt increasingly tired, as if holding up the weight of his existence had become unbearably difficult. Even a drink and a warm supper had done nothing to dispel the sense of sinking under a load that could no longer be supported.
Roger was not angry. He was lonely, and he recognised this with a mental shrug. He was often lonely, even in a pleasant crowd. Not because people visibly shut him out - he was a pleasant person to be around, a good listener, ready with the encouraging nod, the pertinent question, perhaps even an anecdote of his own - but because he felt estranged from them all, as if keeping them company were something he did to help them, not himself.
Sometimes Roger wondered idly if it were possible for someone to be there, just for him.
Somehow he doubted it.
Roger had always been like this, a little aloof, perhaps, a little to one side of the flow. He had tried not to make himself noticed while making himself useful...but everything hurt, and fighting the pain took a lot out of him.
Roger would have thought a person who judged others by his own standards a solipsist. He did not expect his neighbour to think like him, or feel like him. He didn't know how to set up his own measuring rod and call another man short.
He tried to understand. But other people hurt. Like a blow to a raw nerve, the casual cruelty of everyday human converse caused pain to him. He reckoned this was his own problem, and did his best to cope without blaming anyone else for his own perceptions.
But tonight, he was tired.
He looked down at his own hands: sturdy, perhaps too large, used to work at any number of jobs (he always had at least one), now surprisingly agile on a keyboard. He looked across the water at the lights on the other bank. And he began to cry, silently, in the cold and the darkness.
Roger began to cry because he suddenly remembered another night, impossibly long ago, when he had stood in almost this same place, looking across the river at the same lights. It had been summer, then, and he had been alone, then as now...
But he had been happy.
He couldn't remember what he had been happy about. That was why he cried.
Roger leaned on the railing and stared down into the water, his mind calm but his mood somber. He wondered...were they right when they said this was all the world there was?
If so, he had nothing to lose.
Were they right when they said there was another world, just like this one, where the same standards applied?
If so, what would be the difference? He might get a good night's sleep out of it.
Were they right when they said there might be another world, one in which ordinary kindness was returned, and someone might love you, just for yourself, and not for what they hoped to get from you?
In that case, lead him to it.
He felt the last piece of the puzzle snap into place, with an almost audible click in his head. He was ready.
He was already poised with one foot on the railing - the other already off the ground - when another thought struck him. He was surprised at himself for forgetting something so obvious, so much so that he almost stumbled as he climbed back off the railing.
Roger pulled his coat collar tighter and hurried home, his boot heels sounding a tattoo on the deserted street in front of his apartment house.
He heard the scratching at the door before he opened it. The little brown dog never barked, but transferred his pawing from door to trouser leg in one smooth motion. The furious wagging of the tail made a statement more eloquent than a sonnet.
Roger peeled off his coat, turned up the electric fire, and went looking for food for Rusty. As he ate, Roger sat watching him in wonder.
Roger knew himself as well as any man could. Once the recognition of a truth had come to him, he would never go back. He knew he would never be easy with other people. Life would always be a struggle to have enough energy left at the end of the day to find one's way home.
He stroked Rusty's sleek head in affection.
A dog does not live as long as a man. There would be plenty of time to take the plunge, after.
In the meantime, there was a reason to make it home at night.
In the lamplight he could see his breath, so he knew he was still alive. This thought did not comfort him.
He walked quickly down the alley to the main street, crossing to the pavement that ran along the river, keeping his head down, as if against an imperceptible wind. He was trying not to think, and finding it difficult.
He stopped in the darkest space between two streetlamps, and stood staring down into the black, turgidly flowing water, looking for a still place inside. It had been a hard day, the hardest he could remember.
Oddly, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
The same people had said the same predictably thoughtless things. The same amount of work had accumulated at his office job. The same customers had written in to complain about the usual things: all of them, obviously, his fault, and all of them his personal responsibility. His coworkers had ignored him - without knowing they were doing it, after all, they said hello - just as they always had.
