I am given rotten fruit
told it is mine
that I must eat it.
Once I might have,
not knowing the difference
having been raised
on bruised sweetness
Spotted, worm-holed
compost fodder
might have formed
bones and sinews
but it was bitter
in the belly
Today I am a
connoisseur of freshness
not a gourmet yet, perhaps
but tasteful nonetheless
and it is sweet
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Wander Well
This is my response to this week's poetry prompt at Simply Snickers (www.simplysnickers.blogspot.com) . The prompt: wander, weak, wild, wit, wonder. And, well, all that alliteration got me thinking...so this is kind of a wild, wacky romp through the world of the letter W. It is tongue-in-cheek, but there is a more serious moral in there for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Without further ado...
Wander well o will ‘o wisp
Wait not, weak with water want
Watch the whirl-wind wyvern waver, whimper
Wonder at willow’s worthy, wild wit
Wish the wife’s week whittled to weal, but the
Wheel of wealth is weighted with woe
West is won, warded by whales
Wind is a warehouse the width of the world
Wander well o will ‘o wisp
Wander well o will ‘o wisp
Wait not, weak with water want
Watch the whirl-wind wyvern waver, whimper
Wonder at willow’s worthy, wild wit
Wish the wife’s week whittled to weal, but the
Wheel of wealth is weighted with woe
West is won, warded by whales
Wind is a warehouse the width of the world
Wander well o will ‘o wisp
100 Words - Pillar
Here is this week's entry for the 100 Words challenge. The word? Pillar (as you may have already guessed :). Oddly enough - and I am not the only one to do this - this week's entry continued from where last week's left off. Continuity seems to be important to me lately - perhaps because I haven't had very much of it in real life. Anyway, I hope you enjoy:
Like tendrils of mist, erasing, forgiving, her voice curled around the pillars of the courtyard and filled the spaces in between. It was careful and gentle, neither tentative nor demanding. He could feel it seeping into the chinks in his defenses, loosening stones and threatening to topple his carefully built walls. That frightened him more than anything. He wasn’t sure he was ready for a love that threatened his defenses.
“SHUT UP!”
But she continued unfazed, unabated, as if to say, “I love you too much to give up.” He sank to his knees, weeping for he knew not what.
------------------------------------
Join in and leave a comment with a link to your post (and read others' efforts) at www.velvetverbosity.com .
Like tendrils of mist, erasing, forgiving, her voice curled around the pillars of the courtyard and filled the spaces in between. It was careful and gentle, neither tentative nor demanding. He could feel it seeping into the chinks in his defenses, loosening stones and threatening to topple his carefully built walls. That frightened him more than anything. He wasn’t sure he was ready for a love that threatened his defenses.
“SHUT UP!”
But she continued unfazed, unabated, as if to say, “I love you too much to give up.” He sank to his knees, weeping for he knew not what.
------------------------------------
Join in and leave a comment with a link to your post (and read others' efforts) at www.velvetverbosity.com .
Friday, July 25, 2008
Five Word Friday #4
Welcome to Five Word Friday, published on Friday for the second week in a row! Something's wrong, I tell ya :) Anyway, the words for today are: pomegranate, helicopter, tissue, organic and drumming. If you participate, just stop back by and add a comment with a link to your FWF post on your own blog. Enjoy!
-----------------------------
I sit at my kitchen table sipping my pomegranate juice, a daily ritual. Some people drink coffee. I happen to believe in the amazing powers of the pomegranate. Most people I tell about that are skeptical, but on the other hand I haven’t been sick once in the past 7 years, ever since I started doing this.
This is one of my favorite times of day, especially in my new apartment. Phileas made good on his word and his friend agreed to a trial contract. As long as I continue to pay rent in full and on time I will have a full contract in six months, and with the money I’m making at the nursery that should be no problem. Not only does my new apartment have 2 more rooms, the regular rooms, like the kitchen and dining room, even the bathroom are more spacious. Everything is clean, kept up, and in good working order. What a difference it makes! There is a dining room, in addition to the kitchen, but there is also a bay window in the kitchen with space for a little breakfast nook. The window looks out over a lush garden filled with hibiscus, rhododendrons, fiddle ferns, taro and a squat little date palm, all plants that are reminiscent to me of beaches and paradise. I usually get up before Kyra wakes up and sit and drink my pomegranate juice and enjoy being alone for a bit.
