Small Things

What I remember of her are the small things: The way she moved her hands, the sun in her hair, the way the hem of her dress curled up slightly. She would hold her hand over her eyes, shading out the sun, but letting the small breeze blow her bob around her ears.

"What are you doing?" She would ask, but not really expect an answer. It was a greeting, as close as she ever came to acknowledging that she needed someone else's company. We sat together often, usually during a lunch break or some such interval. I would munch the sandwich I brought, she would look around us, and comment on the people. I never saw her eat, which is curious; most relationships center, at least in a small way, around eating.

"I like that guy's hat," she would nod at the elderly gentleman with the fedora and long coat. "You should get a hat like that."

I rarely had a reply to that sort of thing. She couldn't possibly have meant it. I had seen myself in hats, and it was always ridiculous. At the time, I had long, red hair, past my shoulders. Hats just looked out of place.

"That woman is a racist," An unsubtle pronouncement, but when I looked up to see who she was talking about, I wasn't sure I could disagree. The lady did look rather disapprovingly at the interracial couple a few feet away from her. It could have been the overly-affectionate mannerisms they displayed, or the divergent skin colors. It was difficult to tell, and to point that out would be unnecessarily confrontational. I was never into an argument.

So, I let these little comments go, usually without a rejoinder of my own.

These are the things I recall, and little else. She seemed nice enough, and in the couple of months we played at a relationship, she displayed nothing abhorrent or terribly irresistible. So, finally, we simply stopped seeing each other. We didn't even say goodbye in any way. One day, she didn't show up for lunch, and I didn't go round her place that night to make love and examine her collection of novena candles again. I didn't see her again for another six months.

I was at a party. It was a rather large affair, held in a warehouse. Two friends of mine, a couple for a decade or more, were celebrating their anniversary. When they had a party, they tended to invite everyone they had ever known, so these affairs had long ago outgrown their apartment. One of them was an artist, and she liked to turn these parties into an art show as well. The floor was scattered with various heavy-looking lumps of bronze and iron, almost fearful to behold, in a Lovecraftian sort of way. The walls were littered with two-dimensional doppelgangers of them.

I was seated on a bench beneath one of the gigantic canvases, staring distractedly into a mostly-empty glass of gin. "That girl just had sex in the bathroom." She was standing a little to the left of me, gazing off into the crowd. I could see the woman she was talking about. She was the only obvious choice. The rest of the crowd in that part of the room appeared to have stopped doing anything remotely enjoyable years before.

"Her dress is wrinkled in the back, and her hair seems more accidentally disjointed than intentionally scruffy."

She looked down at me. Her hair was longer now, it was in her eyes, and I couldn't see the color of them. I didn't remember it. We smiled at each other for a moment, and she moved back off into the crowd. I never saw her again.

After Work by Gary Snyder

The shack and a few trees

float in the blowing fog  

I pull out your blouse, 

warm my cold hands      

     on your breasts. 

you laugh and shudder 

peeling garlic by the       

     hot iron stove. bring in the axe, the rake, 

the wood  

we'll lean on the wall 

against each other 

stew simmering on the fire 

as it grows dark

             drinking wine. 

This Is Morning

Where is the descent into the shadow?
Where the oddness of light?
This is the weirdness of morning,
the bleary-eyed stare into the middle distance.
A cacophony of uninteresting activity occupies the ears,
frustrating the brain’s attempt at lucidity.
Here is empty obedience to the body’s necessities,
and thank the Gods for that.
But then, the coffee is good, like confession and
screaming curses at the sky.
The drilling headache that follows is evidence of life,
and an opening to the news of the day.
So much for the shadow, forgotten; so much for soft light.
Bring the day’s fight! Open the Third Eye of burden!
I am awake, I am ready...

The Eternal City, Parts 18 & 19

The King of the Dead stood within his ring of stones and gazed malevolently at the southern horizon. He awaited the arrival of his shadowy ally, this ruler of trolls. A towering rage inspired him, and he thought of the many punishments he would like to visit upon the creature. They would be painful, extensive, long, and eventually fatal. But, there was one punishment that fit above all, and he would find great satisfaction in inflicting it.

“I am here,” came the voice of the shadow from near and behind him. It was still full of confidence, of insolence. It suspected nothing, another sign of its inferiority.

The King of the Dead turned and held his arm out before him, his hand tracing a small, quick gesture. Instantly, the shadowy form of the creature claiming to be the Night Spirit was encased in a transparent sphere, preventing it from moving or affecting anything around it.

“You cannot be whom you claim to be,” said the King of the Dead, a triumphant smile playing at his lips. “The Night Spirit would not be captured so easily. Not even within the confines of my own sanctuary would I have been able to do this.”

