Look how old he is, like he paddled out of the Middle Ages.
Maybe he did.
A coracle is a boat from the Middle Ages. It’s round. Look, right there.
What’s he doing here?
Maybe he landed for supplies.
I’m going to have a look inside the coracle.
Maybe you shouldn’t.
Maybe Maybe Maybe. Jesus. Come let’s have a look. He’s gone up the street.
I don’t think we should mess with it.
Maybe follows and they stop beside the boat and look inside.
Wavelets make light frivolity on the purple pebbled beach. More shingle than beach. Smoke from many cooking fires rises from the myriad islands. They cook sea bird eggs, and sometimes birds too. The gannets have the loveliest yellow white feathers. From a quarter mile up they bomb straight into the sea.
What is in the boat is not part of this story. At least not the told part of the story. You will have to figure out for yourself what’s in the coracle. Which was undoubtedly genuine, straight out of the Middle Ages, 500 - 1500 AD, more or less. People died and the living forgot things.
What if he brought plague or something with him?
Maybe he did.
Don’t touch anything. In fact, we should stand upwind.
They move to the other side of the coracle. It’s woven of hollow reeds. A carved paddle leans on the side. That’s one thing inside the coracle, the color of a hay bale left outside a long time.
What would you take with you from the Middle Ages if you paddled away in a coracle?
Bow and arrows. Snares. An AK-47.
They burned books and forgot how to read.
There’s no books in this coracle.
No. Nothing in the coracle is part of this story. The cargo is beside the point.
Only the monks made books and knew how to read. The rest were stupid.
According to Welsh and Irish monks of... 7th to 10th centuries? The coracle served to cast off into the sea and let God do the steering (not an easy embarcation to steer). Some disappeared in the Atlantic, some reached some isolated rock on which they then lived as hermits, since that was obviously God's will for them. Some were called to found new monasteries and left with a sack containing a monastery-founding kit. One is on record as having left his Irish monastery taking the cat with him, since the new monastery would need one. What is less on record is what happened to most of them. God knows?
I used to read about them a long time ago. Wrote this off the top of my head. But some built those cool beehive stone structures on islands. I think the Skerries were some of the islands. Monks : not a self sustaining lot, so... unless... They probably died on the rocks.
Wikipedia just taught me that there are a number of places called The Skerries off the coasts of Ireland, but that skerry is a common noun:
A skerry is a small rocky island, or islet, usually too small for human habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack.
Here's a picture of Skellig Michael and the beehive huts the monks built. The southwest coast of Ireland was one area they retreated to and where a lot of these structures survive.
I spent half an hour looking at Skellig Michael via Images on my favourite search engine. Amazing. Vertiginous. Good thing they were all believers (though there'd be a story in the one who was part of the community hiding his disbelief...)
Great. I'd like to read more about them. Now that the coracle has led us here. I'm curious if the beehive structures evolved independently there, or was there some connection to other beehive type builders?
Are you in England? Why do I have that impression?
I typed in “Should I be worried…” and selected the mole one, of course. What happened after that is anyone’s guess…
—
Should I be worried about a new mole? Instinct tells me: Yes.
Google tells me: Ask your GP.
Mum tells me: You'll know when to worry.
I log that response as: Weird.
By the time I arrive at the GPs the mole has grown. The doctor is, understandably, concerned.
She books me in for a biopsy. They take a chunk of it and tell me that they’re not sure what it is but, you’ll be glad to hear, it is benign.
Thanks, but I have to know what it is.
They suggest more tests.
Over the next few months, I’m subject to all kinds of prodding and poking and cutting and scanning. I am passed around from specialist to specialist but still, no one can tell me what it is.
And the mole continues to grow. By this point my face is more mole than original face and I feel like I could be OK with this being my existence if only I knew what it is; what I should call it.
I sit, comatose, on the sofa for hours, expecting the inevitable.
Then: you.
Four weeks early. Lucky that your mum got to the hospital in time, they say. Everything is forgotten about except for you and the tubes and the box and the tiny blip, blip, blips.
The doctors here always look concerned.
I call Mum. She tells me: It’s going to be OK. They know what they’re doing.
She asks: How’s the mole?
It’s gone, I say. I can’t remember when.
We finally get you home and I check and double check and triple check everything. Your mum is much calmer. With every cry, cough, noise I think about calling the doctor. But when I hold you and feel your heartbeat and breath, I realise that I’ll probably have to work this one out for myself, again and again.
I am only telling you this so that you know not to worry.
Oh wow, took me a moment to make the jump from mole to baby! At first I thought the mole had jumped from one face to another, sort of like a famous story (Gogol?) about a nose that makes off and then realized we’ve got multiple generations here. Suddenly what first seemed a blemish is actually a beautiful gift.
I don’t believe in God, fate or some grand spiritual plan for me or the universe. Except that my highly rational and very stoic father gave me the I Ching when I was a teenager and it has guided me through many of the key decisions of my life. The only way I can rationalize it is by reading it sideways with my brain. It told me to lay low, to ditch the weak man, to embrace pure creativity, to buy a house. When I ask it the same question hoping for a different answer, it gets annoyed with me. If I ask it a vague question, it gets bored with me. It’s eerily accurate and often funny. So weird. Chance or mystery, I don't know which.
This tells me I need to buy an I Ching today! Never had one, but I've always been intrigued. "When I ask it the same question hoping for a different answer, it gets annoyed with me." Somehow, it knows.
What if I told you there's a place behind our house where I go when I’m bored at home during the summer? I climb over a low wire fence and stomp through the tall grass along my own worn pathway. Eventually, it leads to neighbors’ back yards up the street. What if I told you I peek through the fence, hoping to catch a glimpse of Steve, my brother’s best friend. Steve is a tall, blonde, blue-eyed 18-year old kid (four years older than me). He looks just like Troy Donahue, the “Summer Place” movie star my mother refuses to let me watch. Even though it's no longer the 50s.
Fast Forward thirty years..What if I told you I met the Marlboro Man at a ranch in Southern Utah? He was German and he won the Marlboro Man contest. As you can imagine, he was "tall, dark and handsome." What if I told you that we spent the night together on top of a red, rocky ridge trying to communicate in French because I didn’t speak German and he didn’t speak English. We were two divorced teachers who found each other at a moment in time when what we needed most was to be there together, under a starry blanket, after a day of Marlboro adventures in the desert.
