Our meetings continue, though they are growing shorter and shorter. Mr. Anderson, who used to take notes and then send them out to all of us in bullet-point form, died and no one volunteered to take his place. He was, we all said, irreplaceable. His ability to ask questions, to cut to the core of the problem, to sum up what was really being said as opposed to what seemed to be said—well, who else could do that so cleanly, so clearly? He had a way, old Mr. Anderson did. If we said something like, “What shall we make for dinner?” Mr. Anderson would say, “I don’t care what you make, you can’t cook anyway, you haven’t cooked a decent meal in years, I don’t know how in the world I’ve survived this long, and also, where is the laundry, have you put it in the washer and left it sitting there again without moving it to the dryer, though I’ve told you time and time again that doing so causes that moldy smell that is always in our towels? Bleach! Why do I buy bottles of bleach if you’re not going to use them?” No, no one could compare to Mr. Anderson’s ability to speak truth with a Capital T, it was quite true, we all agreed. Remember that one time when Mr. Anderson was sick? We knew no one would be taking notes and we hardly knew what to do or say until one of us piped up and said maybe, just maybe, what do you think, maybe a bit of daily bleach in Mr. Anderson’s food would be a possibility? And we all voted and it was a resounding Yes. This was not put down in neat bullet points, the way Mr. Anderson would have written it, but the idea took root and then took place. We will have another vote next week at our next meeting as we seek a replacement, though I doubt any of us will ever truly replace Mr. Anderson and any evidence of our meetings will be lost forever.
One more thing: “We knew no one would be taking notes” and the later remark about no “neat bullet points” reminded me of the scene in “The Wire”: as AI summarizes, drug kingpin Stringer Bell catches his associate Shamrock taking minutes during a meeting.
…Stringer says, are you taking notes on a “criminal $&$&$& conspiracy?"
Lovely. Reminded me of “A Rose for Emily”: solving a problem that could be solved no other way. The “we” is a wonderful mystery: who are these people? Is this post-apocalyptic? This takes place in an interesting vacuum: I like the absence of an outside world. Eerie. The straight-faced tone is great. Feels Hitchcockian.
The whole "rotten guy getting his due" thing: I realized I was thinking of "Lamb to the Slaughter," which I'd forgotten was from a short story by Roald Dahl.
Well I LOOOOVE this. I love the turn at, 'maybe, just maybe, what do you think, maybe' where that indecision is the pause, the hold your breath, the 'what now?' at the top of the rollercoaster, and then whoosh! in a most unexpected way. Delicious.
We rush uptown when we hear. He’s been shot. Is he dead? By the time we got there he is. Dead. Blood on the sidewalk. Cops push us back into the street. Hundreds of us in the street looking in one direction, at the tan brick and stone building, at the entrance to the building, at the tall arched entrance where it happened.
We’re quiet as we can be with our sobbing. A small child with a red plastic flower in her hand clings to her father’s shoulders, unsteady as he heaves in waves of grief. She doesn’t know why. She’s curious. She looks at us and waves. Noone waves back. She’s in her pajamas under her coat. He heard the news and and grabbed her out of her bed and she grabbed a flower from the table and he carried her here to be with us. Of course he knew we’d be here.
We wait and we wait. It doesn’t matter. He’s dead. The TV lights are on. The building is lit up. We try to sing, imagine, I heard the news today oh boy. We can’t. A choked hum.
Someone says, Howard Cosell announced it. On TV during the football game. It’s just a football game, Cosell said. He said, “An unspeakable tragedy. John Lennon outside of his apartment building in New York City shot twice in the back rushed to Roosevelt Hospital dead on arrival.”
Now we’re here, we’re here on West 72nd street and we’re across the country and around the world.
The little girl drops her flower and her head nods as her father lifts her from his shoulders and cradles her. His tears fall on her sleeping face.
\\
Today’s the anniversary, 1980, of Lennon’s murder.
Yes, I remember it so well, though I was in Seattle. We gathered at the fountain at the Seattle Center, hundreds of us. Double Fantasy had just come out and to listen to it was to weep. And then, in January, the Rolling Stone with that incredible image on the cover--I still have my copy. Such a sad, sad day for all of us.
Six dorms use the same mess hall, 15 minutes to eat each, staggered over the two hours allotted for breakfast and dinner. So if there is any trouble anywhere, say a fight, it can result in traffic jams everywhere getting to breakfast. Today we left a half-hour late and then were held up again en route, which meant standing around in a field, shooting the shit, stomachs growling.
This morning we’d been standing behind the baseball diamond for a good five minutes, though a lucky few at least had the fence behind home plate to lean on. Some of us noticed a red-tailed hawk circling above. It was so majestic that one by one we started nudging each other, wondering out loud if the hawk was as hungry as we were.
Almost as if she was waiting for the attention of every inmate before she dived, the hawk suddenly made a sharp, swooping descent toward the field to our left. A vole no one had seen was scampering from one hole to another as fast as its scared little feet could take it. Poor thing didn’t have a chance. The hawk expertly slowed her acceleration just in time for her claws to pluck the rodent off the ground, and with nary so much as a bye-your-leave, continued into the trees with the futilely squirming rodent in her clutches, probably to be fed her chicks.
One of us broke out in applause, joined instantly by everyone else in line in both directions.
We wanted credit cards. We wanted bank accounts in our own name. We wanted equal pay for equal work. We wanted to feel safe at night. We wanted pockets. We wanted to be judged on our abilities, not our looks. We wanted child care. We wanted men to do their share of the housework. We wanted respect. We wanted an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We wanted to be called women, not girls.
We got bank accounts and credit cards. We got a few pockets, still too small.
Sandra! Great job! It's almost impossible to believe that it was only in 1974 that women were finally legally able to get credit cards without a male co-signer.
We find ourselves surprised, on waking this morning, to find so many of us in the same bed.
We begin to wonder how long it is since the last time but don't wonder too far ,thanks to our realisation that this, so far as we recall, is the first occasion when we have woken to start our day in multi-occupancy of this narrow hospital bed or any other.
For all that we do most certainly know who we are we're just finding ourself moved on to wondering how many we are when a nurse appears at the foot of the bed briskly wishing us a cheery "Good morning", enquiring jovially "Has sleepyhead slept well" and advising "You should take a light breakfast, as you are not due in theatre until this afternoon."
We find ourselves beyond a little surprised, struck speechless, lost for words and collectively clueless as to which of us should, if we could, reply.
"So, breakfast, what's your fancy?" says the nurse.
This was such a great prompt Mary. It has inspired me to write a poem about my experience growing up in a kibbutz, being a "yaldat hutz" (an 'outside girl'). I'm sharing a revised version of it here, in a way to thank you! I have learned so much from you Mary! (Please don't go!)
Oh, Imola, what a beautiful poem. So many feel like an outsider, even if they are not yaldat hutz. "we were force to leave and discovered...in this world, we belonged." Love that.
