(Story) A Million Miles From Home (approx 700 words)
Art
Have you ever been sick out in a public place alone? Sick to your
stomach
and sick to your soul, no one with you to bathe and drown you in
unwanted sympathy, say at a modern roadside cafe, like McDonald's,
well no, not /like/ McDonald's but /at/ McDonald's. Modern, clean,
friendly, a nice Play Land for the kids. Out on the great highways and
byways of America. And there you are, as sick as a dog, as if dogs
ever get this sick. Close enough to the bowl to smell that particular
brand of disinfectant that is used in all McDonald's throughout the
world. Maybe you've got botulism or something. Anyway you're in the
stall, and in between dry heaves you hear the sounds on the other side
of the wall. The low and high giggles of the girls behind the
counters, the lazy speech of the fry cook drenched in Yo's and Dude's.
The manager barely keeping his cool as he is the only one back there
who cares if the job is getting done or not. Sally we need fries up.
John, when you finish there I need for you to go out and get the
tables. You only catch snippets and snatches of the conversations and
then your stomach reminds you of why you are stuck here. The skin is
cold and the nausea deep down in the groin, bricks and snakes bouncing
around in there with every labored breath you take. Your body has
never betrayed you quite like this before and you wonder just exactly
how sick you really are.
You hear the groans of the trucks. Ennnnnnnnnrughhhhhh. They rush by
outside. Ennnnnnnnnrughhhhhh. And you realize that the sound of a
truck
passing by on the road, those trucks that have 18 wheels and are as
big as a ranch styled house, well, the /sound/ of those trucks has
supplanted the sound of a train passing in the distance, a very lonely
sound you remember hearing as a kid. Somehow (you never were able to
quite figure out why) the sound of those trains in the distance were
melancholy and sad, the sound would make your heart ache. Kind of like
a wind chime, which you don't really hear unless /you/ get really
quiet. Like those times you're already feeling introspective and
you're feeling especially alone, and then you realize you are
listening to the wind chimes. And...well...there is something poignant
about the melodyless melody of a wind chime; Like a sigh; Like a train
in the distance; Like an 18 wheeler rushing by on a superhighway,
hurrying to some destination that is important enough to hurry to,
coming from someplace you may have never been in your life and rushing
off to someplace you may never go.
Ennnnnnnnnrughhhhhh.
And in the exhaustion and the pain you realize that the whole world is
going on around you, and you are truly a stranger. Their lives, their
work, their destinations have nothing at all to do with you and, the
way you feel right now you could very well die here in this stall, or
collapse and have someone discover you in 20 minutes or so. To die in
a strange bathroom on an unfamiliar causeway, surrounded by people who
are only like you 'cause they speak the same language and wear the
same type of clothes. When they look in your wallet they won't know
how to pronounce your last name and none of them will know that you
have a cat, nor what her name is, and none will know that the cat will
need to be fed soon if you don't make it back home.
Ennnnnnnnnrughhhhhh...Ennnnnnnnnrughhhhhh.
It would all go on without you. It wouldn't even skip a step.
Ennnnnnnnnrughhhhhh. It hits you some people have died just like that,
and it doesn't even make the paper. They die; they died and no one
even knows what a tragedy it was. Perhaps it wasn't, really. What's
tragic about taking out the garbage or turning off a light switch?
Pretty soon the pains subside and you decide you will probably live,
after all. You walk out of that stall a new man in more ways than
anyone might expect.
The next day you call her.
---
Art McNutt
Svira Kurcu
I've been saying for 20 years that the only problem our human world has
is too many people. As soon as it becomes possible for even two people
to be strangers to each other, a whole world of possibilities opens up.
Disfranchisement and life outside the loop of society becomes
possible, as does living outside the rules. It becomes necessary to
pass laws and hire police. That is the theme I think your flash touches
on. It's a theme worth exploring, because it really seizes things by
the root after the lush foliage above ground has distracted everyone and
made us lose ourselves in minutiae and details.
Your piece is quintessential flash, if one interprets flash to be a
moment sliced out of time and laid bare. It effortlessly digs down into
the philosophy of an ordinary-seeming moment, and despite its strong
theoretical content, it isn't tediuus for even a second. I enjoyed
reading this piece. Thanks for posting it.
Your style of indicating emphasis is unusual. Most of the time,
emphasis is carried by the structure of the story and doesn't need to be
made explicit, so I would cut out the slashes completely. Otherwise, no
nits; the piece is technically sound.
This quarter's issue of Flashquake, the electronic magazine, which is a
modest paying market, actually has an editorial praising the kind of
writing you do here - taking an ordinary event and making it come to
life. I'd consider polishing this thing and submitting it in the
nonfiction category (with the last one-sentence paragraph chopped out).
Wish I could think of detailed comments that would improve this piece,
but none come to mind. The thing is damned near perfect. Hope the
comments I did make have been helpful.
the Whistler
Mike Bandy
A Million Miles From Home. Good title. I remember feeling like that
(when I was young and unmarried). Wishing my mother were there.
Wondering how long I'd lie dead in my apartment before someone
discovered me. Wondering why I was wondering. After all, what
difference would it make to me. My point is that you're writing (in a
very engaging manner) about a common experience -- being sick and
alone (existential matters).
I like many of your expressions: "Sick to your stomach and sick to
your soul," "Melodyless melody," the allusion to one's body as a
traitor. Rather than, "They die; they died ... ," I'd just say,
"They died... ."
"Go out and clean the tables" sounds more normal to me than "Go out
and get the tables." I could be wrong, though. In the previous
sentence, you stated, "Sally we need fries up." I like the
conversational tone displayed in this sentence. However, I believe
you need a comma after "Sally." I know, I can be trite. I can also
be wrong.
"The next day you call her." Not bad. Perhaps it would have had more
effect if she had been mentioned in passing in the sick person's
thoughts. I don't know. I do know I enjoyed the story.
I have a question about the slashes. I know that we're writing in a
medium where we can't format words as we would on other occasions.
How does one use the symbols: *Underlined*, _italisized_,
/boldfaced/. Am I guessing correctly?
--
Mike Bandy
Svira Kurcu
Mike Bandy wrote:
> "Go out and clean the tables" sounds more normal to me than "Go out
> and get the tables." I could be wrong, though. In the previous
> sentence, you stated, "Sally we need fries up." I like the
> conversational tone displayed in this sentence. However, I believe
> you need a comma after "Sally." I know, I can be trite. I can also
> be wrong.
People who have gotten feedback from professional editors can confirm
this, but I understand that they're very picky about things such as
"Sally, we need fries up," and look at it as a sign of a writer's
command of English. If it's true, I support it wholeheartedly. A
writer who thinks he deserves to be published should be a master of the
language he writes in, and mastery is reflected in little things such as
comma placement. So nits (as comments on punctuation, etc., are called
here) are not trite at all. They're valuable comments.
> I have a question about the slashes. I know that we're writing in a
> medium where we can't format words as we would on other occasions.
> How does one use the symbols: *Underlined*, _italisized_,
> /boldfaced/. Am I guessing correctly?
When do you believe that underlines, italics, and boldface are
necessary? I prefer to let the word placement in my sentences take care
of emphasis.
the Whistler
Mike Bandy
> Mike Bandy wrote:
<snip>
> > I have a question about the slashes. I know that we're writing in a
> > medium where we can't format words as we would on other occasions.
> > How does one use the symbols: *Underlined*, _italisized_,
> > /boldfaced/. Am I guessing correctly?
>
> When do you believe that underlines, italics, and boldface are
> necessary? I prefer to let the word placement in my sentences take care
> of emphasis.
That's a good point. We should rarely use those formats for emphasis.
They serve other purposes, though. The titles of books used to be
underlined, but word processors apply boldface directly. Foreign
language phrases should be italicized. One might say, "The box was
marked 'Fragile,'" but "Fragile" may be italicized rather than in
quotation marks.
--
Mike Bandy
Svira Kurcu
Mike Bandy wrote:
> That's a good point. We should rarely use those formats for emphasis.
> They serve other purposes, though. The titles of books used to be
> underlined, but word processors apply boldface directly. Foreign
> language phrases should be italicized. One might say, "The box was
> marked 'Fragile,'" but "Fragile" may be italicized rather than in
> quotation marks.
Plain text newsgroup messages - which is what I was told I'm supposed to
post - are the real problem. I recently posted something containing the
Italian word "cornuto," which doesn't exist in English, and left it as
plain text. I couldn't decide how to italicize it. The way I was used
to is using asterisks - *cornuto* - but people tripped over that.
Another way would be underscores - _cornuto_ - and another would be
plain quotation marks. I guess it's your call.
the Whistler
Art McNutt
Svira Kurcu wrote:
> Mike Bandy wrote:
>
> > "Go out and clean the tables" sounds more normal to me than "Go out
> > and get the tables." I could be wrong, though. In the previous
> > sentence, you stated, "Sally we need fries up." I like the
> > conversational tone displayed in this sentence. However, I believe
> > you need a comma after "Sally." I know, I can be trite. I can also
> > be wrong.
>
> People who have gotten feedback from professional editors can confirm
> this, but I understand that they're very picky about things such as
> "Sally, we need fries up," and look at it as a sign of a writer's
> command of English. If it's true, I support it wholeheartedly. A
> writer who thinks he deserves to be published should be a master of the
> language he writes in, and mastery is reflected in little things such as
> comma placement. So nits (as comments on punctuation, etc., are called
> here) are not trite at all. They're valuable comments.
A human without a language is weaponless and defenseless in this world.
Absolutely it should be "Sally, we need fries up."
The narrator of the story is doing so in a conversational tone. I wrote
this as informally as possible, but never meant to make egregious
punctuation mistakes--except as a way of conforming to the tone. This was
not intended here.
My mistake.
>
>
> > I have a question about the slashes. I know that we're writing in a
> > medium where we can't format words as we would on other occasions.
> > How does one use the symbols: *Underlined*, _italisized_,
> > /boldfaced/. Am I guessing correctly?
>
> When do you believe that underlines, italics, and boldface are
> necessary? I prefer to let the word placement in my sentences take care
> of emphasis.
In another story I recently posted, is this line:
"Perhaps it had all changed while he was away."
Context is certainly important to how the reader will read this sentence.
Out of context, most likely the reader will emphasize it this way:
"Perhaps it had /all/ changed while he was away."
The context follows in the next few paragraphs. By following in the linear
sequence, I feel it is sometimes necessary to foreshadow the supporting
context with italics--this way the reader is not led astray by how he/she
would normally read a particular sentence.
Hence, I wrote:
"Perhaps it /had/ all changed while he was away."
Which is how I intended the reader to emphasize the sequence of words.
Italics are certainly important to painting a conversation, if nothing
else. Speakers use many communication techniques which a writer cannot.
Gestures, intake of breath, variations in pitch and volume.
Punctuation, line breaks and italics are tools which can manipulate the
/expression/ of what is being said much better than merely describing the
speaker's actions. It takes fewer words and nails down the exactness of
what is being expressed. I extend this beyond conversation in my stories
for my own ends, rightly ot wrongly.
Not to say I don't overuse the concept of italics. Yet it is a conscious
effort to control the reading of the story. This may be something more
important to poetry than prose, but I believe whenever you can take control
the reader, you /should/.
---
Art
Art McNutt
Svira Kurcu wrote:
> Art:
>
> I've been saying for 20 years that the only problem our human world has
> is too many people. As soon as it becomes possible for even two people
> to be strangers to each other, a whole world of possibilities opens up.