Usually my mind wanders, flitting from subject to subject like a hummingbird, never resting for long but staying only long enough to sip the nectar from each thought before moving on to the next. Today, however, and for the past few days my thoughts have been consumed with the Fraternal Order of Journeymen. It has been over two months since my encounter with Grisleigh and in that time I have not seen him or heard from him, nor have I ever met another member of this order. Sunday, August 31 is now only two days away and many of the fears I had put aside are returning. Who are they? How do they know about me? What do they want from me? How will this affect Kyra? These questions swim in useless, menacing circles in my mind, like sharks drawn by the scent of blood only to find there is no food. The ball is marked (grudgingly) on the calendar that hangs by a magnet on my fridge, and the bright orange envelope with the invitation hangs next to it. Not knowing what to expect, or what I should wear I have rented a tux, which I picked up yesterday after work and now hangs in my closet.
A helicopter roars by overhead, scattering my thoughts and startling Kyra awake. I throw back the last couple of swallows of my juice and get up to go get Kyra, noticing that it is only 6:57. Our new apartment is closer to both Mrs. Kice’s and the nursery, so we generally have a lot more time together in the mornings before we have to get going – another substantial perk to the new place. Kyra stops crying as soon as she sees me and smiles and reaches for me. I quickly change her diaper while she excitedly babbles to me and then carry her into the kitchen and sit her down in her high chair. She has added rice cereal to her usual soy formula, and, now that I can afford it, I’ve started buying the organic stuff. Usually about half of it ends up anywhere but in her mouth, but she has fun and seems to love the stuff. She continues talking, no doubt telling me about her dreams last night, or her plans for the day or something, while I make her cereal. I set the cereal down on the tray of her high chair and dip the spoon in and make it about halfway to her mouth before her fingers are in the bowl and she is sucking the stuff off of her chubby little digits. She giggles with delight and I can’t help but laugh along – what use does she have for spoons after all? It is moments like this that make all the struggle and heartache of being a single parent (or I suppose being a parent at all) worthwhile.
Once she is done eating/playing I clean up the high chair and most of the big stuff on her with a few tissues, and then it is time for her bath. Once she is clean I dress her, make sure everything is ready for Mrs. Kice’s and off we go. Mrs. Kice has grown quite fond of Kyra over the last couple of months, and I have to say that Kyra returns the favor. She knows where we are going and keeps repeating “Ga-ga, ga-ga” which I have come to understand is her name for Mrs. Kice.
“Yes, you’re going to see Ga-ga,” I confirm. She smiles and launches into a new soliloquy, no doubt about her friend. She hasn’t cried since that first week, and as time progresses she gets more and more excited about going to her nanny. Today is no exception, and having dropped her off without issue, I make my way to work.
My thoughts and worries about the Journeymen return as I walk by myself. I have tried over the intervening months to find out something about them without success. I did some research at the local library, even going so far as to request help from one of the librarians when I couldn’t find anything on my own. Nothing. I searched for them on the web. Nothing. I just don’t understand how an organization could have been around for apparently a thousand years and there be absolutely no information about them. I haven’t talked to anybody else about them, for fear of looking like a fool. Even the librarian was getting frustrated when I couldn’t tell her anything about them to help her search.
I get to the nursery and Phileas greets me warmly as usual. He lifts an eyebrow at me when I reply kind of half-heartedly.
“Sorry, Phil, got a lot on my mind today. Nothing personal.”
“Well, I guess we’re all allowed an off day now and then. Anything you want to talk about, PW?”
“No, not yet. I think it’s just something I’ve got to work through on my own, that’s all.”
“Otay, well you know I’m always available if you want to talk, right?”
“Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. Hey, would you mind putting up a display of gardenias. We just got a new shipment in this morning.
“Yeah, sure.”
The rest of the day is uneventful and pretty routine, with plenty of time to think, unfortunately. Thoughts of the Journeymen keep drumming in my brain, as if in some mysterious code. I only wish I had the key to unlock the mystery. I guess Sunday will tell.