Is it true that the moon is rusting? I’m asking because, as you know, I’ve been feeling that everything is falling completely apart. War in the Holy Land. Russia in Ukraine. China fiddling with Taiwan. Bird flu. Kids years behind because of the pandemic. Tornadoes. Fires. School shootings. Democracy on the ballot. Inflation. The destruction of the middle class. Massive immigration which is only going to get worse because of political instability and climate change. Thinking about whether next year I’ll have to be an immigrant myself after the election. Kidnappings of schoolgirls in Africa. Floods. Landslides. Women having miscarriages being rendered sterile or dead because proper medical treatment is illegal. My head spins and I find it hard to calm down and carry on. Anyway, at our appointments recently, we’ve been working on this. You’ve suggested a lot of good things. Breath work. Meditation. Exercise. Volunteering. Less drinking. Spending time with friends (but perhaps a bit less time with Jenny because she’s even more negative thinking than I am). Limiting my consumption of social media and news reports. And, on and on. I’ll confess. Most of what you suggest, I’ve tried for a while, but then, I fall off the wagon. Or is it under the wagon? I stop doing what I should do and start doing more of what I shouldn’t, like going on that long weekend trip with Jenny to wine country where we spent 3 days drinking gallons of wine and talking about disasters. But you did have one idea which, maybe because it is small and only takes a couple of minutes a day, I’ve managed to stick with. Even on that weekend with Jenny. You said, “Every evening before you go to bed step outside and look at the moon and the stars.” I do that. And I feel in complete awe of our universe and then I feel that I’m as much as part of it as the stars and the moon. I feel like no matter what happens with all this other shit, that won’t ever change. But, then this morning, I hear that the moon is rusting. Just go Google it. I’m hoping that you know something that Google doesn’t, because otherwise the moon is rusting because of the Earth’s magnetic tail. And then, well, then I have nothing. Everything is completely falling apart, and I want my money back from you. I need it for wine.
Well said, Deborah, I admit to be overwhelmed by a similar existential unrest. At the first read, I thought this sentence evokes hopelessness "I’m hoping that you know something that Google doesn't' - but no, it's the opposite.
I used “How does it feel” and I pretty much let Google do the writing for me: How does it feel to be a problem? How does it feel to die? How does it feel to be drunk? How does it feel when your water breaks? To be pregnant the first time, and now you’re drunk and your water has broken way too early and you feel like you want to die and not be a problem to those around you.
How ingenious! You glued them together quite deftly! (I also tried "how does it feel" but ALL prompts I could scroll down were related to death, oh my!
Yeah, the google AI pretty much did all the work for me, which is good, because I didn't have that much time today to do any serious writing for the prompt. .
If only I could love you the way you want to be loved.
A friend told me there is a book about the five ways to love. Called something like "The 5 Love Languages". Here they are –– words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of love, receiving gifts. I have not read the book, nor will I, but these are the things Sara told me about. At boring length, we discussed each type of love.
But I said. I don't know how he wants to be loved. I show him a weak love, a strong love and I don't know which he prefers. Soon I am going to give him a gift. He said he will accept it.
Keep trying, she says. Don't give up. Tell him you know the difference between a slough and a marsh. That should impress him.
Ah yes, the love languages. My love language is potato chips. "If only i could love you the way you want to be loved." Man, that's really it, isn't it?
most guys are looking for someone who shows love by providing service...acts of love such as cooking, doing chores, doing laundry, or by affirming the things you already love about yourself...your hair, your blue eyes I apologize –– that sounds like I'm picking on the guys, so I will edit to say that women like guys who show love by fixing the car, mowing the yard, ah.....oh well whatever. maybe I'd just better stop.
I have met men and women who know how to show love in one manner and one manner only, and the other person (spouse) is disappointed in their union.
My question was not snarky but fairly serious. Whether I'm a man or a woman, do I know how I want (or need) to be loved? I'm not sure many people know themselves well enough for that (I'm not sure I do).
Your final paragraph poses a genuine problem that I think happens often. Unless that one way of showing love happens to fit with the partner's wants/needs.
I certainly don't know how to love or be loved. Until recently I had never even considered thinking about this topic. I'm past middle age and I have a "crush" on someone and don't know what hit me...so now I'm exploring this topic. Furthermore, I understand that people fall out of love. What the heck does that mean. I think I may give up soon and forget this whole topic.
I'm sorry, Ruth, I didn't realize. I'm past middle age too (well past, but still alive). Yes, people fall in love and out of love. I have a job believing couples who say that, after decades together, they're still in love. That they've worked out how to love each other without the romantic mist, perhaps? Find out how they can salve the other's wounds? Give them strength? Accompany them? Lighten their load? Now I'm getting mist in the eyes at the thought of how bad I am at this.
As for your "crush", all this agony aunt can suggest is don't give up in bitterness.
The reason the book was written and so many songs are written about love (including the techno-pop "What is Love?" that is now playing in my head...)is that we don't really know what love is or how it actually works. I get asked by random people when Steve and I go out "What is your secret to making it work?"--and I have no idea. We just keep having fun together.
Who wouldn’t go for quality time? Unless of course one party thinks you’re spending quality time if you’re watching CNN go off its rocker about the latest Trump details but is that really quality time? No, you’re just in the same room together so I guess a little unpacking of each Love language needs to happen.
I can't think of a more vacuous expression than "quality time". It sounds like some ad man dreamed it up to sell us nothing, wind, bubbles. I'd love to see it get the George Saunders treatment (if that hasn't already happened).
and sometimes things that grew or didn’t grow, at different times, collectively, coordinated or uncoordinated, embraced or reviled, or none of the above:
the community
the house of cards
the lichens
the flatbread
the wine
the black hole
the Swifties
the ulcer
the cancer
the weak body
the healthy, strong body
and you
who seem unfairly content to go
to sleep
without spooning
while I sit and grow alone
listening to the calls of strange night birds.
From auto completion of “growing is…” came, “growing is lonely hoodie.”
Oh wow, this one is extraordinary! I found the first part of it so immediately touching, and then somehow it could grow and grow from there! It reminded me of both the best children's book I could hope for (: and a very beloved poem called 'Alphabet' by Inger Christensen.
Maybe. Sams of the world take advantage of the weak.
Sam is based on someone I met in real life. Decades ago I had a car with very high miles from commuting, but it still looked quite good. I was having a hard time selling it and I stopped in at one of those side-of-the-highway used car lots and the presumable owner bought it on the spot. Cash from a wad of 100s in his bib overalls. We got to talking and he explained the "business model" I described here.
I remember a time before today. A time when I was learning big things every day and I was sure I would make a dent in the universe, as Steve Jobs liked to say. Now I am learning small things every day. No dents, but more like polishing. Adjustments, fine tuning, enhancements. Like a musician who has long since mastered the scales and the technique but today strives for clarity of tone, flavor, personality, expressive signature, resonance, tears of joy or pain or both.
I remember a time before today. A time when it felt like our country was progressing, advancing toward a more perfect union and the pursuit of happiness. Now it feels like those who became frightened by those changes, who felt left out because to be included meant changing, or having to learn new things, or giving up seniority they felt entitled to even if it was granted or stolen. They remind me of a petulant child, throwing the chess board into the air rather than learning new moves.
I remember a time before today. A time when people agreed more (not always, but more) on what things mean, on what is true, or good, or worthwhile. Or perhaps I imagined it and the problem is me. I am trying to unravel this knot, solve this puzzle, find my spot. But the definitions morph so quickly, in a blur of egotistical noise.
I remember a time before today. A time when my brother went off to war in Iraq. And it made no sense. It was the wrong country. Who wages war in the wrong country? What is the meaning of that, other than selfish, greedy, petty grievance?
