She waited at a table in the corner, alone. The contact was late. On the table, her slate glowed. A small red light illuminating her pale face. Her metallic hair aglitter. Rising, the red orb began to pulse, slow and steady in the way of breath in sleep. It felt this way, this slipping into the nether regions of consciousness, that place between wake and dream. As if one could walk between realms. And wasn’t it this way, of dying in pieces, of living with what could never be changed, of holding what could never be altered. Heavy as stone memory. So hard. To live this way. Shoulders always tired. Advice so unwelcome. For how does one leave behind the heart of identity? How does one deny the self? How does one disown the very narrative that is you?
Looking at her watch, all about glowed. A low hum of conversation, inebriated laughter, drooping eyes, clinking glass. The pulsing grew more violent. Wasn’t hard to imagine Bravo’s engines firing to life, of the crew preparing to disembark. Thoughts of Rog boiled in the gut. Visceral. This sense of being left. It was, she thought, her earliest emotional memory. Visions of her sister walking ahead, hand held by father. Her mother rushing to fill the void. Seeing her own solitary reflection in those quivering eyes, her dress dirty, hair disheveled, her mother’s hand reaching for what had already been lost. Still, no matter the number, no matter the direction, fortune or fame, that pull to the darkness remained. Woven in her very fabric. As much her as her hand. With a strength she couldn’t comprehend. Nothing but image and pain, hand in hand, of the two of them walking, neither looking back.
The waitress came, asked for her order. When she turned back, the red orb was gone. Her stomach settled on the thought, as if lead. Hollow, heavy, leaking poison slowly. Then he came. The transaction just a blur. Her vial again faithful. Removing the seal, she took a breath. Pain smiled. There would be no more hurt. No more leaving. No more anything.
_________
Kyra: Alert me as soon as Rog comes to.
Von: Will do.
Kyra: And Von.
Von: Yes?
Kyra: Thanks.
Showing posts with label Von. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Von. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Thursday, January 06, 2011
805. Quotes: 10
When you accept that you can break, that at some point you will be broken, by releasing the idea, something magical, something stronger takes hold and you find a strength previously unknown.
Von heard whispering to the boy
804. you know what
We leave tonight, said Kyra.
Why tonight? Why not tomorrow morning? asked Yul.
It will make decompression easier.
Well, I don’t like it.
You know what Yul? I don’t give a rat’s arse what you like. We leave one hour past dusk. Say what you got to say. Do what you got to do. But we ain’t waiting on no one.
I call bullshite on that.
Chill, said Rog.
I just don’t see why.
Kyra looked at Mairi. You want to tell them why?
All eyes turned to Mairi. She began with an apology. Not everything she had told them about her and Dr X was true. And for reasons she would explain later, if they didn’t leave tonight, they might not be leaving at all.
Well frail me, said Yul, storming off.
Rog looked at the others with a shrug.
Rog! Turn and tuck or you won’t have nothing to turn and tuck.
Kyra turned to Von. Can you do something about that?
Nope.
Well, try, cause I ain’t got the time nor the patience. Oh, and Von?
Yes?
Tell John I need to see him.
Why tonight? Why not tomorrow morning? asked Yul.
It will make decompression easier.
Well, I don’t like it.
You know what Yul? I don’t give a rat’s arse what you like. We leave one hour past dusk. Say what you got to say. Do what you got to do. But we ain’t waiting on no one.
I call bullshite on that.
Chill, said Rog.
I just don’t see why.
Kyra looked at Mairi. You want to tell them why?
All eyes turned to Mairi. She began with an apology. Not everything she had told them about her and Dr X was true. And for reasons she would explain later, if they didn’t leave tonight, they might not be leaving at all.
Well frail me, said Yul, storming off.
Rog looked at the others with a shrug.
Rog! Turn and tuck or you won’t have nothing to turn and tuck.
Kyra turned to Von. Can you do something about that?
Nope.
Well, try, cause I ain’t got the time nor the patience. Oh, and Von?
Yes?