Thank you Mary. And yes, I’m sure many of us feel like outsiders, which is why I felt I didn’t need to give context to the kibbutz in the poem. You’ve inspired it! I’m so grateful to you!
When the government announced the President’s birthday would be a new National Park fee free day, and MLK and Juneteenth fee free days would be deleted, applause and cheering broke out across the land. We were ecstatic at the news, and the revelry echoed through the purple mountains, carried over the fruited plains in very, very big beautiful waves.
We recognize and commend the President’s record on conservation and technological and energy innovation working toward the health of the environment and justice for all living creatures.
An avid hiker and outdoorsman, The President is said to have visited all 63 National Parks, and walked thousands of back country miles with nothing but a set of gold plated golf clubs. In a special commemorative ceremony, he announced the addition of two new National Parks. Mar a Lago, and Bedminster Golf Club, where the President’s first wife is buried. We’re thrilled this infusion of federal dollars into the two sites will provide expanded recreational opportunities for myself and my family.
Yesterday a NPS tweet downplayed the report that the President, Steven Miller, Pete Hegseth, and Steve Bannon were detained by Yosemite Park Rangers when they were discovered climbing Half Dome in the predawn hours carrying squirrel suits and bags of peanuts. The group was suspected of taking advantage of the government shutdown to make illegal flights from the iconic rock. Democrats from both chambers issued a statement: We’re amused, but not surprised. We always knew they were nuts.
Amazingly enough, the president climbed Half Dome while sound asleep. A trophy for "Best Sleeper While Climbing" was presented to him at the top along with a medal. He said "no one's ever gotten such a medal in the history of all time, this is the most magnificent medal, I am going to sleep with it." Applause, please. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
I caught that, but didn’t put it in my response. Just picturing (or hoping not to, really) this guy with “only” a set of gold golf clubs. And the medal, of course.
400-word maximum challenge: Prompt: We'd like a word.
Title: CHANGE OF SHIFT
"We'd like to have a word with you," he asked the nervous young woman.
"Yes?" she replied.
"Are you one of us?"
"I believe I am, yes," she answered.
"Really?"
"Yes, definitely I am," she added, but the man sensed a tentative quality in her tone.
"Definitely...or possibly?"
"Probably."
"So," the man offered, "you're probably definite, or are you probably one of us?"
"Both," she answered, to cover all the possibilities.
"We see," the man said.
"I'm glad you do," she said.
"Not just me, but all of us--we."
"Yes, that's what I meant by 'I'm glad you do.' I meant I was glad all of you do. You do, right? I mean, all of you?"
"Do what?"
"See," she answered.
"Well, for us, young lady, seeing is believing."
"So," she said nervously, "do you--you all, I mean--believe?"
"Believe whom?"
"Believe me," she clarified.
"And?"
"And...what? I don't understand."
"You said, 'Believe me,' which is a sort of introductory empty phrase implying a continuation of something substantial, usually a proper clause. Like, 'Believe me, I'm not one of you,' or 'Believe me, I can't believe you."
"No, it wasn't some introductory, empty sentiment, but the full substantial statement. It was the implied segue from your initial 'Do you..."
"That's not a substantial statement. It's a terminal question segment, as in, 'Do you believe me?'"
"Can we just start over?"
"Oh, do you mean 'we' as in the royal 'we'?"
"No, I meant we as in 'me and you.'"
"All of me? Of us? The royal us?"
"Sure."
"No."
"Why not?" the woman asked.
"Because you're not one of us. Not definitely, that is."
"But probably?"
"That doesn't count! Leave us now. You're not one of us. Not definitely. Not probably."
"Possibly?"
He had had it. "Get out!" the man said severely. Then, "Next," he called out to summon the next candidate in line.
"Good morning, sir," the young man greeted him.
"Good morning," the man said to him, still rolling his eyes and shaking his head over the last applicant. Then he began checking off some boxes on a list on his desk. "Let's see, first of all," he began, "are you one of us?"
"I believe I am, yes," he answered.
"Good," the man at the desk. "Welcome. Down the hall to the first door on the right, please."
We grew up in the largest town in a poor and largely empty state. Taxes were low, mobility was expensive, and education was underfunded. Thus, we began first grade together in classrooms of 42 students per teacher and years later, still together, graduated in a class of 1500. By third grade, we had sorted ourselves into the embryonic groups that would grow to be the Jocks and Cheerleaders, the Otherwise Popular, the Freaks, the Loners, the Untouchables, and the massive middle. Within the massive middle, small groups of four to twenty “friends” formed to compete for status and learn the ways of cruelty. We were vicious towards other groups and worse within our own. For example, on a Friday afternoon, our leader might decide that our standing was being held back by the ugly shoes of one of our members. Talk amongst the rest of us about this problem would carry on until the next Friday when we would confront and excoriate the offender demanding new shoes by Monday. Failure was not an option. Given endless shortcomings that needed attention, the cycle was endless. In more difficult cases, we would be forced to attack a way of speaking, or weight, or breast size, or an ugly mother. These larger issues could not be remedied over a weekend and ended in ostracization and a subsequent recruiting effort by the survivors of a higher value girl facing ostracization from her own group. Some of us came through this seemingly unscathed. Others did not. We are not a group anymore, so far as I know. But then, I don’t go to the reunions. Perhaps most of us gather together at round tables in banquet halls once every five years hoping that we will find ourselves at the best table with the best people and perhaps at those tables we “politely” reserve seats with napkins placed discretely on the backs of the chairs, napkins which are quickly replaced beneath the fork as high status classmates approach. I don’t want to know.
My class just had its 50th reunion. I had no plans to attend but was confirmed in that when the class 'leader' from 1975 started yelling at us on the class FB group that we'd better show up. Oy.
My 50th was so much fun. Of course, there were only 22 of us to begin with. A handful of deaths diminished our numbers, but people had finally—finally—shed those layers of “who I am” and settled into people that were great fun to be with and finally get to know a bit more.
I just went to my 50th and it was unexpected sweet and wonderful. Everyone seemed to understand without needing to express it how many vicissitudes we all had to have gone through, just because life happened.
Not in a “let’s just check Google maps and see where we are” kinda way. The same way we’ve been lost a zillion times before. The same way one of us finally surrenders and pulls into the nearest gas station to ask.
At least, that’s what one of us assumed.
Who knew? We had never discussed it.
And Google maps, along with Siri, had abandoned us at least 10 miles back.
The fog was pea-soup thick. Cliche? Maybe. But our feeble headlights didn’t penetrate it in any meaningful way. And fog had a greenish tinge. Greenish. Like The Grinch. Or maybe the swamp. We agreed on that. And we hadn’t agreed on much else since the road trip began.
Did we want to go to this holiday party?
Where was the bottle of wine we agreed to bring?
Who is driving?
All points of agreement so far.
At least, one or both of us assumed so.
Two big follow up questions:
“We sure the directions Donna sent were right?”
”The ones we left on the kitchen counter?”
Neither of us asked the obvious question:
”Who is Donna?”
