1955? A still new born, late December, Middle English, still just beginning to grow to, begin to be, me.
Three generations; together in a place at a point in time; there's the marvel, for folks like I.
Last, living grandparent; I knew and smelt her; some memory suggests she was 82, widowed and long past her mothering to 9 childer that lived. Mary Cummings, out of some county west, she had been nee; Roche those many years since; looked to by my mother's, childless, twin.
Never, yet, been tempted to dig back into my ancestral past.
8 childer that also lived, siblings on my father's side. Two parents; fifteen aunts / uncles; imagine the count of cousins?
One I recall never having met; until arriving at the arrivals lounge; saying his name in greeting; his asking "How did you know me?".
"Perhaps" I suggested with little temerity "the dog collar; his Amazonian suntan; his easy Dublin bus driver's banter?"
The smile did it, before the words nailed it: "You've got me Robert, nailed band to rights, how very good to make first acquaintance!"
We shook hands; he lifted his light luggage; we departed the airport en route to burying our beloved Uncle, Frank, next day.
Never did see hide or hair of him since that next day - after the church, the graveside, then The Craic at The Wake - but do sense that he like I have carried on regardless.
P.S. Thanks Tod. Were it not for the gentle perturbations of your post I might never have found place and space to summon and share such deeply personal moments pf reflective recollection.
You start at the edges and then the lens moves in to focus on that sack and the smoke. The trophies become such a strong metaphor for letting go. So nice!
I have a collection of rocks from our travels--a few from a rocky beach in Sorrento, some that appear to be smoothed pieces of terracotta, painted on one side.
Every man, woman, and child contains a set of tiny creatures, each no larger than a nickel. These creatures control the higher functions of a human body. Without them, a person cannot dream, they cannot love or hope or desire anything beyond basic needs for food, water and shelter. These tiny creatures think of themselves as the real humans, the larger body as merely their host, but for the sake of clarity we will refer to the tiny creatures as Internals and the human-sized body that houses them as David. The Internals are all of the same suit: socially awkward with a touch of true brilliance. David would like to think that he has great days ahead for himself, but he only thinks that because his Internals have decided to imbue him with that belief. He has a job as a marketing consultant because the Internals took a vote seven years ago and decided that applying to the marketing job was preferable to the pet grooming position. The Internals tend to decide most things by vote, however, if any minority of Internal feels that their vote has consistently gone to waste by backing the wrong decision over and over, the Internals within David have agreed to allow these dissenting Internals free reign over every twentieth decision. Thus: David owns a pet ferret. Thus: David’s nose is slightly askew. Thus: David is sleeping on the couch instead of in bed with his girlfriend Sheila.
Sheila has Internals of her own. They are less homogeneous in their thinking than David’s. 25% of her Internal population are type A all the way. 10% would prefer to sleep in every moment of every day. 15% are intensely interested in the lives of others, to the exclusion of all other concerns. 20% are in love with David. 20% hate everything that David does or says. 10% are willing to be swayed by the rest of the group on any given decision. 2% are Internals originally from David who moved over after David and Sheila moved in together. There is a bit of overlap between these demographics. The 2% of David Internals also share the type A inclination, while also being intensely interested in the lives of others. The group of Internals that govern Sheila tend to have much livelier debates than the ones that govern David. From all outside appearances, Sheila takes longer to come to an important decision, but when she does, it’s usually the right one. David, by contrast, depends more on habit and instinct, always leaning toward the same places to eat, the same coworkers to make small talk with, and of course those occasional swerves into the truly absurd: attempting a backflip off a boulder while on a hike with Sheila. Eating the entire ball of wasabi at the sushi restaurant. Buying a pet ferret and naming it Jason. In times like these, the Internals of Sheila turn to the Internals from David and ask them what the logic was behind David’s latest decision and the Internals from David, both of them, shrug their tiny shoulders and say they have absolutely no idea.
Fractured. The word crackled between us. She lifted her right shoulder in a shrug.
“My craftsman won’t touch it. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t sound sorry. And the word “fractured” was still rattling its way through my brain while I searched for a response.
“What can I do?” I asked. I am certain my voice whined just a bit. Maybe.
“It’s time for a new diamond,” she said. “An upgrade.”
“An upgrade.” I echoed.
It didn’t seem right. Upgrade is what you do when your old Subaru finally wheezes its way down the driveway before the sound system quits functioning. Upgrade is what you consider doing to your old kitchen before you find out how big that project will be. Upgrade is for computers, or New Year’s Resolutions, or a trophy wife on a billionaire’s yacht.
Upgrade?
My next words were anachronistic. Predictable to the woman standing across the counter.
“But I don’t want an upgrade. This is my engagement ring!”
Her eyebrows lifted and one corner of her mouth twitched upward. An indulgent smile. The flawless stone that adorned her ring finger shot refracted rainbows to sparkle on the ceiling. A dazzling stone.
At home, I held my ring on my palm, and thought. “Fractured?” She responded by bouncing colorful prisms on my shirt and the walls. How had I managed to fracture her? Was I neglectful? Had I failed her some how?
Well. There was that time I caught her in the lead rope while trying to help a friend trailer her crazy paint horse. She faithfully sparkled on my finger through waterskiing adventures, tangled in more than a few wool mittens, and caught her share of mishaps for fifty-plus years.
She was the missile I threw at his head that one time. Snuggled in his underwear drawer for weeks before she and I accepted his apology.
Then I met him. You know how you just know you’ve met the one?