And I remember a time before today. A time when my brother returned from that war. In one piece, physically at least. And we were all grateful. But none of us have figured out what it meant, in any real sense, other than as a political stunt and corrupt money grab. It was death and destruction, loss of blood and treasure, bereft of meaning. The town he fought to liberate was retaken after his unit left, with their dead. But in order not to confront this, we tell ourselves about the heroes. The heroes we create, to ease our discomfort, at knowing what it really means to destroy.
I remember a time before today. A time when I thought it was ridiculous to think the world could descend into chaos. And I remember reading Yeats' The Second Coming and thinking it was about the past.
Learning small things every day is a wonderful way to live. Your piece here is a tough read. Things do fall apart. But, so far, good people have managed to put things back together again.
Thanks Mary. Yes, good people do get some good things done. It's just sad that it is easier and faster to tear things apart. So much needless backpedaling. But that might be the truer human condition. I'm starting to think the last 50 years is the exception. I'm one of those people that thinks climate change is maybe just what the earth needs, like a fever that wipes out the invading disease that is tormenting the host.
I don't know if it's any comfort, but I've looked at a lot of history from the Pharaohs to the Greeks then the Romans and the Normans then xxxxx to today. Yeats wrote about the unimaginable horror of WW I, but that poem could have been written about any time since deep antiquity. And, sad to say, it's probably as forward looking as it is backward (WW 2 etc. to come). Not comforting, I guess, but there you are. People. But I liked your story so much. It shows such a sensitivity to the world, to your place in it. As long as people make their efforts, of whatever effect, it matters. Fine tuning keeps things in shape for the next person like you to carry on.
Thanks Kevin. And yes, the historical perspective you shared is indeed comforting. Knowing we’ve been through it before gives me hope we’ll get through again. The pendulum swings…it’s also a little depressing as it shows how easily we forget the lessons. Thank you for your nice comment.
You’re welcome! I was thinking about Mrs. Dalloway, too. Set at the same time roughly as the Yeats poem. There’s a scene where a plane is flying overhead, skywriting something about toffee, and everyone is agog. From the first time i read that book I thought how chilling it was that in another couple decades people would be terrified of and running from planes overhead in London. Woolf obviously didn’t know this, but we do. Resonances have such a way of sounding and resounding, and not even being resonant at first.
I loved your piece, feel the same about so much, have enough years to see these as pretty scary times. To balance that, check out fridayaction.org and sign up for The weeks good news. Free. Comes to your email every Sunday. (I help proof reading it on Saturdays. ) It's amazing the good things happening in government and around the country that are pushing back at the chaos/confusion/ straight out lies. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Thank you, Vati! (I know you were replying to Kurt, but i'm replying anyway!) That's wonderful that you're a proofreader for such a great organization. i follow Chop Wood Carry Water here on Substack, which may interest you as well. https://chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.com
I'm a big fan of Yeats and that poem. I've lost track of the number of times I've said "I remember when..." about this country--just the number of times in one week, actually. I feel all of this.
I liked your story a lot, it's profound and unsettling. I came to US two decades ago and the transformations are palpable. I can't imagine how difficult it is to acknowledge the current dissolution of values after coming back from ("the wrong") war! Thank you for the poem suggestion, I'm illiterate poetry-wise so "The Second Coming" was a revelation.
If only I hadn’t gotten a glow in the dark tattoo, I wouldn’t be standing in front of this convention of trapeze artists.
I kept the tattoo hidden under wraps, unsure that it was the right idea, and particularly unwilling to reveal that in addition to being glow in the dark, my tattoo said--Trump. I don’t like Trump. I’ve never liked Trump and I’d certainly never vote for him, but somehow the idea of putting Trump on my rump gave me that sweet satisfaction of finding the perfect rhyme. Yup. My inner five year old led me into dangerous territory.
it would’ve been my little secret just to plunk down on his name and then scrunch my butt around as if I were stomping on him like a half smoked cigarette, and that was half of the fun just sitting in my seat, squirming around and smiling.
Then came the day we put on a play in my daughter’s kindergarten class. We were doing a play of the paper bag princess. I was the dragon. She was the paper bag Princess with--you guessed it—that a paper bag on her head —which was all to illustrate that the paper bag princess was all about brains and not looks, but you could probably figure it out from the paperbag.
So there I was swishing my tail back-and-forth like a good dinosaur would do and because I had a long long zipper to get into the costume and because long long zippers are not as heavy duty as perhaps one might desire the zipper slipped, it popped open, revealing that yes I should’ve put on underpants instead of a thong, and there was lit up in neon highlights the name:
Trump.
Which wasn’t a problem for five year-olds because, of course, they couldn’t read, but they were very delighted with the light up part.
And that’s when the kindergarten teacher recommended that instead of trying to entertain five-year-olds I might be better off joining a circus, which I thought was sour grapes because I was doing a fabulous job!
Anyway I took her at her word and now I’m teaching trapeze artists to reach across a chasm that seems unbelievably dangerous and wide, and yet when the trapeze swings dizzily in view, I convince them they can cross that huge divide and swing free to the other side.
The guy who took my passport is still out there. Forget about Roberto. He’s not just an unreliable roommate, now it seemed he’s dangerous as well, as if that made any sense. Roberto, the buffoon who told the stupidest jokes I’ve ever heard in any language, and a guy who never does his dishes. Turns out he was the one who got me evicted. But right now, I need to track down the other one.
I went over to the Raval, not to the part that looks dangerous and isn’t. I was going to the one that was way much more dangerous than it looked, the one the taxis would not go into. That’s where my passport was.
Even though it was two a.m., the outside lights were still on at the Kentucky. I hated this bar, but I knew Xavi was working, and Xavi knew people, like, he knew everybody. I pushed open the door, and it slammed behind me. On the TV, above the liquor, was Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. Lucy, all in red, was writhing around on the bed, flashing her fangs.
What if I asked you out, as a joke? Would you be offended, angry, up for it?
Your open mouth, wide eyes, say it all.
Sorry, I say, sorry. That was probably one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever asked anyone.
Your mouth closes.
You don’t have to reply. Forget I ever asked.
Can I get you a coffee?
Do you have something stronger?
You pause then open a top cupboard and show me the bottles.
Take your pick.
I nearly get out of my chair and take out a bottle of Irish whiskey but you’re standing too close, I’d have to brush past you.
Whiskey would be good. No ice.
You pour two large shots and sit across the table again.
Why did you ask me that?
I feel a blush rising from my neck, covering my whole face.
Like I said, a joke, I say feebly.
You drink your whiskey.
You mean the asking was the joke? Or did you mean the going out was the joke?
Shit. I really hadn’t thought this through. I can’t answer.
I mess with the glass on the table then take too big a gulp. It catches in my throat, my eyes watering, my nose streaming as I cough uncontrollably, sweating with embarrassment, wishing for the floor to open, a phone to ring, anything. But I sit here, spluttering and dribbling as you fetch water and tissues and smile at me, then laugh, and keep laughing.
I guess I deserved that, I say, when I can breathe again. I blow my nose.
Can we pretend this didn’t happen?
The choking or you asking me out for a joke?
You reach across the table for my hand.
Both? I say, shoving a soggy tissue into my bag.