Tell John I need to see him.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
797. singular summers
Kyra notes a conversation she had with Von shortly before he died:
My summers are singular. How many is hard to tell, but I feel some inexplicable calling. Mainly in dreams. He’s been coming more often. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes just holding and it is clear, he is holding me as once I held him. I see peace on his face and his voice is melodious. Our conversations, however, remain just beyond. Couldn’t tell you a single thing said. But make no mistake, these are not just dreams. There is no fear. Just a womb-like warmness where sound is muffled and light diffuse.
I listened to Von into the morning. He spoke of many things remembered and many more not. The envelope had remained unopened, and although he never spoke of it, I sensed he never made peace with that decision. Instead, the child became his life. He held nothing back, pouring himself into that newborn vessel, fueled, I thought, by his own premature parting. I left behind a grandfather. But Von left a son. I would say I understood, but I never had a child, so I never patronized him. I think he appreciated the listening. As Papa would say, one can heal a soul with the ears in ways the tongue cannot. I can’t say Von was ever healed, but I’d like to think his pain was a little less. I miss him. I miss the dignity and poise, of how he carried his sorrow.
My summers are singular. How many is hard to tell, but I feel some inexplicable calling. Mainly in dreams. He’s been coming more often. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes just holding and it is clear, he is holding me as once I held him. I see peace on his face and his voice is melodious. Our conversations, however, remain just beyond. Couldn’t tell you a single thing said. But make no mistake, these are not just dreams. There is no fear. Just a womb-like warmness where sound is muffled and light diffuse.
I listened to Von into the morning. He spoke of many things remembered and many more not. The envelope had remained unopened, and although he never spoke of it, I sensed he never made peace with that decision. Instead, the child became his life. He held nothing back, pouring himself into that newborn vessel, fueled, I thought, by his own premature parting. I left behind a grandfather. But Von left a son. I would say I understood, but I never had a child, so I never patronized him. I think he appreciated the listening. As Papa would say, one can heal a soul with the ears in ways the tongue cannot. I can’t say Von was ever healed, but I’d like to think his pain was a little less. I miss him. I miss the dignity and poise, of how he carried his sorrow.
Monday, November 08, 2010
796. night at noon
Sometimes, he said, it is hard to remember the ground when you are flying. And when you are flying, everyone on the ground looks so very small. I swear the man said everything slant. I told him this. He smiled but didn’t say anything. So I told him again. I had stopped as we were walking the beach at Valla. I still remember his gray hair blowing with the sea breeze and his white tunic flapping against his broad chest when he turned. I remember too warm water rolling over my toes then back to sea, exhaling as I could not. My ears whistling like seashells held to the wind. He knew the language of my gestures, for he knelt and smiled and motioned. The slant beam is straighter than the straight one. This is what he said. Then he bounced me off his knee, held his arms out wide and said, We have all of this. No more talk.
Von nodded, his finger sawing his lower lip. His eyes looked like wells. My words a bucket, bringing forth into light what I always thought later should have been kept in the dark. I too had learned this language, the tone of a look, the typography of a cheek either rising or falling. I have regrets. Some of which I can’t explain. I just know I sat in my chair as he sat in his, neither of us moving, neither talking. I didn’t know of time then as I do now. I didn’t know of windows and how they open only briefly before forever closing. As Papa might have said, it is hard to know the night at noon.
Von nodded, his finger sawing his lower lip. His eyes looked like wells. My words a bucket, bringing forth into light what I always thought later should have been kept in the dark. I too had learned this language, the tone of a look, the typography of a cheek either rising or falling. I have regrets. Some of which I can’t explain. I just know I sat in my chair as he sat in his, neither of us moving, neither talking. I didn’t know of time then as I do now. I didn’t know of windows and how they open only briefly before forever closing. As Papa might have said, it is hard to know the night at noon.