Well, yes. But the only available alternative is a rather gruesome one,
don't you think?
:-)
>
> Disfranchisement and life outside the loop of society becomes
> possible, as does living outside the rules. It becomes necessary to
> pass laws and hire police. That is the theme I think your flash touches
> on. It's a theme worth exploring, because it really seizes things by
> the root after the lush foliage above ground has distracted everyone and
> made us lose ourselves in minutiae and details.
Disfranchisement is indeed the theme of the story. However, the key to the
piece is in the found solution; Which prompted the writing, so to speak.
However, I can imagine feeling disfranchised in a troop of thirty or so
Cro-Magnons; Not quite fitting in as I watch them dance around the fire,
singing of the hunt; Not quite sharing their enthusiasms, nor their fears.
I certainly felt this way in the troop of Cro-Magnons I grew up with.
The problem is only /amplified/ by modern medicine and sanitation, which
allows millions to live as neighbors. It is certainly not /created/ by
those conditions.
Crowded inner cities have existed both as closely-knit communities and as a
cold conglomeration of disaffected strangers. The difference, I am certain,
is in the generally accepted philosophies of the inhabitants. The
difference in these philosophies boils down to how they approach the
intrinsic value of human beings. Other human beings.
This difference can clearly be illustrated and exemplified by one's
relationships with the opposite sex.
That girl you walked away from because of the thousand reasons you gave
yourself can be the key to everything that lies in front of you. /She/
cared about you, you moron. /She/ wanted to start a family that would "tie
you down," lock you into a job, keep you from feeling free to take out that
really hot girl you're yet to meet somewhere, sometime.
Fact is, you're not that lovable. You stink, you're grumpy, you're sloppy,
and you're only special to /you/--And lately, not even /that/--This is why
you hurry through the torture when you're forced to look at that asshole to
shave his face.
In other words, aloneness is a self actualized condition. You can be a part
of anything you /wish/ to be part of--but this will require the
surrendering of your self. Not such a bad thing, given a certain
conglomeration of conditions.
Trite when you explain it baldly like that. Perhaps not so trite, as I
tried to explain it in this Flash story.
>
> Your piece is quintessential flash, if one interprets flash to be a
> moment sliced out of time and laid bare. It effortlessly digs down into
> the philosophy of an ordinary-seeming moment, and despite its strong
> theoretical content, it isn't tediuus for even a second. I enjoyed
> reading this piece. Thanks for posting it.
>
> Your style of indicating emphasis is unusual. Most of the time,
> emphasis is carried by the structure of the story and doesn't need to be
> made explicit, so I would cut out the slashes completely. Otherwise, no
> nits; the piece is technically sound.
>
> This quarter's issue of Flashquake, the electronic magazine, which is a
> modest paying market, actually has an editorial praising the kind of
> writing you do here - taking an ordinary event and making it come to
> life. I'd consider polishing this thing and submitting it in the
> nonfiction category (with the last one-sentence paragraph chopped out).
>
> Wish I could think of detailed comments that would improve this piece,
> but none come to mind. The thing is damned near perfect. Hope the
> comments I did make have been helpful.
Well, you've certainly got me self-conscious about my free-wielding use of
italics.
:-)
Thanks for reading and your kind comments.
---
Art
Art McNutt
Mike Bandy wrote:
> arty_...@yahoo.com (Art) wrote in message news:<f2998b70.03100...@posting.google.com>...
>
> A Million Miles From Home. Good title. I remember feeling like that
> (when I was young and unmarried). Wishing my mother were there.
> Wondering how long I'd lie dead in my apartment before someone
> discovered me. Wondering why I was wondering. After all, what
> difference would it make to me. My point is that you're writing (in a
> very engaging manner) about a common experience -- being sick and
> alone (existential matters).
Yes!
>
>
> I like many of your expressions: "Sick to your stomach and sick to
> your soul," "Melodyless melody," the allusion to one's body as a
> traitor. Rather than, "They die; they died ... ," I'd just say,
> "They died... ."
>
> "Go out and clean the tables" sounds more normal to me than "Go out
> and get the tables." I could be wrong, though. In the previous
> sentence, you stated, "Sally we need fries up." I like the
> conversational tone displayed in this sentence. However, I believe
> you need a comma after "Sally." I know, I can be trite. I can also
> be wrong.
I believe I've heard it expressed just that way: "go get the tables."
I'm not terribly happy with a couple of things I've tried to communicate in this section. I think I'll
have a listen for a while as I'm in fast-food places, and then rewrite it. I realize now that /one/
sound I should have described is the beeping fries timer. This sound permeates the fast food experience.
Pulling off at a McDonald's to get sick is something I've experienced. I've also walked into public
restrooms and seen this happening to others. A strange feeling I wished to explore--but the details are
important--and even when these things happen to you, it's possible to forget many of them.
The comma was a bad on my part. Note trite at all. My feelings are not important here, politeness isn't
either--it is the mechanics of writing and my story's ability to communicate which are important.
Writing is a difficult endeavor, to say the least. If I'm not tough enough to take criticism, I'm not
tough enough to write.
>
>
> "The next day you call her." Not bad. Perhaps it would have had more
> effect if she had been mentioned in passing in the sick person's
> thoughts. I don't know. I do know I enjoyed the story.
>
> I have a question about the slashes. I know that we're writing in a
> medium where we can't format words as we would on other occasions.
> How does one use the symbols: *Underlined*, _italisized_,
> /boldfaced/. Am I guessing correctly?
There doesn't seem to be any /one/ convention. For me, /slashes/ are italics, and ALL CAPS are boldface.
the *asterisk* and the _pseudo-underline_ are visually distracting, and different writers here at Usenet
use them different ways.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
---
Art
Svira Kurcu
Art McNutt wrote:
>
> Svira Kurcu wrote:
>
>
>>Art:
>>
>>I've been saying for 20 years that the only problem our human world has
>>is too many people. As soon as it becomes possible for even two people
>>to be strangers to each other, a whole world of possibilities opens up.
>
> Well, yes. But the only available alternative is a rather gruesome one,
> don't you think?
Ya. We are all kinda forced to struggle on with what we have been
given. Any person who favours the alternative should be asked: "Given
all your sad history and flaws, would you agree to eliminate yourself
from any future utopia?" Sometimes I'd answer yes to that question, but
most of the time I want to continue living and make the best of the
present and future, regardless of the past. At extremely glum or
extremely upbeat moments, I think: "This would be a perfect time to die,
so where is that heart attack?" The rest of the time, I would resist
death. You will note I'm not even going to consider the idiots who see
themselves as perfect and want to model utopia after their own natures.
Such people, who almost exclusively appear in fiction and not life,
are beneath contempt.
> Disfranchisement is indeed the theme of the story. However, the key to the
> piece is in the found solution; Which prompted the writing, so to speak.
>
> However, I can imagine feeling disfranchised in a troop of thirty or so
> Cro-Magnons; Not quite fitting in as I watch them dance around the fire,
> singing of the hunt; Not quite sharing their enthusiasms, nor their fears.
> I certainly felt this way in the troop of Cro-Magnons I grew up with.
I'll defer to your experience, then. It's nice to find out that I've
been wrong about something fundamental for a long time, because then I
can rethink it.
> In other words, aloneness is a self actualized condition. You can be a part
> of anything you /wish/ to be part of--but this will require the
> surrendering of your self. Not such a bad thing, given a certain
> conglomeration of conditions.
I find managing relationships to be a very delicate business. People
learn how to do it only through bad experience. You give your heart
once, get burned, and learn to keep some part of yourself in reserve. I
often find the screaming totalism of the young a turnoff, and can
remember when I was young and affected older people that way. Those who
have surrendered their self once rarely do it twice. The trappings of
self can be shared, but the core must be inviolate.
> Trite when you explain it baldly like that. Perhaps not so trite, as I
> tried to explain it in this Flash story.
Thanks for giving me more insight into what you were trying to do.
You've mostly succeeded, but if I were treating the same theme I would
have written a completely different story.
> Well, you've certainly got me self-conscious about my free-wielding use of
> italics.
Hey, if it's how you write, don't be false to it just because people
don't like it. You *can* impose your taste on the reader if the taste
makes sense to adopt. Your other message goes into great detail on that
point, and I've learned much from it, but need to digest it before I can
respond with anything other than thanks.
> Thanks for reading and your kind comments.
Hey, happy to have read your piece. Hope to see more.
> Art
the Whistler
Carter8882
Very good first AFO entry. The description is great, and as I read it, several
trucks passed by. I can attest that you have correctly spelled the sound.
If I were to make any suggestion at all it would be about the last line of the
piece. I know it's meant to be a punch, but a good punch needs to be set up,
no matter how subtly. I'd say, work a reference to *her* somewhere in the
first three or four sentences of the piece. Maybe our hero is throwing up
after a forbidden all-night bender? Maybe he's throwing up because he's going
to propose? I don't know, it's your story. But set *her* up in the beginning
and your punch will have more resonance.
Scott
Alaric McDermott
You use the last line to make it a story, but I think that comes too
late. The thread of his involvement needs to be built in rather
earlier. Otherwise we're left with a superbly written life experience.
Not that I didn't enjoy it. I most assuredly did. You create the
loneliness with such precision I can only hope it's not dredged from
experience.
arty_...@yahoo.com (Art) wrote in message news:<f2998b70.03100...@posting.google.com>...
Art McNutt
Alaric McDermott wrote:
> An excellent piece, Art, although I'm not exactly sure it's a story.
> You use the last line to make it a story, but I think that comes too
> late. The thread of his involvement needs to be built in rather
> earlier.
I'm not sure it's a story, either. Other than the resolution, which I hope says more than I wrote.
Several have complained that there is no reference to "her" until the end. I'm not a democratist, yet
this plurality gives me reason to rethink it.
For me, on rereading, the obvious cause of the despairing loneliness is the missing "her." Being what we
are, this is the only way it /can/ be. If we are alone, we are alone by choice. The only solution is to
call her back, or go see her, or ask her if she's busy Saturday Night--even if it means giving up
something in return.
> Otherwise we're left with a superbly written life experience.
> Not that I didn't enjoy it. I most assuredly did. You create the
> loneliness with such precision I can only hope it's not dredged from
> experience.
Loneliness is experience we /all/ share, one way or another. I've lived alone, sure. It's a condition
not so fraught with emptiness as some fear. You have to be an active companion to yourself to not fear
aloneness. You have to not be afraid of /yourself/ to not fear being alone.
"From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were — I have not seen
As others saw — I could not bring
My passions from a common spring —
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow — I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone —
And all I lov'd — I lov'd alone."
--Edgar Allan Poe
On the other hand, I called her.
---
Art
Seymour Grass
| Your piece is quintessential flash, if one interprets flash to be a
| moment sliced out of time and laid bare.
I knew there was something about it that struck me as having less the chief
elements of a short story, and yes, all the essential earmarks of "flash"
are certainly there, the trite ending, the all too easily spewed ruminations
of the middle, and the beginning, an inspiration that might have amounted to
something had the writer the gumption to work a real story out of it.
Had this story been designated like, [Flash] I might have been saved this
detour into the shit-stall and found rather, a real story to read. I should
have thought that a person who has shown the critical acumen of this fellow
should have known better. ;-)
Flash is trash. Make no mistake about it. It's strictly from Neophyte City.
Dilettante diarrhea. It's lazy, unmarketable indulgence of mere talk, a
typing exercise that doesn't rise to the essential elements which make a
story a story.