Perhaps it was the cold and the early dark, Roger didn't know. But as the day had worn on, he had felt increasingly tired, as if holding up the weight of his existence had become unbearably difficult. Even a drink and a warm supper had done nothing to dispel the sense of sinking under a load that could no longer be supported.
Roger was not angry. He was lonely, and he recognised this with a mental shrug. He was often lonely, even in a pleasant crowd. Not because people visibly shut him out - he was a pleasant person to be around, a good listener, ready with the encouraging nod, the pertinent question, perhaps even an anecdote of his own - but because he felt estranged from them all, as if keeping them company were something he did to help them, not himself.
Sometimes Roger wondered idly if it were possible for someone to be there, just for him.
Somehow he doubted it.
Roger had always been like this, a little aloof, perhaps, a little to one side of the flow. He had tried not to make himself noticed while making himself useful...but everything hurt, and fighting the pain took a lot out of him.
Roger would have thought a person who judged others by his own standards a solipsist. He did not expect his neighbour to think like him, or feel like him. He didn't know how to set up his own measuring rod and call another man short.
He tried to understand. But other people hurt. Like a blow to a raw nerve, the casual cruelty of everyday human converse caused pain to him. He reckoned this was his own problem, and did his best to cope without blaming anyone else for his own perceptions.
But tonight, he was tired.
He looked down at his own hands: sturdy, perhaps too large, used to work at any number of jobs (he always had at least one), now surprisingly agile on a keyboard. He looked across the water at the lights on the other bank. And he began to cry, silently, in the cold and the darkness.
Roger began to cry because he suddenly remembered another night, impossibly long ago, when he had stood in almost this same place, looking across the river at the same lights. It had been summer, then, and he had been alone, then as now...
But he had been happy.
He couldn't remember what he had been happy about. That was why he cried.
Roger leaned on the railing and stared down into the water, his mind calm but his mood somber. He wondered...were they right when they said this was all the world there was?
If so, he had nothing to lose.
Were they right when they said there was another world, just like this one, where the same standards applied?
If so, what would be the difference? He might get a good night's sleep out of it.
Were they right when they said there might be another world, one in which ordinary kindness was returned, and someone might love you, just for yourself, and not for what they hoped to get from you?
In that case, lead him to it.
He felt the last piece of the puzzle snap into place, with an almost audible click in his head. He was ready.
He was already poised with one foot on the railing - the other already off the ground - when another thought struck him. He was surprised at himself for forgetting something so obvious, so much so that he almost stumbled as he climbed back off the railing.
Roger pulled his coat collar tighter and hurried home, his boot heels sounding a tattoo on the deserted street in front of his apartment house.
He heard the scratching at the door before he opened it. The little brown dog never barked, but transferred his pawing from door to trouser leg in one smooth motion. The furious wagging of the tail made a statement more eloquent than a sonnet.
Roger peeled off his coat, turned up the electric fire, and went looking for food for Rusty. As he ate, Roger sat watching him in wonder.
Roger knew himself as well as any man could. Once the recognition of a truth had come to him, he would never go back. He knew he would never be easy with other people. Life would always be a struggle to have enough energy left at the end of the day to find one's way home.
He stroked Rusty's sleek head in affection.
A dog does not live as long as a man. There would be plenty of time to take the plunge, after.
In the meantime, there was a reason to make it home at night.
17 November 2010
The Shell of the World Is Cracked
Jim Hardin woke abruptly and blinked in nervous reflex, his breath condensing in the faint light from the shattered window in the abandoned bedroom. The luminous dial on his wristwatch showed that he had been asleep for two hours.
Jim had been dreaming of home: not much plot to it, just a vivid image, early morning, damp grass, dusty red-clay road. He was a child, watching as his mother stood by the side of the road in her cracked shoes and worn housedress, haggling with the peddler. The stranger looked scornful as he attached the hand-scale to the chicken she had tied by its feet, and shook it to see if she'd been forcing gravel down its throat to add to the weight. The peddler knew all the tricks with which desperate people tried to eke a few more pennies out of their farm produce. In his dream memory, Jim saw his mother's face, wary, determined, as the peddler held an egg up to the light to check for addling. The last thing he remembered before waking was that egg: a bright oval in the morning sunlight.