-----------------------------
I sit at my kitchen table sipping my pomegranate juice, a daily ritual. Some people drink coffee. I happen to believe in the amazing powers of the pomegranate. Most people I tell about that are skeptical, but on the other hand I haven’t been sick once in the past 7 years, ever since I started doing this.
This is one of my favorite times of day, especially in my new apartment. Phileas made good on his word and his friend agreed to a trial contract. As long as I continue to pay rent in full and on time I will have a full contract in six months, and with the money I’m making at the nursery that should be no problem. Not only does my new apartment have 2 more rooms, the regular rooms, like the kitchen and dining room, even the bathroom are more spacious. Everything is clean, kept up, and in good working order. What a difference it makes! There is a dining room, in addition to the kitchen, but there is also a bay window in the kitchen with space for a little breakfast nook. The window looks out over a lush garden filled with hibiscus, rhododendrons, fiddle ferns, taro and a squat little date palm, all plants that are reminiscent to me of beaches and paradise. I usually get up before Kyra wakes up and sit and drink my pomegranate juice and enjoy being alone for a bit.
Usually my mind wanders, flitting from subject to subject like a hummingbird, never resting for long but staying only long enough to sip the nectar from each thought before moving on to the next. Today, however, and for the past few days my thoughts have been consumed with the Fraternal Order of Journeymen. It has been over two months since my encounter with Grisleigh and in that time I have not seen him or heard from him, nor have I ever met another member of this order. Sunday, August 31 is now only two days away and many of the fears I had put aside are returning. Who are they? How do they know about me? What do they want from me? How will this affect Kyra? These questions swim in useless, menacing circles in my mind, like sharks drawn by the scent of blood only to find there is no food. The ball is marked (grudgingly) on the calendar that hangs by a magnet on my fridge, and the bright orange envelope with the invitation hangs next to it. Not knowing what to expect, or what I should wear I have rented a tux, which I picked up yesterday after work and now hangs in my closet.
A helicopter roars by overhead, scattering my thoughts and startling Kyra awake. I throw back the last couple of swallows of my juice and get up to go get Kyra, noticing that it is only 6:57. Our new apartment is closer to both Mrs. Kice’s and the nursery, so we generally have a lot more time together in the mornings before we have to get going – another substantial perk to the new place. Kyra stops crying as soon as she sees me and smiles and reaches for me. I quickly change her diaper while she excitedly babbles to me and then carry her into the kitchen and sit her down in her high chair. She has added rice cereal to her usual soy formula, and, now that I can afford it, I’ve started buying the organic stuff. Usually about half of it ends up anywhere but in her mouth, but she has fun and seems to love the stuff. She continues talking, no doubt telling me about her dreams last night, or her plans for the day or something, while I make her cereal. I set the cereal down on the tray of her high chair and dip the spoon in and make it about halfway to her mouth before her fingers are in the bowl and she is sucking the stuff off of her chubby little digits. She giggles with delight and I can’t help but laugh along – what use does she have for spoons after all? It is moments like this that make all the struggle and heartache of being a single parent (or I suppose being a parent at all) worthwhile.
Once she is done eating/playing I clean up the high chair and most of the big stuff on her with a few tissues, and then it is time for her bath. Once she is clean I dress her, make sure everything is ready for Mrs. Kice’s and off we go. Mrs. Kice has grown quite fond of Kyra over the last couple of months, and I have to say that Kyra returns the favor. She knows where we are going and keeps repeating “Ga-ga, ga-ga” which I have come to understand is her name for Mrs. Kice.
“Yes, you’re going to see Ga-ga,” I confirm. She smiles and launches into a new soliloquy, no doubt about her friend. She hasn’t cried since that first week, and as time progresses she gets more and more excited about going to her nanny. Today is no exception, and having dropped her off without issue, I make my way to work.