Sunday, November 07, 2010
795. dead as yesterday
ed note: this chapter takes place in the future from current events in the story--how far, I don't know
I said to Von that there comes a time when all that remains are fading memories. And in this barren landscape what roots is not the vine but rather a thicket of questions. He looked at me or maybe he was just looking in my direction, for I sensed whatever wheels were turning, they weren’t rolling my way. Then he spoke. What he said next I have forgotten. And this is the pain. You see, we buried Von yesterday. And all I can think is, he's dead. As dead as yesterday.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
787. ecosystems
Everything you say matters. Each word a pebble in the cosmic lake. Each ripple lapping shore. The eye sees no change. But those few molecules washed from moor, taken from sun to shade, of root less rooted, of salamander quenched. They know. The universe is nothing if not a great accounting, endless pristine spreadsheets, forever calculating.
Don't believe me? Then run. Go. And when you can run no further, where are you?
You see Kyra, a thing cannot escape from itself. And there is only one thing. Only one universe.
_________
Von, you know what I could never reconcile? My parents. On the one hand, they understood this principle better than most. Their whole life was spent studying the minute changes of clime and climate and they knew the disastrous affects of even the smallest changes. And then, there was me. How could they not know of the ecosystem of me in their world? To see so clearly in one direction and be so blind in another. I think Papa spent his life trying to make amends, a father for the son, healing two in the act of one.
Don't believe me? Then run. Go. And when you can run no further, where are you?
You see Kyra, a thing cannot escape from itself. And there is only one thing. Only one universe.
_________
Von, you know what I could never reconcile? My parents. On the one hand, they understood this principle better than most. Their whole life was spent studying the minute changes of clime and climate and they knew the disastrous affects of even the smallest changes. And then, there was me. How could they not know of the ecosystem of me in their world? To see so clearly in one direction and be so blind in another. I think Papa spent his life trying to make amends, a father for the son, healing two in the act of one.
Friday, July 30, 2010
786. brush and canvas
On Papa's nightstand was a paintbrush, chestnut lacquered handle sprouting bristles never used. It was never not there as it was not ever used in the traditional way of oil and canvas. A reminder he had said. To know of the day as canvas and of our hand as brush; and too the night, that which started the day blank, would be of yellow or red or some combination thereof, always not blank, this creation creating, of life weaving as pen writing, as brush painting.
So each day began with sunrise, of light bringing color to life. This was the natural way of all things. Know it or not know it, what started blank would never finish blank. The halls of our life lined with the work of our hand, that brush, each day creating, touching, influencing light and dark, reacting or responding, holding or letting go.
When asked by Von of the brush upon her nightstand, ever present, she smiled and said, he lives within me still and not a day goes by I don't remember the brush of my grandfather upon my life. Then she paused before adding, and the brush of my own parents.
So each day began with sunrise, of light bringing color to life. This was the natural way of all things. Know it or not know it, what started blank would never finish blank. The halls of our life lined with the work of our hand, that brush, each day creating, touching, influencing light and dark, reacting or responding, holding or letting go.
When asked by Von of the brush upon her nightstand, ever present, she smiled and said, he lives within me still and not a day goes by I don't remember the brush of my grandfather upon my life. Then she paused before adding, and the brush of my own parents.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
779. attention
ed note: conversation between Kyra and Von, on the porch of the cottage
Papa used to take me into the woods at night. We didn’t camp. Just a long walk to a clearing where we would sit in total darkness and I would see his face only by the light of stars. Sometimes we would talk and his voice, as too mine, sounded so very different wrapped in that darkness, where the voice was for you and only you, where the only thing happening was union, connection, of one person to another. In that cocoon of night, wrapped in the heavy cloak of hushed fir, there was no multi-tasking. No talking while performing some other task. No clock of a to-do list ticking away the words. No eyes looking over your shoulder to the door or upon the desk to paper. In that place, there was just him and me, a grandfather and a granddaughter, talking.