This has been your daily lesson in writing from the terrible Mr. Seymour,
children. Now put away your silly kid games and learn how to GET TO WORK.
--
John http://jpdavid.freewebspace.com/
http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/520b8/
"On the day when a young writer corrects his first proof-sheet, he is|
proud as a schoolboy who has just got his first dose of the pox."
Baudelaire: _Intimate Journals_.
Seymour Grass
"Art McNutt" <webm...@ci-pac.org> wrote in message
news:3F8CE335...@ci-pac.org...
Some change of the earlier text follows . . .
| "Svira Kurcu" <viathna...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
| news:41Bfb.8051$op2.8...@news20.bellglobal.com...
| | Your piece is quintessential flash, if one interprets flash to be a
| | moment sliced out of time and laid bare.
|
|| I knew there was something about it that struck me as having less than
the chief elements of a short story, and yes, all the essential earmarks of
"flash" are certainly there, the trite ending, the all too easily spewed
ruminations of the middle, and the beginning--an inspiration that might have
amounted to something had the writer the gumption to work a real story out
of it.||
|
| Had this story been designated like, [Flash] I might have been saved this
| detour into the shit-stall and found rather, a real story to read. I
should
| have thought that a person showing the critical acumen of this fellow
| would have known better. ;-)
Alaric
I'm not a democratist, yet
> this plurality gives me reason to rethink it.
>
> For me, on rereading, the obvious cause of the despairing loneliness is
the missing "her." Being what we
> are, this is the only way it /can/ be. If we are alone, we are alone by
choice. The only solution is to
> call her back, or go see her, or ask her if she's busy Saturday
Night--even if it means giving up
> something in return.
Yep. A sense of circularity would definitely help me enjoy the piece as a
reader, though. Maybe one early reference.
>
> Loneliness is experience we /all/ share, one way or another. I've lived
alone, sure. It's a condition
> not so fraught with emptiness as some fear. You have to be an active
companion to yourself to not fear
> aloneness. You have to not be afraid of /yourself/ to not fear being
alone.
You're right. I'm alone most of the time, but lonely IS a different state.
Alaric
"Seymour Grass" <JP...@VirtualTourist.com> wrote in message
news:bmju5g$n43v6$1...@ID-167346.news.uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Svira Kurcu" <viathna...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:41Bfb.8051$op2.8...@news20.bellglobal.com...
> | Your piece is quintessential flash, if one interprets flash to be a
> | moment sliced out of time and laid bare.
>
City.
> Dilettante diarrhea. It's lazy, unmarketable indulgence of mere talk, a
> typing exercise that doesn't rise to the essential elements which make a
> story a story.
I'm not a fan of flash - or rather, I don't write it. I've READ good flash -
but it never fully satisfies me unless it's centred on a social or political
point. A character piece normally just makes me want more. A tricksy flash
lets me see the author's hand clearly. But I've seen MANY good stories
around the 1,000-1,500 word mark.
Quadpus
>
> I'm not a fan of flash - or rather, I don't write it. I've READ good flash -
> but it never fully satisfies me unless it's centred on a social or political
> point. A character piece normally just makes me want more. A tricksy flash
> lets me see the author's hand clearly.
Yes! We hates the tricksy flasheses!
Alaric
"Quadpus" <qua...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:dufrovc6jal55i3re...@4ax.com...
PISS OFF. YOU'RE NOT HAVING THE RING BACK.
Seymour Grass
"Alaric" <alar...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:bmketv$n94$1...@hercules.btinternet.com...
| I'm not a fan of flash - or rather, I don't write it. I've READ good
flash -
| but it never fully satisfies me unless it's centred on a social or
political
| point. A character piece normally just makes me want more. A tricksy flash
| lets me see the author's hand clearly. But I've seen MANY good stories
| around the 1,000-1,500 word mark.
Yup. Well, it may be that my judgment sounds pretty harsh, but there is a
purpose to it which goes to this most recent flap respecting Doc's views on
password protection: I instructed the former holder of the archive to keep
my stories out of it, whether this is yet being honored or not, I don't know
but the point is that when it comes to any art, the market is every bit so
essential as the talent required to fill it with product. Art is a very
squishy product as it is characterized by infinite mutability, a potential
of infinite length. Except the market is there to keep the artist from
indulging that mutability to no end, then the work of art is never done.
You hear these silly poets who say that no poem is ever finished. Well,
that's why they can't eke out a living from their art because the real world
dimension of time is not a part of their product, and when there is no
deadline, no orientation to the real world then art becomes a mere form of
onanism that has no relation to other people.
What's this got to do with "Flash"? Flash, even more so than poetry, is
rarely marketable and so it requires nothing from the writer compared to
what is marketable--the immense effort that a novel, a movie script or play
demands. What is the market? It's Hollywood, movies, so novels and plays
remain good market material because there is a decided demand them for them
even quite beyond the bookstores. There's big money in novels so
novel-writing is a viable and valuable art form.
A writer should not get the idea that by writing "flash" he is in the least
way exercising the sort of stuff in himself that either will or will not
reveal him for an *author*. A novel, a play, a screenplay, that is the test
which separates the poseurs from the producers. People who say they write
only for the fun of it most often demonstrate by their work that it's a lot
more fun for them than it is for the reader, and that's because no standard
of excellence is there to guide the writer's hand into a region of art where
his work does indeed become a reader's play. Too often the reader is left
to imagine the work that a less than serious writer has left undone. I have
little or no patience for such stuff, simply because the market permits me
no time for it, and that is why you won't see me entering any of these
challenges, as also I have to wonder where y'all get the time away from your
serious efforts for it--or how could you take any pride in a product, the
very formative elements of which were not your own but the ideas of that
person who is setting the requirements? Oh, you can talk about the
"collaborative" nature of film art till you're blue in the face, but this is
rarely anything that a writer of screenplays loves to see as whole elements
of his creation are bent beyond recognition, and so often against his own
taste or appreciation. Someone, an actor, I forget which, just recently
said, "Collaborative art? Bullshit. The movies are a director's art, the
art of a dictator, and there's no damn "collaboration" involved." And what
would the director say? "The movies are a producer's art . . . " and so it
goes up the food chain.
I hold to my view: until a writer has shown himself adequate to the most
demanding tasks of the writing craft by producing something of real girth
and substance, his "flash" efforts are a dilettante's art and really do not
bear being regarded seriously. On the other hand, such a great hand as that
of V. Nabokov has been turned to short fiction to great effect, but let it
be borne in mind that his talent for that genre is informed by all he learns
from tackling the greater genre.
P.S. Would you mind reposting your Aztec story, and the Holocaust piece so
I can finish those reviews?
--
JP
Miki Kocic
Art McNutt wrote:
> Several have complained that there is no reference to "her" until the end. I'm not a democratist, yet
> this plurality gives me reason to rethink it.
Sorry, you're not a democrat? Do you therefore believe the western
world should be ruled by oligarchies that rotate their members in and
out of elected office? If so, you've got your wish; that really is how
the west has always been governed. There is less difference between a
Democrat and a Republican congressman than there is between identical
twins - they're both bloated moneybags with questionable personal
ethics. But I personally liked the hereditary aristocracy of the
Kennedys until the Bushes went and spoiled it for me with their own.
My country, Canada, has been an irresponsible dictatorship for at least
a decade. The so-called "prime minister" has been bored by the idea of
taking away people's freedoms and instituting a reign of terror, and
that's the only thing that has saved us from one. But he has been busy
using public money to create for himself a gargantuan pension fund that
is out of the reach of public scrutiny. His trained seals, jocularly
called "Members of Parliament," belong in the worst period of the Soviet
Kremlin. At least the bastard retires in February 2004. I don't put it
past him to start a nuclear war so that his successor has nothing to
take over.
I'm not a democrat either because democracy doesn't exist and never has.
But I am firmly convinced that all politicians are parasites who
enslave others to grow their wheat, mill their grain, bake their bread,
and set their table while they play their filthy, sheltered, clued-out
social games. I think they should all be stranded on a deserted island
where they can abuse each other rather than the rest of us.
Thanks for reading this far if you have.
Miki
Art McNutt
Miki Kocic wrote:
> Art McNutt wrote:
>
> > Several have complained that there is no reference to "her" until the end. I'm not a democratist, yet
> > this plurality gives me reason to rethink it.
>
> Sorry, you're not a democrat? Do you therefore believe the western
> world should be ruled by oligarchies that rotate their members in and
> out of elected office? If so, you've got your wish; that really is how
> the west has always been governed. There is less difference between a
> Democrat and a Republican congressman than there is between identical
> twins - they're both bloated moneybags with questionable personal
> ethics. But I personally liked the hereditary aristocracy of the
> Kennedys until the Bushes went and spoiled it for me with their own.
What I /said/ is I'm not a /democratist/. In other words, I don't believe the majority opinion is
necessarily more legitimate than the minority opinion. On the contrary, if you see what I mean.
I wasn't talking politics, but I believe that what you complain of is related to the Tyranny of the
Majority. Something we've been chaffing under for about 27,000 years, now.
Even Oligarchies rule by the consent of the majority.
Being from Canada, a Socialist State (the Mild to Medium Flavor), you should understand that before you
criticize George Bush, in order to do so, you'll /also/ be criticizing 46% of the electorate, as they are
all solidly behind most everything he does (look it up). If you wish to criticize a prominent Democrat
(Note: Big "D") then you are criticizing the 47% of the electorate on board that particular Agenda (look
it up).
Hell, if ya wanna delude yourself into thinking Gulf War II was about oil and Haliburton, then you gotta
realize that about 79% of the American Electorate thought that Haliburton's interests were good enough to
start the bombs afallin'.
You see, democracy, being what it is, we usually get the leaders we deserve. For good or ill.
One of the reasons I prefer a Republic.
>
>
> My country, Canada, has been an irresponsible dictatorship for at least
> a decade. The so-called "prime minister" has been bored by the idea of
> taking away people's freedoms and instituting a reign of terror, and
> that's the only thing that has saved us from one. But he has been busy
> using public money to create for himself a gargantuan pension fund that
> is out of the reach of public scrutiny. His trained seals, jocularly
> called "Members of Parliament,"
Hey, cool! A fan!
George Clinton (no relation) was the front man for /Parliament/. "The Prime Minister of Funk," as they
used to call him. Personally, when it comes to Funk Music, I prefer old /War/, but the wife is a big
/Parliament/ fan. She dances around the house with her headphones singing "I got the P-Funk. Uh huh!"
> belong in the worst period of the Soviet
> Kremlin. At least the bastard retires in February 2004. I don't put it
> past him to start a nuclear war so that his successor has nothing to
> take over.
>
> I'm not a democrat either because democracy doesn't exist and never has.
> But I am firmly convinced that all politicians are parasites who
> enslave others to grow their wheat, mill their grain, bake their bread,
> and set their table while they play their filthy, sheltered, clued-out
> social games. I think they should all be stranded on a deserted island
> where they can abuse each other rather than the rest of us.
>
> Thanks for reading this far if you have.
>
> Miki
'S'okay, I have a nurse's stomach.
Hope you feel better now that you've gotten it out of your system.
Drink plenty of fluids, and get lots of rest. You'll be good to go by morning.
---
Art
Art McNutt
Seymour Grass wrote:
[snip]
> Art is a very squishy product as it is characterized by infinite mutability,
> a potential
> of infinite length.
Hey, I resent being called "squishy."