But we were both thinking it.
Silence.
The fog had slipped its stealthy fingers inside the car. We couldn’t see one another clearly. Would we have recognized one another if we could see?
“That last right turn!” One of us spoke.
”Maybe we turn around and go back.” The other one said.
So we made a U-Turn.
Headed back the way we came.
Except: a large yellow sign loomed out of the fog.
Wrong Way! Do Not Enter.
Another U-Turn and another sign: Dead End.
The driver braked and we sat in the car as it idled in the middle of the road.
At least, we thought it was the road.
We didn’t remember seeing the old hotel out of the passenger side.
But maybe—just maybe someone there would know the way back.
Or we would have cell phone service and call Donna.
We clambered out of the car, holding hands. Suffocating fog.
“Watch your step—!” one of us, or maybe both of us, who could tell, spoke words of caution, just before our footsteps halted.
A shingled, one-dimensional wall rose in front of us.
We had been rooted in our spot in the valley for so long that moving to the other side of the mountain felt like being wrenched violently out of the ground, like a root vegetable plucked and replanted. We had so many memories here, although we had a hard time remembering specifics. It’s true that our days were relatively uniform - tending to the crops, talking to the crows, yodeling into the darkness. Not many specific events stick out (although we all remember with fondness the time Liam tripped over a dead crow while yodeling), but there’s a feeling tone to our time here that predominates. It’s a feeling of safety, like being wrapped in the valley’s cocoon. It may have been a false sense of security, but security, false or not, is more than most people get in life.
We don’t want to move to the other side of the mountain, but George, our de facto leader, claims it’s necessary. We have stayed too long here, he says - the crows are having trouble understanding what we say and our yodeling lacks the passionate intensity of former days. We tend to trust George, but after the tents and our belongings are packed up, nobody is enthusiast about singing the song George makes up as we begin our trek. It’s called “The Other Side of the Mountain” and in addition to having a strange melody that’s difficult to follow, it seems overly optimistic for the uncertain future that awaits us.
I wasn’t thinking of it when I chose the name for the trusted leader, but my subconscious must have been focused on George Saunders, who of course I/we trust implicitly.
Oh, yes, I immediately thought of George (Saunders). He leads us to the other side of the mountain all of the time, though we're comfortable where we are.
“Worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than most persons would at first suppose. I became interested in them, and wished to learn how far they acted consciously, and how much mental power they displayed.” - Charles Darwin, 1881
You thought us intelligent because we drag leaves into our burrows. How little you know us. We are blind and deaf but feel the slightest vibration and have a fine sense of smell. We are small and we are large. We are under the land, the oceans, under you, in you - turning, aerating, nourishing. We’ve been here for five hundred million years. We learned to be as one, to work together. We are yin and yang in one body. Our community doubles every sixty days. We are always attending to the world.
In the beginning, we lived in warm seas and mud hollows. We heard the young Earth forming and reforming its skin, plates sliding into place, mountains rising and falling. The fish crawled onto land while we ruminated and burrowed. Dinosaurs believed they were the most incredible creatures in the history of life. We burrowed deeper to survive the winters that followed the great asteroid, attending to the world.
We sensed you descending from trees. carving tools, painting caves, hunting in packs. We celebrated when you tilled the earth, thinking you were like us. But you were never content, always tinkering, making something new. Beating swords out of plough shares, making bigger bombs and shopping malls. We developed a taste for meat since you were always killing something or someone. You took and took while we were attending to the world.
The whales tell us you are heating the oceans, changing the currents, melting the ice. The trees tell us they are burning as you continue to burn their ancestors. Some of you hear us but are drowned out by the bigmouths. You are not we. You scan the cosmos for meaning, looking for life in the heavens when its been beneath your feet all along. You are tuned to the wrong wavelength. We are the cosmic recyclers. We are a collective. We are the Earth’s cleaners. When you are gone, we will still be here. Burrowing and turning, reusing and recycling. Attending to the world.
All we did was try to get the lid off. It wasn't easy. Sir Fulke had to be prevented from swinging his mace down, and he sat in the corner and sulked. Just as well, he was really too violent, even for a knight errant, and now he'd lost an eye jousting his aim wasn't too steady and we were all prying away at the lid with butter-knives (1), delicate work that was getting us nowhere, especially with chain-mail gantlets, you try it.
Sir Peregrine said: "Why don't we drop it from a height, like, out of this window?"
We ran over to the window and looked down over the wheeling gulls and the rocks and raging seas far below.
"We don't need silly suggestions," the King told Sir Peregrine. "Go and sit in the corner."
We exchanged glances and smug grins at that. Nobody liked Sir Peregrine over-much, too clever by half.
"We should try turning it upside down," suggested Sir Kay, who was one of us even if he had a girly name. So we set to pulling and heaving at it. It wasn't all that big, but it weighed a ton. In fact, we couldn't shift it. So there it was, in the middle of the Round Table.
"How did it get here?" we asked.
"It just appeared," the King said.
"Sorcery!" we all exclaimed at the same time. "We need Merlin the Enchanter!"
"He's been caught under a mighty rock by an evil sorcerer," said Sir Peregrine with a snooty look.
"Right, we'll go and free him," we said, and made for the door.
"No, no, no!" shouted the King. "Where is Sir Lancelot?"
At this, we all fell silent, because old Lance was You-Know-Where, of which the King alone was ignorant.
The King flew into a rage. "This is a curse because of the Queen's faithlessness!"
At which the magic pot on the table broke asunder and...
There was nothing inside.
We all exclaimed: "That's not funny!"
(1) We had butter-knives because we were having tea and you try spreading butter and jam on bread with a broadsword.
Oh, this is just so familiar and so very true! I worked at the horse racetrack outside of Seattle for six seasons! I sold hot dogs, then I turned 21 and sold beer (at a stand), and then i sold programs. Loved it so much--the people, the horses, the betting, the smells, the insanity, my co-workers.... But the customers... No one ever won and I'd watch them season after season, losing their shirts. It was a sad/happy place, but I was so young, what did I know? (I was fired THREE TIMES from that place--don't ask. I like to say i hold the track record for re-hires.)
Hilarious that you worked at a racetrack. When I went with my grandfather, who owned racehorses, it was a no lose proposition. he would give me money to bet. if I won I got to keep my winnings If I lost he just give me more money for the next bet. Too bad life doesn’t work that way.
I have a similar happy memory--my dad giving me a twenty to bet over the course of the day when I was a girl. And yes, wouldn't that be nice if when we win, we win, and if we lose, we win. Maybe we do that (mostly), come to think of it.
We are a free and easy crowd. Short of ambition, maybe, at least the kind of ambitions our folks had–the ambitions they nurtured in the burbs.