The voice is different in that environment. Sacred. The way voice is in the great cathedrals. On some nights, of cloud, there were no stars and when Papa turned out the light, you could not see your hand in front of your face. So we sat without sight, as if with the switching off of the lamp, we had switched off our eyes, becoming blind as bats. The voice then becomes everything. The darkness is absolute. And the feeling is of sea, adrift on the great ocean. And that voice, his voice, was my tether, my belay--the words, his words, washing over me like warm waves and I floated on his stories, his lessons, his ability to paint with the tongue. Those nights, just the two of us, of attention so purely devoted of one to the other, were, then and now, as fingers in the soul, gently caressing, nourishing, healing.
As you know, Papa was one to show, not tell. Yet, on those nights, from the outside looking in, with sight taken by utter night, one would think all he had was tell. (Long pause)
But all the talking wasn’t telling, was it? asked Von.
No. The talking had nothing to do with talking. The stories told on those nights have faded, some forgotten. The lesson wasn’t in the words. It was in the act. Using the darkness to connect not person to person or grandparent to grandchild, but heart to heart and soul to soul. The power of that connection, of pure unadulterated attention paid and given, was as communion solemn, of grace bestowed, of love flowing as love can only flow as if when we sat, our two energies begin to flow, circular, from opposite directions. And at some point in the night, the circle connected and where there were two energies before, now, only one. I think he knew this. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. And you know what?
What?
It didn’t have a damn thing to do with what was said.
Papa used to take me into the woods at night. We didn’t camp. Just a long walk to a clearing where we would sit in total darkness and I would see his face only by the light of stars. Sometimes we would talk and his voice, as too mine, sounded so very different wrapped in that darkness, where the voice was for you and only you, where the only thing happening was union, connection, of one person to another. In that cocoon of night, wrapped in the heavy cloak of hushed fir, there was no multi-tasking. No talking while performing some other task. No clock of a to-do list ticking away the words. No eyes looking over your shoulder to the door or upon the desk to paper. In that place, there was just him and me, a grandfather and a granddaughter, talking.
The voice is different in that environment. Sacred. The way voice is in the great cathedrals. On some nights, of cloud, there were no stars and when Papa turned out the light, you could not see your hand in front of your face. So we sat without sight, as if with the switching off of the lamp, we had switched off our eyes, becoming blind as bats. The voice then becomes everything. The darkness is absolute. And the feeling is of sea, adrift on the great ocean. And that voice, his voice, was my tether, my belay--the words, his words, washing over me like warm waves and I floated on his stories, his lessons, his ability to paint with the tongue. Those nights, just the two of us, of attention so purely devoted of one to the other, were, then and now, as fingers in the soul, gently caressing, nourishing, healing.
As you know, Papa was one to show, not tell. Yet, on those nights, from the outside looking in, with sight taken by utter night, one would think all he had was tell. (Long pause)
But all the talking wasn’t telling, was it? asked Von.
No. The talking had nothing to do with talking. The stories told on those nights have faded, some forgotten. The lesson wasn’t in the words. It was in the act. Using the darkness to connect not person to person or grandparent to grandchild, but heart to heart and soul to soul. The power of that connection, of pure unadulterated attention paid and given, was as communion solemn, of grace bestowed, of love flowing as love can only flow as if when we sat, our two energies begin to flow, circular, from opposite directions. And at some point in the night, the circle connected and where there were two energies before, now, only one. I think he knew this. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. And you know what?
What?
It didn’t have a damn thing to do with what was said.
Monday, July 19, 2010
777. feels good
Von: You see what I see?
Kyra: I do.
Von: Feels good doesn’t it.
Kyra: Feels like home. But yes, feels good.
Von and Kyra are sitting on the porch when Von brings up the subject of Trev and Em. She tells him about the night of the fireflies with Papa back on Valla, of how Love (with a capital L) is not an idea but an energy, something that exists beyond the mind while also in the mind. It is both within and without. No separation. As Papa might say, electrons don’t orbit without it. This Love has a heat signature. It becomes a force multiplier. The atmosphere takes on a charge. Cells reproduce as if in joy amplified, of life living as water flows and fish swim. When this Love is present, the air is perfumed with its drug. Even the most jaded quaff.