>
>
> I hold to my view: until a writer has shown himself adequate to the most
> demanding tasks of the writing craft by producing something of real girth
> and substance, his "flash" efforts are a dilettante's art and really do not
> bear being regarded seriously.
Artists spend years painting fruit on a table. This isn't great art. It is,
however, how they later /arrive/ at great art.
I posted two short stories here, One was a Flash Story, the other was a more
traditional genre. Both, for me, were experiments. The beauty of Usenet is I
didn't have to waste an editor's time to find the results of those experiments.
> On the other hand, such a great hand as that
> of V. Nabokov has been turned to short fiction to great effect, but let it
> be borne in mind that his talent for that genre is informed by all he learns
> from tackling the greater genre.
I've only been here a short while, but I find many of these stories worth the
time and effort to read; Some, even to comment on and criticize.
The idea is that there is a writing muscle between our ears. The challenges are
exercises for that muscle. Nothing could be /more to the point/.
This is a writing Dojo. This is a practice hall; a chancellery. People come
here to write and discuss. Train.
What you're taking about is out there on the front lines. If you can take this
pebble from my hand, it's time for you to leave (and go out there on the front
lines).
---
Art
Seymour Grass
|
|
| Seymour Grass wrote:
|
| [snip]
|
|
| > Art is a very squishy product as it is characterized by infinite
mutability,
| > a potential
| > of infinite length.
|
| Hey, I resent being called "squishy."
<g>
|
| >
| >
| > I hold to my view: until a writer has shown himself adequate to the most
| > demanding tasks of the writing craft by producing something of real
girth
| > and substance, his "flash" efforts are a dilettante's art and really do
not
| > bear being regarded seriously.
|
| Artists spend years painting fruit on a table. This isn't great art. It
is,
| however, how they later /arrive/ at great art.
Nope. Great art is not "arrived upon" it is not a place, it is a project,
the skill for which is learned by study of the works of those who have done
it, and then by the work of doing it to find out how much work it really
is--and we are talking a lot of work. But you might say that it is "arrived
upon" in one sense only, when an artist arrives upon the realization that
the harder he works, i.e. the more laziness he banishes from himself the
more he develops the habit of working well--thus not the art, but the
understanding of how much work is involved to create it is arrived upon by
nothing other than doing that hard work, not the easy work of "flash" but
the hard work of real short stories, novels, scripts; to develop the habit
whereby it becomes more like easy work, fun work, work done on auto-pilot
but no less work, alwell. Rather a taste for more work is what is learned
and nothing less, a love for even harder work becomes the work that is the
more fun.
But we're not even talking about "great art", Art. Rather, we are talking
about what any author of the cheapest pulp fiction novel can do, which is
what an author of 'flash' does not do, which is to set his hand to the
writing of a real story, novel, play, or screenplay. You don't learn how to
write a novel by writing flash, any more than by talking on the telephone or
reciting the alphabet. To learn novel writing you must read many novels and
then write one. But if you'd like to learn how to talk on the telephone,
write some flash.
|
| I've only been here a short while, but I find many of these stories worth
the
| time and effort to read; Some, even to comment on and criticize.
Stories are stories and flash is flash. And as to the stories, I quite
agree.
|
| The idea is that there is a writing muscle between our ears. The
challenges are
| exercises for that muscle. Nothing could be /more to the point/.
Not at all. The challenges weaken that muscle because they make it too easy;
an exercise in painting by number, a game of connecting the dots. I learned
to ride my bike without training wheels--never had the damned things on
there. When my mother gave me a pair of double-bladed ice-skates for
Christmas, I only learned to hate skating--till my complaints finally led to
her trading them in for a real pair of skates.
The process of individual inspiration is hampered by the challenges because
writing, good writing is an individual expression wherein lies its entire
dignity as art: it is not an expression of the herd, the gang, the group,
the club. Writing is not a sport, nor is it in the least way a "team
effort". It's all about individual expression. If you don't want to get in
touch with yourself as a unique individual with his or her own well of
inspiration, don't write, go talk on the telephone or play the "Challenge"
fun and games.
I don't say that all true inspiration is 100% original. Not at all. As
Solomon said, "There is nothing new under the sun." But the process of
*arriving upon* inspiration is a personal, individual function and is
another thing which comes by a development of habit. Inspiration does not
come by such things as the "requirements" of the challenges, but by a
completely free, ultra-conscious openness of mind to the world it's joys and
horrors, loves and hates; as one becomes attuned to the virtual universe of
elements making up the Human Condition.
One can be inspired to write a novel from something like the reading of one
minor undeveloped theme appearing in the work of another author. You might
be reading (or watching a movie) and what you read or see causes you to
think, "Well, he hasn't gone into this the way I know it could be
developed--hell! I could write an entire novel around this one element."
You might be watching a true crime documentary on t.v. and see a story that
could be vastly expanded into a mystery novel. You might remember a romance
you had years back that would make a million for you all fancied up,
fictionalized and piled in a stack at the super market. Inspiration
sometimes comes by simply being brought back down to earth into the human
condition. You watch a movie and you think yeah! How did I ever forget
that writing can be about stuff like this, the real true grit of human
existence. This opens your mind to the story based in that grit that will
be your kind of story and your kind of grit.
A writer must learn how to gain that inspiration on his own and not with the
training wheels of some silly ass "challenge". Writing is not a sport.
Treat it as that and you never get to it. You're not writing, you're
competing and that hasn't the first thing to do with it. Sport is sport and
art is art you try to mix them and what you get really stinks.
|
| What you're taking about is out there on the front lines. If you can take
this
| pebble from my hand, it's time for you to leave (and go out there on the
front
| lines).
If I knew what you were talking about, I might laugh--but "leave"? Don't
make me leave! Would you wish a person who disagrees with you, Art, to
like, "leave"? And here I thought I was the mean guy around here. Hey, Art
maybe you don't know it, but the "Challenge" is just a recently introduced
schtick that's been offered as nothing more than a game for the
entertainment of those who want to indulge it. Nobody who has no use for it
has to fool with it according to any element given by the AFO charter. And
anyone who would by any means try to enforce participation in it, whether by
shunning or any other petty, snot-nosed, pushy, control-freak dictatorial
means, is a person who is very definitely acting in violation of the
formative principles of this newsgroup. As I recall, and correct me if I'm
wrong, the former founding member of this group who was keeper of the FAQ,
dear ol' Jane, before she split had given expression to her view that
introducing a damn thing like that would have precisely that effect, where
you'd get newbies coming around gaining the wrong impression that the
"Challenge" is necessary element for participation here, and worse that
there would be some little power freaks who would try, of all the absurd
things on earth, to try and enforce by underhanded means participation in
it. Looks like she was some kind of prophet, or maybe she'd just been
through it a number of times before.
Make no mistake about it: the so-called "Challenge" is entirely voluntary
and is nothing but a completely ancillary element that has nothing to do
with the formative charter of the group.
So why don't you leave? ;-)
Jesus Christ, I'm so hopping mad here in my chair that about five million
periods got all discombobulated and jumped out of the cushion to start
flying in a bee-line around the room, and they're all buzzing and squealing
this cute little chant that goes, "Why don't you leave?" while they laugh
their little round asses off.
"In the upbringing of the Herd, humanity's almost boundless suggestivity
will be scientifically exploited." --Aldous Huxley in *Crome Yellow*
Miki Kocic
Art McNutt wrote:
>
> 'S'okay, I have a nurse's stomach.
>
> Hope you feel better now that you've gotten it out of your system.
Much better, thank you.
>
> Drink plenty of fluids, and get lots of rest. You'll be good to go by morning.
Ah, an old-fashioned medic who believes in the well-being of the patient
rather than just making sales on behalf of dispensers of medications,
treatments, and diagnostic tests. But that's my "today's medicine"
rant. I'll save it for later.
>
> ---
> Art
>
>
>
Miki
Art McNutt
Miki Kocic wrote:
Heh.
Look, the profit motive gets a lot of bad press. Mostly because people can't
tolerate it when others become independent from them--therefore the profit motive
is base; crass; evil; a blind alley.
But that's a rant /I/ will save for later, too.
:-)
Your rants are well written, but I think Miki gets in the way of the words,
sometimes. In the martial arts, they teach you to fight without passion. An
interesting notion, to say the least.
Also, they teach the wisdom of letting the /other/ guy throw the first punch,
thereby offering you a nice juicy target (an extended arm is extremely easy to
break, for instance--it also exposes the ribcage and other soft spots--in other
words: the best way to /win/ a fight is to wait for the other guy to start it).
Just a word-up from your Uncle Art.
---
Art
Art McNutt
Seymour Grass wrote:
[snip]
>
> Nope. Great art is not "arrived upon" it is not a place, it is a project,
> the skill for which is learned by study of the works of those who have done
> it, and then by the work of doing it to find out how much work it really
> is--and we are talking a lot of work. But you might say that it is "arrived
> upon" in one sense only, when an artist arrives upon the realization that
> the harder he works, i.e. the more laziness he banishes from himself the
> more he develops the habit of working well--thus not the art, but the
> understanding of how much work is involved to create it is arrived upon by
> nothing other than doing that hard work, not the easy work of "flash" but
> the hard work of real short stories, novels, scripts; to develop the habit
> whereby it becomes more like easy work, fun work, work done on auto-pilot
> but no less work, alwell. Rather a taste for more work is what is learned
> and nothing less, a love for even harder work becomes the work that is the
> more fun.
Hone the skills first. This is paramount to any artist's ability.
This is true in painting, sculpture, writing and even the martial arts.
>
> But we're not even talking about "great art", Art. Rather, we are talking
> about what any author of the cheapest pulp fiction novel can do, which is
> what an author of 'flash' does not do, which is to set his hand to the
> writing of a real story, novel, play, or screenplay. You don't learn how to
> write a novel by writing flash, any more than by talking on the telephone or
> reciting the alphabet. To learn novel writing you must read many novels and
> then write one. But if you'd like to learn how to talk on the telephone,
> write some flash.
>
Well, to use your analogy, flash /is/ how one speaks. It's how one puts ideas
together in conversation. It's how someone expresses themselves on the
telephone.
This skill at flash isn't important to a novel? A play?
/A Million Miles From Home/ could easily be a soliloquy from either.
>
> |
> | I've only been here a short while, but I find many of these stories worth
> the
> | time and effort to read; Some, even to comment on and criticize.
>
> Stories are stories and flash is flash. And as to the stories, I quite
> agree.
>
Well, you seem to be commenting on a flash story /right now/.
:-)
>
> |
> | The idea is that there is a writing muscle between our ears. The
> challenges are
> | exercises for that muscle. Nothing could be /more to the point/.
>
> Not at all. The challenges weaken that muscle because they make it too easy;
> an exercise in painting by number, a game of connecting the dots. I learned
> to ride my bike without training wheels--never had the damned things on
> there. When my mother gave me a pair of double-bladed ice-skates for
> Christmas, I only learned to hate skating--till my complaints finally led to
> her trading them in for a real pair of skates.
Yes, well, think how well you could have done with formal training, then. All
that natural ability PLUS training?
The X-Games? The Olympics? The sky would have been the limit.
Many a millionaire never finished high school or college. Poor guys, they
/could/ have been /billionaires/.
>
>
> The process of individual inspiration is hampered by the challenges because
> writing, good writing is an individual expression wherein lies its entire
> dignity as art: it is not an expression of the herd, the gang, the group,
> the club. Writing is not a sport, nor is it in the least way a "team
> effort". It's all about individual expression. If you don't want to get in
> touch with yourself as a unique individual with his or her own well of
> inspiration, don't write, go talk on the telephone or play the "Challenge"
> fun and games.