Conrad works in a bar, not an everyday place, a crazy little taverna. He's been there 10 years but only stays for the poetry nights and the quizzes, more lecture on Renaissance art or the Abstract Expressionists, with lots of great visuals, and an eccentric scoring system. Conrad loves Coleridge. And William Carlos Williams and for the ten taverna years has been working on his own epic. On night's off he reads Ulysses and when he finishes starts again. He tells us he never tires of staring up to Buck Mulligan at the head of the stairs with his reader's eyes, and finds something new every time.
Sally designs dresses. Extravagent flowing creations that find the aesthetic and the functional. She sells ten, maybe twelve, a year. And teaches a few classes at the college to upgrade from omelettes and veggie stews to chicken and tuna.
Marco makes movies. Strange little shorts that speak of nothing and everything and are as beautiful to look at Sally's dresses.
Sanjay McMahon, master of the Mermaid Cafe, and civic legend, allows us our own little corner. Even credit, in times of emergency. Sanjay says we give the place charmingness, that we are part of the show. On quiet nights we find a guitar, conjure impromptu percussion, push a songbird towards the mic. The word gets round and soon the Mermaid has a queue forming at the door.
Of the songbirds, Sukanya soared highest and they tempted her to the big places in the money ghetto. When she'd gathered in one big pile, they said you'll make two next year. But Sukanya struggled to make sense of the one pile: she didn't want those troubles tripled. She high-tailed it back to the Neighbourhood. Sometimes we tempt her to reprise a standard but that only happens when the moon is sapphire.
We like new people–you don't have to be poor–but it helps. The new people tells us their stories, show us their sketches, maybe whistle a happy tune and soon they are no longer new. It's a cycle or a circle or a circuit. It's our life: the one we love.
Thanks, Brian for such a thorough reading and for comments on use of language. I think I did get into a groove, more by accident than design, and maybe reached for a kind of ‘sing-song’ with Marco makes movies, troubles tripled and the cycle, circle, circuit bit. You pointing that out will make me reach for that again. A big thank you for your thoughtful and generous feedback. Although I always write something in response to Mary’s prompt I don’t always post. And I wasn’t going to post this but changed my mind.
Yes, this was a delight to read. Language is everything--and that one line has more alliteration than I caught: 'Sanjay McMahon, master of the Mermaid Cafe...'
I love how Sukanya takes us out of the establishment for a spell then settles back in, while you all wait for the moon to be sapphire to hear a standard. Great group you have here!
Our meetings continue, though they are growing shorter and shorter. Mr. Anderson, who used to take notes and then send them out to all of us in bullet-point form, died and no one volunteered to take his place. He was, we all said, irreplaceable. His ability to ask questions, to cut to the core of the problem, to sum up what was really being said as opposed to what seemed to be said—well, who else could do that so cleanly, so clearly? He had a way, old Mr. Anderson did. If we said something like, “What shall we make for dinner?” Mr. Anderson would say, “I don’t care what you make, you can’t cook anyway, you haven’t cooked a decent meal in years, I don’t know how in the world I’ve survived this long, and also, where is the laundry, have you put it in the washer and left it sitting there again without moving it to the dryer, though I’ve told you time and time again that doing so causes that moldy smell that is always in our towels? Bleach! Why do I buy bottles of bleach if you’re not going to use them?” No, no one could compare to Mr. Anderson’s ability to speak truth with a Capital T, it was quite true, we all agreed. Remember that one time when Mr. Anderson was sick? We knew no one would be taking notes and we hardly knew what to do or say until one of us piped up and said maybe, just maybe, what do you think, maybe a bit of daily bleach in Mr. Anderson’s food would be a possibility? And we all voted and it was a resounding Yes. This was not put down in neat bullet points, the way Mr. Anderson would have written it, but the idea took root and then took place. We will have another vote next week at our next meeting as we seek a replacement, though I doubt any of us will ever truly replace Mr. Anderson and any evidence of our meetings will be lost forever.
'took root and then took place'. I was quite taken by that.
Thank you for the close read, Terry.
That's one way to whitewash the Truth.
Ha! Well-done, Tod!
We believe Mr. Anderson died content with his Truth.
Truer words were never spoken (by us).
And this is how you break someone's heart in less than 400 words...
Aw, thank you, Imola.
Bleach kills? Who knew?
(Not DJT)
100 points for Mr. Evans!
Well it sure works for COVID.
Did you drink it, Christine? Or shoot it up?
Oh poor Mr. Anderson. At least the bleach got used.
Right? At least that.
Do they REALLY miss him though? And arent they a little bit happy that those endless meetings are shorter ?
No, they don't. And Yes they are! Champagne, all around!
I read this again and wanted to give it a second like.
Thanks so much, Sharon!!
RNIP, Mr. Anderson. We will not miss you. The voice in this story is soooo good.
"We will not miss you." Ha!
One more thing: “We knew no one would be taking notes” and the later remark about no “neat bullet points” reminded me of the scene in “The Wire”: as AI summarizes, drug kingpin Stringer Bell catches his associate Shamrock taking minutes during a meeting.
…Stringer says, are you taking notes on a “criminal $&$&$& conspiracy?"
Yes, it's true, i never saw the Wire. Yes, I know, I must rectify that situation!
Lovely. Reminded me of “A Rose for Emily”: solving a problem that could be solved no other way. The “we” is a wonderful mystery: who are these people? Is this post-apocalyptic? This takes place in an interesting vacuum: I like the absence of an outside world. Eerie. The straight-faced tone is great. Feels Hitchcockian.
Thank you, Sharon! Hitchcockian--I'll take it!
The whole "rotten guy getting his due" thing: I realized I was thinking of "Lamb to the Slaughter," which I'd forgotten was from a short story by Roald Dahl.
Well I LOOOOVE this. I love the turn at, 'maybe, just maybe, what do you think, maybe' where that indecision is the pause, the hold your breath, the 'what now?' at the top of the rollercoaster, and then whoosh! in a most unexpected way. Delicious.
Thanks so much, Niall! And thank you for noting that section.
Oh I love how we learn Mr. Anderson died in the second line, but not how he died until the end. Excellent unfolding of information Mary!
Thanks, Christine! Yes, I totally meant to do that! (NOT--it just happened that way.)
Any evidence bleached out and away, as it were.
Exactly.
Oh my god. This took an unexpected turn! Anderson has been bleached from all recorded evidence!
Gone forever!
“Yeah, Bleach Does That”. Brilliant!
Thank you, John!
We rush uptown when we hear. He’s been shot. Is he dead? By the time we got there he is. Dead. Blood on the sidewalk. Cops push us back into the street. Hundreds of us in the street looking in one direction, at the tan brick and stone building, at the entrance to the building, at the tall arched entrance where it happened.
We’re quiet as we can be with our sobbing. A small child with a red plastic flower in her hand clings to her father’s shoulders, unsteady as he heaves in waves of grief. She doesn’t know why. She’s curious. She looks at us and waves. Noone waves back. She’s in her pajamas under her coat. He heard the news and and grabbed her out of her bed and she grabbed a flower from the table and he carried her here to be with us. Of course he knew we’d be here.