My thoughts and worries about the Journeymen return as I walk by myself. I have tried over the intervening months to find out something about them without success. I did some research at the local library, even going so far as to request help from one of the librarians when I couldn’t find anything on my own. Nothing. I searched for them on the web. Nothing. I just don’t understand how an organization could have been around for apparently a thousand years and there be absolutely no information about them. I haven’t talked to anybody else about them, for fear of looking like a fool. Even the librarian was getting frustrated when I couldn’t tell her anything about them to help her search.
I get to the nursery and Phileas greets me warmly as usual. He lifts an eyebrow at me when I reply kind of half-heartedly.
“Sorry, Phil, got a lot on my mind today. Nothing personal.”
“Well, I guess we’re all allowed an off day now and then. Anything you want to talk about, PW?”
“No, not yet. I think it’s just something I’ve got to work through on my own, that’s all.”
“Otay, well you know I’m always available if you want to talk, right?”
“Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. Hey, would you mind putting up a display of gardenias. We just got a new shipment in this morning.
“Yeah, sure.”
The rest of the day is uneventful and pretty routine, with plenty of time to think, unfortunately. Thoughts of the Journeymen keep drumming in my brain, as if in some mysterious code. I only wish I had the key to unlock the mystery. I guess Sunday will tell.
Monday, July 21, 2008
100 Words - Treasures (Take 2)
Well, here is my second "Treasures" post for this week, just a teensy tad late. As hard as doing one is, with all of the thought and planning and editing and cutting and rewriting, etc., doing two is just exhausting :) Not to mention the fact that with the first you begin to associate the word with a certain idea, and then you have to completely turn that around and go with something different. Just goes to show the richness of the language and all of the different associations a particular word can have (as if the challenge doesn't already ably demonstrate that). Anyway, here it is for your reading pleasure:
He slammed the gate shut with all of his strength. The clang reverberated in the empty space, echoes seeming to gain strength as if the cold, stone walls amplified them. He held his hands to his ears to keep them out. He felt like he wanted to cry. He only wanted to protect himself – was that so wrong? “Fool,” the stones seemed to cry out. “You only protect yourself from love!” Silence. Interminable emptiness. Could this be true? He dared to begin to hope. In the quiet of that hope her voice began, o treasured voice, to sing a lullaby.
Join in and see other entries at www.velvetverbosity.com .
He slammed the gate shut with all of his strength. The clang reverberated in the empty space, echoes seeming to gain strength as if the cold, stone walls amplified them. He held his hands to his ears to keep them out. He felt like he wanted to cry. He only wanted to protect himself – was that so wrong? “Fool,” the stones seemed to cry out. “You only protect yourself from love!” Silence. Interminable emptiness. Could this be true? He dared to begin to hope. In the quiet of that hope her voice began, o treasured voice, to sing a lullaby.
Join in and see other entries at www.velvetverbosity.com .
Friday, July 18, 2008
Five Word Friday #3
Yeah, I finally posted one of these on a Friday! The words for today (thanks again to my wife) are: joy, blanket, sawdust, orange and toenail. A challenge to be sure, but I'm pretty pleased with the results. If you'd like to join in, just leave a comment with the URL of your post. Otherwise, enjoy the continuation of Michael and Kyra's adventure!
-----------------------------------
Joy suffuses me this morning! Today marks the beginning of my second week working at Phileas Jackson’s Concrete Jungle Nursery, and Kyra’s third week with Mrs. Kice. For the first time in over a year I feel like things are beginning to look up. With the money I’m making at the nursery we might even be able to move into a nicer place closer to the nursery. Phileas suggested some apartments that are run by a friend of his and said he’d be willing to put in a good word for me.
I whistle as I walk from Mrs. Kice’s to the nursery. “Zippety doo dah…what a wonderful day…everything’s going my way…hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm.” I probably shouldn’t sing – it’s not my forte, so to speak – but I just can’t help myself. Humming along, garnering stares, I walk up Costa Mesa St. to Raymond Ave. and over to Walnut St. The nursery is only 3 blocks from here on the corner of Walnut and Orange.