Kyra: I do.
Von: Feels good doesn’t it.
Kyra: Feels like home. But yes, feels good.
Von and Kyra are sitting on the porch when Von brings up the subject of Trev and Em. She tells him about the night of the fireflies with Papa back on Valla, of how Love (with a capital L) is not an idea but an energy, something that exists beyond the mind while also in the mind. It is both within and without. No separation. As Papa might say, electrons don’t orbit without it. This Love has a heat signature. It becomes a force multiplier. The atmosphere takes on a charge. Cells reproduce as if in joy amplified, of life living as water flows and fish swim. When this Love is present, the air is perfumed with its drug. Even the most jaded quaff.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
766. before the envelope
ed note: Von sits apart, envelope in hand. Not so much a journal entry as a recording of his thoughts:
I walk an edge between madness and bliss and I'm beginning to think the two are not so far apart, that what we refer to as sanity, is the illusion our minds create to protect us from forces beyond the hynerian form. So this is it. Madness or Bliss. And upon this tightrope, I feel a step away from one or the other.
What is it I want to know, need to know? What part of me is missing with the memory? What part of my heart did they take that makes me less than I was such my very footsteps call forth the hollow echo of emptiness? And too, of not knowing, from not remembering. This envelope feels as a knife to my throat, holding what pleasure, what pain, for surely it must hold both. So again I say, to what profit do I walk this road of re-creation, as if some minor god playing in the river of long ago? How many regrets do I unlock, which can never be locked again nor fixed nor corrected, unleashed to haunt me to my dying day? Yet, still, the longing to know of a hug between father and son, of the look now forgotten, of love known only to the parent, and too, I suppose the child. For this, if but the one memory of him and I, together beyond language, for this, I would risk it all.
I am under a magical spell, of a power greater than any strength I have to resist, if resisting were sought. I am upon the raft drifting to the waterfall. My eyes are open. I am not dreaming. I know where I am going. And I am powerless to stop it.
I walk an edge between madness and bliss and I'm beginning to think the two are not so far apart, that what we refer to as sanity, is the illusion our minds create to protect us from forces beyond the hynerian form. So this is it. Madness or Bliss. And upon this tightrope, I feel a step away from one or the other.
What is it I want to know, need to know? What part of me is missing with the memory? What part of my heart did they take that makes me less than I was such my very footsteps call forth the hollow echo of emptiness? And too, of not knowing, from not remembering. This envelope feels as a knife to my throat, holding what pleasure, what pain, for surely it must hold both. So again I say, to what profit do I walk this road of re-creation, as if some minor god playing in the river of long ago? How many regrets do I unlock, which can never be locked again nor fixed nor corrected, unleashed to haunt me to my dying day? Yet, still, the longing to know of a hug between father and son, of the look now forgotten, of love known only to the parent, and too, I suppose the child. For this, if but the one memory of him and I, together beyond language, for this, I would risk it all.
I am under a magical spell, of a power greater than any strength I have to resist, if resisting were sought. I am upon the raft drifting to the waterfall. My eyes are open. I am not dreaming. I know where I am going. And I am powerless to stop it.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
760. then you become
"I take it you have not opened the envelope?" asked Zoe.
"No."
"Why?"
"Fear, I think. Seems silly doesn't it. This old man, afraid of a memory."
"I would think--"
"That I would want to know my son."
"Yes."
"I do."
"So open the envelope."
"I wish it were that easy."
"Tell me what is so hard, what is the fear?"
"To remember the son is to remember the father. And--"
"He loved you Von. I've told you that. His admiration--"
"I know."
"So what is the problem?"
"What if it is not true. What if I was not the father he told you about. What then?"
Zoe stood and opened her arms. "Then you become the grandfather that makes him smile from heaven."
Friday, April 16, 2010
745: Von's Journal #10
ed note: this scene takes place just prior to Rog and Yul arriving at the cabin. How much snoot was imbibed is unknown.