We wait and we wait. It doesn’t matter. He’s dead. The TV lights are on. The building is lit up. We try to sing, imagine, I heard the news today oh boy. We can’t. A choked hum.
Someone says, Howard Cosell announced it. On TV during the football game. It’s just a football game, Cosell said. He said, “An unspeakable tragedy. John Lennon outside of his apartment building in New York City shot twice in the back rushed to Roosevelt Hospital dead on arrival.”
Now we’re here, we’re here on West 72nd street and we’re across the country and around the world.
The little girl drops her flower and her head nods as her father lifts her from his shoulders and cradles her. His tears fall on her sleeping face.
\\
Today’s the anniversary, 1980, of Lennon’s murder.
Yes, I remember it so well, though I was in Seattle. We gathered at the fountain at the Seattle Center, hundreds of us. Double Fantasy had just come out and to listen to it was to weep. And then, in January, the Rolling Stone with that incredible image on the cover--I still have my copy. Such a sad, sad day for all of us.
Man-o-Man, do I remember that! Like a kick to the gut--to abuse a cliché. But it was. Like Kent State. Like 9/11. Need I go on?
I remember waking up to this news. Doesn’t seem that long ago…
Six dorms use the same mess hall, 15 minutes to eat each, staggered over the two hours allotted for breakfast and dinner. So if there is any trouble anywhere, say a fight, it can result in traffic jams everywhere getting to breakfast. Today we left a half-hour late and then were held up again en route, which meant standing around in a field, shooting the shit, stomachs growling.
This morning we’d been standing behind the baseball diamond for a good five minutes, though a lucky few at least had the fence behind home plate to lean on. Some of us noticed a red-tailed hawk circling above. It was so majestic that one by one we started nudging each other, wondering out loud if the hawk was as hungry as we were.
Almost as if she was waiting for the attention of every inmate before she dived, the hawk suddenly made a sharp, swooping descent toward the field to our left. A vole no one had seen was scampering from one hole to another as fast as its scared little feet could take it. Poor thing didn’t have a chance. The hawk expertly slowed her acceleration just in time for her claws to pluck the rodent off the ground, and with nary so much as a bye-your-leave, continued into the trees with the futilely squirming rodent in her clutches, probably to be fed her chicks.
One of us broke out in applause, joined instantly by everyone else in line in both directions.
It was all we talked about over breakfast.
Love this!! You snuck in that word "inmate" so slyly, until then I hadn't gotten it. Love the applause, love the talk over breakfast.
was vole bacon served?
INT. Day.
Blanche removes the silver dome from the food on her tray, revealing a dead rat. She screams.
BLANCHE
You would do this to me if I weren't in a wheelchair !
JANE
But ch'are, Blanche, but ch'are !
hahahahhahhaha
Mark! Well written. And the juxtaposition of the ones unable to freely get their breakfast with the freedom and grace of the hawk! Very nice.
Ahh freedom to fly over the prison walls!! Well done
What an evocative scene!
The women's movement
We wanted credit cards. We wanted bank accounts in our own name. We wanted equal pay for equal work. We wanted to feel safe at night. We wanted pockets. We wanted to be judged on our abilities, not our looks. We wanted child care. We wanted men to do their share of the housework. We wanted respect. We wanted an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We wanted to be called women, not girls.
We got bank accounts and credit cards. We got a few pockets, still too small.
Sandra! Great job! It's almost impossible to believe that it was only in 1974 that women were finally legally able to get credit cards without a male co-signer.
That last line!
Pockets still too small indeed
Oh, well said!
I'm right with you Sandra!
I love “We wanted pockets.”
Pockets were a thing! Still are.
Yes. It is so discouraging.
We find ourselves surprised, on waking this morning, to find so many of us in the same bed.
We begin to wonder how long it is since the last time but don't wonder too far ,thanks to our realisation that this, so far as we recall, is the first occasion when we have woken to start our day in multi-occupancy of this narrow hospital bed or any other.
For all that we do most certainly know who we are we're just finding ourself moved on to wondering how many we are when a nurse appears at the foot of the bed briskly wishing us a cheery "Good morning", enquiring jovially "Has sleepyhead slept well" and advising "You should take a light breakfast, as you are not due in theatre until this afternoon."
We find ourselves beyond a little surprised, struck speechless, lost for words and collectively clueless as to which of us should, if we could, reply.
"So, breakfast, what's your fancy?" says the nurse.
Rob! This is wonderful. I dropped right into this person's head and felt the confusion amid the many people popping up in there.
Hope the operation consolidates the many back into one!
Weird and wonderful. I would like the story to continue to know what brought them to the hospital.
A fairly up close and personal experience one, we, might assume.
So enjoyable, confusing and clear at the same time.
This one is going to take a re-read from me.
This was such a great prompt Mary. It has inspired me to write a poem about my experience growing up in a kibbutz, being a "yaldat hutz" (an 'outside girl'). I'm sharing a revised version of it here, in a way to thank you! I have learned so much from you Mary! (Please don't go!)
The Outsiders
We were told that we were different.
We were told that we would never be
like them. We were told that we carried
the city’s smell. We came from the outside
and therefore, we could never become part of
the inside. Our parents didn’t live with us.
They stayed outside. We had nowhere to go
in the afternoon. We had no one
to make us dinner. But we had groves
of avocados to sustain us when hungry.
Mashed up with salt, pepper and lemon,
topped with tomatoes on a toast, they were
our luxury. We were told, repeatedly
that we were not one of them locals –
no matter how many cows we had milked
or how many gallons of oranges,
lemons and grapefruit we had picked
and carried. Our backs breaking
under the weight, but still –
we were not good enough
for them. They told us
that we would never make it
in the outside world either
and we believed them. Until
we were forced to leave and discovered
that in this outside world
our inside world was untouchable.
And in this world, we belonged.
Oh, Imola, what a beautiful poem. So many feel like an outsider, even if they are not yaldat hutz. "we were force to leave and discovered...in this world, we belonged." Love that.
Thank you Mary. And yes, I’m sure many of us feel like outsiders, which is why I felt I didn’t need to give context to the kibbutz in the poem. You’ve inspired it! I’m so grateful to you!
Beautiful
Thank you Dinah!
This is gorgeous. It settled into me as I read so that I was in it. I love the ending.
Thank you Sherri. I worked quite a bit on the end so I am happy to hear!
Beautifully written, Imola!
Thank you Angela!
When the government announced the President’s birthday would be a new National Park fee free day, and MLK and Juneteenth fee free days would be deleted, applause and cheering broke out across the land. We were ecstatic at the news, and the revelry echoed through the purple mountains, carried over the fruited plains in very, very big beautiful waves.
We recognize and commend the President’s record on conservation and technological and energy innovation working toward the health of the environment and justice for all living creatures.