Now, in the faint German moonlight, he held his breath, listening for the sound that had woken him. There it was, breaking the sullen silence of the beleaguered city...stamp, stamp, stamp...the regular tread of hobnailed boots on the cobblestones outside. He reached for his rifle, and was at the stairs when the first shot came, like the explosion of a cannon in the stairwell of the pinched rowhouse. On his way down he met the others, who had also been catching some sleep while Johnson stood guard. Another roaring shot from below, followed by soft California cursing and the sound of running German boots.
Simpson, the machine gunner, was first on the spot, and started laughing even as Jim glimpsed, through the broken storefront window, the long greatcoat flapping behind the enemy soldier as he disappeared unscathed around the street corner.
'What in blue murder were you trying to do with that pistol? You can't hit the side of a barn with that, stoopid. Why didn't you use your rifle?'
Johnson looked at the Army-issue .45 in his hand, a bit bemused. 'I dunno. Wasn't thinking, I guess.'
'Wasn't...thinking...' Simpson shook his head in mock exasperation. The good-natured ragging continued until the squad's sergeant stuck his head in and stopped the banter with orders.
'We're jumping off. Train station.' They groaned. The previous division had suffered heavy losses trying to occupy the railway station in Hamm. Now they were going to try and infiltrate it, under a quarter moon.
Approaching the ragged ruin of the station, its platforms laid bare under the well-bombed roof, Jim pressed a dirty handkerchief to his face to block out the putrid smell of decaying and burnt bodies. The acrid stench clung to his nostrils, settling in the roof of his mouth, a smell like no other on earth.
The remaining hours of winter darkness were spent in a tunnel leading up to the rails. No one spoke or lit a cigarette, not sure how the enemy was getting his information. Jim whiled away the time thinking about home - but never too hard, lest his attention falter and he miss a clue that led to survival.
Toward dawn the shelling began, German artillery lobbed into the station from half a mile away. Jim and his companions cautiously made their way up the staircase leading to the platform. As Jim poked his head out of the tunnel, he saw a bright ball of flame a few yards to his left, but heard nothing as he was flung back to the foot of the stairs. He stood up, checked himself for injuries. He was bleeding from his left ear, and could hear nothing on that side.
In his confusion, he tripped over a comrade in the still-dark tunnel. 'Excuse me, ' he muttered. His boot struck another as he moved toward the light.
It was only after the third man failed to respond that he realised he had been apologising to dead men.
Emerging into the street he learned from the sergeant that orders were to abandon the station. The station was not occupied, it was not worth it.
Glancing up, Jim spotted an elderly civilian on a bicycle. Realising now the source of the intelligence, he raised his rifle and fired. The man dropped where he was struck, the bicycle collapsing on the cobbles in a vicarious death rattle.
As the remnants of Jim's squad gathered, he looked further up the street. About 75 yards ahead, two German soldiers were assembling a machine gun with matter-of-fact efficiency. Jim raised the alarm and his rifle.
Before anyone else could fire, three shots rang out. The two machine gunners fell backwards. Jim looked to where Simpson stood, legs spread, in the centre of the street, lowering his Browning Automatic Rifle with a nod of satisfaction.
The men ran to where the enemy soldiers lay: each corpse bore a small, round hole in the middle of its forehead. Each was wearing an undamaged pair of military-issue spectacles.
Jim stared at the dead as the rising dawn glinted on their eyeglasses, making bright ovals in the morning sunlight.
Jim had been dreaming of home: not much plot to it, just a vivid image, early morning, damp grass, dusty red-clay road. He was a child, watching as his mother stood by the side of the road in her cracked shoes and worn housedress, haggling with the peddler. The stranger looked scornful as he attached the hand-scale to the chicken she had tied by its feet, and shook it to see if she'd been forcing gravel down its throat to add to the weight. The peddler knew all the tricks with which desperate people tried to eke a few more pennies out of their farm produce. In his dream memory, Jim saw his mother's face, wary, determined, as the peddler held an egg up to the light to check for addling. The last thing he remembered before waking was that egg: a bright oval in the morning sunlight.