You stroke my fingers.
That’s a shame. I think I’d like you to ask me out.
I take another drink, a small one.
As a joke? I ask.
I’m looking, I mean really looking, into your eyes now. And I see you looking, really looking, into mine.
I have some work to do now - thank you for bringing the papers over.
You stand.
If you want to call, ask me out, you know, for a joke ….
I realise I’m being dismissed and stumble for the door.
See you tomorrow, you call, as I race out of the building.
A revision! Vati's comment on the original post from May 27 got me thinking. New beginning, one character gone, another promoted. Here's the result.
Input: Our washing machine
Suggestion: Our washing machine squeaks
-----
My husband said, “You can believe me on this. This old washing machine has a week left. Maybe two. Trust me.”
My husband believes what he says. Once I asked him about his certainty, after he said he loved me, and he said he wouldn’t say it if he didn’t believe it. I said, well, maybe saying it makes you believe it, or makes you believe you believe it. How do I know, I asked, if you really love me, or if you love the idea of loving me? How about Jane? I asked. I bet you believed you loved her when you told her you loved her. So what happened to that love? I had questions he couldn’t answer.
The old washing machine had worked like a dream. It was quiet and it never gave us any trouble. But he said he believed it was on its way out. So out it was.
Our new machine squeaks during the spin cycle. The kids dance like little maniacs to its whirling and the cat pounces around like she’s chasing a mouse.
But it drives me crazy.
It drives me crazy because I believed him about most things. That’s what love is, I believed. And I believed him about the old machine.
We gave it to Jane. She loves it. She uses it every day. She uses it to wash her boys’ little league uniforms and her boyfriend’s handyman clothes. She’s been using it for seventeen weeks now.
I won’t say that the still-alive washing machine caused me to doubt my husband, but you know how a sliver of doubt can all of a sudden become a chasm? Well, I found his text to Jane. I knew they texted. They have those boys. But there it was: I don’t believe I’ve ever loved like I do now.
If I’m supposed to trust what he does believe, what am I supposed to do with what he doesn’t believe? And who does he love, or not love, like he does now? Could be me. I know he talks to Jane about me. Could be Jane, too. He once told her he believed he loved her, but he never told her he didn’t believe it anymore.
So now I have this chasm, and every time I do the wash the cat pounces and the kids dance and I go crazy.
I love it when a plan comes together. In the beginning it’s just you, sitting there at kitchen table or on the bus, or at the sticky counter of some diner, just you and the middle distance. Maybe there’s something floating out of focus just beyond your stare, a discolored old clock face or a knot of passengers flicking at their phones. But something occurs to you and you get that old feeling that this one could really be good. Then there’s the first person you tell. Your voice might crack or speed up when you tell them. But there’s something best of all to it. It’s like the first track you lay, before any editing comes in and messes things up. You haven’t yet recalibrated your telling, according to how each person has responded so far, according to which moments they held their breath or slightly raised their eyebrows. Then the second and the third tellings become a little rote, the dull smacks of footfalls one after another. But something is building already, as you get more and more habituated to letting them in on the plan.
It might be that you’ve watched too many films about it. If anyone’s livelihood received that degree of Hollywood greasepaint and glitz, of course they’d also get an elevated heartbeat when things got moving, too. And then would come the gap, after the action. Even when things broke in your favor, and everyone got paid and the fatted calf was on every hearth or the chickens in the pots or however it goes, that would be the hardest part of it. The relief always whooshed through you so fast, just minutes or hours of that bliss, but then you’d be back to the idle in-betweens. Weeks could pass that way. But then, sure enough, it would happen again. Something or other would occur to you.
[Deleted]
Forgot to say: When I wrote "Please," the google machine gave me "Please advise."
It makes a great ending to your story - one last escalation.
I love this! “Please advise.” An interesting response from Google.
Thank you, Marjorielin!
Melanie would love to have you on her Midnight Radio show. Maybe Doug would call in, and who knows?
ha!
This is so good! I love the “please advise” feeling of the confessional ending. So fun to read. Great prompt!
Thanks, Angela!
Hahahaha! That was a terrific read! Love this kooky love story.
Thank you, Sea!
That's just great! I read Dear Abby every day, and often think someone should write better letters to advice columns...
I opened a book and saw the word coracle.
That’s him.
Who?
That’s the guy I saw get out of the coracle.
What coracle? What’s a coracle?
Look how old he is, like he paddled out of the Middle Ages.
Maybe he did.
A coracle is a boat from the Middle Ages. It’s round. Look, right there.
What’s he doing here?
Maybe he landed for supplies.
I’m going to have a look inside the coracle.
Maybe you shouldn’t.
Maybe Maybe Maybe. Jesus. Come let’s have a look. He’s gone up the street.
I don’t think we should mess with it.
Maybe follows and they stop beside the boat and look inside.
Wavelets make light frivolity on the purple pebbled beach. More shingle than beach. Smoke from many cooking fires rises from the myriad islands. They cook sea bird eggs, and sometimes birds too. The gannets have the loveliest yellow white feathers. From a quarter mile up they bomb straight into the sea.
What is in the boat is not part of this story. At least not the told part of the story. You will have to figure out for yourself what’s in the coracle. Which was undoubtedly genuine, straight out of the Middle Ages, 500 - 1500 AD, more or less. People died and the living forgot things.
What if he brought plague or something with him?
Maybe he did.
Don’t touch anything. In fact, we should stand upwind.
They move to the other side of the coracle. It’s woven of hollow reeds. A carved paddle leans on the side. That’s one thing inside the coracle, the color of a hay bale left outside a long time.
What would you take with you from the Middle Ages if you paddled away in a coracle?
Bow and arrows. Snares. An AK-47.
They burned books and forgot how to read.
There’s no books in this coracle.
No. Nothing in the coracle is part of this story. The cargo is beside the point.
Only the monks made books and knew how to read. The rest were stupid.
What’s your point?
Look. Here he comes with a bulging sack.
Let’s watch from the wall.
We won’t know what’s in the sack.
No we won’t. What are you going to do about it?
Kill him. Steal the sack.
Ridiculous.
Maybe.
You’re better off not knowing.
The wise thing would be to walk away.
So all of this for naught?
All for naught, my friend.
I feel like i just spent a few minutes with Estragon and Vladimir. Especially those last lines!
It needed to go somewhere and just veered in their direction at the end so what the hell.
a coracle. . . incapable of high speed or great distance
does in float in or on water?
A coracle is a boat, of sorts.
Depends on how many people are sitting in it.
Not a high capacity vessel.
This is so much fun!
According to Welsh and Irish monks of... 7th to 10th centuries? The coracle served to cast off into the sea and let God do the steering (not an easy embarcation to steer). Some disappeared in the Atlantic, some reached some isolated rock on which they then lived as hermits, since that was obviously God's will for them. Some were called to found new monasteries and left with a sack containing a monastery-founding kit. One is on record as having left his Irish monastery taking the cat with him, since the new monastery would need one. What is less on record is what happened to most of them. God knows?
You could write a full story on what to pack in a monastery founding kit!