Von read from his journal: When the flower opens its petals toward the sun, no words are exchanged, but everything is understood.
Yul noticed Rog grinning. Don't say it. Don't even think it.
Whaaaa--? said Rog, finger twisted, an awkward grimace replacing his quaidesque smile.
Von, said Yul, please continue.
Von read from his journal: When the flower opens its petals toward the sun, no words are exchanged, but everything is understood.
Yul noticed Rog grinning. Don't say it. Don't even think it.
Whaaaa--? said Rog, finger twisted, an awkward grimace replacing his quaidesque smile.
Von, said Yul, please continue.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
727. John, Rog, Yul and a Vial
John: How does it feel to be a grandfather?
Von: Life begets life. Feels like that. And of Kyra?
John: Perhaps the same. She is handmade, of lavender with a touch of bergamot.
Von: Soothing.
John: Stimulating.
Von: A glass of amber?
John: Like old times.
Von poured, glasses clinked and again with the pouring and again with the clinking until each toast rose as candlelight into the night and tongues painted stories amongst the stars and all that was missing they decided, was Rog
John: Hey Rog, where are you?
Rog: In bed.
John: Well get your arse down here.
Rog: (Looks at Yul who can overhear the conversation) Don't think that's such a good idea.
John: What?
Rog: I said--
John: I heard what you said. Put Yullie on the phone. (Rog hands phone to Yul) Hey Yullie.
Yul: Frail you.
John: You had your chance.
Yul: Whatever. Rog ain't coming.
John: Sounds personal.
Yul: Yeah. Frail you. Rog ain't leaving this room.
John: Even if I told you I had a vial?
Von: Life begets life. Feels like that. And of Kyra?
John: Perhaps the same. She is handmade, of lavender with a touch of bergamot.
Von: Soothing.
John: Stimulating.
Von: A glass of amber?
John: Like old times.
Von poured, glasses clinked and again with the pouring and again with the clinking until each toast rose as candlelight into the night and tongues painted stories amongst the stars and all that was missing they decided, was Rog
John: Hey Rog, where are you?
Rog: In bed.
John: Well get your arse down here.
Rog: (Looks at Yul who can overhear the conversation) Don't think that's such a good idea.
John: What?
Rog: I said--
John: I heard what you said. Put Yullie on the phone. (Rog hands phone to Yul) Hey Yullie.
Yul: Frail you.
John: You had your chance.
Yul: Whatever. Rog ain't coming.
John: Sounds personal.
Yul: Yeah. Frail you. Rog ain't leaving this room.
John: Even if I told you I had a vial?
Thursday, October 29, 2009
692. Von's Journal #9
Do good work. Then move on.
Hold nothing longer than necessary; especially ideas.
When you have nothing left, everything is possible.
Nothing is more true than music. Not even math.
Nothing interferes with communication like language.
If it doesn't come like leaves to a tree, it better not come at all.
To grow, give; to live, love.
Forgive often; start within.
Hold nothing longer than necessary; especially ideas.
When you have nothing left, everything is possible.
Nothing is more true than music. Not even math.
Nothing interferes with communication like language.
If it doesn't come like leaves to a tree, it better not come at all.
To grow, give; to live, love.
Forgive often; start within.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
686. I don't know why
Papa, how does Goldie work?
I don't know.
But you built her. How can you not know?
What she was in my hands, and what she is now, two different things.
But--
No buts. We could take her apart. Deconstruct her. Lay out all the pieces and examine them in the closest detail. Then lovingly put her back together. And still, Goldie is something other.
I don't understand.
Then work harder.
But--
No more questions!
"You know Von, I don't know to this day if he was teaching or just angry. And I'm not sure why it bothers me, all these years later that I don't know."
"Why do you suppose?"
"I don't know. Perhaps because I think he was angry. With me. At me. And, on certain days, I can't carry the thought."
"I know these thoughts."
"Yeah?"
"Like lead. Heavy. Poisonous."
I don't know.
But you built her. How can you not know?