He is our one. Hers and mine. Master jeweler. Eyes that sparkled when he lifted her to examine through his loupe that first day.
“No problem,” he said.
She’s back in place. A more secure setting that befits what she represents: beautifully flawed and fractured. No upgrades.
I absolutely love this Sherri. We get to wonder about the “you,” whether is a person, a metaphor, a feeling. I’m voting for a feeling — all the clouds of doubt left in Wyoming!
They're still here in my skirt pocket, in the button envelope I've repurposed. Three petals, tired and lifeless now, but with a power no other possession can match. I'd given them to you that high summer Sunday, the most vibrant of the ones that littered the ground beneath the rose you'd so admired. I'd picked them up and placed them one by one on your flat outstretched palm. Coral, that you might travel to distant islands and discover other realms; fushcia, that the joy of early manhood would remain with you; magenta, for the harmony I wished you across the years to come. You'd blushed, chided me for syrup and slush. And I'd left and taken the petals, used them as a motif for the first collection. A motif that would continue through all the other work. And from loss and rejection, came the new realms, the consistent joy and the harmony of the spheres.
She attached a Canadian flag to her backpack, not a small patch, but a A4-paper-sized flag safety pinned to her nondescript black nylon bag. She wasn’t sure why she did it as she wasn’t particularly patriotic. She’d gone to one Canadian club meeting and thereafter avoided the hockey players and the daughter of the former prime minister because they all seemed so sincere. Despite her discomfort at its provincial associations, she didn’t take the flag off her backpack because the red and white maple leaf flapping in the wind reminded her of home as she walked alone among the brick buildings and Grecian colonnades of campus. Occasionally people would ask her about what Canada was like and she would spin sarcastic yarns about taking a dogsled across the ice pack to get back to her hometown in bumblefuck nowhere. By the end of the semester, the white parts of the flag were smudged with dining hall residue and mud tracked in to the commons. She tried to wash it so she didn’t feel guilty about desecrating Canadian nationality but when it came out of the washing machine in the basement of the dorm, the flag had turned a dull grey and a faded red. Maybe these are my true colors, she thought, as she repinned the flag to her backpack, dirt and rust. Maybe this is my new country, she thought, this barren island of loneliness of trying to fake it in a world entirely foreign to her home.
What an intriguing character you have created here--"maybe these are my true colors"--love her sarcasm and her embrace of the "barren island of loneliness." You could take this character far, Julie.
Larry hasn’t been on an airplane since 9/11. He’d never liked flying, but it’d been a thing he did like everyone else. But that changed.
He was on the Staten Island Ferry that beautiful morning and watched in horror as the towers collapsed. Like everyone, Larry was traumatized. Unlike so many, he was frozen, unable to recover. He took six months’ leave from work and then lost his job. Finally, after alcohol clearly failed, therapy and lots of medication helped him get back to some sort of normal. He can work, ride in elevators, hear loud sounds, smell smoke, hear sirens, all without falling into panic. However, there’s still no progress in flying. Ten years on and he hasn’t even been inside an airport let alone on a plane.
During that awful time of paralyzing anxiety, a friend gave him a small antique compass which was recovered from the debris in the days after the attack. Despite everything, it bore no signs of damage beyond the normal wear of the years and still pointed reliably to the North. Larry has carried it in his pocket every day since as a talisman to foster his own resilience.
Yesterday, his sister-in-law called from Maui to tell him that his brother, Tom, was injured surfing. Tom, she said, was currently unable to move his legs and it was not at all clear that this would improve. “Please come. He needs you.”
Of course, Larry made immediate arrangements, his anxiety for his brother overwhelming his fear of flying.
At the airport, he stood in line reading the sign instructing him to remove his computer from his carry-on, take off his shoes, and empty his pockets. His chest tightened. His breath became fast and shallow. His heartbeat was pounding and irregular. His vision narrowed. His hand tightened around his compass. He looked around, confirming his fear; his compass would be out of his sight while he waited in line for the scanner. It could arrive on the far side of the conveyor belt before he could get there and be snatched away by another rushing passenger.
He thinks he will faint or bolt. But then he does neither.
The next day Larry presses the compass into Tom’s hand.
I love the talisman--pointing to true north--that Larry puts into Tom's hand. Such a great ending to this piece. He panics when it's out of his sight, yet he faces what he fears and gives it to Tom. This is lovely!
It was Henry’s fondest hope to become cool, and the opportunity for such transformation occurred in the summer after graduating from high school. First, he finally got his braces off. Then he found out new kinds of contact lenses could actually correct severe astigmatism, and instantly his dark blue eyes were the first thing you noticed about him. Then, the day he turned 18 and came into the first half of a modest trust fund, he went right to the plastic surgeon and insisted that he do something about a nose that was just distractingly, shall we say, prominent. (Considering he inherited the nose from his father, it was appropriate that his financial inheritance should pay to fix it.) It was beyond miserable to breathe through his mouth for three days, but when the cotton came out of his nostrils, the relief was a joy almost as intense as seeing his new, smaller proboscis. His nose still had character, but definitely no one would ever describe him by saying, “Brown hair, short, big nose.” And he’d forgotten totally that his adenoid removal would lessen that nasal quality in his voice, not to mention, (assured the doctor) would also greatly reduce the frequency of colds, which were a constant plague. Lastly he splurged on a new wardrobe, including a leather jacket so supple and sexily cut that it felt like a second skin.