I think the first things would be ingredients to make mead. At least if I was a monk headed for a rock in the ocean it would be.
A few grains of barley to get started on making whisky.
I used to read about them a long time ago. Wrote this off the top of my head. But some built those cool beehive stone structures on islands. I think the Skerries were some of the islands. Monks : not a self sustaining lot, so... unless... They probably died on the rocks.
i love that you both know about coracles--a new one for me.
Wikipedia just taught me that there are a number of places called The Skerries off the coasts of Ireland, but that skerry is a common noun:
A skerry is a small rocky island, or islet, usually too small for human habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skerry#)
From a sea stack to a substack the way cannot be long. :)
Here's a picture of Skellig Michael and the beehive huts the monks built. The southwest coast of Ireland was one area they retreated to and where a lot of these structures survive.
I spent half an hour looking at Skellig Michael via Images on my favourite search engine. Amazing. Vertiginous. Good thing they were all believers (though there'd be a story in the one who was part of the community hiding his disbelief...)
Great. I'd like to read more about them. Now that the coracle has led us here. I'm curious if the beehive structures evolved independently there, or was there some connection to other beehive type builders?
Are you in England? Why do I have that impression?
https://www.instagram.com/p/CbsKfcPt7uB/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=839fa029-45c6-474a-acb6-b8fe292ca504
Or are they back the next day? Love what you did with this!
Love the ending!
I typed in “Should I be worried…” and selected the mole one, of course. What happened after that is anyone’s guess…
—
Should I be worried about a new mole? Instinct tells me: Yes.
Google tells me: Ask your GP.
Mum tells me: You'll know when to worry.
I log that response as: Weird.
By the time I arrive at the GPs the mole has grown. The doctor is, understandably, concerned.
She books me in for a biopsy. They take a chunk of it and tell me that they’re not sure what it is but, you’ll be glad to hear, it is benign.
Thanks, but I have to know what it is.
They suggest more tests.
Over the next few months, I’m subject to all kinds of prodding and poking and cutting and scanning. I am passed around from specialist to specialist but still, no one can tell me what it is.
And the mole continues to grow. By this point my face is more mole than original face and I feel like I could be OK with this being my existence if only I knew what it is; what I should call it.
I sit, comatose, on the sofa for hours, expecting the inevitable.
Then: you.
Four weeks early. Lucky that your mum got to the hospital in time, they say. Everything is forgotten about except for you and the tubes and the box and the tiny blip, blip, blips.
The doctors here always look concerned.
I call Mum. She tells me: It’s going to be OK. They know what they’re doing.
She asks: How’s the mole?
It’s gone, I say. I can’t remember when.
We finally get you home and I check and double check and triple check everything. Your mum is much calmer. With every cry, cough, noise I think about calling the doctor. But when I hold you and feel your heartbeat and breath, I realise that I’ll probably have to work this one out for myself, again and again.
I am only telling you this so that you know not to worry.
A wonderful little fiction! Moles and worry--quite the pair.
Oh wow, took me a moment to make the jump from mole to baby! At first I thought the mole had jumped from one face to another, sort of like a famous story (Gogol?) about a nose that makes off and then realized we’ve got multiple generations here. Suddenly what first seemed a blemish is actually a beautiful gift.
That mole is worrying me. What if I wake up tomorrow and I am nothing but a mole.
An old red mole burrowing away out of sight...
Or you could be the Mole from Wind in the Willows happily yelling back "Onion Soup! Onion Soup!" at the taunting rabbits.
Then you could have a non-coracle boat adventure with the Rat.
I can see Ratty and Mole in a coracle. But then Wind in the Willows wouldn't be so perfectly English.
Some things aren’t worth worrying about. Nice one.
I don’t believe in God, fate or some grand spiritual plan for me or the universe. Except that my highly rational and very stoic father gave me the I Ching when I was a teenager and it has guided me through many of the key decisions of my life. The only way I can rationalize it is by reading it sideways with my brain. It told me to lay low, to ditch the weak man, to embrace pure creativity, to buy a house. When I ask it the same question hoping for a different answer, it gets annoyed with me. If I ask it a vague question, it gets bored with me. It’s eerily accurate and often funny. So weird. Chance or mystery, I don't know which.
This tells me I need to buy an I Ching today! Never had one, but I've always been intrigued. "When I ask it the same question hoping for a different answer, it gets annoyed with me." Somehow, it knows.
I love the “only way I can rationalize it is by reading it sideways…” Very evocative flash, I like it!
"to ditch the weak man" –I so much loved this :) Loved al of it.
What if I told you there's a place behind our house where I go when I’m bored at home during the summer? I climb over a low wire fence and stomp through the tall grass along my own worn pathway. Eventually, it leads to neighbors’ back yards up the street. What if I told you I peek through the fence, hoping to catch a glimpse of Steve, my brother’s best friend. Steve is a tall, blonde, blue-eyed 18-year old kid (four years older than me). He looks just like Troy Donahue, the “Summer Place” movie star my mother refuses to let me watch. Even though it's no longer the 50s.
Fast Forward thirty years..What if I told you I met the Marlboro Man at a ranch in Southern Utah? He was German and he won the Marlboro Man contest. As you can imagine, he was "tall, dark and handsome." What if I told you that we spent the night together on top of a red, rocky ridge trying to communicate in French because I didn’t speak German and he didn’t speak English. We were two divorced teachers who found each other at a moment in time when what we needed most was to be there together, under a starry blanket, after a day of Marlboro adventures in the desert.
Thank you all so much for the “likes!”
fantastic!
Thanks. I’m still editing it.
I love this.
Many many thanks, Angela!
Thanks!
*in the “SummerPlace” movie, a movie my mother …
I put in "Is it true that "
Is it true that the moon is rusting? I’m asking because, as you know, I’ve been feeling that everything is falling completely apart. War in the Holy Land. Russia in Ukraine. China fiddling with Taiwan. Bird flu. Kids years behind because of the pandemic. Tornadoes. Fires. School shootings. Democracy on the ballot. Inflation. The destruction of the middle class. Massive immigration which is only going to get worse because of political instability and climate change. Thinking about whether next year I’ll have to be an immigrant myself after the election. Kidnappings of schoolgirls in Africa. Floods. Landslides. Women having miscarriages being rendered sterile or dead because proper medical treatment is illegal. My head spins and I find it hard to calm down and carry on. Anyway, at our appointments recently, we’ve been working on this. You’ve suggested a lot of good things. Breath work. Meditation. Exercise. Volunteering. Less drinking. Spending time with friends (but perhaps a bit less time with Jenny because she’s even more negative thinking than I am). Limiting my consumption of social media and news reports. And, on and on. I’ll confess. Most of what you suggest, I’ve tried for a while, but then, I fall off the wagon. Or is it under the wagon? I stop doing what I should do and start doing more of what I shouldn’t, like going on that long weekend trip with Jenny to wine country where we spent 3 days drinking gallons of wine and talking about disasters. But you did have one idea which, maybe because it is small and only takes a couple of minutes a day, I’ve managed to stick with. Even on that weekend with Jenny. You said, “Every evening before you go to bed step outside and look at the moon and the stars.” I do that. And I feel in complete awe of our universe and then I feel that I’m as much as part of it as the stars and the moon. I feel like no matter what happens with all this other shit, that won’t ever change. But, then this morning, I hear that the moon is rusting. Just go Google it. I’m hoping that you know something that Google doesn’t, because otherwise the moon is rusting because of the Earth’s magnetic tail. And then, well, then I have nothing. Everything is completely falling apart, and I want my money back from you. I need it for wine.