An avid hiker and outdoorsman, The President is said to have visited all 63 National Parks, and walked thousands of back country miles with nothing but a set of gold plated golf clubs. In a special commemorative ceremony, he announced the addition of two new National Parks. Mar a Lago, and Bedminster Golf Club, where the President’s first wife is buried. We’re thrilled this infusion of federal dollars into the two sites will provide expanded recreational opportunities for myself and my family.
Yesterday a NPS tweet downplayed the report that the President, Steven Miller, Pete Hegseth, and Steve Bannon were detained by Yosemite Park Rangers when they were discovered climbing Half Dome in the predawn hours carrying squirrel suits and bags of peanuts. The group was suspected of taking advantage of the government shutdown to make illegal flights from the iconic rock. Democrats from both chambers issued a statement: We’re amused, but not surprised. We always knew they were nuts.
Amazingly enough, the president climbed Half Dome while sound asleep. A trophy for "Best Sleeper While Climbing" was presented to him at the top along with a medal. He said "no one's ever gotten such a medal in the history of all time, this is the most magnificent medal, I am going to sleep with it." Applause, please. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
I can't wait to get the Maralago stamp in my NPS passport. that will make it the best passport ever and everyone will say so.
i can't bring myself to type the name of the park properly. sorry.
Wait. Truly nothing but that set of golf clubs? That is a disturbing image. But that ending! Ha!
Gold golf clubs, Angela.
I caught that, but didn’t put it in my response. Just picturing (or hoping not to, really) this guy with “only” a set of gold golf clubs. And the medal, of course.
You could write for The Onion. Nice work!
Great. Could be the next episode of South Park
Sadly, this hilarious satire is way too close to the WH press release style. Sigh. Thanks for making me laugh!
As an American living in Canada I beg you "do not do this". Your words are too precious to waste on the Carnage.
400-word maximum challenge: Prompt: We'd like a word.
Title: CHANGE OF SHIFT
"We'd like to have a word with you," he asked the nervous young woman.
"Yes?" she replied.
"Are you one of us?"
"I believe I am, yes," she answered.
"Really?"
"Yes, definitely I am," she added, but the man sensed a tentative quality in her tone.
"Definitely...or possibly?"
"Probably."
"So," the man offered, "you're probably definite, or are you probably one of us?"
"Both," she answered, to cover all the possibilities.
"We see," the man said.
"I'm glad you do," she said.
"Not just me, but all of us--we."
"Yes, that's what I meant by 'I'm glad you do.' I meant I was glad all of you do. You do, right? I mean, all of you?"
"Do what?"
"See," she answered.
"Well, for us, young lady, seeing is believing."
"So," she said nervously, "do you--you all, I mean--believe?"
"Believe whom?"
"Believe me," she clarified.
"And?"
"And...what? I don't understand."
"You said, 'Believe me,' which is a sort of introductory empty phrase implying a continuation of something substantial, usually a proper clause. Like, 'Believe me, I'm not one of you,' or 'Believe me, I can't believe you."
"No, it wasn't some introductory, empty sentiment, but the full substantial statement. It was the implied segue from your initial 'Do you..."
"That's not a substantial statement. It's a terminal question segment, as in, 'Do you believe me?'"
"Can we just start over?"
"Oh, do you mean 'we' as in the royal 'we'?"
"No, I meant we as in 'me and you.'"
"All of me? Of us? The royal us?"
"Sure."
"No."
"Why not?" the woman asked.
"Because you're not one of us. Not definitely, that is."
"But probably?"
"That doesn't count! Leave us now. You're not one of us. Not definitely. Not probably."
"Possibly?"
He had had it. "Get out!" the man said severely. Then, "Next," he called out to summon the next candidate in line.
"Good morning, sir," the young man greeted him.
"Good morning," the man said to him, still rolling his eyes and shaking his head over the last applicant. Then he began checking off some boxes on a list on his desk. "Let's see, first of all," he began, "are you one of us?"
"I believe I am, yes," he answered.
"Good," the man at the desk. "Welcome. Down the hall to the first door on the right, please."
Oh, wow. So good!
Wow. This reads like a warning.
Exactly!
Great cadence as the tension builds.
Make it a play!!
Perfectly done.
Second Act might be a downer.
removed
Whoa, what is happening here? I fear for the person who was brought here and now has been promoted to....what, I don't know.
We do know, but we're not saying yet...
This is chilling.
Thanks! It's for something I'm working on.
We grew up in the largest town in a poor and largely empty state. Taxes were low, mobility was expensive, and education was underfunded. Thus, we began first grade together in classrooms of 42 students per teacher and years later, still together, graduated in a class of 1500. By third grade, we had sorted ourselves into the embryonic groups that would grow to be the Jocks and Cheerleaders, the Otherwise Popular, the Freaks, the Loners, the Untouchables, and the massive middle. Within the massive middle, small groups of four to twenty “friends” formed to compete for status and learn the ways of cruelty. We were vicious towards other groups and worse within our own. For example, on a Friday afternoon, our leader might decide that our standing was being held back by the ugly shoes of one of our members. Talk amongst the rest of us about this problem would carry on until the next Friday when we would confront and excoriate the offender demanding new shoes by Monday. Failure was not an option. Given endless shortcomings that needed attention, the cycle was endless. In more difficult cases, we would be forced to attack a way of speaking, or weight, or breast size, or an ugly mother. These larger issues could not be remedied over a weekend and ended in ostracization and a subsequent recruiting effort by the survivors of a higher value girl facing ostracization from her own group. Some of us came through this seemingly unscathed. Others did not. We are not a group anymore, so far as I know. But then, I don’t go to the reunions. Perhaps most of us gather together at round tables in banquet halls once every five years hoping that we will find ourselves at the best table with the best people and perhaps at those tables we “politely” reserve seats with napkins placed discretely on the backs of the chairs, napkins which are quickly replaced beneath the fork as high status classmates approach. I don’t want to know.
That is exactly the way it is. Every school, everywhere. The "royal we" really works so well in this one!
My class just had its 50th reunion. I had no plans to attend but was confirmed in that when the class 'leader' from 1975 started yelling at us on the class FB group that we'd better show up. Oy.
My 50th was so much fun. Of course, there were only 22 of us to begin with. A handful of deaths diminished our numbers, but people had finally—finally—shed those layers of “who I am” and settled into people that were great fun to be with and finally get to know a bit more.
how did such young people as us graduate 50 years ago?
We were babies. Precocious. Graduated at 10 years old.
well, speaking for myself, no wonder I had difficulty fitting in. Those teenagers in my class could be so stupid!
I just went to my 50th and it was unexpected sweet and wonderful. Everyone seemed to understand without needing to express it how many vicissitudes we all had to have gone through, just because life happened.
Brutal
Been there
As Mary said, the royal we is perfect for this story, which is timeless, sadly.
Things we learn in school.
Excellent - I really like this one.
We were lost.
Not in a “let’s just check Google maps and see where we are” kinda way. The same way we’ve been lost a zillion times before. The same way one of us finally surrenders and pulls into the nearest gas station to ask.
At least, that’s what one of us assumed.
Who knew? We had never discussed it.