"Wax on, wax off."
"Ahhh--but Mr. Miyagi this is /stupid/. I wanted to learn /Karate/!"
>
>
> I don't say that all true inspiration is 100% original. Not at all. As
> Solomon said, "There is nothing new under the sun." But the process of
> *arriving upon* inspiration is a personal, individual function and is
> another thing which comes by a development of habit. Inspiration does not
> come by such things as the "requirements" of the challenges, but by a
> completely free, ultra-conscious openness of mind to the world it's joys and
> horrors, loves and hates; as one becomes attuned to the virtual universe of
> elements making up the Human Condition.
[snip]
>
>
> A writer must learn how to gain that inspiration on his own and not with the
> training wheels of some silly ass "challenge". Writing is not a sport.
> Treat it as that and you never get to it. You're not writing, you're
> competing and that hasn't the first thing to do with it. Sport is sport and
> art is art you try to mix them and what you get really stinks.
In Ancient Greece, /Poetry/ was an Olympic sport. Poets were awarded trophies
and money prizes and everything.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm /with/ you on this point. I fail to see how even
the Oscars are relevant to the merits of cinema. I mean--you can't say /this/
movie is better than /that/ movie. Besides, what objective standards there
/are/ aren't followed anyway. It's just a dog and pony affair at most.
Still, Simonides was a great poet. Even though he was a sports-poet, too.
>
>
> |
> | What you're taking about is out there on the front lines. If you can take
> this
> | pebble from my hand, it's time for you to leave (and go out there on the
> front
> | lines).
>
> If I knew what you were talking about, I might laugh--but "leave"?
Hold on there, Cochise. Let me explain:
TV show still in reruns occasionally--originally from the mid-seventies.
Kung Fu.
In flashbacks, it shows an aggregate and romanticized version of how Shaolin
Temples in China taught the martial arts. When a student began to mature in his
training and learning, the master of the temple would offer a pebble in his
open hand. The student was instructed to snatch it. Not fully trained, the
student would be too slow to do so. Upon failure, the master told the student
"When you can snatch the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to
leave."
In other words, his training will be complete, and there will be nothing more
for the teacher to teach him. He must go out in the world and both apply what
he has learned, and even more important, learn what he cannot from within the
confines and shelter of the temple.
Once again, I use it as an analogy: If you can snatch the pebble, it is time
for you to leave.
The disposition of this argument has nothing whatever to do with what I'm
saying. I'm not telling you to go away--I'm questioning why you feel the need
to stay.
---
Art
PS: You missed where I said I was a fan of flash--because I didn't say--and I'm
not. But,, being a different way of constructing a story, I thought I'd try my
hand at it.
PPS: I'm going to post another story just to show you I don't write primarily
in flash. It's another historical story that I never was satisfied with on
about a dozen levels. Please feel free to rip it apart so I can see what I'm
doing wrong.
Seymour Grass
| PPS: I'm going to post another story just to show you I don't write
primarily
| in flash. It's another historical story that I never was satisfied with on
| about a dozen levels. Please feel free to rip it apart so I can see what
I'm
| doing wrong.
I'd advise against that. Why not write and post a story that would instead,
meet with your satisfaction? Why not start with the themes you have left
undeveloped in this one? Which themes? Why this sense of personal
alienation which you introduce further down as you start to get your motor
running. So far as you've taken it is really quite well expressed. As a
reader, and a human being I can relate to that sense of separateness, having
often experienced it myself just as you express it . . .
>>And in the exhaustion and the pain you realize that the whole world is
going on around you, and you are truly a stranger. Their lives, their work,
their destinations have nothing at all to do with you and, the
way you feel right now you could very well die here <. . .> surrounded by
people who are only like you 'cause they speak the same language and wear
the same type of clothes.<<
Okay, now that is a gem, the germ of a universal theme experienced by who
knows how many multitudes of people? So now the question is where to go
with it, how to develop it. Consider a strictly systematic approach: what
you have set up is really an existential question which is, "Must it really
be like this?" If the answer is yes, then your story becomes what
Kierkegaard called a saga of the "Knight of Infinite Resignation" where a
person accepts this condition of essential and ultimate alone-ness as his
lot; you have a protagonist like Camus' *Stranger*, "Mersault" awaiting the
hour of his hanging in a state of crystalline awareness, accepting the fact
of his existence, experienced all alone and by himself, as such, as a
beauty, in that it is all he has, so therefore is it not good and worthy to
be experienced in appreciation as his own, sole possession while he has it
since it is so soon destined to be taken from him by others, to come to an
abrupt, extremely jarring end?
Or you have Kafka's "Joseph K" being run through his life by forces beyond
his control and understanding which in the end isolate him so that he dies
in a pile of rubble, with these last words on his breath, ". . . like a
dog."
But what if your answer to the question is "No!". Then what you have, with
Jean Paul Sartre on your hands is an existential challenge, your right not
to accept existence on those terms, if you should find it gives you the
blues. You say with Zola, "I Refuse!" You publish it in all the
newspapers, or you put your head out the window with Paddy Chayevsky and
shout, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
Now this is a much different proposition than the first which says "Yes."
After the yes, Kierkegaard and Sartre are right, there is nothing for it but
resignation. But if the answer is to be "No!" If this state of separation
feels bad, then it must be wrong, so what is right and good? Kierkegaard
says that right here begins the greatest thing that can ever come of human
existence which is his famous "leap" into the Unknown.
What if the answer is "No!" and your man suffering from this sudden attack
of Montezuma's Revenge or whatever it is, comes out of that stall, out of
the shit-hole of existence with the determination to change this curse that
till that very moment had remained to plague his and so many other lives.
What might you conceive at this point for this man to do toward the telling
of this story? What could arise out of an epiphany had on the shitter about
this wonderful attitude that a few existentialists discovered during the
last great war about man's wonderful capacity to freely refuse any
determinism respecting his lot in life?
It is your story, not mine, and not my business to offer you the least clue
as to how you might carry it on from the point at which you left it. I can
only suggest that given enough thought, after your having kept it present
in mind for a few days, the best idea as to the solution should come to you,
and it should come like lightning striking when upon a snap of the fingers a
loud "Yes!" comes resounding in your mind's ear. Or, if not, then consider
the "No!" It's bound to be either the one or the other. ;-)
--
JP
Alaric
"Miki Kocic" <viathna...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:DSljb.3614$Z_2.3...@news20.bellglobal.com...
>
>
> Art McNutt wrote:
>
> > Several have complained that there is no reference to "her" until the
end. I'm not a democratist, yet
> > this plurality gives me reason to rethink it.
>
> Sorry, you're not a democrat?
Democrats shouldn't be allowed unless the majority of people agree.
R. Westermeyer
<JP...@VirtualTourist.com> wrote:
>
>Flash is trash.
I don't know if "trash" is fair. That's a pretty grand generalisation.
There is a page in Lautreamont's Maldoror that starts with..." I am
filthy. I am riddled with lice..." that stands alone perfectly.
Much "flash" though, seems like getting half a jelly-belly, though.
I'm left unsatisfied and wondering why the author didn't take the idea
further.
On the other hand, life is a bunch of "flashes", so I think it's a
valid art form.
I think it needs to stand out as distinct from a short story.
I'd rather put an hour to half hour of creative blast writing a good
poem.
--Robert
Alaric McDermott
> P.S. Would you mind reposting your Aztec story, and the Holocaust piece so
I can finish those reviews?
There ya go, John. Thoughts of any nature received with gratitude
rather than rejoinder.
GIFTS FROM THE HUMMINGBIRD Part 1 of 3 (rest to follow over three or
four
weeks)
Copyright Alaric Paul McDermott 2003
Tenochtitlan, 1507:
Xilonen grasped her father's hand tightly as he pulled her through the
market. It was hard to take it all in - the smells, the shouts of the
traders, and the incredible vistas. She'd seen the pyramids from a
distance
of course, but to have them looming above her was a different matter
entirely. She was twelve years old, and she felt minimised,
insubstantial.
Through large residential areas she was hauled, across busy bridges
which
spanned broad canals, canals teeming with activity as canoes hastened
hither
and thither.
"On, girl. On."
The pace was crippling. Xianen's feet were bruised.
It was so unfair.
"I know what happens, father," she said. "I've been told by mother.
Why.?"
"Why, why, why?" Camargo sniffed in clear disapproval. "The why is
simple,
child. Hearing is not seeing."
"But why must I see it?"
"Education. There is nothing more important than education."
"Mother says I have no duties outside the house. Mother said you
shouldn't
take me. Mother says cooking and making clothes is all I should be
concerned
with."
"Your mother is right that you are to the house as the heart is to the
body.
But some days are exceptions for us all. And today is an exception for
you."
"I had a weaving lesson. I have yet to satisfy mother with my
weaving."
Xilonen's father stopped. He turned her and grasped her shoulders.
"Are you
scared?" he asked. "Is that it?"
Xilonen was offended. "No. My feet hurt."
Her father chuckled. "Is that all? Well. We're almost there. Does that
help?"
"I suppose so."
They pressed on. Now the street was opening into a broad space.
People pressed around Xilonen, occasionally bumped her. The men were
mainly
old, like her father, but there were many young women, dressed in
colourful
wraparound skirts and sleeveless blouses. Some had coloured their
faces with
the pale yellow ochre powder which Xilonen recognised from her
mother's
table. Her mother never used it. Some of the women Xilonen knew to be
married, because they wore their hair in the two distinctive horn-like
tufts
that discouraged interest, but there were girls too, straight haired,
some
of them immodest enough that the strands reached the waist, most
wearing
garlands of flowers around their necks, and feathers, and jewellery of
shell, clay or precious metals in a clear attempt to attract boys.
Here and
there she saw women with red on their lips and teeth. Her mother had
told
Xilonen with a glower of disapproval that such women "followed
soldiers."
"There," her father said. "Up there."
She followed his pointing finger. At the top of one of the pyramids,
she saw
a flash. A knife blade, perhaps, catching the sun.
Now she was excited. She wanted to get closer.
"How many people meet this fate, father? How many every year?"
Xilonen's father considered. "20,000 perhaps. Stop pulling."
Xilonen did as she was told, but she was anxious to get closer to the
sacrifices. The location her father had chosen, at the corner of the
pyramid, afforded an excellent view of the teucalli, the execution
place,
but some of the other children had climbed a little, and Xilonen
wanted to
join them. This was, after all, the most exciting thing she had ever
seen.
One by one, captives were being taken to a flat stone table, the
tehcatl.
There, four of the priests would hold the sacrifice down, two at the
arms
and two at the legs while a fifth forced back the head with a wooden
yoke
that choked off any possibility of a scream. Then the officiating
priest
would raise a knife - black - her father had told her it was made from
obsidian volcanic glass, and would bring it down in a single blow,
upwards
and behind the sternum, bringing agony but not death. This was
Xilonen's
favourite part. The twist of pain on the faces of boys and girls no
older
than her and even on the faces of men as old as her father at the
moment of
penetration thrilled her. When a body rose in suffering, Xilonen would
rise
to the balls of her feet and she would take a deep, satisfying breath.
She
felt elated, and there were sensations in her body, tightenings of
muscle,
with which she was unfamiliar.