My attention is caught by a flicker of movement in my peripheral vision. Looking to my left I see a bundle of rags and papers in the doorway to the Chubby Panda. ‘That’s odd,’ I think, ‘they usually keep things pretty clean.’ They don’t open til 11am for lunch, so there’s nobody in the shop at 8:45am that I know of. The bundle moves and groans and suddenly I realize that the rags are clothes, and the papers are just a blanket. A hand appears, and then a head. It is a homeless man! At least I think it’s a man. I can only see the back of a head of long greasy, stringy gray hair. He turns over to reveal a beard that is as dirty and tangled as a rat’s nest, long and square like some hirsute shovel. His long hair hangs down in front as well, until he pushes it back with one leathery hand to reveal a relief map of a face with a mountain of a nose, two deep buccal valleys and a limpid forest pool for an eye, the forest being his eyebrow. The left eye looks like a cave. The kind of cave you’re too afraid to enter. He looks at me and I get the eerie sense that he can see out of both eyes, or eye sockets, or…whatever.
“Can I help you,” I ask, wanting to return some semblance of normalcy and control to the situation. I am wringing my hands trying to keep them from trembling. The sunshine seems to have been sucked out of the day. If you asked why I was so affected I’m not sure I could tell you. I’ve been around homeless people before, even bought dinner for a few, but this feels different.
“Hello, Michael,” he replies with a voice like wet sawdust. “Sorry I’m late.”
“L-l-late?”
“Oh, I meant to be awake and waiting for you when you came by, but I must have been more tired than I thought. I slept until you tripped my warning system.”
The man’s gotta be a lunatic. Maybe he just guessed at my name and happened to get it right – it’s not an uncommon name after all. And I certainly didn’t hit any wires or anything like that. What’s he talking about – warning system?
He pulls out an orange envelope from somewhere within his clothing. A pocket? A sleeve? I can’t quite tell. The envelope is smudged and dirty around the edges, but clearly written in the center on the front, in a flowing script, is my name: Michael Samuels. The bottom curve of the first S bulges out below the line like a bubble about to burst, and curls around to underline my first name. He is holding it out to me, the expectant look in his eye made somewhat ghoulish by the gaping ghastliness of the socket next to it.
“Well, go on then,” he urges, flapping it towards me like some demented servant fanning his master. I get a whiff of sewer water breath and body odor which smells like he hasn’t taken a bath in several hundred years.
“Wh-what is it?”
“What do you mean, what is it? It’s an invitation of course. What did you think it was, a letter bomb?” Yeah, that makes me feel better.
“An invitation to what?”
“If you’ll stop being such a pamby and take the damn thing you’ll find out.” He smiles, I’d guess to soften the insult, but the row of jagged, broken off branches that serves as his teeth has exactly the opposite effect.
I snatch the envelope, trying not to touch him as I do so. I don’t want to get him angry or something. Who knows what he’ll do? I look down at the orange square in my hand with trepidation. An invitation?
“Well, go on. Open it up.”
“Here?”
“Where else? You have to RSVP – reply soon via postman. And I’m the only P you’ve got to RS via. If you dilly dawdle much longer I’m gonna tell them the answer is no.”
“You’re a postman?” Now I’m really confused.
He only raises one bushy eyebrow and glares at me.
“Okay. Hold on.” I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather he just tell “them” no anyway. I don’t know what’s going on here, nor am I sure I want to find out, but I’m getting the sense he’s not going to let me get away without at least reading the invitation, so I rip the envelope open with my finger. I look back at him but he is ostensibly ignoring me, lazily picking grime out of the toenail on his left big toe. I suppose any invitation, no matter how bizarre, is better than that sight. I slide the card out of the envelope and open it up. Inside, in graceful calligraphy, I read:
I look up to find that he is done with his toenails and is patiently regarding me with an incongruous twinkle in his eye.
“You’re Grisleigh?” I ask, realizing as soon as I hear the name spoken that it fits him like no other name could.
“One and the same,” he says with a grin and little flourish of his hand. “At your service.”
“And the Fraternal Order of Journeyman?”
“Oh, that’s a secret, that is.”
Exasperated, I snap, “How am I supposed to know whether to say yes or no, if I don’t even know what is is?!”
“That’s the challenge,” he replies cheerfully. “You have to decide now, yes or no, and once you decide there’s no going back.”
“Not even a hint? Is it something I’d like? I’ve never heard of them before.”