He stepped nearer the shadow. “No, you are no Fomorian at all. Rather, you are simply an upstart little spirit, playing games too big for itself.”

The shadow remained silent. It simply glared at the King of the Dead. But, something had changed. The gold of its irises, those strange little circles that seemed so out of place in the shadow changed. They were replaced with the red, slit-irised eyes of a troll. Its pupils narrowed, as if it were frightened of its own transformation.

Something happened to the shadow itself, too. It seemed to become grainy, its darkness wavering, flowing from one part of itself to another. It tried to back away, but could only reach the side of the sphere.

The King of the Dead laughed a little. “You are in trouble,” he teased.

“Tell me,” he said, turning suddenly serious. “What would have possessed you to directly take the life of a mortal? Did you not think I would know?” He put his face right up to the edge of the sphere. “I am the King of the Dead! No spirit may kill but at my command. No Fomorian, and certainly no creature less than we! It is only these little mortals who are free to do so.” As he spoke this last, he found a regret in his voice he’d not heard in a long time.

This little creature was going to suffer, oh yes. But, it would still be no consolation for allowing the last one to get away with it. He knew who she was, what she had done, and why. And he had let her go. He had done nothing, though it would have been within his power and his rights to do anything, and he would still do nothing, unless she forced his hand. Even then, he was not sure.

“Come, my little friend,” The King of Death said, reaching out toward the sphere, “let us go see the Witch.”

The little shadow’s eyes grew wide, and the depth of its darkness seemed to waver even more.


19.

“What of the man’s concubine?” Maselin asked. “Where is she?”

Gils replied, “She was found in their tent. He neck was twisted around… -er, several times.”

“Gruesome,” Maselin said, eyebrows raised. “Do you suspect the Ghok slaves?”

“It occurred to me,” Gils answered. “But, I don’t think so. They would have fled, certainly. Also, it is my understanding that the Ghoks are honor-bound to serve their captors. Something about their own culture prevents them from revolting.”

“This I have heard, as well,” Maselin agreed. “A strange death, and we may never know the answer. Steadmeet wanes, and we haven’t the time or people to question everyone who might have done it.”

Steadmeet was full of many sorts of people, not all of them simple traders. Thieves, bandits and other unsavory characters were attracted to Steadmeet also. This was only natural. Also, merchants could be fiercely competitive. Perhaps one of them seized upon this chance to remove some of the competition completely.

The girl, Kira, had asked that the Maiden remain in their care for a little longer. The Ghoks were awaiting her outside. She’d gone to see them, and Maselin decided to follow. He was possessed of a curious mind, and this was getting the better of him. It was very exciting!

Night and Sun, Eternal Distance

Distant night, violent in vaporous, artificial brightness
Empty of safety, but sleepy all the same
Draping the hills in the eternal distance
That is brought by the absence of sight
Hiding the King of Fire in danger and ignorance
And robing even the sharp-eyed in uneasiness
Brings, still, its own luminosity, unlooked-for and despised

Graceful sun, Lord of Nurture and God of Burning and Dessication
Brings a wailing, eviscerating screech
To the eye used to streetlights
But shouts a welcome, all the same
Hiding in its light the unwary and stupid
Preserving them for another feast
An audience to their fumblings and their guilt
Lighting their way to their own little destinies

Power of Words

Carey and some of our friends recently read a series of books that are in the process of being made into movies. I've not read them, and intend to continue resisting for the foreseeable future, but I have been struck by the emotional impact the books have had on some of the readers.

One hears on occasion how the power of the written word can be moving. For instance, parts of the Bible are quite beautifully written, and elicit strong emotional responses. Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, Forster, Hemingway all have moments that are very moving.

But, when naming authors who impress with their emotional impact, quite beyond the quality of their work, the above list is not out of the realm of the expected. The series of books my friends have been reading is written by Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, et al. Initially, this surprised me a great deal, as the books are written as thrillers aimed at teens. But, then I began to consider that Shakespeare's works were aimed at the common audience, and pandered directly to what the public wanted.

What the public seems to want, these days, is vampire sex. If that is what it takes to get into the head of a reader and make him/her react with something more than indifference, I'm willing to set judgement aside, and allow time and taste to decide.

I realize that this is supposed to be a literary blog, but I think this is one of the most remarkable discoveries in a very long time.

Gobekli Tepe

What goes unsaid here is that there are some beautiful friezes and carvings at this site which do not simply spring fresh from the stone-age mind. There was a period of development here that speaks of further antiquity. Ten thousand years is long enough ago, but there is a still more ancient tradition of art and religion that must have preceded this temple.