Now, in the faint German moonlight, he held his breath, listening for the sound that had woken him. There it was, breaking the sullen silence of the beleaguered city...stamp, stamp, stamp...the regular tread of hobnailed boots on the cobblestones outside. He reached for his rifle, and was at the stairs when the first shot came, like the explosion of a cannon in the stairwell of the pinched rowhouse. On his way down he met the others, who had also been catching some sleep while Johnson stood guard. Another roaring shot from below, followed by soft California cursing and the sound of running German boots.
Simpson, the machine gunner, was first on the spot, and started laughing even as Jim glimpsed, through the broken storefront window, the long greatcoat flapping behind the enemy soldier as he disappeared unscathed around the street corner.
'What in blue murder were you trying to do with that pistol? You can't hit the side of a barn with that, stoopid. Why didn't you use your rifle?'
Johnson looked at the Army-issue .45 in his hand, a bit bemused. 'I dunno. Wasn't thinking, I guess.'
'Wasn't...thinking...' Simpson shook his head in mock exasperation. The good-natured ragging continued until the squad's sergeant stuck his head in and stopped the banter with orders.
'We're jumping off. Train station.' They groaned. The previous division had suffered heavy losses trying to occupy the railway station in Hamm. Now they were going to try and infiltrate it, under a quarter moon.
Approaching the ragged ruin of the station, its platforms laid bare under the well-bombed roof, Jim pressed a dirty handkerchief to his face to block out the putrid smell of decaying and burnt bodies. The acrid stench clung to his nostrils, settling in the roof of his mouth, a smell like no other on earth.
The remaining hours of winter darkness were spent in a tunnel leading up to the rails. No one spoke or lit a cigarette, not sure how the enemy was getting his information. Jim whiled away the time thinking about home - but never too hard, lest his attention falter and he miss a clue that led to survival.
Toward dawn the shelling began, German artillery lobbed into the station from half a mile away. Jim and his companions cautiously made their way up the staircase leading to the platform. As Jim poked his head out of the tunnel, he saw a bright ball of flame a few yards to his left, but heard nothing as he was flung back to the foot of the stairs. He stood up, checked himself for injuries. He was bleeding from his left ear, and could hear nothing on that side.
In his confusion, he tripped over a comrade in the still-dark tunnel. 'Excuse me, ' he muttered. His boot struck another as he moved toward the light.
It was only after the third man failed to respond that he realised he had been apologising to dead men.
Emerging into the street he learned from the sergeant that orders were to abandon the station. The station was not occupied, it was not worth it.
Glancing up, Jim spotted an elderly civilian on a bicycle. Realising now the source of the intelligence, he raised his rifle and fired. The man dropped where he was struck, the bicycle collapsing on the cobbles in a vicarious death rattle.
As the remnants of Jim's squad gathered, he looked further up the street. About 75 yards ahead, two German soldiers were assembling a machine gun with matter-of-fact efficiency. Jim raised the alarm and his rifle.
Before anyone else could fire, three shots rang out. The two machine gunners fell backwards. Jim looked to where Simpson stood, legs spread, in the centre of the street, lowering his Browning Automatic Rifle with a nod of satisfaction.
The men ran to where the enemy soldiers lay: each corpse bore a small, round hole in the middle of its forehead. Each was wearing an undamaged pair of military-issue spectacles.
Jim stared at the dead as the rising dawn glinted on their eyeglasses, making bright ovals in the morning sunlight.
16 November 2010
Reply to the Lady Who Mourned for Grasshopper
The year they came, I forgot how to stand upright.