He only looks at me without expression, his eye suddenly dull and flat and unreflective. That, more than anything so far, frightens me. I am torn by indecision. I have to admit that I’m curious. Who is this Fraternal Order of Journeyman? What do they do? How do they know about me? Why do they want me to join? On the other hand, is it worth the risk? If it were just me, I’d probably risk it just for the heck of it. But I have Kyra to consider. What if it’s dangerous? I can’t endanger her life, just to satisfy my curiousity.
I examine my emotions, my response to Grisleigh and the situation, and realize that most of my fear has only been because it has been unexpected and bizarre, so out of place in the normal course of things. There are things I can’t explain and that is frightening to me. I have to admit, Grisleigh’s appearance is a little off-putting, but he has been nothing but friendly, if gruff, to me. And though I have no doubt whatsoever that he is dangerous, I don’t sense any of that directed towards me. So what does all of that mean? That I should do it?
“Look, I need an answer soon, Michael. I’ve got work to do, as I believe you do too.” Oh shit, the nursery. I totally forgot. I’m going to be late! “I’m not going to wait around forever. Either you take courage in hand and say yes, or you live with yourself as a coward forever. The choice is simple really.”
“Hey, now. I am not a coward.” He only stares at me silently. He seems to be very good at that. Finally my curiosity gets the better of me. “Fine, tell them, whoever they are, yes I accept.”
He beams at me, and I can describe it no other way than that it transforms his face, unifies it somehow.
“Aye, that’s what I was hoping you’d say. A carriage will pick you up at your apartment at 6pm on the day of the ball. Your daughter is welcome to attend with you. Breathe not a word of this to another living soul, Michael. Until then.”
He stands in a flurry of rags and without looking back steps around the corner and out of sight. Carriage? Daughter?
“Wait!” I rush after him, but he has disappeared and the street is clear for blocks. There’s no way he could have vanished that quickly! What is going on? What have I gotten myself (and Kyra) into?
Heart pumping, sweating slightly and thinking furiously, I make my way the remaining 3 blocks up Walnut to the nursery. I discover as I walk in the door and look at the clock on the wall that it is 9am on the dot. I am not late, I am exactly on time, as I would have been had I not been delayed. Did he stop time, too?
“PW, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Phileas is standing to my right in the middle of a bunch of rhododendrons.
“I think so.”
“You think you’re okay or you think you’ve seen a ghost?
I smile. “Yes.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, putting me in mind of somebody else.
“I’m fine, Phileas. What have we got going today?”
He launches into a list of tasks for the day and eventually I lose myself in work, temporarily forgetting the bizarre events of the morning.
-----------------------------------
Joy suffuses me this morning! Today marks the beginning of my second week working at Phileas Jackson’s Concrete Jungle Nursery, and Kyra’s third week with Mrs. Kice. For the first time in over a year I feel like things are beginning to look up. With the money I’m making at the nursery we might even be able to move into a nicer place closer to the nursery. Phileas suggested some apartments that are run by a friend of his and said he’d be willing to put in a good word for me.
I whistle as I walk from Mrs. Kice’s to the nursery. “Zippety doo dah…what a wonderful day…everything’s going my way…hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm.” I probably shouldn’t sing – it’s not my forte, so to speak – but I just can’t help myself. Humming along, garnering stares, I walk up Costa Mesa St. to Raymond Ave. and over to Walnut St. The nursery is only 3 blocks from here on the corner of Walnut and Orange.
My attention is caught by a flicker of movement in my peripheral vision. Looking to my left I see a bundle of rags and papers in the doorway to the Chubby Panda. ‘That’s odd,’ I think, ‘they usually keep things pretty clean.’ They don’t open til 11am for lunch, so there’s nobody in the shop at 8:45am that I know of. The bundle moves and groans and suddenly I realize that the rags are clothes, and the papers are just a blanket. A hand appears, and then a head. It is a homeless man! At least I think it’s a man. I can only see the back of a head of long greasy, stringy gray hair. He turns over to reveal a beard that is as dirty and tangled as a rat’s nest, long and square like some hirsute shovel. His long hair hangs down in front as well, until he pushes it back with one leathery hand to reveal a relief map of a face with a mountain of a nose, two deep buccal valleys and a limpid forest pool for an eye, the forest being his eyebrow. The left eye looks like a cave. The kind of cave you’re too afraid to enter. He looks at me and I get the eerie sense that he can see out of both eyes, or eye sockets, or…whatever.