But knowing abstractly that he would probably get fewer colds couldn’t eliminate a habit he’d had since fifth grade, when his father had died, and he found himself unable to stop crying at the funeral, and there were unaccountably no Kleenex in sight. He couldn’t wipe his nose on his suit, but the sensation of the snot streaming out of his nose was so uncomfortable that he never forgot it. He just never wanted to feel that sensation again, it somehow felt like death, and he grabbed tissues automatically, always, before he left the house.
He was now “Hank” and his first week at Syracuse was an unhoped for dream. Life was so different when your good looks served as a passport. When his new roommate suggested they go out for beer, he put on his jacket, but as Brian waited in the hall, for the first time in memory, Hank did not grab any tissues. It was the final step in his transformation. Now, he was really cool.
That was the ending in my head, but there was no way I could fit it into 400 words, I was thinking that he forgot all about his tendency to cry at movies that most men don't cry at, and after that, he reverts to carrying them, because saying "Fuck It" to what others think is finally, the real ultimate "cool."
He certainly wouldn't be the first to discover that exterior transformation tends to have only temporary positive effects if not accompanied by a transformation in how one experiences oneself on the inside.
Every prompt response gets added to the idea file for the synopsis/intro to a much longer story!
Rene was walking down 5th Avenue pausing occasionally to look at the wares of the street vendors. “I have seen this street vendor before,” she thought as she paused in front of a rather huge man wearing an I Love New York t-shirt. Rene kept coming up with crickets. She fingered her bangle carefully, hitting the secret button.
Poof. She found herself standing in front of Union Station in Toronto. She picked her way along the crowded street. Thinking she would like an Ice Cream she walked up to the vending cart when the feeling hit her again. She looked at the vendor knowing she had seen the man before. This time he wore a Toronto Blue Jays shirt. She looked at him as he turned to look at her. He smiled. She reached the bangle and pushed the button once more.
Poof. She found herself standing in the winding ticket line at The Louvre. She quickly extricated herself from the line and walked towards a restaurant she knew to be a safe haven. When she reached the restaurant she was escorted to a table along the road. She pulled out her phone and called her boss.
“I’ve been trying to find you,” stated her boss. “Where are you?”
“I’ve had to move quickly. I am in Paris. I’m not sure how long I will be here. I keep running into the same guy everywhere I go,” she said as her eyes caught sight of the man from New York and Toronto walking along the street in a French National Team Jersey. She started to rise.
“Your contact will be wearing a French Soccer Jersey.”
She sat back down. “A slightly heavy guy? Beard?” she asked.
“Yes, why?”
“He is here,” she said as he pulled out a chair and sat down. She fingered the bangle and pushed the button.
Poof. Rene found herself standing at the rail of an ocean liner with her phone in her hand. “Boss, there are two of them,” she said.
“Our guy has a bangle like yours.”
She spotted her follower. With speed Rene ran at her pursuer and pushed the bearded man over the railing.
Her identical coworker approached her. “Nice work. Here are your instructions.” he said as he pushed his bangle.
“Boss, I’m coming in. We need to talk,” Rene said as she pushed her bangle.
Interesting to wonder what happened to the token. I wore the same necklace without removing it for 30 years. It's now off my neck as of last February and I still reach for it without thinking.
Every wrench, drill, screwdriver, and socket set in my father’s garage had “RCM” scratched somewhere on it—sometimes twice, in case the first one wore off.
“Who’s gonna steal your claw hammer, Dad? How can you even pull nails with it, one of the thingies broke off?” I’d asked once, squinting at the handle, which bore his initials carved deep, like a wound.
“Trust, respect aren’t given,” he muttered, tightening a bolt like it was someone’s neck. “They are only earned. And even then...”
He wasn’t loud. His anger wasn’t the storming-off, slam-the-door kind. It was steady. Built low to the ground. Cinder block solid. It didn’t creak or sway, just stood there, an edifice built, deliberately and not, brick by seething brick, over time.
We once left a screwdriver at my uncle Jack's. By that I mean, I left it, technically. “He’ll bring it next time,” I said, like a fool.
“You think it’s about a screwdriver!” he snapped, sanding a plank with more intensity than necessary. “It’s about what people take when you’re not paying attention.”
Years later, I found one of his old hammers at a church flea market. “RCM” was still there, unmistakable. I stared at it like it had come back from the war. I bought it, took it back to him, held it out like a peace offering.
He looked at it, looked at me. “Huh.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say?” I asked.
“Didn’t even know it was gone.”
“Then what was the point of writing your name on everything?”
He didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “So I’d remember it was mine. Even if I lost it.”
I leaned against the shed as he turned back to his work. The wall was cool and hard and real. And not going anywhere.
As Tod in a post on his elsewhere Substack thread wrote I too hope your trip to Japan has, is and will prove to be 'restorative'. Never been myself, but have gleaned so many striking insights over the decades from those who haven't only been but also been born and raised there before happening to meet up with me in Middle England.
Imola, it was truly life-changing in a deep way. Japan makes a person question everything. I hope to hold onto all the questions and the beauty as long as possible.
happy to hear this, Kevin. Japan really is a revelation as well as an invitation to re-examine one's life. And oh, the beauty! I'm happy to say we hit all the major tourist spots so I never have to do them again. The best part of the trip was the two weeks we stayed in Kamakura, just wandering, eating, relaxing, being.
We also went to Kanazawa and the incredibly gorgeous Kenrokuen Garden--but we were too late for the cherry blossoms. (Crazy as it sounds, my husband and his family once spent three nights in one of the small houses that are within the gardens. No one gets to do such a thing(!) but somehow....they were invited to stay.) I loved Kanazawa!