At first I was perplexed: Why was I terrified? The insects, though ugly, neither bite nor devour. They do not spread disease. They merely swarm and make noise. At night, they whirred in their tens of thousands, making the tin roof of the cabin hum. My mind, unable to cope, went blank, refusing even to acknowledge the truth - that the winged things from hell were flying grasshoppers, and for no sane reason, I cannot abide a grasshopper. A katydid in the breezeway will cause catatonia. I spent the days of the religious retreat in a state of hypervigilance, unwilling to think about one of red-eyed monsters landing on me. I refused to attempt to play baseball under these conditions. I retreated from the retreat, heading into the woods until I found sanctuary, a locust-free zone in the forest with a log-benched amphitheatre.
There I meditated on an inchworm, sang to myself, talked to angels, decided that even Elijah wouldn't eat one of those things. I went back to the inferno, since I suspected they'd be looking for me to play the piano.
Dinner-time. The kitchen ladies were not happy with the accommodations. Squirrels in the oven pipes were not what they'd signed on for. I liked the squirrels, and loved the bat that had got into the girls' cabin the first night, providing them with the excuse to stay up and scream ('They get in your HAIR!') until grumpy Mrs Waggoner yelled at them all to cover their heads with blankets and sleep, darn it, they were supposed to be awake enough to be spiritual tomorrow...
As I headed across the clearing toward the mess hall (no bugs, they were settling down on the roofs in the twilight), I heard another kind of buzzing in my head. I wasn't fast enough to recognise the symptoms before my vision solarised, and the next thing I knew, I was being jolted back from a faint with smelling salts and fussy ladies. Humiliation, nursing, and the discovery that a certain brand of fizzy stomach powder could actually make you feel more nauseous than before. I turned down the offer of an early ride home. This looked like bravery, and it was. I would very much rather have spent the night away from the leathery horde of cicadas, but I knew that taking me back would mean a pointless two-hour drive for someone, so I stuck it out. I expect my reward in heaven.
Sunday afternoon and home. Never have I left the woodland so willingly. Back to the suburbs, back to boredom, back to a nap on the sofa. Waking for dinner, two hours later. Standing.
No, not standing. Falling down.
For three days, my head spun whenever I lifted it. A point on the wall, focussed upon, moved to the left until, like a ball on a rubber band,; it snapped back into place, only to begin moving again. Sitting up meant nausea. Standing up meant falling down. Locomotion - from bed to sofa to bathroom and back again - was on hands and knees. At fifteen, I was devolving, back to infancy. Thowing a tantrum was not an option, although I was developing a yen for warm tinned milk.
My mother, too frugal for physicians, was finally faced with a medical dilemma: Either I became ambulatory again, or the houseguests who were coming next Monday would be severely inconvenienced (she needed my room). So I was bundled into the back of the car, where I lay during the two-mile drive to the doctor's. Dr Bruce was a fine son of Scotland, not easily perturbed. He shook his head, shrugged, said he had no idea what this was (I was betting on either extraterrestrial intervention or vampires in Pittsburgh's South Park, but knew better than to say so). He offered pills for vertigo, gratis from the pharmaceutical rep. The office visit cost, as usual, two dollars. (A housecall would have been an astonishing five.) We went away, I took pills, stood up and took nourishment the next day, and was able to move to the cot in the den in time for company. Problem solved.
Vertigo. Vertiginous...what? I am not afraid of heights. In fact, I am annoying about them. I enjoy them. I don't mind nature. I feel at home there. What was it about those flying grasshoppers - or any grasshoppers, for that matter - that froze me in my tracks? That caused my brain to forget how to see the world, my ears how to balance, my body how to walk? Where do those things come from, anyway, Alpha Centauri or the cave of Ali Baba?
If they were to become extinct, would the planet stop spinning? Would the inchworms stop inching and the roses smell less sweet? Why are there seventeen-year locusts? Do they fulfill an ancient curse by a forgotten deity, or signify a blessing to someone other than me?
If I never see them again, it will be too soon. If they were not to be, I would not mourn them.
Let the lady mourn for Grasshopper. Not me.