What she was in my hands, and what she is now, two different things.
But--
No buts. We could take her apart. Deconstruct her. Lay out all the pieces and examine them in the closest detail. Then lovingly put her back together. And still, Goldie is something other.
I don't understand.
Then work harder.
But--
No more questions!
"You know Von, I don't know to this day if he was teaching or just angry. And I'm not sure why it bothers me, all these years later that I don't know."
"Why do you suppose?"
"I don't know. Perhaps because I think he was angry. With me. At me. And, on certain days, I can't carry the thought."
"I know these thoughts."
"Yeah?"
"Like lead. Heavy. Poisonous."
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
680. forlorn
Von stood before the port window as a mountain in the last days of winter, his balding head buzzard unkept. His eyes held the years like pristine lakes, full of fish grown, of moss covered banks, and trees of fir, heavy of rain, of thickening sap, of a drooping sadness. Kyra watched him scratch his head, those galvanic fingers, watched him lost in thought in the way of a father wondering where he went wrong, alone in a solitude beyond the travelled path. He wore his whey robes as he did on most days, the folds from a distance looking still as marble, museum quiet, where whispers were ecclesiastical and feet walked as if the ground itself were alive. She had thought Trev would have taken the leaving of Mairi the hardest or perhaps Em in the knowing look of Trev's eye; but it was Von, now, who stood as one forlorn, as a shepherd without a herd, abandoned even of dog.Four weeks it had been and not a word. The restlessness of orbit thickening the air; pettiness became as bubbles, as froth, drivel and dross and dreck. Still, he stood, seeming to fly above the squabbles, holding his comm in his palm, rubbing it like a rock.
"Von?"
"Yes."
"Talk to me."
"I hear talk of leaving."
"Idle chatter."
"Show me a tree and I'll show you a root."
"We're not going anywhere."
He shook his head. We never made eye contact. There was no need.
++++++
Rog rolled over, his teeth gently raking Yul's lobe. "Want to go on-world?"
Yul arched her back, her shoulders fitting the groove of his collarbone. "Sure. But first, tell me about the dock."
"I've told you everything."
"No, I don't think so."
"Yep."
"Nope."
"I'm gonna spank you."
"Is that what she said?"
"Who?"
"Susan."
"What are you talking about?"
"So you were her little whore. And then somehow, a lowly ranch boy, your brother too, got a ticket off-world. Just like that."
"Yeah."
"Bullshiott."
"You don't believe me?"
"How did you get your paper?"
"None of your business."
"You frailed her for it."
"You're crazy."
"You frailed her day and night, like a young plow in old soil."
Rog shakes his head.
"And she got you a ticket."
"Maybe."
I knew it! You whore."
"You complaining?"
"Show me."
"Show you what?"
"How you did it. How you frailed your way off-planet. I can't imagine it was just any kind of frailing."
"Well, maybe it wasn't."
"You liked it didn't you?"
"Liked what?"
"Being good enough to earn your keep."
Rog began to answer. Yul put a finger to his lips. "No more words. Close your eyes. Earn your keep."
++++++
"I need the cottage," said Em.
"Kyra says no one is allowed on-world," said Trev.
"I'm not asking."
"Oh."
"Do what you have to do."
"Really?"
"I need stone, under foot. Tall lazy grass, the sun on my face. An old roof, one bedroom and a bed to wake the birds when you ply my waters like a man needing a son."
Trev sighed. "Wait here. I'll see what I can do."
"Trev?"
"What?"
"I'm not interested in seeing."
"What? Oh. Right."
Monday, October 05, 2009
679. can you see
Kyra sat on the bridge, alone, the flow of the universe washing over her. As if waves on the beaches of Valla. As if she were canvas and Papa's brush the nebula. She listened the way one listens to wheat in the field, or crickets at night, or even to the ticking of a clock in a still house."What are we looking for Papa?" asked Kyra.
"We're not," said Papa, his canvas blank, brush in hand. "Life is not about looking. If I could I would pluck the vile jelly, such deceit does it weave."