"You need to understand this," her father said, and his hand came to
her
shoulder. She didn't turn, as she supposed he expected her to. A
particularly good looking boy, adorned with the feathers of
Huitzilopochtli,
to whom the death would be given, was being brought forward.
"It's for the gods," Xilonen replied, surprised that her father
thought she
wouldn't know. She'd talked about the sacrifices often with other
children.
"And what do the gods seek, Xilonen?"
She heard the question, but didn't reply. The boy had all of her
attention.
As he approached the altar, he didn't seem either brave or afraid. His
eyes
were empty. There were tales that the sacrifices were drugged - it was
important that they went willingly to the gods, or so Xilonen had been
taught - they would be outraged if those chosen to serve resisted fate
with
anger or violence. Even tears were an insult - except where the rain
god was
concerned of course - there, tears from the sacrifices gave promise of
rain.
Xilonen had never given credence to these stories - she believed that
one
chosen for sacrifice would be grateful - but the boy's slumped posture
told
a different tale.
He showed no emotion, joy or fear, when he was laid upon the slab, nor
when
the knife was raised. But he felt the knife slice into him, Xilonen
was
pleased to note. His mouth flew open and his hands became claws.
Her father's hand tightened on her shoulder. She was relieved that he
was
affected too. But she doubted that he was affected in the same way.
Fervour
for him, she guessed, rather than excitement.
The great idols watched as the priest sliced open the boy's chest.
Blood
poured again onto the already slick altar. Then another priest reached
inside the opened cavity and removed the heart. Xilonen was amazed at
how
simple a task that seemed to be - no need for force, no need to
wrench. The
bloodied hand came high, the heart held high as proof of the deed, and
now
of course the boy was dead, although prior to the removal he had not
been -
indeed, he had jerked in response to the intrusive hand, which now
went back
into the body, extracting long strings of entrails. These were thrown
onto a
brazier - Xilonen knew that the smoke was an acceptable offering - but
the
heart did not follow. It was a young heart, and it would be eaten.
Xilonen looked up again at the idols, almost expecting that they would
move
in acknowledgement of the life given to them - and indeed the effect
of the
smoke was that they did seem to sway.
She had only heard descriptions of these man-sized representations of
the
gods, made from ground and mixed dough, bound with the blood from
hearts
extracted on an earlier day, anointed now with blood from today's
proceedings. Seeing them, she feared them.
"The heart will be placed in the cuauhxicalli," her father whispered.
"Something special has been seen in this boy."
And indeed, that was exactly what the chief priest did, reverently
laying
the still beating organ in a wooden dish which stood on a small table
to the
left of the altar. The dish was adorned with carvings of the head and
wings
of an eagle.
"Why?" Xilonen asked.
"As the eagle is nourished by the tuna fruit, so the sun is nourished
by the
human heart."
Xilonen didn't understand this, but before she could ask about the
link
between the eagle and the sun, her father picked her up, stealing the
wind
from her chest.
"I don't want to leave yet," she said.
"We are not leaving," her father replied.
Xilonen noticed that everyone was stepping back, and when the boy's
body
skidded off the pyramid to land a few feet in front of her in a
crumpled
heap, she understood. She'd seen corpses thrown off the front of the
pyramid, but clearly this one had taken an unexpected course.
Her father set her down.
A group of men surrounded the carcass and started to flay the skin
from the
flesh. Xilonen was impressed at the speed with which they worked, and
fascinated at the lack of blood.
"The gods only want the heart and the guts," her father said. "The
skull
goes to the skull rack, the bones to the dogs."
"Who will eat the flesh?" Xilonen asked.
"The thighs go to the Emperor's cold store. His chosen delicacy. The
rest
will be eaten by whichever soldier caught the boy. It's a great
honour. One
I hope your brother will earn in years to come."
A new sacrifice was being brought forward, this time a girl. Xilonen
was
sure that she saw a priest blow something in the girl's face, and it
seemed
that when he did so, she calmed.
"I asked you what you thought the gods sought," Xilonen's father said,
"and
you didn't answer me. That's the lesson I need to teach you. That's
why we'
re here."
Xilonen didn't know what answer was expected of her. She didn't even
know
whether she was expected to be able to give one. "Honour," she
suggested.
"That, yes. But sustenance too. Do you know what tonali is?"
Xilonen nodded. "That which drives me. That which makes me what I am."
"Look at me, Xilonen."
Reluctantly, she turned. Her father's face was stern - his lecture
face.
"That which makes you what you are," he said. "Correct. The force
which
animates you. And where may it be found?"
"In my blood."
"Indeed. And emotion - fear, love, willing sacrifice - these
concentrate the
blood in the heart. Which is why the heart is returned to the gods.
Tonali
is given by them, so that we may live, and we return tonali to them,
so that
they may live, and control the seasons, and the rising and falling of
the
sun. Without sacrifice, the sun would stop in its orbit. Without
sacrifice,
all would perish, including the gods."
Xilonen felt a flash of fear. "I understand," she said.
Again, her father placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's important to
understand. It's my place to make you understand. And when you are a
mother,
if your husband has perished in battle, it will be for you to make
sure that
your children understand."
Xilonen nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, her
question
swelling silence against her tongue.
"Ask anything you need to ask," her father said.
The permission didn't help. "Might I.? she began, then reconsidered.
"Is it
possible that one day.?" Again the construction failed.
"That one day you'll end up on the Calendar Stone? No. As long as
there are
wars to fight, there are prisoners. And there are always wars to
fight. The
gods don't seek Aztec blood."
"I'd be honoured, of course," Xilonen said, and was surprised to find
that
she was lying. Suddenly her life seemed a precious thing. Suddenly she
wanted things she'd never thought about before. A husband. Children.
"Clearly," her father replied. And from his tone, she thought that he
might
be lying too.
She turned her head in the hope of watching another sacrifice, but her
father took her hand.
"Come," he said. "It's time to go. With luck, you'll never have to
come into
the city again."
Xilonen allowed herself to be pulled away but, stealing a last glance
back,
she hoped that her father was wrong.
II
Tenochtitlan, 1510:
She called him Tonali, because he had more spirit and life and
movement than
any living thing she had ever seen. All of the hummingbirds that lived
in
the garden were fascinating, had fascinated her ever since she was a
little
girl, but Tonali knew her, trusted her. Or at least she thought he
did. She
knew of course that he could move so swiftly that she could never harm
him.
But she truly believed that the possibility of her harming him would
not
occur to him.
His head and body were the green of palm leaves and his chest was the
white
of rain free clouds. Now, he sat on her forefinger, all but
weightless,
using her as a perch, his wings a blur, his tiny feet pinching her
skin.
Around him, the other hummingbirds whirled, occasionally halting in
mid-air
to watch.
She wondered whether the birds resented the netting which held them in
captivity, whether they were intelligent enough to know that they were
captive. She suspected that they did. Certainly she always sensed
resentment
in them when their feathers were taken by the household for the
decoration
of ceremonial cloaks or staves. Her father had told her that the
priests
needed the feathers in order to suck out evil from people who had been
cursed by sorcerors. "The birds are the presence in the mortal world
of
Huitzilopochtli," he said, "who led our people to this homeland, and
who
helped us to defend it, and of warriors slain in battle."
Huitzil, her father claimed, was conceived by Coatlicul from a ball of
feathers which fell from the sky. When Huitzil was killed in an
important
battle, his body vanished, but a green-backed hummingbird whirred up
from
the spot where he had fallen and inspired his followers on to victory.
After
Huitzil's death, he became a god.
Xilonen had been told this two days after a messenger had brought news
of
her brother's death in combat. Her father had hidden himself away.
When he
emerged he had come to her in the garden. "And Huitzil's first action
as a
god," he said, "was to ensure that in death as well as in life the
brave
could follow him. So it will be with your brother. For four years he
will
orbit the sun. Then he will return to us as a hummingbird. As a
shining one.
Bird, warrior and wizard."
Xilonen's depression at the time had been deep. She and her brother,
despite
his long absences, had been good friends. She it was who had comforted
him
when he returned briefly from training school, his legs and face
lacerated
by maguey spines, his body thin, his eyes dulled by the tedium of
fasting
and the cruelty of his perceptor.
He had not been suited to a warrior's life. Xilonen often thought that
she
had been born the wrong sex, and so too it seemed, for Mayehua. He
would sit
at her feet, looking truly ridiculous with the tuft of hair he was
required
to retain until he had participated in the capture of a prisoner. On
his
last visit, he had told her how he had participated in his first
battle -
that participation had been limited to carrying a warrior's shield and
observing. But next time, with five other novices, he would be
required to
capture a foe. That captive would then be taken to those men in charge
of
sacrifice, who would kill him, and the body would be divided up among
the
boys - the right thigh and torso going to the youngster who had
behaved most
heroically. Mayehua was scared of the conflict to come, and equally
scared
of failing at it, of not being the most heroic. It had been made clear
that
the family expected him to excel.
He hadn't excelled. He'd been killed.
"If he returns as a bird," she'd told her father, offering reassurance
even
though she wanted to lay blame, "then he'll be a beautiful one. More
colourful even than Tonali."
Her words had made him cry. And she hadn't felt guilty about that.
Tonali lifted from her finger, flew right, then left, hovering in
front of
her. She pursed her lips, hoping that he'd come to sample the
penstemon
nectar she'd smeared there - sometimes he did. But he continued to
hover, as
though studying her.
Meat hungry, perhaps, she thought. Looking for insects.
Some of the other birds were busy at the flowers now, their beaks
embedded,
their long translucent tongues at work collecting pollen. One male was
communicating with another, its voice shrill, its head tossing from
side to
side. Two others were fighting over a feeder, circling, occasionally
colliding, the display of colour astonishing. Another had found a spot
on a
cupped leaf to sunbathe - breast exposed, neck extended, tail spread.
But Tonali seemed disinterested in joining any of this activity.
Instead, he
continued to hover, a foot in front of Xilonen's face.
"Beauty observing beauty."
It was a boy's voice, touched by the crack of imminent manhood.
Xilonen
turned.
Her father stood by.
The young man's smile captivated her. "I wouldn't have wished for my
first
sight of you to be other than this," he said. "There's love in your
eyes."
"This is Yaotl," her father said. He placed an arm around the young
man's
shoulder.
Xilonen inclined her head in greeting.
Yes, she thought. This one would meet her needs.
III
Tenochtitlan, 1512:
It was a matter for Centehua to decide. The midwife was dominant in
the
birth room, her professionalism unchallenged.
"This, on the very day of your seventeenth birthday," she said. "There
may
be significance."
"There is significance in all things," Xilonen's father replied, arms
folded
in his favourite gesture of judgement.
But Centehua was in the mood for specifics. "Not all things. But
possibly
this thing."
Xilonen's father pursed his lips in clear disapproval, but said no
more.
Centehua bent to cut the umbilical cord. Xilonen cringed at the sight
of the
curved knife, but she felt no discomfort.
Then the midwife took the child away to wash it.
Xilonen still didn't know whether she'd brought a boy or a girl into
the
world. If a boy, the umbilical cord would be given by Centehua to a
young
warrior, so that he could bury it on the battlefield. If a girl, the
cord
would be buried by Xilonen's own hearth.
Centehua turned from the water, holding the child up for Xilonen and
her
father to see. A girl.
"We should offer the prayer," Camargo said.
The midwife shook her head.
Camargo reddened. "It is required."
"Chalchiuhtlicue will have no interest in a stillborn girl," Centehua
said.