At first I was perplexed: Why was I terrified? The insects, though ugly, neither bite nor devour. They do not spread disease. They merely swarm and make noise. At night, they whirred in their tens of thousands, making the tin roof of the cabin hum. My mind, unable to cope, went blank, refusing even to acknowledge the truth - that the winged things from hell were flying grasshoppers, and for no sane reason, I cannot abide a grasshopper. A katydid in the breezeway will cause catatonia. I spent the days of the religious retreat in a state of hypervigilance, unwilling to think about one of red-eyed monsters landing on me. I refused to attempt to play baseball under these conditions. I retreated from the retreat, heading into the woods until I found sanctuary, a locust-free zone in the forest with a log-benched amphitheatre.
There I meditated on an inchworm, sang to myself, talked to angels, decided that even Elijah wouldn't eat one of those things. I went back to the inferno, since I suspected they'd be looking for me to play the piano.
Dinner-time. The kitchen ladies were not happy with the accommodations. Squirrels in the oven pipes were not what they'd signed on for. I liked the squirrels, and loved the bat that had got into the girls' cabin the first night, providing them with the excuse to stay up and scream ('They get in your HAIR!') until grumpy Mrs Waggoner yelled at them all to cover their heads with blankets and sleep, darn it, they were supposed to be awake enough to be spiritual tomorrow...
As I headed across the clearing toward the mess hall (no bugs, they were settling down on the roofs in the twilight), I heard another kind of buzzing in my head. I wasn't fast enough to recognise the symptoms before my vision solarised, and the next thing I knew, I was being jolted back from a faint with smelling salts and fussy ladies. Humiliation, nursing, and the discovery that a certain brand of fizzy stomach powder could actually make you feel more nauseous than before. I turned down the offer of an early ride home. This looked like bravery, and it was. I would very much rather have spent the night away from the leathery horde of cicadas, but I knew that taking me back would mean a pointless two-hour drive for someone, so I stuck it out. I expect my reward in heaven.
Sunday afternoon and home. Never have I left the woodland so willingly. Back to the suburbs, back to boredom, back to a nap on the sofa. Waking for dinner, two hours later. Standing.
No, not standing. Falling down.
For three days, my head spun whenever I lifted it. A point on the wall, focussed upon, moved to the left until, like a ball on a rubber band,; it snapped back into place, only to begin moving again. Sitting up meant nausea. Standing up meant falling down. Locomotion - from bed to sofa to bathroom and back again - was on hands and knees. At fifteen, I was devolving, back to infancy. Thowing a tantrum was not an option, although I was developing a yen for warm tinned milk.
My mother, too frugal for physicians, was finally faced with a medical dilemma: Either I became ambulatory again, or the houseguests who were coming next Monday would be severely inconvenienced (she needed my room). So I was bundled into the back of the car, where I lay during the two-mile drive to the doctor's. Dr Bruce was a fine son of Scotland, not easily perturbed. He shook his head, shrugged, said he had no idea what this was (I was betting on either extraterrestrial intervention or vampires in Pittsburgh's South Park, but knew better than to say so). He offered pills for vertigo, gratis from the pharmaceutical rep. The office visit cost, as usual, two dollars. (A housecall would have been an astonishing five.) We went away, I took pills, stood up and took nourishment the next day, and was able to move to the cot in the den in time for company. Problem solved.
Vertigo. Vertiginous...what? I am not afraid of heights. In fact, I am annoying about them. I enjoy them. I don't mind nature. I feel at home there. What was it about those flying grasshoppers - or any grasshoppers, for that matter - that froze me in my tracks? That caused my brain to forget how to see the world, my ears how to balance, my body how to walk? Where do those things come from, anyway, Alpha Centauri or the cave of Ali Baba?
If they were to become extinct, would the planet stop spinning? Would the inchworms stop inching and the roses smell less sweet? Why are there seventeen-year locusts? Do they fulfill an ancient curse by a forgotten deity, or signify a blessing to someone other than me?
If I never see them again, it will be too soon. If they were not to be, I would not mourn them.
Let the lady mourn for Grasshopper. Not me.
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