The captain's angular face, a rugged, solid, worn, chiseled, and handsome block of granite, looked as if he had been born facing into the wind. Worn buttery smooth by employ like an old trusted saddle and tanned golden brown by sea and sun, the captain didn't look, he glowed, as if behind his soft glaucous eyes hung the inviting light of a porch lamp. Falling around his weathered visage, as oak leaves in autumn twilight, titian locks belied his age. From the crevasse of his furrowed brow, a nose, neither large nor small, rose as a majestic alp on his gorgeous stone façade, with a sign below, written in white chalk, advertising fresh snizzle on a cold day.When the captain smiled the room seemed, rather the world felt, a safer place, a place children know before adults burden them otherwise. His ivory teeth were straight and, upon retraction of his erythraean lips, appeared to spill forth hope and belief, catching light and gleam of female imagination. He was tall without looking tall, lean as a work horse, a build and bearing that spoke of dignity and quiet command. His hands were like mitts, soft when needed and hard as nails on task. One did not shake the captain's hand as much as slip into a calorific pocket of gentle welcome as inviting as the aroma from the kitchen of a small town chef. His ears were large with lobes like nickles, and according to Em, reminded her of elephants. So as horse to jockey, she recalled, on the open deck and fresh sea air, father carried daughter, legs secured under loving paternal stirrups. With deep laughter echoing a young girl's giggles, he would gallop to and fro as her hands directed his every move with tender but firm rein of his soft, and she smiled, large lobes.
The captain was a Hynerian of considered patience with a mind that saw horizons before horizons could be seen. He had married young, married dreams pregnant with expectations of a life marked in smiles full and bellies bare, of unshod feet with wiggly toes, of pastures verdant and trees generous of fruit and leaf. They had tried; Janus knows they tried, to raise seed in barren soil. Miscarriage followed miscarriage, disappointment stacked like so many uneaten pancakes upon the cold numb plate of fate blind to orison. The table of their dreams filled not with giggling youth and bright eyes but of empty chairs and taunting silence. In his mind they might well have been tombstones silently, coldly, mocking the hubris of bride and groom. And then came Emy; a gift born of relentless determination, of desire unquenched by the frigid waters of failure. A good child, as she would be known.
And now, some twenty years hence, father and daughter stood hand in hand as the last of the evening's guests bid farewell, drunk with food partook and aching of smiles shared. The captain had put his best foot forward remaining strong and certain, as often he had done on the sea before the wrath of nature come. Em started to turn for bed when he called her name.
"Emy? Join me in the study."
14 comments:
Some chapters come easy and some come kicking and screaming, mainly kicking and screaming at the author, which in this case, be me. In other words, this chapter beat the hellocks out of me, so damn it, read it, and weep, if not for Em, for the aching head of the one who gave birth to these multitude of adjectives, as raucous as triplets before feeding time. :-D
hi there tree :)
how's life been going on? pray everything is well. you seem to be doing alright, looking at the way you write. i might be wrong..
keep writing, and i'll keep reading.
God bless,
Meg~
:-D
Now what fun would it be, if it were always easy. ;-)
It may have cost you, hours and a headache, but you also wrote a great chapter. Becomes another part of this very interesting and unique experience of watching the author as he creates, to read this knowing that. Doesn't change what is on the page, or rather, had you not said, I'm pretty certain nobody would have guessed, and it makes one appreciate the whole writing process as work as well as an enjoyable expression of creativity.
At first the top paragraph was so different to me, but having read through to the end, starting again, it fit as snugly, and more than the simpler (for lack of a better word) version.
The description of the captain is full-bodied. Just phenomenal. So many fabulously expressive metaphors and similes that paint a portrait so warm and rich, do vibrant and colourful, by the end one had fallen, I had fallen, for him completely. Here in the comments page now, looking back, to think of Em's father is to feel anew the warmth that he emitted.
Strangely, this comment is difficult to write too. :-D For I want to be very sure that I tell you just what a marvellous picture you have created of this man, and yet you know what you wrote, so how does one do that. Perhaps it has something to do with older faces, faces where the years are written to use a familiar cliched expression, reminding of faces seen in life, smiling eyes and crinkles at the eyes that promise us they were always that way. The life behind the faces, the years behind the person, a million moments and emotions, knowing that that person has seen and heard and felt, lived, but not what, at least not in detail, but still there can be enough of a story in the lines to get a feeling for things that lie behind, and not just the face, the eyes add to the story, the way in which they carry themselves, how they approach, how they occupy the space around them, their aura I guess would tie up most of that. I see faces sometimes and what I see there makes me want to stay, to curl up and watch, listen if I were lucky.
..:-D, you have described such a face, but you've given more that just the description, there is reason too. Impossible for me to word, other than to go back to that first sentence and say once again that your description was full-bodied.
Reading this I leave with two overwhelming thoughts, a great affection for the captain and a renewed sense of awe at your proven talent. Loved this chapter.
Pure bliss reading this, obviously wasn't writing it, :-), so thanks as always but more so this time are in order.
Sweet dreams, I'll have coffee ready. :-)
That is one wave I wouldn't mind being caught in. A mind wave.... that
s what the image inspires.