"My work here is done. I tried to bring her to us with the water, but
I was
not successful."
"Tlazolteotl?" Xilonen ventured.
"Tlazolteotl arranged the attraction of your husband to you, and would
have
tried her best to save the child. But when a girl is careless, even a
goddess cannot help."
Xilonen tried to sit up. "I haven't been careless," she insisted. "How
can
you say that?"
"All young women are careless," Centehua said. "Their husbands go off
to
fight, and there's no-one to tell them how to take care of themselves.
Do
you want me to burn the baby?"
Xilonen was horrified. "I'll bury her. Go."
"As you wish. There's the matter of payment."
"Follow me," Camargo said. "I'll arrange it."
Xilonen, still in pain, waited for her father to return, then asked
him to
help her into the garden.
It was only when she saw Tonali that she was able to find tears.
IV
Tenochtitlan, 1514:
"I told him how it would be," Tepeyollotl said. "For young men, life
is
difficult, full of suffering. Young men die in their thousands, in
battle or
as sacrifices. Of course I hoped, but there was no reason to suppose
it
would be different for Yaotl."
Xilonen took the old man's hand. Giving comfort was her comfort.
"We'll be
responsible for him, you and I. We'll bring him back to health."
Tepeyollotl was drowning in guilt. "I've seen little of him. I raised
him
until he was ten, but after that he was in school. Then away with the
soldiers. Your marriage was the last time I spoke with him."
"How badly hurt is he?" Xilonen asked.
"It wasn't clear."
"How long before they bring him home?"
Tepeyollotl studied his hands. "They may not."
"They must."
"No. Unfortunately no. It's a long way to carry a man who might die on
the
journey."
Camargo stepped forward from the shadows and held out his arms. He
carried
his age now, or perhaps his loss, on stooped shoulders. Xilonen had
started
to worry for him. Nonetheless, she went to him and claimed the
embrace.
"Flowers and song," he said, stroking her hair, "teach us that life
is
transitory, impermanent. Like a dream or a bud, it blossoms to fade."
"Poetry only reflects life," Tepeyollotl replied. "Art only pictures
it.
What else is there in flowers and song? The voice of my son? The kiss
of
your daughter's husband? How can these things comfort? Death is
death."
"I lost a son too," Camargo said.
"And did you celebrate?"
"No."
"Then don't ask me to. Let me weep for him, and let your daughter weep
for
him."
"They'll bring him back," Xilonen said. "We won't have need of
weeping."
But they didn't. And there was.
V
Tenochtitlan, 1517:
She strolled through Huitzilopochtli's temple, the cool of the shadows
a
welcome relief. She stopped before the statue of Huitzilopochtli's
sister
Coyolxauhqui, naked and dismembered - a foolish woman who with her
sons
planned to kill Huitzilopochtli when he was born. But Huitzilopochtli
emerged from the womb of his mother full sized and armed for war. He
chased
away his nephews and justly decapitated his treacherous sister.
Here too was the statue to Coaticlue, the serpent-skirted mother of
Huitzilopochtli. Xilonen was familiar with the twin rattlesnake heads,
with
the necklace of human hands and hearts. It was said that Coaticlue
could
transform herself into a beautiful woman, who would then lead men to
their
deaths. Xilonen wondered whether Yaotl had seen her, whether he'd died
with
betrayal in his heart.
Emerging from the temple, she walked through busy streets towards the
great
pyramid. Just before she reached that, she stopped before a circular
temple,
the door of which was built to resemble the mouth of a serpent. This
was the
place of worship for the god Quetzalcoatl. The sacrificial block laid
in
front of it was blackened from the encrusted blood of sacrifices and
the
smoke raised by braziers of burning incense. Stone knives and axes had
been
laid on the floor, ready for use. Within the temple, which she had
visited a
few days before, she knew she would find more knives, as well as
banners and
conch shells and baskets of cold human hearts for use with the
braziers.
In front of the temple stood a huge drum, used to summon witnesses on
great
sacrificial days.
She moved on towards the pyramid, past great houses where hands and
thighs
of recent victims would be on the evening's menu. She'd been told
recently
by a friend who worked in the palace kitchen that the Emperor
Montezuma
demanded thighs, preferably served with tomatoes and a chilli pepper
sauce.
This would be delivered to him at formal banquet in a stately, flower
and
incense perfumed chamber. Montezuma would gnaw and chat.
Xilonen had never eaten human meat, and was pretty sure she didn't
want to.
The turkeys and dogs her father bred served her quite well as far as
meat
was concerned.
She smelled the roasting cocoa beans. Later that evening, she knew
that she
would be pounding them to a paste and mixing them with water. For the
children, she would add vanilla and pimento. For her father, she would
add
chili. Enough chocolate and her father would be insatiable - well, so
her
mother claimed.
GENEALOGY
Copyright Alaric Paul McDermott 2002
Jerusalem, February 2002:
"Esther Haling. Esther Haling. Does anyone know an Esther Haling? It's
very
important. Very important."
He had asked his question on Mount Zion, the final resting place of
King
David; the location of the Coenaculum, where Jesus and his disciples
attended the Last Supper. He had asked it on the Mount of Olives,
where
Haggai, Malachi and Zechariah lie in eternal rest; where the Mosque of
the
Ascension stands, marking the spot from which Jesus ascended to
heaven.
"Haling? The family Haling?"
He had called the name outside the entrance to the Tomb of the Virgin,
where
Mary the mother and her blessed husband Joseph were interred.
"Daughter of Mordechai Haling."
In the Muslim Quarter, he had called her name along the Via Dolorosa,
the
Way of Sorrows, along which Jesus walked on the way to his
crucifixion,
covering the 14 stations; from the first, where Christ was condemned
by
Pilate, to the last, where he was laid in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre.
Then he had repeated his mantra outside that church, holiest church in
Christendom, where Jesus was entombed.
"Daughter of Peshe Haling."
Now he stood on the Street Of The Chain, by the Western Wall, in the
shadow
of Mount Moriah and in full view of the Dome of the Rock, from which
height
the prophet Mohammed had ascended to view paradise; on which summit
Abraham
was instructed to sacrifice Isaac, his son.
"Haling. Esther Haling."
For four days, he had wandered the streets, sweating under Jerusalem's
baking sun, his shirt sodden, his huge belly lapping over the
waistband of
his trousers, his framed spectacles hot against his nose, his white
hair
moist and unkempt. Through the Christian quarter. Through the Jewish
quarter. And at the end of each day, he had returned to his luxury
hotel,
where he had fed himself well, built his energies for the following
day. The
quest was his life now. Either he would succeed in it, or he would die
pursuing it. The past was the bowstring and he was the arrow.
"Does anyone know an Esther Haling?"
He understood that his distinctive German accent earned him little
currency
in Jerusalem; that whilst it was far from unusual to hear German
spoken in
these streets, rarely was the language used with the clipped pride he
felt
in it. So the older passers by were wary, and the middle aged
dismissive.
"Very important. It's very important."
And then..
He saw the girl walking determinedly towards him before she was twenty
feet
away, and he had plenty of time to watch her approach. Late thirties.
Very
pretty. Black hair. Slim, even wiry. The strong lines of a classic
Israeli
face.
He had seen so many just like her leave Dachau, and had seen none of
them
return.
Dachau, February 1942:
"Boy. Hey, boy."
Gerhard wanted to pretend that the call was not addressed to him, but
of
course he knew that it was. He cursed his lot.
Supervising the loading of the transport was the worst part of his
duties.
The men destined for it knew that they were going to the factories,
and
whilst as a rule they were cowed by that thought, often there was a
troublemaker. Often there was a man who wanted to be heard.
The call came again.
Gerhard glanced at the shuffling line, picked the rebel out. Made eye
contact. And wished he hadn't.
The Jew was unusually tall; six feet at least. And he carried himself
well,
with back and shoulders straight. It was possible that he hadn't been
in
Dachau long, although his prison uniform was crumpled and dirty and
the men
around him seemed to know him. A couple of them were urging him on.
The eyes that held Gerhard were steel blue.
Gerhard shouldered his rifle and stalked over. "Be quiet," he
instructed.
"You can talk when you get to Linz."
The man grinned. His teeth were yellowed, though none were missing.
"Hartheim, not Linz," he said. "And you know I won't talk at Hartheim.
I'll
die at Hartheim. They'll poison me with their carbon monoxide and bury
me in
a hole. So I need to talk here, boy."
Gerhard drew himself up to his full five feet ten inches and looked up
at
the annoying Jew. "Stand back in line. You're not going to die. This
is the
invalid transport. Whatever your ailment is, someone will take a
look."
"Well, I have no ailment," the Jew said. "So perhaps I can return to
the
barracks." He chuckled.
Gerhard hated being made fun of. He'd been subjected to systematic
abuse
from the officers and senior guards for the three months he'd been in
Dachau, and no Jew was going to add to that suffering. He considered
hitting
the man, but such violence always made him feel worse. "You've been
allocated to the transport", he stated. "In a few minutes you'll be
taken
out of the camp and you'll be loaded onto it. That's all you need to
know.
Other than that you'll be safe. You have my guarantee."
He started to turn.
The man grabbed Gerhard's shoulder. He shrugged free.
"I just want you to listen for a moment, that's all," the Jew said. "I
want
to ask you to do something for me. Just a little thing."
"And why on earth?" Gerhard asked, "would I do anything for you?" He
was
developing a stiff neck from looking up at the man.
"Wait, please," the Jew said.
Gerhard waited. The Jew reached behind his neck and unfastened a
locket. It
was heavy, and obviously made of gold.
London, February 1992:
"What is it? Mum, what is it?"
Ruth grasped her mother's hand, uselessly trying to protect her
against the
new surge of pain.
Reflexively, Ruth sent a mental spear of supplication to God. How
unfair
this is, she told Him. Such a strong woman, brought low before her
sixtieth
birthday. She has faced so much horror in her life, God, and now you
permit
cancer to defeat her.
Ruth tightened her grip, gazed mordantly at the dying woman. Skin
paper
white, eyes rheumy and unfocussed, veins raised and blue as she bore
the
agony, breath fetid. A single stagger away from Heaven.
Esther Solomon settled again, her back straightening against the
mattress as
the suffering eased. "It's alright, love", she said. "Gone now." She
returned the comforting squeeze. Hands shared spirit.
"I don't want you to die," Ruth stated, the words seeming insufficient
and
bleak.
Esther smiled. "It isn't open for debate. You know that."
"He shouldn't take you like this." Ruth felt the prick of tears, as
she
always did at some point during these visits. "You deserve better."
Esther shook his head. "Never question God or fate. That's what my
father
told me. When we were hiding, during that dark time, and I dared to
say that
life was unfair."
"Life was unfair," Ruth said. "To you, then. And it's unfair to you
now. And
to me."
"I'll die loving life," Esther replied. "I know that your grandfather
did.
When he got me out of that place. when he sent me here. have I ever
told
you?"
Ruth nodded. "Yes. But tell me again."
"He gave me into the care of a man I'd never met," Esther said. "A
tall man
with dead eyes. Unshaven. As a little girl, I saw a monster. I
wouldn't go
with him. So my father knelt and kissed me, and he said, "God will
ward your
father, if He thinks it right to do so, and if he does we'll be
together
again, you and I. One way or another, I'll see that you're told what
has
happened to me. Esther, you know that I love you. And I know that
you're
going to be be safe. We should both be happy today." He told me as
well that
he and God wanted me to brave. And so I was. I was brave then, and
I'll be
brave now. Ruth, look at me."