No! Tell me the moon is not rusting! (I can so relate to your post here... sigh.)
It appears that it is rusting. https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/moon-rusting#:~:text=Scientists%20now%20believe%20the%20Moon,it%20by%20the%20solar%20wind.
I don't know, a little rust on the moon might make a nice patina, from a distance.
I agree, less news, more wine, keep looking at the moon to see if it's changing.
News is toxic waste. Whatever helps to deal with it - like writing !
Well said, Deborah, I admit to be overwhelmed by a similar existential unrest. At the first read, I thought this sentence evokes hopelessness "I’m hoping that you know something that Google doesn't' - but no, it's the opposite.
I used “How does it feel” and I pretty much let Google do the writing for me: How does it feel to be a problem? How does it feel to die? How does it feel to be drunk? How does it feel when your water breaks? To be pregnant the first time, and now you’re drunk and your water has broken way too early and you feel like you want to die and not be a problem to those around you.
I remember telling the nurse I was going to go home and come back the next day...
Just listened to a show on NPR about a woman who had a c-section without aesthetic—doctors fault. Now how would THAT feel?
NO. That's insane.
ha! The whole story right there!
How ingenious! You glued them together quite deftly! (I also tried "how does it feel" but ALL prompts I could scroll down were related to death, oh my!
Yeah, the google AI pretty much did all the work for me, which is good, because I didn't have that much time today to do any serious writing for the prompt. .
If only . . .
If only I could love you the way you want to be loved.
A friend told me there is a book about the five ways to love. Called something like "The 5 Love Languages". Here they are –– words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of love, receiving gifts. I have not read the book, nor will I, but these are the things Sara told me about. At boring length, we discussed each type of love.
But I said. I don't know how he wants to be loved. I show him a weak love, a strong love and I don't know which he prefers. Soon I am going to give him a gift. He said he will accept it.
Keep trying, she says. Don't give up. Tell him you know the difference between a slough and a marsh. That should impress him.
Ah yes, the love languages. My love language is potato chips. "If only i could love you the way you want to be loved." Man, that's really it, isn't it?
You are too funny!
I’m still wondering if it’s potato chips with guacamole or strictly tortilla chips?
Guacamole goes only on tortilla chips. Potato chips are an entire meal unto themselves, needing no sauce, dip or other accoutrements.
Except ranch dip goes well with potato chips...
to each their own. (Maybe with Ruffles.... but not plain.)
Yummy with the sea salt and vinegar and my favorite--dill pickle flavored chips.
Ask your guacamole how it wants to be loved.
Ha!
Or what kind of potato chips...
Do I know how I want to be loved?
you can also use the five languages to describe how you love others... (Yes, i read the book.)
it changes as one ages, or so I've been told
most guys are looking for someone who shows love by providing service...acts of love such as cooking, doing chores, doing laundry, or by affirming the things you already love about yourself...your hair, your blue eyes I apologize –– that sounds like I'm picking on the guys, so I will edit to say that women like guys who show love by fixing the car, mowing the yard, ah.....oh well whatever. maybe I'd just better stop.
I have met men and women who know how to show love in one manner and one manner only, and the other person (spouse) is disappointed in their union.
My question was not snarky but fairly serious. Whether I'm a man or a woman, do I know how I want (or need) to be loved? I'm not sure many people know themselves well enough for that (I'm not sure I do).
Your final paragraph poses a genuine problem that I think happens often. Unless that one way of showing love happens to fit with the partner's wants/needs.
Oh, you are not snarky.
I certainly don't know how to love or be loved. Until recently I had never even considered thinking about this topic. I'm past middle age and I have a "crush" on someone and don't know what hit me...so now I'm exploring this topic. Furthermore, I understand that people fall out of love. What the heck does that mean. I think I may give up soon and forget this whole topic.
Don't give up ! Love is so wonderful when it works, even if it's not for long.
I'm sorry, Ruth, I didn't realize. I'm past middle age too (well past, but still alive). Yes, people fall in love and out of love. I have a job believing couples who say that, after decades together, they're still in love. That they've worked out how to love each other without the romantic mist, perhaps? Find out how they can salve the other's wounds? Give them strength? Accompany them? Lighten their load? Now I'm getting mist in the eyes at the thought of how bad I am at this.
As for your "crush", all this agony aunt can suggest is don't give up in bitterness.
The reason the book was written and so many songs are written about love (including the techno-pop "What is Love?" that is now playing in my head...)is that we don't really know what love is or how it actually works. I get asked by random people when Steve and I go out "What is your secret to making it work?"--and I have no idea. We just keep having fun together.
Who wouldn’t go for quality time? Unless of course one party thinks you’re spending quality time if you’re watching CNN go off its rocker about the latest Trump details but is that really quality time? No, you’re just in the same room together so I guess a little unpacking of each Love language needs to happen.
I can't think of a more vacuous expression than "quality time". It sounds like some ad man dreamed it up to sell us nothing, wind, bubbles. I'd love to see it get the George Saunders treatment (if that hasn't already happened).
Yes. Agree, potato chips and peanuts.
Growing is lonely
said the hoodie
said the tree
said the onion
said the berry
said the mother
said the father
said the only child
said the middle child
said the youngest child
said the baby teeth
said the adult teeth
said the aunt
said the uncle
said the receding hairline
said the stretched out pants
said everything and everyone
except the sweater in the dryer
the iceberg
the population of narwhals
the glacier and the corals
who didn’t grow
and sometimes things that grew or didn’t grow, at different times, collectively, coordinated or uncoordinated, embraced or reviled, or none of the above:
the community
the house of cards
the lichens
the flatbread
the wine
the black hole
the Swifties
the ulcer
the cancer
the weak body
the healthy, strong body
and you
who seem unfairly content to go
to sleep
without spooning
while I sit and grow alone
listening to the calls of strange night birds.
From auto completion of “growing is…” came, “growing is lonely hoodie.”
I love this poem. Amazing that from "growing is lonely hoodie," came this!
Thanks! Wonderful prompt!
Super poem !
Thanks!
Oh wow, this one is extraordinary! I found the first part of it so immediately touching, and then somehow it could grow and grow from there! It reminded me of both the best children's book I could hope for (: and a very beloved poem called 'Alphabet' by Inger Christensen.
Thank you! I will read it!
Oh wow I love it! That ending!
Typed: “What in the”
Browser Response: “What in the Sam Hill”
[removed]
Ha! Maybe someone will give Sam Hill a hard time one of these days....You know, some of those vets may know a thing or two about fighting.
Maybe. Sams of the world take advantage of the weak.