And Google maps, along with Siri, had abandoned us at least 10 miles back.
The fog was pea-soup thick. Cliche? Maybe. But our feeble headlights didn’t penetrate it in any meaningful way. And fog had a greenish tinge. Greenish. Like The Grinch. Or maybe the swamp. We agreed on that. And we hadn’t agreed on much else since the road trip began.
Did we want to go to this holiday party?
Where was the bottle of wine we agreed to bring?
Who is driving?
All points of agreement so far.
At least, one or both of us assumed so.
Two big follow up questions:
“We sure the directions Donna sent were right?”
”The ones we left on the kitchen counter?”
Neither of us asked the obvious question:
”Who is Donna?”
But we were both thinking it.
Silence.
The fog had slipped its stealthy fingers inside the car. We couldn’t see one another clearly. Would we have recognized one another if we could see?
“That last right turn!” One of us spoke.
”Maybe we turn around and go back.” The other one said.
So we made a U-Turn.
Headed back the way we came.
Except: a large yellow sign loomed out of the fog.
Wrong Way! Do Not Enter.
Another U-Turn and another sign: Dead End.
The driver braked and we sat in the car as it idled in the middle of the road.
At least, we thought it was the road.
We didn’t remember seeing the old hotel out of the passenger side.
But maybe—just maybe someone there would know the way back.
Or we would have cell phone service and call Donna.
We clambered out of the car, holding hands. Suffocating fog.
“Watch your step—!” one of us, or maybe both of us, who could tell, spoke words of caution, just before our footsteps halted.
A shingled, one-dimensional wall rose in front of us.
Not a hotel. The idea of one..
And we? Two more ideas.
Lost.
Angela! What a great read!! Super fun (and disturbing, in the best way).
Thank you.
Hitchcock would direct this movie!
Now that would be fun!
With Norman Bates?
Scary story, Angela!
In this case, the potential idea for a Norman Bates.
Whoa, creepy and so good.
Thanks!
What momentum and tension. And that line: Who is Donna? is so good right there.
Thanks Kevin.
Ooh! The atmosphere…
We had been rooted in our spot in the valley for so long that moving to the other side of the mountain felt like being wrenched violently out of the ground, like a root vegetable plucked and replanted. We had so many memories here, although we had a hard time remembering specifics. It’s true that our days were relatively uniform - tending to the crops, talking to the crows, yodeling into the darkness. Not many specific events stick out (although we all remember with fondness the time Liam tripped over a dead crow while yodeling), but there’s a feeling tone to our time here that predominates. It’s a feeling of safety, like being wrapped in the valley’s cocoon. It may have been a false sense of security, but security, false or not, is more than most people get in life.
We don’t want to move to the other side of the mountain, but George, our de facto leader, claims it’s necessary. We have stayed too long here, he says - the crows are having trouble understanding what we say and our yodeling lacks the passionate intensity of former days. We tend to trust George, but after the tents and our belongings are packed up, nobody is enthusiast about singing the song George makes up as we begin our trek. It’s called “The Other Side of the Mountain” and in addition to having a strange melody that’s difficult to follow, it seems overly optimistic for the uncertain future that awaits us.
Wim, another winner! "We tend to trust George." That says it all right there.
I wasn’t thinking of it when I chose the name for the trusted leader, but my subconscious must have been focused on George Saunders, who of course I/we trust implicitly.
Oh, yes, I immediately thought of George (Saunders). He leads us to the other side of the mountain all of the time, though we're comfortable where we are.
Exactly!
All is typical storytelling until the yodeling begins, then who knows where we are? Fun and weird read.
The yodeling was my favorite part of this delightful story. I love the MC's voice.
Darwin’s Worms
“Worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than most persons would at first suppose. I became interested in them, and wished to learn how far they acted consciously, and how much mental power they displayed.” - Charles Darwin, 1881
You thought us intelligent because we drag leaves into our burrows. How little you know us. We are blind and deaf but feel the slightest vibration and have a fine sense of smell. We are small and we are large. We are under the land, the oceans, under you, in you - turning, aerating, nourishing. We’ve been here for five hundred million years. We learned to be as one, to work together. We are yin and yang in one body. Our community doubles every sixty days. We are always attending to the world.
In the beginning, we lived in warm seas and mud hollows. We heard the young Earth forming and reforming its skin, plates sliding into place, mountains rising and falling. The fish crawled onto land while we ruminated and burrowed. Dinosaurs believed they were the most incredible creatures in the history of life. We burrowed deeper to survive the winters that followed the great asteroid, attending to the world.
We sensed you descending from trees. carving tools, painting caves, hunting in packs. We celebrated when you tilled the earth, thinking you were like us. But you were never content, always tinkering, making something new. Beating swords out of plough shares, making bigger bombs and shopping malls. We developed a taste for meat since you were always killing something or someone. You took and took while we were attending to the world.
The whales tell us you are heating the oceans, changing the currents, melting the ice. The trees tell us they are burning as you continue to burn their ancestors. Some of you hear us but are drowned out by the bigmouths. You are not we. You scan the cosmos for meaning, looking for life in the heavens when its been beneath your feet all along. You are tuned to the wrong wavelength. We are the cosmic recyclers. We are a collective. We are the Earth’s cleaners. When you are gone, we will still be here. Burrowing and turning, reusing and recycling. Attending to the world.
Oh, so well done. "You scan the cosmos for meaning, looking for life in the heavens when it's been beneath your feet all along." Such a great quote.
We think this is well said, and written.
“Attending to the world.” Nicely written!
This is so well done, John, thoroughly thought out. I love the diss to the dinosaurs in particular.
Thanks Kevin. Yes, the dinos sound a bit like us.
All we did was try to get the lid off. It wasn't easy. Sir Fulke had to be prevented from swinging his mace down, and he sat in the corner and sulked. Just as well, he was really too violent, even for a knight errant, and now he'd lost an eye jousting his aim wasn't too steady and we were all prying away at the lid with butter-knives (1), delicate work that was getting us nowhere, especially with chain-mail gantlets, you try it.
Sir Peregrine said: "Why don't we drop it from a height, like, out of this window?"
We ran over to the window and looked down over the wheeling gulls and the rocks and raging seas far below.
"We don't need silly suggestions," the King told Sir Peregrine. "Go and sit in the corner."
We exchanged glances and smug grins at that. Nobody liked Sir Peregrine over-much, too clever by half.
"We should try turning it upside down," suggested Sir Kay, who was one of us even if he had a girly name. So we set to pulling and heaving at it. It wasn't all that big, but it weighed a ton. In fact, we couldn't shift it. So there it was, in the middle of the Round Table.
"How did it get here?" we asked.
"It just appeared," the King said.
"Sorcery!" we all exclaimed at the same time. "We need Merlin the Enchanter!"
"He's been caught under a mighty rock by an evil sorcerer," said Sir Peregrine with a snooty look.
"Right, we'll go and free him," we said, and made for the door.