Ruth did. "And you want me to be brave too?" she supposed.
A flash of the old matriarchal power had returned momentarily to the
older
woman, captured in the firm look Ruth's father had always referred to
as the
Haling stare.
Ruth smiled for the first time that day. "Alright," she said. "Yes,
I'll be
brave."
"You have to be," Esther replied. "You simply have to be. It isn't a
matter
of choice."
Jerusalem, February 2002:
"There were 34 barracks to house the prisoners," Gerhard said, "laid
out
like. oh, like the codes you see on groceries."
The young woman's interest had surprised him, but he believed it was
genuine. He'd merely mentioned that the message came from Dachau, and
she'd
diverted him into unusual reminiscence. He rarely visited that part of
his
life these days, but her questions had been frank.
"Bar codes," she said.
Gerhard nodded. "Like a bar code, yes. To the west was the roll call
square,
in front of a huge, dirty building reserved for the kitchen, the
laundry and
the showers. There was a disinfection barrack too. That was to the
north
east. It was a hot place, an oppressive place."
"More so for the Jews."
Gerhard nodded. "When the prisoners were Jews, yes. Dachau wasn't just
a
place for Jews, though. It operated throughout the war. Before the
war, in
fact. The first prisoners were political opponents of the Nazi regime
-
communists, social democrats, members of the trade unions. The first
Jewish
prisoners were imprisoned in Dachau because of their political
beliefs. Did
you know that? And afterwards - homosexuals, gypsies, Jehovahs'
Witnesses,
clergymen. Then the conquered - from Austria. The Sudetenland. Czechs.
Poles - many Poles. Belgians. Dutch. French."
"But many Jews? In the end?"
"After the November pogroms in 1938, the so-called "Crystal Night,"
more
than 10,000 Jews were brought to Dachau. Mordechai Haling, though, the
man
whose message I carry, wasn't one of those. He came from Warsaw."
The woman leaned forward, steepled her fingers. "30,000 registered
deaths,"
she said. "That's what I've read. And no-one knows how many
unregistered.
Starvation. Sickness. Simple exhaustion. Beatings. Torture. Jews were
shot,
hanged. Killed with lethal injections."
"I never saw that," Gerhard replied, closing his mind to the memory of
rumour. "Yes, there were deaths. And executions. But only for the
disruptive. Dachau was a prime source of labour for our armaments
industry.
Factories were set up at Kaufering and Muhldorf to produce aeroplanes
and
rockets. There was no gas chamber at Dachau, you know."
"There was", the woman disagreed. "But it was never used. And you say
disruptive. But you mean useless. The old. The young. Invalids. Those
who
couldn't work. The people who worked at Kaufering did so under cruel
conditions. If they couldn't serve, they were killed. I know my
history."
Gerhard shrugged, but it was a pretence. His discomfort was growing.
"It was
war," he said.
"I also know that Jewish prisoners were used by SS doctors for medical
experiments," the girl went on. "High altitude experiments. Cooling
and
freezing. Malaria experiments."
Gerhard sniffed. "As I said, it was war. The Jews were our enemies
then."
"You know that isn't true. Even an old man, a revolting old man like
you
still steeped in the mystique of the evil you supported, even you know
that
isn't true."
Gerhard decided he'd had enough. "The past is the past," he said. He
put
down his glass of wine. "You recognised the name. Esther Haling. I
have a
message for her. That's our business. I don't want to talk about
Dachau any
more."
Dachau, February 1942
"A bribe," Gerhard presumed. "Foolish. I could just take that and do
nothing
for you."
"I want you to take it," the Jew said. "And I don't want you to do
anything
for me. Sell the locket. All I ask is that you keep the photograph
inside.
It's a photograph of my daughter." He flicked the locket open,
presented it
to Gerhard.
The photograph was of a young girl, six or seven years old, with black
hair.
Something of the gypsy in her, Gerhard thought, but not particularly
pretty.
He snapped the locket shut. "Keep the photograph for what purpose?" he
asked.
"Her name is Esther," the Jew said. "Esther Haling. Daughter of
Mordechai
and Peshe Haling. My daughter. I'm Mordechai Haling."
"I'm getting bored, old man," Gerhard warned.
"Esther's in England," Haling said. "Smuggled out. When the war's
over, and
you've lost, and if you're still alive, I want you to give her a
message
from me. Not much to ask, is it, for such a valuable locket?"
"Too much," Gerhard said.
The Jew grabbed Gerhard's shoulder again. "Hear the message at least.
It's a
simple message."
"Get back in line," a voice barked from over Gerhard's left shoulder.
Gerhard recognised the speaker as Wilhelm, an older guard. The man had
no
seniority over Gerhard and was not one of those who tormented him, so
he
felt safe in holding up a restraining arm without turning.
"When the war is over," he said to the Jew, "and we have won, and I
visit
conquered Britain, it will be my duty to seek out your daughter and
all
other Jews to whom the British have given shelter. If I find her, then
yes,
I will deliver your message."
Haling nodded. He pulled Gerhard closer and whispered in his ear.
Wilhelm barged between them, wrenching Gerhard aside. Haling backed
off
quickly, but Wilhelm raised his rifle butt, ramming it viciously into
the
Jew's face.
Gerhard watched in horror as Haling's skin split open from nose to
forehead
like that of a gouged peach. The Jew staggered against the wall,
started to
slide down it. But this wasn't enough for Wilhelm. Another vicious
thrust
caught the man in the breastbone, holding him up. Haling coughed, and
blood
bubbled onto his chin. He tumbled sideways, eyeballs rolling up.
Gerhard found his voice. "Wilhelm, no."
Haling wasn't moving. But Wilhelm was kicking him nonetheless, not in
a
frenzied manner but deliberately, with maximum force. Gerhard turned
away
until he heard Wilhelm order the line to move on.
Soon after that, Wilhelm came to stand at Gerhard's side.
"He wasn't threatening me," Gerhard said. He didn't look at the older
man.
"He wanted me to pass on a message."
""You can't let them put their hands on you," Wilhelm said. "And I
gave him
a message." Then he started to laugh, and clapped Gerhard on the
shoulder.
Anxious that the incident not be reported, Gerhard adjusted his mouth
into a
shape which he hoped approximated a grin. To him, it felt like a death
rictus. The locket was still enclosed in his fist, and it was hot. He
wondered how that could be. He wondered if it would burn him.
London, February 1992:
Jack Cohen, who built up Tesco, one of the biggest supermarket chains
in
Britain, was buried at Willesden. So was Marcus Samuel Bearsted, who
founded
Shell; Rosalind Elsie Franklin, whose work gave the first clue to the
double
helix structure of DNA; Sir Julius Vogel, a former Prime Minister of
New
Zealand and the only practising Jew to govern a country other than
Israel;
many and varied Rothschilds.
And now, Ruth thought, Esther Solomon, nee Haling. Laid to rest with
so much
of her fair entitlement of years left unclaimed. Esther Solomon, a
woman who
escaped from the Third Reich into a relatively uneventful London life;
a
woman who understood the danger of trust and the value of family; a
woman
who raged against bigotry and unfairness wherever she found it.
Ruth Lewis, nee Solomon, stood in the pouring rain as her mother's
coffin
was lowered beneath the earth of Willesden cemetery. Supported by her
husband Jacob, she refrained from tears.
"Is it perhaps better?" Jacob asked. "In the long run?"
Ruth stared at him, aghast. "How is death ever better, Jacob?"
Her husband backtracked. "You don't understand, Ruth. Not better for
us, of
course. I don't mean that. Not for those who loved her. But better for
her.
Without Simeon, she was never happy. You know that. She wanted to be
with
him."
"She expected to be with him," Ruth replied. "But only when she died.
Simeon
was a good husband, and she missed him. But my mother didn't want to
die. My
mother went through far too much to want to die. My grandfather didn't
smuggle her to England so that she would die so young. She lived to
honour
him, Jacob. It was her focus. She wasn't complete. Her life wasn't
complete."
"She wasn't young," Jacob said. "She had a family. She laughed. She
danced.
She saw the world pass her time."
"She was young," Ruth insisted.
By now, the coffin had been lowered. The men who had done the lowering
stood
back.
Ruth stepped forward, her grip tight on the bag of soil brought by
Jacob
from Tel Aviv. She stood over the yawning pit and dribbled the dirt
down,
onto the nut brown casket.
"This day in sacred convocation," she recited, "we remember those who
gave
us life. We remember those who enriched our lives with love and
beauty,
kindness and compassion, thoughtfulness and understanding. We renew
our
bonds to those who have gone the way of the earth."
Then she thought a moment, and added, "My name is Ruth Lewis. My name
is
Ruth Solomon. My name is Ruth Haling. I am the sum of those who made
me."
And tears came at last.
Jerusalem, February 2002:
Gerhard took another sip of his wine. His fat lower lip trembled as
the
glass rested upon it, a trembling that Ruth believed came from age and
infirmity rather than emotion. Then he reached into his pocket and
extracted
a pretty but rather worn gold locket, which he opened and placed on
the
table.
Ruth gasped. She had seen enough pictures of her mother as a little
girl to
recognise her instantly.
"The locket was given to me," the German said, "but I want to pass
that on
too."
Ruth took a moment to compose herself. She wished that Jacob was with
her,
that she hadn't left him asleep in the hotel.
"Well," the German pressed. "Do you know Esther Haling? Could you
deliver my
message for me? Could you pass on the locket?"
"You've taken your time in delivering this message" Ruth said. "Sixty
years."
"Yes, I have," the German replied. "I never forgot, of course. But
time
passes. Time plays tricks. I had a family. Children. Grandchildren.
The
message was always an important thing, but never the most important
thing."
"And now it is the most important thing?"
Haling nodded eagerly. "My wife died recently," he said. "And I have
cancer.
So I'll follow her soon. But before I do, I want to fulfil my
promise."
"For your soul?"
"For my conscience."
"I understand," Ruth said. "It's important to die with a sense of
completeness.
The German bowed his head slightly. "You are a wise young woman."
Wise. Young. Ruth considered the words. The first she could not attest
to,
but it was true that she was still young. Sometimes, she realised, she
forgot that.
She wanted that locket so badly. And she wanted the message even more.
God and fate, she thought. It's time for a young woman to renew her
bonds,
and commit to a future that would be bright, a future that would
honour lost
blood.
She stood. "I've been thinking about it," she said, "and I can't help
you. I
thought I recognised the name. But I don't. I'm sorry."
The German exhaled a deep sigh of disappointment. His shoulders
hunched. His
eyes became moist.
Ruth glanced at the locket for the last time. It shone, as though it
was
hot. Ruth thought this odd, because the table was out of the sun.
"Goodbye then," she said, and turned from the man.
She walked briskly away, crossing the street to take advantage of the
afternoon heat.
Alaric McDermott
> As I recall, and correct me if I'm
wrong, the former founding member of this group who was keeper of the
FAQ,
dear ol' Jane, before she split had given expression to her view that
introducing a damn thing like that would have precisely that effect,
where
you'd get newbies coming around gaining the wrong impression that the
"Challenge" is necessary element for participation here, and worse
that
there would be some little power freaks who would try, of all the
absurd
things on earth, to try and enforce by underhanded means participation
in
it. Looks like she was some kind of prophet, or maybe she'd just been
through it a number of times before.
Nobody ever enforced participation on the challenge, John. Or shunned
anyone who had no interest. I'd be as mad as you if they did.