“Can I help you,” I ask, wanting to return some semblance of normalcy and control to the situation. I am wringing my hands trying to keep them from trembling. The sunshine seems to have been sucked out of the day. If you asked why I was so affected I’m not sure I could tell you. I’ve been around homeless people before, even bought dinner for a few, but this feels different.
“Hello, Michael,” he replies with a voice like wet sawdust. “Sorry I’m late.”
“L-l-late?”
“Oh, I meant to be awake and waiting for you when you came by, but I must have been more tired than I thought. I slept until you tripped my warning system.”
The man’s gotta be a lunatic. Maybe he just guessed at my name and happened to get it right – it’s not an uncommon name after all. And I certainly didn’t hit any wires or anything like that. What’s he talking about – warning system?
He pulls out an orange envelope from somewhere within his clothing. A pocket? A sleeve? I can’t quite tell. The envelope is smudged and dirty around the edges, but clearly written in the center on the front, in a flowing script, is my name: Michael Samuels. The bottom curve of the first S bulges out below the line like a bubble about to burst, and curls around to underline my first name. He is holding it out to me, the expectant look in his eye made somewhat ghoulish by the gaping ghastliness of the socket next to it.
“Well, go on then,” he urges, flapping it towards me like some demented servant fanning his master. I get a whiff of sewer water breath and body odor which smells like he hasn’t taken a bath in several hundred years.
“Wh-what is it?”
“What do you mean, what is it? It’s an invitation of course. What did you think it was, a letter bomb?” Yeah, that makes me feel better.
“An invitation to what?”
“If you’ll stop being such a pamby and take the damn thing you’ll find out.” He smiles, I’d guess to soften the insult, but the row of jagged, broken off branches that serves as his teeth has exactly the opposite effect.
I snatch the envelope, trying not to touch him as I do so. I don’t want to get him angry or something. Who knows what he’ll do? I look down at the orange square in my hand with trepidation. An invitation?
“Well, go on. Open it up.”
“Here?”
“Where else? You have to RSVP – reply soon via postman. And I’m the only P you’ve got to RS via. If you dilly dawdle much longer I’m gonna tell them the answer is no.”
“You’re a postman?” Now I’m really confused.
He only raises one bushy eyebrow and glares at me.
“Okay. Hold on.” I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather he just tell “them” no anyway. I don’t know what’s going on here, nor am I sure I want to find out, but I’m getting the sense he’s not going to let me get away without at least reading the invitation, so I rip the envelope open with my finger. I look back at him but he is ostensibly ignoring me, lazily picking grime out of the toenail on his left big toe. I suppose any invitation, no matter how bizarre, is better than that sight. I slide the card out of the envelope and open it up. Inside, in graceful calligraphy, I read:
Mr. Michael Samuels
is cordially invited
to attend the
1,000th annual
Journeyman’s Ball
for his
induction
into the
Fraternal Order of Journeyman
8pm, Sunday, August 31, 2008
Please R.S.V.P. immediately with Grisleigh.
is cordially invited
to attend the
1,000th annual
Journeyman’s Ball
for his
induction
into the
Fraternal Order of Journeyman
8pm, Sunday, August 31, 2008
Please R.S.V.P. immediately with Grisleigh.
I look up to find that he is done with his toenails and is patiently regarding me with an incongruous twinkle in his eye.
“You’re Grisleigh?” I ask, realizing as soon as I hear the name spoken that it fits him like no other name could.
“One and the same,” he says with a grin and little flourish of his hand. “At your service.”
“And the Fraternal Order of Journeyman?”
“Oh, that’s a secret, that is.”
Exasperated, I snap, “How am I supposed to know whether to say yes or no, if I don’t even know what is is?!”
“That’s the challenge,” he replies cheerfully. “You have to decide now, yes or no, and once you decide there’s no going back.”