"What are we doing then?"
Papa drew breath and stood a little straighter. His white tunic, pristine among the brandonian oils, white as his canvas against the blue ocean beyond. "To look is to deny our reality, to step from the flow that we are part and parcel, to facade, pretend and traffic in stories. We don't want that do we?"
Kyra turned her nose up. "Sounds to me like you are talking too much. And showing too little." She crossed her arms, mimicking his stance.
"Is that so?"
"I think it is."
"What pray shall you have me do?"
"Paint."
"But my canvas is blank and I don't know what to do."
"Put paint on the brush silly. And put the brush on the canvas."
"But what shall I paint?"
Kyra smiled, took the brush from his hand and began to stroke blues and reds and yellows across the canvas. When she finished, she stepped back, hands on her hips. "There. That is how you do it."
"Yes. I think it is," said Papa. "Do you know what you have done?"
"Knowing is overrated."
Papa laughed.
"As you always told me, any fool can hold a thought."
"True."
"But what you see here, my dear Papa, no pun intended, is . . .
"Kyra? Kyra? Can I have a word with you?" asked Von.
"Certainly. What's up?"
"Tracking device is in place and working."
"Good. Keep me updated. I want to know the moment anything goes other than it should."
"Of course."
"Oh, and Von, does she know we're watching?
"No."
Sunday, July 19, 2009
677. Vertical
He sits across from me, balding with shoots of wayward gray looking all the much like a baby egret. I watch him scratch his head and I smile at the habit we have all grown accustomed, a comfort, these habits, a sanctuary in the familiar. I ask him what he knows in age that he wishes he had known then. Vertical he says. I would have spent less time seeing more and spent more time seeing deeper, forgetting quantity, forsaking the horizontal wanderlust as if what mattered could be ledgered in passports and postcards. And, he added with another unconscious scratch, figured out how to love a woman more than I did, to mine the depths of her need, her core, such to know her, to know her and only her and in that knowing, in that depth, perhaps have discovered the love she proclaimed never to have for me; and, in that way, given Ceru what his own son will never have, two parents. But I suppose one parent is better than none. I nodded and he says no more but just looks at me until I nod again and we both go back to wherever we were before, sitting side by side, two worlds apart.
Monday, July 13, 2009
669. something changed
Von raised his amber glass and returned it clear. A slight scorching of the throat, this waterfall of fire into the gullet, spirit dancing in the nose as the eye. "Tell me what changed?"Kyra looked up like one upon waking from a sleepless sleep. She stared at Von as one stares in a mirror after some absence, seeing what should be familiar look strangely unfamiliar. He tilted his balding head and raised one gray brow.
"When?"
"When you had blood on your hands and the number slain were as stars in a dark sky." His voice trailed, hand unsteady on the bottle and again his glass returned to a golden hue. "You've never spoken of the matter."
"No one has ever asked."
Von inhaled his drink allowing the fingers of libation to widen his eyes. "I'm asking. Something changed. Very subtle. And I can't put my finger on it."
"I don't know. But I feel it too. Felt it. As if I'm not alone. My hands have never looked the same. The images of that night are like cobwebs, the kind that no matter how many times you sweep them away, the next day, they're back. I remember losing control in the way that a gear slips; in the way that once it slips the first time, you always wonder when it will slip again; such that the canvas of my days is hued with crimson memory and my actions governed from the dais of an event long ago. So, I suppose, I live with a multitude whereas before, there was just the clutch of Valla, Papa and I, and life was good. And simple."
"And now?"
"Nothing seems as it was. And as it was seems another lifetime. My days dim as night in the way of a life rotating once every forty years, has turned a shoulder to the sun. An accumulation of debt greater than the days to repay it, for how does one repay a life taken. Or several dozen for that matter."
"Do you want me to answer that?"
"No."
"I didn't think so."
"Fill my glass and let us drown our answers."
Von poured. They drank.
"By the way, has Mairi spoken to you?"
"About leaving?"
"Yep."
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