My father, who lived a long and curious life, kept a pirate’s eyeball in his pocket. “I snatched it right out of his face with my bare hand,” he would tell us, after dinner when we were sitting around the table, “that night in the terrible gale in the Bering Sea.”
I thought he said Bear-Ring Sea, until I got older and looked it up. I pictured bears on the shore in the pouring rain, standing on their hind legs in a ring, watching the battle between my father’s vessel and the pirates trying to board it.
He’d bring the eyeball out and roll it around the table, pushing aside the dishes he was delaying getting up to wash. My sister and I were delaying doing our homework. Our mother, who never procrastinated, kissed him and went to prepare for court.
My sister hated the story. “It’s the kind of story his son would have loved if he had one,” she said, “but he got stuck with girls.” Me, I loved the story. When he told it I knew he was happy, the kind of person who fights pirates and wins, with bears cheering from shore.
“I carry it with me,” he said, “for luck.”
He carried many things with him, over the years, but the eyeball never got replaced. When you got a splinter in your finger, he pulled out his silver pocketknife and sterilized it with the Zippo. “See,” he said, easing the sliver out, “the right tools make the difference.” For a while he carried one of my baby teeth around. It had been loose for a week. He sat me down, washed his hands, and twisted it right out. He rinsed it before putting it in his pocket.
When he quit his job to start his own company, he started carrying a deck of playing cards. “They help with decisions,” he said. I knew he was worried when they came out. He emptied the pack into his right hand and performed a one-handed shuffle. He’d lay them out on the table, some face up, some face down, never the same pattern. He’d stare, move one, flip another. Then he’d nod, and pack them away.
After mom died, he stopped telling stories and dealing cards. And when he died, the only thing in his pockets was the pirate’s eyeball. My sister let me keep it, for luck.
It was his cigarette smoke.
The recent winter ice stuck to the edges of the pond,
The ubiquitous rust of fallen leaves.
It was the way the branches of the oaks touch the sky in old New England,
Over a mill pond, the splashing water over the dam.
It was me at the oars of the rowboat he built.
It was after grandfather died and before I learned to smoke.
Really, it’s hard to imagine now, it was the log cabin,
It was just him and me, and a sack of trophies grandfather won in track.
Tarnished, inscribed with meters of this or that, some with glass bottoms
I could look through like a telescope, or was it a kaleidoscope.
It was smoke or mist or was it smoke or mist in the spring cool air.
I guess this is the best thing to do with these, he said.
I concurred, knowing nothing otherwise, in 1955.
It was just us, my dad and me on the dark pond in the oak woods,
Holding the silver over the water and letting go.
Amazing.
Poignant; personal pathos; pointed past pith.
1955? A still new born, late December, Middle English, still just beginning to grow to, begin to be, me.
Three generations; together in a place at a point in time; there's the marvel, for folks like I.
Last, living grandparent; I knew and smelt her; some memory suggests she was 82, widowed and long past her mothering to 9 childer that lived. Mary Cummings, out of some county west, she had been nee; Roche those many years since; looked to by my mother's, childless, twin.
Never, yet, been tempted to dig back into my ancestral past.
8 childer that also lived, siblings on my father's side. Two parents; fifteen aunts / uncles; imagine the count of cousins?
One I recall never having met; until arriving at the arrivals lounge; saying his name in greeting; his asking "How did you know me?".
"Perhaps" I suggested with little temerity "the dog collar; his Amazonian suntan; his easy Dublin bus driver's banter?"
The smile did it, before the words nailed it: "You've got me Robert, nailed band to rights, how very good to make first acquaintance!"
We shook hands; he lifted his light luggage; we departed the airport en route to burying our beloved Uncle, Frank, next day.
Never did see hide or hair of him since that next day - after the church, the graveside, then The Craic at The Wake - but do sense that he like I have carried on regardless.
P.S. Thanks Tod. Were it not for the gentle perturbations of your post I might never have found place and space to summon and share such deeply personal moments pf reflective recollection.
Some sketchy genealogies trace some family back to the Battle of Hastings. Wish we could see into those dim depths Rob.
Whoa. One of your best!
Thanks Christine.
It took my breath away, Tod. The beauty and the melancholy.
Thank you Sherri.
You start at the edges and then the lens moves in to focus on that sack and the smoke. The trophies become such a strong metaphor for letting go. So nice!
Beautiful.
Tod!!!!! OMG, how do you write like this. Beautiful lyrical language and a gorgeous story
So, so beautiful Tod!
Yes - wow.
Wow!
After a few weeks at a new school, my wife found our seven-year-old stuffing stones into his pockets.
"It's ok. I will have these friends to play with at playtime now, you don't have to worry," he told her.
I'm a bit older than your son and still keep rocks for friends. They're solid and reliable and salt of the earth types.
maybe...someone...brought home a few rocks from Ozu's gravesite...? (They are teeny tiny!)
uh huh.
oh, wow! This is so good. I am really hoping he doesn't throw those stones at anyone, but it sure isn't looking promising....
Oh no. Poop. I know that kid, so sweet, worried about other's worrying.
I have a collection of rocks from our travels--a few from a rocky beach in Sorrento, some that appear to be smoothed pieces of terracotta, painted on one side.
Such a perfect little story...
A great story in 50 words. Impressive!
Oh my.