“Not even a hint? Is it something I’d like? I’ve never heard of them before.”
He only looks at me without expression, his eye suddenly dull and flat and unreflective. That, more than anything so far, frightens me. I am torn by indecision. I have to admit that I’m curious. Who is this Fraternal Order of Journeyman? What do they do? How do they know about me? Why do they want me to join? On the other hand, is it worth the risk? If it were just me, I’d probably risk it just for the heck of it. But I have Kyra to consider. What if it’s dangerous? I can’t endanger her life, just to satisfy my curiousity.
I examine my emotions, my response to Grisleigh and the situation, and realize that most of my fear has only been because it has been unexpected and bizarre, so out of place in the normal course of things. There are things I can’t explain and that is frightening to me. I have to admit, Grisleigh’s appearance is a little off-putting, but he has been nothing but friendly, if gruff, to me. And though I have no doubt whatsoever that he is dangerous, I don’t sense any of that directed towards me. So what does all of that mean? That I should do it?
“Look, I need an answer soon, Michael. I’ve got work to do, as I believe you do too.” Oh shit, the nursery. I totally forgot. I’m going to be late! “I’m not going to wait around forever. Either you take courage in hand and say yes, or you live with yourself as a coward forever. The choice is simple really.”
“Hey, now. I am not a coward.” He only stares at me silently. He seems to be very good at that. Finally my curiosity gets the better of me. “Fine, tell them, whoever they are, yes I accept.”
He beams at me, and I can describe it no other way than that it transforms his face, unifies it somehow.
“Aye, that’s what I was hoping you’d say. A carriage will pick you up at your apartment at 6pm on the day of the ball. Your daughter is welcome to attend with you. Breathe not a word of this to another living soul, Michael. Until then.”
He stands in a flurry of rags and without looking back steps around the corner and out of sight. Carriage? Daughter?
“Wait!” I rush after him, but he has disappeared and the street is clear for blocks. There’s no way he could have vanished that quickly! What is going on? What have I gotten myself (and Kyra) into?
Heart pumping, sweating slightly and thinking furiously, I make my way the remaining 3 blocks up Walnut to the nursery. I discover as I walk in the door and look at the clock on the wall that it is 9am on the dot. I am not late, I am exactly on time, as I would have been had I not been delayed. Did he stop time, too?
“PW, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Phileas is standing to my right in the middle of a bunch of rhododendrons.
“I think so.”
“You think you’re okay or you think you’ve seen a ghost?
I smile. “Yes.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, putting me in mind of somebody else.
“I’m fine, Phileas. What have we got going today?”
He launches into a list of tasks for the day and eventually I lose myself in work, temporarily forgetting the bizarre events of the morning.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Standing Still
This poem was written in response to Simply Snickers' poetry prompt at http://simplysnickers.blogspot.com/ . The two word prompt for this week was: standing, still.
I am standing still,
watching with quiet eyes,
as the world rushes past:
an ineluctable blur.
I am not sure we were meant
to move this fast.
We flee headlong
seeking an intangible future,
leaving the present
to slide into the past
unchanged
invariable
permanent
and wonder that technology
has not made our lives
easier.
We have not learned yet
that it is not the future
which changes the now.
A choice is not
a ripple in a pond
but a brick, a beam, a nail.
Start with the roof
and you have only
a pile of rubble.
But layer choices one by one
from the ground up
and you create
an architectonic edifice of time,
a mansion of peace,
a city of joy.
The problems of today
resolved today
cannot haunt us tomorrow.
I am standing still,
watching with quiet eyes,
as the world rushes past:
an ineluctable blur.
I am not sure we were meant
to move this fast.
We flee headlong
seeking an intangible future,
leaving the present
to slide into the past
unchanged
invariable
permanent
and wonder that technology
has not made our lives
easier.
We have not learned yet
that it is not the future
which changes the now.
A choice is not
a ripple in a pond
but a brick, a beam, a nail.
Start with the roof
and you have only
a pile of rubble.
But layer choices one by one
from the ground up
and you create
an architectonic edifice of time,
a mansion of peace,
a city of joy.
The problems of today
resolved today
cannot haunt us tomorrow.
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