Have some time today, and though I will try not to flood your inbox, I know also that when you write chapters such as this one, thoughts will come in waves and on other occasions, I'm just not here to be tempted into writing them in a comment.
You have something quite unique here, most stories are told with a beginning, a middle and an end, most chronologically, most centre around a single character or a single event (or just a few), few are of the epic proportions that this tale is. Though to be fair, if one were writing on the sleeve of a book, this would be the journey of one hynerian vessel searching for a new home, and everything else is just extra information. But it is the wealth of this extra information that makes this story so substantial, so full-bodied. With each new link back, each new parrallel, each new bit of information that fits so seemlessly within the whole, the thought that the story arrives bit by bit is a mind-boggling thought. From the outside looking in, as one part joins the one that went before to become more, it is testament to the mind that creates this story, the talent and the depth, that it seems as though it had been played out, every detail slotted into place in a final picture, before the first chapter was ever posted. Seemless, like a jigsaw puzzle, to use yet another metaphor with high frequency, there is very much a sense of and it is very much proven thus far reading, of thousands of small pieces, each with crucial detail, that although the final image is far from complete, the wholeness of it is known. Not sure if that makes sense, but I just had a flash of that famous image coming through the post today, and realized to compare is the easiest way to rephrase properly the above. One life therein, lots of little pictures that make up the sum of what is the main picture so to speak. Each post is a singular part, one can take it aside, take as it is, something complete in itself, but to see it in between all the others (and those yet to come), is something infinitely special.
Anyway, starting the above was just meant to lead directly in to a comment about Em and her parents, that in the space of two chapters, you showed us first the relationship between mother and daughter and then between father and daughter, not free of pain, but full of love. In mentioning the miscarriages, in knowing that in the present Em is alone, these are idyllic moments not an idyllic life, more perfect for their flaws so to speak. Knowing, and more importantly being reminded of the fact that life has it's ups and it has it's downs, knowing in this case some of what went before and some of what comes after, these chapters could not have served as better reminders to count one's blessing, to make the most of them. To see each of her parents, in different ways, sharing a special moment with Em, and to know by way of how natural they are that these were just individual moments in a long line of them.
The letters to her father, her chain, we knew that she loved them, missed them, and now we know why, we were treated to a glimpse. And again I moved away from my intended point for all the while, in relation to the links back, the parallels, the very real connections that hold not just the chronological events together, but the now with the then by way of who these characters are, the sum of everything that went before. I like very much, though like is perhaps not the appropriate word, that mother and daughter share the knowledge of what it means to believe, or rather fear, that they will never have a child.
There is just such a depth to your writing, to your characters, that it feels as if they are real, that through your writing we are getting to know them as well as we could anyone (unfinished though that process is), somehow you have an ability to show the essense of a character early on, clear as day, and everything that comes after only defines what is already there.
Connection is the keyword, for us, for them, something always came before, something always comes after. To tell a story that incorporates that, that through it's characters shows us how we are all essentially the same, lost for words from the beginning of the first commet to the end of this one though you wouldn't know it from the count, in short, this is an amazing story. You are amazing.
Gosh! that must not have been easy to write for sure!
That is one hell of a hard work!but the result is profound fluidity of a wonderful description!
I love the way you have written this!This is ART!
Ah, Tree, the Captain sounds wonderful !
Makes me want to be around him, have grown up with him, hang on his every word, and enjoy his laughter...
I look forward to learning what he and Em will talk about --
Annie, the captain is a good man, the kind of man that is larger than life, that makes the rest of us look as children on the stage of events. He would have welcomed your company and would have had some very nice things to say about you and your heart. :-)
Thanks for the sweet and kind words. Always appreciated. :-)
Mona, you speak to my heart in ways I wish I knew how to articulate. Thank you my friend. You are what blogging is all about and I feel fortunate to have crossed your path. Keep the faith. Good shall triumph, because we will write the history, as Churchill said. :-D
Or something like that. :-D
Chicky, you are a blogging wave unto yourself. We will probably never meet, but if I could have a cup of tea with a blogger, you would be on my list. I fell for your mind a couple years ago but the dagger in my heart is seeing the real pain you feel from some unknown and unseen bastard that makes no contribution to the greater good. Thinking of you my friend. Stay the course. :-)
Meg, I am doing as well as I could reasonably expect and my basket of gratitude overflows with the comments of friends like yourself place such gifts on my morning nook.
Blessing to you to Meg. I saw your pictures, by the way, and you look as beautiful and gorgeous as ever. Take care. :-)
Sweetest, your comments leave me speechless. For the last several weeks a posted chapter would bring a comment or two in the night so imagine my surprise when I woke, took my morning stroll down the beaches of Valla and found, deposited before me as so many pieces of gold glittering in the sun, several priceless comments. Comments like these, I feel as young lovers, in that the words themselves could feed and clothe me. :-)
As for the characters, I want us to care about them, I want them to pull and tug at our hearts and minds, I want them to leap off the page as clearly as a neighbor. If I'm getting close, then I am humble as a redouble my efforts not to let the story slip from my fingers. :-)
Thank you :).
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