Every man, woman, and child contains a set of tiny creatures, each no larger than a nickel. These creatures control the higher functions of a human body. Without them, a person cannot dream, they cannot love or hope or desire anything beyond basic needs for food, water and shelter. These tiny creatures think of themselves as the real humans, the larger body as merely their host, but for the sake of clarity we will refer to the tiny creatures as Internals and the human-sized body that houses them as David. The Internals are all of the same suit: socially awkward with a touch of true brilliance. David would like to think that he has great days ahead for himself, but he only thinks that because his Internals have decided to imbue him with that belief. He has a job as a marketing consultant because the Internals took a vote seven years ago and decided that applying to the marketing job was preferable to the pet grooming position. The Internals tend to decide most things by vote, however, if any minority of Internal feels that their vote has consistently gone to waste by backing the wrong decision over and over, the Internals within David have agreed to allow these dissenting Internals free reign over every twentieth decision. Thus: David owns a pet ferret. Thus: David’s nose is slightly askew. Thus: David is sleeping on the couch instead of in bed with his girlfriend Sheila.
Sheila has Internals of her own. They are less homogeneous in their thinking than David’s. 25% of her Internal population are type A all the way. 10% would prefer to sleep in every moment of every day. 15% are intensely interested in the lives of others, to the exclusion of all other concerns. 20% are in love with David. 20% hate everything that David does or says. 10% are willing to be swayed by the rest of the group on any given decision. 2% are Internals originally from David who moved over after David and Sheila moved in together. There is a bit of overlap between these demographics. The 2% of David Internals also share the type A inclination, while also being intensely interested in the lives of others. The group of Internals that govern Sheila tend to have much livelier debates than the ones that govern David. From all outside appearances, Sheila takes longer to come to an important decision, but when she does, it’s usually the right one. David, by contrast, depends more on habit and instinct, always leaning toward the same places to eat, the same coworkers to make small talk with, and of course those occasional swerves into the truly absurd: attempting a backflip off a boulder while on a hike with Sheila. Eating the entire ball of wasabi at the sushi restaurant. Buying a pet ferret and naming it Jason. In times like these, the Internals of Sheila turn to the Internals from David and ask them what the logic was behind David’s latest decision and the Internals from David, both of them, shrug their tiny shoulders and say they have absolutely no idea.
We are large, we contain multitudes. (Love this piece, William. I could see the whole thing.)
"20% are in love with David. 20% hate everything that David does or says." Ah, relationships. (Wouldn't you know I'm married to a David.)
This made me laugh, especially the two tiny internals and their every 20th decision. Nice work, William.
David's Internals could do with a reset. A backflip off a boulder while on a hike with... poor Sheila!
It's a very nice conceit, William. I wonder how far you could develop it...
Love this! I want to read more!
Thank you. It did feel, while writing, like the start of a longer piece
This is so funny. I love this way of looking at us.
This unfolds so well. Could be an intriguing concept for something longer: an examination of a relationship with “insider” knowledge.
OMG. Love this so much. What if that is what our microbiome is doing???? So good, William.
Fractured. The word crackled between us. She lifted her right shoulder in a shrug.
“My craftsman won’t touch it. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t sound sorry. And the word “fractured” was still rattling its way through my brain while I searched for a response.
“What can I do?” I asked. I am certain my voice whined just a bit. Maybe.
“It’s time for a new diamond,” she said. “An upgrade.”
“An upgrade.” I echoed.
It didn’t seem right. Upgrade is what you do when your old Subaru finally wheezes its way down the driveway before the sound system quits functioning. Upgrade is what you consider doing to your old kitchen before you find out how big that project will be. Upgrade is for computers, or New Year’s Resolutions, or a trophy wife on a billionaire’s yacht.
Upgrade?
My next words were anachronistic. Predictable to the woman standing across the counter.
“But I don’t want an upgrade. This is my engagement ring!”
Her eyebrows lifted and one corner of her mouth twitched upward. An indulgent smile. The flawless stone that adorned her ring finger shot refracted rainbows to sparkle on the ceiling. A dazzling stone.
At home, I held my ring on my palm, and thought. “Fractured?” She responded by bouncing colorful prisms on my shirt and the walls. How had I managed to fracture her? Was I neglectful? Had I failed her some how?
Well. There was that time I caught her in the lead rope while trying to help a friend trailer her crazy paint horse. She faithfully sparkled on my finger through waterskiing adventures, tangled in more than a few wool mittens, and caught her share of mishaps for fifty-plus years.
She was the missile I threw at his head that one time. Snuggled in his underwear drawer for weeks before she and I accepted his apology.
Then I met him. You know how you just know you’ve met the one?
He is our one. Hers and mine. Master jeweler. Eyes that sparkled when he lifted her to examine through his loupe that first day.
“No problem,” he said.
She’s back in place. A more secure setting that befits what she represents: beautifully flawed and fractured. No upgrades.
Ahhhh. Nice ending!
Thank you, Mary. And welcome back from your travels. How exciting!
So good Angela. I want more!
Thank you.
What a sparkling character you created and ‘she’ had great adventures!
Thanks Terry.
I didn't carry anything.
Not a suitcase, tote, handbag
no earrings, necklace, bracelets
not even our rings
plain, gold bands
I left them in the porcelain
dish with the dark orange
tiger curled inside
Not a watch
I wanted nothing
to do with time
Only you came with me
a cloud bank
filling the rear view mirror
when I drove away
Silver spiderweb
festooned between
car door mirror
and window
A small black and white
cat by a red barn door
outside Lancaster
A pink and purple tricycle
abandoned on the road
between Cumberland
and Morgantown
Smell of homemade bread
and strawberry pie
inside a scruffy diner
in western Ohio
A raggedy bent scarecrow
watching over
a weedy garden
outside Wichita
Golden dew drops
on the windshield
early morning Denver
Always receding in
my rearview mirror
to a microscopic dot
Before you disappeared
completely in Wyoming.