Sam is based on someone I met in real life. Decades ago I had a car with very high miles from commuting, but it still looked quite good. I was having a hard time selling it and I stopped in at one of those side-of-the-highway used car lots and the presumable owner bought it on the spot. Cash from a wad of 100s in his bib overalls. We got to talking and he explained the "business model" I described here.
Mark, that’s insane! But so fun to read.
damn you, sam hill.
Googled, for Memorial Day: In Memory of....
Response: In Memory of Meaning.
I remember a time before today. A time when I was learning big things every day and I was sure I would make a dent in the universe, as Steve Jobs liked to say. Now I am learning small things every day. No dents, but more like polishing. Adjustments, fine tuning, enhancements. Like a musician who has long since mastered the scales and the technique but today strives for clarity of tone, flavor, personality, expressive signature, resonance, tears of joy or pain or both.
I remember a time before today. A time when it felt like our country was progressing, advancing toward a more perfect union and the pursuit of happiness. Now it feels like those who became frightened by those changes, who felt left out because to be included meant changing, or having to learn new things, or giving up seniority they felt entitled to even if it was granted or stolen. They remind me of a petulant child, throwing the chess board into the air rather than learning new moves.
I remember a time before today. A time when people agreed more (not always, but more) on what things mean, on what is true, or good, or worthwhile. Or perhaps I imagined it and the problem is me. I am trying to unravel this knot, solve this puzzle, find my spot. But the definitions morph so quickly, in a blur of egotistical noise.
I remember a time before today. A time when my brother went off to war in Iraq. And it made no sense. It was the wrong country. Who wages war in the wrong country? What is the meaning of that, other than selfish, greedy, petty grievance?
And I remember a time before today. A time when my brother returned from that war. In one piece, physically at least. And we were all grateful. But none of us have figured out what it meant, in any real sense, other than as a political stunt and corrupt money grab. It was death and destruction, loss of blood and treasure, bereft of meaning. The town he fought to liberate was retaken after his unit left, with their dead. But in order not to confront this, we tell ourselves about the heroes. The heroes we create, to ease our discomfort, at knowing what it really means to destroy.
I remember a time before today. A time when I thought it was ridiculous to think the world could descend into chaos. And I remember reading Yeats' The Second Coming and thinking it was about the past.
Learning small things every day is a wonderful way to live. Your piece here is a tough read. Things do fall apart. But, so far, good people have managed to put things back together again.
Thanks Mary. Yes, good people do get some good things done. It's just sad that it is easier and faster to tear things apart. So much needless backpedaling. But that might be the truer human condition. I'm starting to think the last 50 years is the exception. I'm one of those people that thinks climate change is maybe just what the earth needs, like a fever that wipes out the invading disease that is tormenting the host.
https://substack.com/@gurwinder/note/c-57451961?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=t3bz
I don't know if it's any comfort, but I've looked at a lot of history from the Pharaohs to the Greeks then the Romans and the Normans then xxxxx to today. Yeats wrote about the unimaginable horror of WW I, but that poem could have been written about any time since deep antiquity. And, sad to say, it's probably as forward looking as it is backward (WW 2 etc. to come). Not comforting, I guess, but there you are. People. But I liked your story so much. It shows such a sensitivity to the world, to your place in it. As long as people make their efforts, of whatever effect, it matters. Fine tuning keeps things in shape for the next person like you to carry on.
Thanks Kevin. And yes, the historical perspective you shared is indeed comforting. Knowing we’ve been through it before gives me hope we’ll get through again. The pendulum swings…it’s also a little depressing as it shows how easily we forget the lessons. Thank you for your nice comment.
You’re welcome! I was thinking about Mrs. Dalloway, too. Set at the same time roughly as the Yeats poem. There’s a scene where a plane is flying overhead, skywriting something about toffee, and everyone is agog. From the first time i read that book I thought how chilling it was that in another couple decades people would be terrified of and running from planes overhead in London. Woolf obviously didn’t know this, but we do. Resonances have such a way of sounding and resounding, and not even being resonant at first.
I loved your piece, feel the same about so much, have enough years to see these as pretty scary times. To balance that, check out fridayaction.org and sign up for The weeks good news. Free. Comes to your email every Sunday. (I help proof reading it on Saturdays. ) It's amazing the good things happening in government and around the country that are pushing back at the chaos/confusion/ straight out lies. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Thank you, Vati! (I know you were replying to Kurt, but i'm replying anyway!) That's wonderful that you're a proofreader for such a great organization. i follow Chop Wood Carry Water here on Substack, which may interest you as well. https://chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.com
Hi Vati. Thanks for the kind words and for the link.
I'm a big fan of Yeats and that poem. I've lost track of the number of times I've said "I remember when..." about this country--just the number of times in one week, actually. I feel all of this.
Thanks Angela. That poem is great, right?. I wish it didn't feel so current.
Yes, I think fine tuning every day is important, and maybe we can fail better. Maybe.
Maybe indeed. Thanks Karen.
I liked your story a lot, it's profound and unsettling. I came to US two decades ago and the transformations are palpable. I can't imagine how difficult it is to acknowledge the current dissolution of values after coming back from ("the wrong") war! Thank you for the poem suggestion, I'm illiterate poetry-wise so "The Second Coming" was a revelation.
Thanks Blimunda. I'm happy the Yeats poem was a good find for you.
Thank you for bringing Yeats into your piece.
Thanks Christine. That poem endures....
If only I hadn’t gotten a glow in the dark tattoo, I wouldn’t be standing in front of this convention of trapeze artists.
I kept the tattoo hidden under wraps, unsure that it was the right idea, and particularly unwilling to reveal that in addition to being glow in the dark, my tattoo said--Trump. I don’t like Trump. I’ve never liked Trump and I’d certainly never vote for him, but somehow the idea of putting Trump on my rump gave me that sweet satisfaction of finding the perfect rhyme. Yup. My inner five year old led me into dangerous territory.
it would’ve been my little secret just to plunk down on his name and then scrunch my butt around as if I were stomping on him like a half smoked cigarette, and that was half of the fun just sitting in my seat, squirming around and smiling.
Then came the day we put on a play in my daughter’s kindergarten class. We were doing a play of the paper bag princess. I was the dragon. She was the paper bag Princess with--you guessed it—that a paper bag on her head —which was all to illustrate that the paper bag princess was all about brains and not looks, but you could probably figure it out from the paperbag.
So there I was swishing my tail back-and-forth like a good dinosaur would do and because I had a long long zipper to get into the costume and because long long zippers are not as heavy duty as perhaps one might desire the zipper slipped, it popped open, revealing that yes I should’ve put on underpants instead of a thong, and there was lit up in neon highlights the name:
Trump.
Which wasn’t a problem for five year-olds because, of course, they couldn’t read, but they were very delighted with the light up part.
And that’s when the kindergarten teacher recommended that instead of trying to entertain five-year-olds I might be better off joining a circus, which I thought was sour grapes because I was doing a fabulous job!
Anyway I took her at her word and now I’m teaching trapeze artists to reach across a chasm that seems unbelievably dangerous and wide, and yet when the trapeze swings dizzily in view, I convince them they can cross that huge divide and swing free to the other side.