"No, no, no!" shouted the King. "Where is Sir Lancelot?"
At this, we all fell silent, because old Lance was You-Know-Where, of which the King alone was ignorant.
The King flew into a rage. "This is a curse because of the Queen's faithlessness!"
At which the magic pot on the table broke asunder and...
There was nothing inside.
We all exclaimed: "That's not funny!"
(1) We had butter-knives because we were having tea and you try spreading butter and jam on bread with a broadsword.
Nothing worse than those damn lids that just will NOT come off. I was really hoping to find Sir Lancelot inside with his Lady pal.
So was I!
John Evans does Spamalot!
Monty Python in the house! Love this. I also hoped Sir Lancelot and Guinevere would appear sheepish and disheveled inside the pot.
Lots to laugh at here but my favorite is them all running to the window. Then, 'go sit in the corner.'
That's John Cleese as King Arthur, getting shirty.
Losers
We thought today would be different.
We thought we’d turn from losers into winners.
We were so sure. We showed up at the track
a half hour early, piled out of the pickup,
clutching our racing forms marked in red,
calculated odds scribbled in the margins.
We placed our bets, deciding that we rather bet
Shadow Dancer to show because we’d lost our confidence
in picking winners after last week’s crap performance.
We’re hopeful, binoculars clutched in sweaty hands,
visors shading bloodshot eyes, cheering ourselves hoarse
for our horse to nose across the finish line.
Shit. Looks like we’re gonna be losers again this week.
Today, as the last race ended, multicolored racing tickets
clustered at our scuffed-up shoes. They looked like confetti
after a ticker tape parade on Wall Street, except
there’s no ticker tape parade for us.
There’s never been a parade for us.
Picking winners had eluded us. We weren’t sure why.
We bet on jockeys who’d won the last race.
We bet on names we liked. We bet on long shots.
We’d pilfered from our budget for the groceries.
We knew we shouldn’t do it, but then again if we won big,
we bring home filet instead of hamburger.
Think of what they’d say back home.
Oh yeah, us returning like heroes.
The winners prance into the winner’s circle,
breathing steam out of their noses, owner and trainer
grinning on the ground, the jockey perched atop, silks mud-spattered.
They’ll be dry cleaned spotless gold and royal blue next week.
Oh, this is just so familiar and so very true! I worked at the horse racetrack outside of Seattle for six seasons! I sold hot dogs, then I turned 21 and sold beer (at a stand), and then i sold programs. Loved it so much--the people, the horses, the betting, the smells, the insanity, my co-workers.... But the customers... No one ever won and I'd watch them season after season, losing their shirts. It was a sad/happy place, but I was so young, what did I know? (I was fired THREE TIMES from that place--don't ask. I like to say i hold the track record for re-hires.)
Hilarious that you worked at a racetrack. When I went with my grandfather, who owned racehorses, it was a no lose proposition. he would give me money to bet. if I won I got to keep my winnings If I lost he just give me more money for the next bet. Too bad life doesn’t work that way.
I have a similar happy memory--my dad giving me a twenty to bet over the course of the day when I was a girl. And yes, wouldn't that be nice if when we win, we win, and if we lose, we win. Maybe we do that (mostly), come to think of it.
This sounded sadly familiar!
Cycling And Circling
We are a free and easy crowd. Short of ambition, maybe, at least the kind of ambitions our folks had–the ambitions they nurtured in the burbs.
Conrad works in a bar, not an everyday place, a crazy little taverna. He's been there 10 years but only stays for the poetry nights and the quizzes, more lecture on Renaissance art or the Abstract Expressionists, with lots of great visuals, and an eccentric scoring system. Conrad loves Coleridge. And William Carlos Williams and for the ten taverna years has been working on his own epic. On night's off he reads Ulysses and when he finishes starts again. He tells us he never tires of staring up to Buck Mulligan at the head of the stairs with his reader's eyes, and finds something new every time.
Sally designs dresses. Extravagent flowing creations that find the aesthetic and the functional. She sells ten, maybe twelve, a year. And teaches a few classes at the college to upgrade from omelettes and veggie stews to chicken and tuna.
Marco makes movies. Strange little shorts that speak of nothing and everything and are as beautiful to look at Sally's dresses.
Sanjay McMahon, master of the Mermaid Cafe, and civic legend, allows us our own little corner. Even credit, in times of emergency. Sanjay says we give the place charmingness, that we are part of the show. On quiet nights we find a guitar, conjure impromptu percussion, push a songbird towards the mic. The word gets round and soon the Mermaid has a queue forming at the door.
Of the songbirds, Sukanya soared highest and they tempted her to the big places in the money ghetto. When she'd gathered in one big pile, they said you'll make two next year. But Sukanya struggled to make sense of the one pile: she didn't want those troubles tripled. She high-tailed it back to the Neighbourhood. Sometimes we tempt her to reprise a standard but that only happens when the moon is sapphire.
We like new people–you don't have to be poor–but it helps. The new people tells us their stories, show us their sketches, maybe whistle a happy tune and soon they are no longer new. It's a cycle or a circle or a circuit. It's our life: the one we love.
i want to be there with everyone!
Mary, there’s a seat waiting for you. You can have a drink after the pétanque!
Ah, yes, the pétanque! And no worries--I'm poor, so everyone will like me!
One strength here might be the language, alliteration and other (letter reversals?)...
an eccentric scoring system (eks-sko)
the ten taverna years
he never tires of staring (ts-st)
Sally designs dresses.
Extravagant flowing creations that find the aesthetic and the functional. (F)
to upgrade from omelettes (om-om)
Marco makes movies.
Strange little shorts that speak
master of the Mermaid Cafe
impromptu percussion (pro-per)
Of the songbirds, Sukanya soared highest (so-su-so)
Sukanya struggled to make sense
those troubles tripled
Sometimes we tempt (ti-te)
It's a cycle or a circle or a circuit.
Maybe this is called a 'lyric essay'? A 'prose poem'?
Thoughts.
Thanks, Brian for such a thorough reading and for comments on use of language. I think I did get into a groove, more by accident than design, and maybe reached for a kind of ‘sing-song’ with Marco makes movies, troubles tripled and the cycle, circle, circuit bit. You pointing that out will make me reach for that again. A big thank you for your thoughtful and generous feedback. Although I always write something in response to Mary’s prompt I don’t always post. And I wasn’t going to post this but changed my mind.
Hi Terry,
Yes, this was a delight to read. Language is everything--and that one line has more alliteration than I caught: 'Sanjay McMahon, master of the Mermaid Cafe...'
Really well done...
B.
My people! I love the character sketches.
I love how Sukanya takes us out of the establishment for a spell then settles back in, while you all wait for the moon to be sapphire to hear a standard. Great group you have here!
Thank you, Kevin.
Like the way it rolls along gathering the reader in. Great phrase: “We give the place charmingness”
Love this one, Terry. I love how the new people become part of the crowd—a natural progression.
Thanks, Angela