This is gorgeous, mysterious, full of great detail.
Thank you, Mary. By the way, The Things They Carried is one of my most favorite books. I've read it at least four times.
Same here.
I don't think i've ever read a book four times! But yes, it's a masterpiece of a book.
It's rare for me as an adult, but there's something about this one that makes me go back to it.
I absolutely love this Sherri. We get to wonder about the “you,” whether is a person, a metaphor, a feeling. I’m voting for a feeling — all the clouds of doubt left in Wyoming!
Thanks, Christine! I'm glad the ambiguity worked for you.
Gorgeous Sherri!
Thanks, Julie!
Great images of a stark leaving.
Thanks, Tod. Stark is the mood I wanted.
Full of ambiguity (.two. gold bands?) until the decision to carry nothing with you gradually pays off in that beautifully minimal road movie.
Thank you, John!
That cloud bank in the rear view mirror! I'm with Christine about clouds of doubt disappearing. This is lovely work.
Thank you, Angela!
They're still here in my skirt pocket, in the button envelope I've repurposed. Three petals, tired and lifeless now, but with a power no other possession can match. I'd given them to you that high summer Sunday, the most vibrant of the ones that littered the ground beneath the rose you'd so admired. I'd picked them up and placed them one by one on your flat outstretched palm. Coral, that you might travel to distant islands and discover other realms; fushcia, that the joy of early manhood would remain with you; magenta, for the harmony I wished you across the years to come. You'd blushed, chided me for syrup and slush. And I'd left and taken the petals, used them as a motif for the first collection. A motif that would continue through all the other work. And from loss and rejection, came the new realms, the consistent joy and the harmony of the spheres.
So well done. "A motif that would continue through all the other work." I know this well.
Glad this struck a chord, Mary.
From three rejected petals to the harmony of the spheres, some powerful medicine, Terry!
Had to finish on a high note, John :-)
A beautiful motif to carry through other work. So poetic, Terry!
Thanks, Angela
This is gorgeous.
Thanks, Sherri, kind words.
Wow, Terry, I love it.
Thanks, Sea. Generous as ever.
She attached a Canadian flag to her backpack, not a small patch, but a A4-paper-sized flag safety pinned to her nondescript black nylon bag. She wasn’t sure why she did it as she wasn’t particularly patriotic. She’d gone to one Canadian club meeting and thereafter avoided the hockey players and the daughter of the former prime minister because they all seemed so sincere. Despite her discomfort at its provincial associations, she didn’t take the flag off her backpack because the red and white maple leaf flapping in the wind reminded her of home as she walked alone among the brick buildings and Grecian colonnades of campus. Occasionally people would ask her about what Canada was like and she would spin sarcastic yarns about taking a dogsled across the ice pack to get back to her hometown in bumblefuck nowhere. By the end of the semester, the white parts of the flag were smudged with dining hall residue and mud tracked in to the commons. She tried to wash it so she didn’t feel guilty about desecrating Canadian nationality but when it came out of the washing machine in the basement of the dorm, the flag had turned a dull grey and a faded red. Maybe these are my true colors, she thought, as she repinned the flag to her backpack, dirt and rust. Maybe this is my new country, she thought, this barren island of loneliness of trying to fake it in a world entirely foreign to her home.
Oh, I feel for this girl. Something tells me she's gonna be okay, though. She's tenacious!
Missed you Mary. Glad you are back
Thank you, Julie!
What an intriguing character you have created here--"maybe these are my true colors"--love her sarcasm and her embrace of the "barren island of loneliness." You could take this character far, Julie.
Thank you Angela! I will
Larry hasn’t been on an airplane since 9/11. He’d never liked flying, but it’d been a thing he did like everyone else. But that changed.
He was on the Staten Island Ferry that beautiful morning and watched in horror as the towers collapsed. Like everyone, Larry was traumatized. Unlike so many, he was frozen, unable to recover. He took six months’ leave from work and then lost his job. Finally, after alcohol clearly failed, therapy and lots of medication helped him get back to some sort of normal. He can work, ride in elevators, hear loud sounds, smell smoke, hear sirens, all without falling into panic. However, there’s still no progress in flying. Ten years on and he hasn’t even been inside an airport let alone on a plane.
During that awful time of paralyzing anxiety, a friend gave him a small antique compass which was recovered from the debris in the days after the attack. Despite everything, it bore no signs of damage beyond the normal wear of the years and still pointed reliably to the North. Larry has carried it in his pocket every day since as a talisman to foster his own resilience.
Yesterday, his sister-in-law called from Maui to tell him that his brother, Tom, was injured surfing. Tom, she said, was currently unable to move his legs and it was not at all clear that this would improve. “Please come. He needs you.”
Of course, Larry made immediate arrangements, his anxiety for his brother overwhelming his fear of flying.
At the airport, he stood in line reading the sign instructing him to remove his computer from his carry-on, take off his shoes, and empty his pockets. His chest tightened. His breath became fast and shallow. His heartbeat was pounding and irregular. His vision narrowed. His hand tightened around his compass. He looked around, confirming his fear; his compass would be out of his sight while he waited in line for the scanner. It could arrive on the far side of the conveyor belt before he could get there and be snatched away by another rushing passenger.