Oh man i laughed at that tattoo. She needs to head straight to a tattoo removal service. And here's hoping enough people swing free!
What a hoot! Trump on my rump.
Great fun!
Great fun! Though you could have had a fluorescent orange portrait instead of the five letters, and all the kids would have got it.
"He's the one who gets eaten by Ramarak the skullcrawler in Skull Island 3!"
What happens if…you overstay in Spain.
The guy who took my passport is still out there. Forget about Roberto. He’s not just an unreliable roommate, now it seemed he’s dangerous as well, as if that made any sense. Roberto, the buffoon who told the stupidest jokes I’ve ever heard in any language, and a guy who never does his dishes. Turns out he was the one who got me evicted. But right now, I need to track down the other one.
I went over to the Raval, not to the part that looks dangerous and isn’t. I was going to the one that was way much more dangerous than it looked, the one the taxis would not go into. That’s where my passport was.
Even though it was two a.m., the outside lights were still on at the Kentucky. I hated this bar, but I knew Xavi was working, and Xavi knew people, like, he knew everybody. I pushed open the door, and it slammed behind me. On the TV, above the liquor, was Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. Lucy, all in red, was writhing around on the bed, flashing her fangs.
read the rest here> https://open.substack.com/pub/camilahamel/p/travelers?r=1tfs3w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
oh, nice job! I read the whole story. I could feel the whole thing!
Thanks, Mary!
Great job. I followed your link and finished it. Really good.
Thanks Kurt! Could you help me out with the algo and give it a like on my page? thanks again.
Done!
Thank you very much! 🌻
I love “ forget about Roberto”. “ forget about” sounds like another cool intro for a story.
definitely worth the jump to the full story!
Thank you for reading, Kevin.
Typed - What if I asked you
Response - What if I asked you out
What if I asked you out, as a joke? Would you be offended, angry, up for it?
Your open mouth, wide eyes, say it all.
Sorry, I say, sorry. That was probably one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever asked anyone.
Your mouth closes.
You don’t have to reply. Forget I ever asked.
Can I get you a coffee?
Do you have something stronger?
You pause then open a top cupboard and show me the bottles.
Take your pick.
I nearly get out of my chair and take out a bottle of Irish whiskey but you’re standing too close, I’d have to brush past you.
Whiskey would be good. No ice.
You pour two large shots and sit across the table again.
Why did you ask me that?
I feel a blush rising from my neck, covering my whole face.
Like I said, a joke, I say feebly.
You drink your whiskey.
You mean the asking was the joke? Or did you mean the going out was the joke?
Shit. I really hadn’t thought this through. I can’t answer.
I mess with the glass on the table then take too big a gulp. It catches in my throat, my eyes watering, my nose streaming as I cough uncontrollably, sweating with embarrassment, wishing for the floor to open, a phone to ring, anything. But I sit here, spluttering and dribbling as you fetch water and tissues and smile at me, then laugh, and keep laughing.
I guess I deserved that, I say, when I can breathe again. I blow my nose.
Can we pretend this didn’t happen?
The choking or you asking me out for a joke?
You reach across the table for my hand.
Both? I say, shoving a soggy tissue into my bag.
You stroke my fingers.
That’s a shame. I think I’d like you to ask me out.
I take another drink, a small one.
As a joke? I ask.
I’m looking, I mean really looking, into your eyes now. And I see you looking, really looking, into mine.
I have some work to do now - thank you for bringing the papers over.
You stand.
If you want to call, ask me out, you know, for a joke ….
I realise I’m being dismissed and stumble for the door.
See you tomorrow, you call, as I race out of the building.
Oh, these two! Hope they figure it out! Really fun story to read.
Love this!
A revision! Vati's comment on the original post from May 27 got me thinking. New beginning, one character gone, another promoted. Here's the result.
Input: Our washing machine
Suggestion: Our washing machine squeaks
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My husband said, “You can believe me on this. This old washing machine has a week left. Maybe two. Trust me.”
My husband believes what he says. Once I asked him about his certainty, after he said he loved me, and he said he wouldn’t say it if he didn’t believe it. I said, well, maybe saying it makes you believe it, or makes you believe you believe it. How do I know, I asked, if you really love me, or if you love the idea of loving me? How about Jane? I asked. I bet you believed you loved her when you told her you loved her. So what happened to that love? I had questions he couldn’t answer.
The old washing machine had worked like a dream. It was quiet and it never gave us any trouble. But he said he believed it was on its way out. So out it was.
Our new machine squeaks during the spin cycle. The kids dance like little maniacs to its whirling and the cat pounces around like she’s chasing a mouse.
But it drives me crazy.
It drives me crazy because I believed him about most things. That’s what love is, I believed. And I believed him about the old machine.
We gave it to Jane. She loves it. She uses it every day. She uses it to wash her boys’ little league uniforms and her boyfriend’s handyman clothes. She’s been using it for seventeen weeks now.
I won’t say that the still-alive washing machine caused me to doubt my husband, but you know how a sliver of doubt can all of a sudden become a chasm? Well, I found his text to Jane. I knew they texted. They have those boys. But there it was: I don’t believe I’ve ever loved like I do now.
If I’m supposed to trust what he does believe, what am I supposed to do with what he doesn’t believe? And who does he love, or not love, like he does now? Could be me. I know he talks to Jane about me. Could be Jane, too. He once told her he believed he loved her, but he never told her he didn’t believe it anymore.
So now I have this chasm, and every time I do the wash the cat pounces and the kids dance and I go crazy.
Nice revision! (Our new washing machine is being delivered on Thursday, by the way.)
I hope it doesn't squeak.
ME TOO.
Well? Squeek?
So far, so good!
No squeak, only rattles.
It'd drive me crazy too !
From 'I love it when' :
I love it when a plan comes together. In the beginning it’s just you, sitting there at kitchen table or on the bus, or at the sticky counter of some diner, just you and the middle distance. Maybe there’s something floating out of focus just beyond your stare, a discolored old clock face or a knot of passengers flicking at their phones. But something occurs to you and you get that old feeling that this one could really be good. Then there’s the first person you tell. Your voice might crack or speed up when you tell them. But there’s something best of all to it. It’s like the first track you lay, before any editing comes in and messes things up. You haven’t yet recalibrated your telling, according to how each person has responded so far, according to which moments they held their breath or slightly raised their eyebrows. Then the second and the third tellings become a little rote, the dull smacks of footfalls one after another. But something is building already, as you get more and more habituated to letting them in on the plan.
It might be that you’ve watched too many films about it. If anyone’s livelihood received that degree of Hollywood greasepaint and glitz, of course they’d also get an elevated heartbeat when things got moving, too. And then would come the gap, after the action. Even when things broke in your favor, and everyone got paid and the fatted calf was on every hearth or the chickens in the pots or however it goes, that would be the hardest part of it. The relief always whooshed through you so fast, just minutes or hours of that bliss, but then you’d be back to the idle in-betweens. Weeks could pass that way. But then, sure enough, it would happen again. Something or other would occur to you.
yes, yes, yes!
thanks, Mary!
nice !
thanks, Karen!