He thinks he will faint or bolt. But then he does neither.
The next day Larry presses the compass into Tom’s hand.
Face your fear and do it anyway. So glad Larry made it to his brother's side.
I love the talisman--pointing to true north--that Larry puts into Tom's hand. Such a great ending to this piece. He panics when it's out of his sight, yet he faces what he fears and gives it to Tom. This is lovely!
This story had an epic quality. Great work, Deborah
Thank you!
It was Henry’s fondest hope to become cool, and the opportunity for such transformation occurred in the summer after graduating from high school. First, he finally got his braces off. Then he found out new kinds of contact lenses could actually correct severe astigmatism, and instantly his dark blue eyes were the first thing you noticed about him. Then, the day he turned 18 and came into the first half of a modest trust fund, he went right to the plastic surgeon and insisted that he do something about a nose that was just distractingly, shall we say, prominent. (Considering he inherited the nose from his father, it was appropriate that his financial inheritance should pay to fix it.) It was beyond miserable to breathe through his mouth for three days, but when the cotton came out of his nostrils, the relief was a joy almost as intense as seeing his new, smaller proboscis. His nose still had character, but definitely no one would ever describe him by saying, “Brown hair, short, big nose.” And he’d forgotten totally that his adenoid removal would lessen that nasal quality in his voice, not to mention, (assured the doctor) would also greatly reduce the frequency of colds, which were a constant plague. Lastly he splurged on a new wardrobe, including a leather jacket so supple and sexily cut that it felt like a second skin.
But knowing abstractly that he would probably get fewer colds couldn’t eliminate a habit he’d had since fifth grade, when his father had died, and he found himself unable to stop crying at the funeral, and there were unaccountably no Kleenex in sight. He couldn’t wipe his nose on his suit, but the sensation of the snot streaming out of his nose was so uncomfortable that he never forgot it. He just never wanted to feel that sensation again, it somehow felt like death, and he grabbed tissues automatically, always, before he left the house.
He was now “Hank” and his first week at Syracuse was an unhoped for dream. Life was so different when your good looks served as a passport. When his new roommate suggested they go out for beer, he put on his jacket, but as Brian waited in the hall, for the first time in memory, Hank did not grab any tissues. It was the final step in his transformation. Now, he was really cool.
Something tells me that despite the transformation, one day he's going to need those tissues again.
That was the ending in my head, but there was no way I could fit it into 400 words, I was thinking that he forgot all about his tendency to cry at movies that most men don't cry at, and after that, he reverts to carrying them, because saying "Fuck It" to what others think is finally, the real ultimate "cool."
i think the ending you came up with (due to the 400 word constraint) leads a reader to believe that he WILL need those tissues again. So... well done!
He certainly wouldn't be the first to discover that exterior transformation tends to have only temporary positive effects if not accompanied by a transformation in how one experiences oneself on the inside.
Every prompt response gets added to the idea file for the synopsis/intro to a much longer story!
That leather jacket. Just cries out for more, more, more...
Quite a journey!
Bangled Up
Rene was walking down 5th Avenue pausing occasionally to look at the wares of the street vendors. “I have seen this street vendor before,” she thought as she paused in front of a rather huge man wearing an I Love New York t-shirt. Rene kept coming up with crickets. She fingered her bangle carefully, hitting the secret button.
Poof. She found herself standing in front of Union Station in Toronto. She picked her way along the crowded street. Thinking she would like an Ice Cream she walked up to the vending cart when the feeling hit her again. She looked at the vendor knowing she had seen the man before. This time he wore a Toronto Blue Jays shirt. She looked at him as he turned to look at her. He smiled. She reached the bangle and pushed the button once more.
Poof. She found herself standing in the winding ticket line at The Louvre. She quickly extricated herself from the line and walked towards a restaurant she knew to be a safe haven. When she reached the restaurant she was escorted to a table along the road. She pulled out her phone and called her boss.
“I’ve been trying to find you,” stated her boss. “Where are you?”
“I’ve had to move quickly. I am in Paris. I’m not sure how long I will be here. I keep running into the same guy everywhere I go,” she said as her eyes caught sight of the man from New York and Toronto walking along the street in a French National Team Jersey. She started to rise.
“Your contact will be wearing a French Soccer Jersey.”
She sat back down. “A slightly heavy guy? Beard?” she asked.
“Yes, why?”
“He is here,” she said as he pulled out a chair and sat down. She fingered the bangle and pushed the button.
Poof. Rene found herself standing at the rail of an ocean liner with her phone in her hand. “Boss, there are two of them,” she said.
“Our guy has a bangle like yours.”
She spotted her follower. With speed Rene ran at her pursuer and pushed the bearded man over the railing.
Her identical coworker approached her. “Nice work. Here are your instructions.” he said as he pushed his bangle.
“Boss, I’m coming in. We need to talk,” Rene said as she pushed her bangle.
Whoa! Like a James Bond story!
Ooh. Magic bangle. Intrigue! Love this!
It seemed rather fashionable!
The Stone
The stone – small, brown, of unique shape
A gift of the Raven
Carried in my pocket for years
A symbol of connection and spirit
A token of trust and faith
Always with me – until it wasn’t
We are still connected, the Raven and I
We don’t speak as often – there is no need
I do miss the stone from time to time
Perhaps it now connects someone else to their guide
Interesting to wonder what happened to the token. I wore the same necklace without removing it for 30 years. It's now off my neck as of last February and I still reach for it without thinking.
Love the element of "there is no need" but you are still connected.
Every wrench, drill, screwdriver, and socket set in my father’s garage had “RCM” scratched somewhere on it—sometimes twice, in case the first one wore off.
“Who’s gonna steal your claw hammer, Dad? How can you even pull nails with it, one of the thingies broke off?” I’d asked once, squinting at the handle, which bore his initials carved deep, like a wound.
“Trust, respect aren’t given,” he muttered, tightening a bolt like it was someone’s neck. “They are only earned. And even then...”
He wasn’t loud. His anger wasn’t the storming-off, slam-the-door kind. It was steady. Built low to the ground. Cinder block solid. It didn’t creak or sway, just stood there, an edifice built, deliberately and not, brick by seething brick, over time.
We once left a screwdriver at my uncle Jack's. By that I mean, I left it, technically. “He’ll bring it next time,” I said, like a fool.
“You think it’s about a screwdriver!” he snapped, sanding a plank with more intensity than necessary. “It’s about what people take when you’re not paying attention.”
Years later, I found one of his old hammers at a church flea market. “RCM” was still there, unmistakable. I stared at it like it had come back from the war. I bought it, took it back to him, held it out like a peace offering.
He looked at it, looked at me. “Huh.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say?” I asked.
“Didn’t even know it was gone.”
“Then what was the point of writing your name on everything?”
He didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “So I’d remember it was mine. Even if I lost it.”
I leaned against the shed as he turned back to his work. The wall was cool and hard and real. And not going anywhere.
Love that you created this father/son story through the father's tools. "Didn't even know it was gone." Whoosh.
Love this description of his anger: built low to the ground. brick by seething brick--! And the reason for his initials--and your ending is so good!
Thank you, much appreciated!
こんにちは、戻ってきてくれてありがとうございます
Rob-san: Domo arigato! I am (mostly) happy to be back! A fantastic trip. Restorative, yes. But also mind- and heart-expanding. I can't wait to return.
Back in such full heart
Ready to return, open
Full to fresh insights
Back in such full heart
Ready to return, open
Full to fresh insights
Just for you, so you know, in modest translation: "konnichi wa 、 modotsu te ki te kure te arigatou gozai masu".
As Tod in a post on his elsewhere Substack thread wrote I too hope your trip to Japan has, is and will prove to be 'restorative'. Never been myself, but have gleaned so many striking insights over the decades from those who haven't only been but also been born and raised there before happening to meet up with me in Middle England.
I hope you had a wonderful vacation Mary!
Imola, it was truly life-changing in a deep way. Japan makes a person question everything. I hope to hold onto all the questions and the beauty as long as possible.
I was there in April and feel the same way.
happy to hear this, Kevin. Japan really is a revelation as well as an invitation to re-examine one's life. And oh, the beauty! I'm happy to say we hit all the major tourist spots so I never have to do them again. The best part of the trip was the two weeks we stayed in Kamakura, just wandering, eating, relaxing, being.
Two weeks in one spot sounds great. We hit many places in 3 weeks. Looking forward to a return someday. I posted this after returning: https://storiesbykevin.substack.com/p/beauty-and-beastliness?r=1uozuj
We also went to Kanazawa and the incredibly gorgeous Kenrokuen Garden--but we were too late for the cherry blossoms. (Crazy as it sounds, my husband and his family once spent three nights in one of the small houses that are within the gardens. No one gets to do such a thing(!) but somehow....they were invited to stay.) I loved Kanazawa!
did you know that YKK zippers are made in Kanazawa?
the best part of any journey...wandering...being
Write about it...? I'd love to hear/ read more!
Thanks for the prod, Imola.
My father, who lived a long and curious life, kept a pirate’s eyeball in his pocket. “I snatched it right out of his face with my bare hand,” he would tell us, after dinner when we were sitting around the table, “that night in the terrible gale in the Bering Sea.”
I thought he said Bear-Ring Sea, until I got older and looked it up. I pictured bears on the shore in the pouring rain, standing on their hind legs in a ring, watching the battle between my father’s vessel and the pirates trying to board it.
He’d bring the eyeball out and roll it around the table, pushing aside the dishes he was delaying getting up to wash. My sister and I were delaying doing our homework. Our mother, who never procrastinated, kissed him and went to prepare for court.
My sister hated the story. “It’s the kind of story his son would have loved if he had one,” she said, “but he got stuck with girls.” Me, I loved the story. When he told it I knew he was happy, the kind of person who fights pirates and wins, with bears cheering from shore.
“I carry it with me,” he said, “for luck.”
He carried many things with him, over the years, but the eyeball never got replaced. When you got a splinter in your finger, he pulled out his silver pocketknife and sterilized it with the Zippo. “See,” he said, easing the sliver out, “the right tools make the difference.” For a while he carried one of my baby teeth around. It had been loose for a week. He sat me down, washed his hands, and twisted it right out. He rinsed it before putting it in his pocket.
When he quit his job to start his own company, he started carrying a deck of playing cards. “They help with decisions,” he said. I knew he was worried when they came out. He emptied the pack into his right hand and performed a one-handed shuffle. He’d lay them out on the table, some face up, some face down, never the same pattern. He’d stare, move one, flip another. Then he’d nod, and pack them away.
After mom died, he stopped telling stories and dealing cards. And when he died, the only thing in his pockets was the pirate’s eyeball. My sister let me keep it, for luck.