My Literary People

Do you ever get in that situation in which you have been working at something diligently, but then you have one long conversation and suddenly there's this great big new thing out there too? 


Yeah... that's what happens when I get with my literary people. I have a few of them. If you go back through the poems on the site you'll see some commentary from one of them. I had dinner and drinks with the other a few days ago and let's just say after listening to way to much about Dr. Who (series 5 and 6) and her latest literary triumphs and opportunities, I'm getting the feeling like I've got something new brewing. I've been working on world building for a particular world for a few years. I've got characters and even some plot line. I know everything except what happens in the middle (which is the worst place to be stuck). 


But since this set of conversations I had recently, I've been having weirder dreams than usual (which is quite difficult for me - I always have strange, outlandish dreams) and I can feel the cogs turning up in my brain. There's something on the move. I don't know if it'll be something new or an adjustment to something old, but there's something moving around and ticking up there. I guess there's nothing to do but wait until it's a bit more formed.


What do you do when you have an idea forming?

Book Challenge Update

Yesterday saw the end of Little Women and I have now moved on to Jo's Boys. I had read Little Women before. I love, love, love it. There is always a new lesson to take in and moral to learn and a reminder that some things about people are truly timeless. I think this time I learned more from each of the sisters than I have before. Instead of focusing on the story most like my own with small additions from the others, I found different and more well-rounded traits in each story that felt applicable to my life. It is always nice to have a reminder that we are all pilgrims who bear our burdens, but that there is some hope that those burdens will be lifted and it is within us to lift them. 

I have never read Jo's Boys, but I am enjoying it thus far. It's so different to read about boys in this similar setting, but interesting nonetheless. Little Women gives you boys and men that are exemplar - they are the kind you look to have in your life as a woman. Jo's Boys seems to be giving you all types of boys to see how they turn out. They won't all be Laurie's or Mr. March's or John's or even Mr. Bhaer's. Some might turn out to be more like Ned Moffat or Fred Vaughn. 

12/30 books for 2011. 

Book Challenge Update

I did not get a chance to update my book challenge yet this week. I finished The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. 


I must say, I really love this story. It's, of course, a great growing story full of morals and directives about how to be a good person, how to help children be good people and the loveliness and lessons we can learn from gardening. LOVE IT! 


It makes me want even more to start my own greenhouse. It's a pet idea that I've had floating around the back of my mind for a few years. 


Anyways - back to the book. I finished it Tuesday and began reading Little Women for the third time. It's another book I love. Alcott has such interestingly eternal thoughts. Plus, it is hard to pull me away from the transcendentalists (but not as difficult as it is pulling them away from Unitarian thought... hahaha ha ha.... no one gets my literary joke or finds it funny.


Thus, I have completed the twelfth book on my journey to tri-deca-dom. Or something like that. 


12/30 books completed.

Book Challenge Update

Today I finished The Evil Guest by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. What a strange book. It was published in 1851, so it has all of the stilted language and sometimes overt authorship that writing of the 19th century normally brings. 


The problem I had most was the strange secretiveness of the author. He would sometimes endeavor to set up a confession of a character (this was a murder mystery - sorta, but I'll get to that soon), only to hide the revealed information repeatedly from the audience. 


So getting back to that murder mystery part. While there was indeed a murder and an ongoing mystery about that murder, I believe this book could be much more accurately described as a character study of highly depressed, agitated and otherwise guilty (and probably insane) people. Not that it's very psychological - for most writing of this period that I've encountered lacks the psychological attention that modern writers use to entice their audiences. No - there was description of the psychological devastation of a man, but it wasn't really explored in ways that satisfactorily explain his motivations. The reader has to make assumptions of his or her own on some accounts. 


An interesting read, but not one that I'll repeat ad infinitum (or possibly at all). 


 11/30 books completed for 2011. 

The Fight

This week Red Writing Hood calls for us to write a fight. I happen to have a fight written from a scene of a longer work that I've been fiddling with for quite some time now. 

Background:

All the world (aka the stage): 
What can I say? There's magic folks - I'm calling it erg for the sake of this post. If it's not your cup of tea, don't worry - it's the setting, not the point. The three characters are sitting around a campfire after a long day of travel.

Men and women (aka merely players): Three traveling companions
Alden - an older gentleman who looks to be about 60 and displays magical abilities
Niko - a seventeen year old boy who's just getting out into the world for the first time; has no magical abilities and is very scientifically minded
Taran - Niko's former teacher and also a magic user
Tully - another travel companion


The fight:

“The only way it really could have happened was for the powder to have been poisonous to that species…” Niko finished, impressed with his logical conclusion.

“And how do you explain Taran being able to draw with erg then?” Alden asked, getting to wits end. He had heard about every scientific explanation he cared to hear and then some.

“I’m still not sure that’s what it was exactly. See, Taran doesn’t seem to be entirely human and it could be that something secretes from her skin had a reaction with that kind of  mineral –“

“Are you serious?” Alden asked, standing in his anger. Taran, too, stood glaring at the boy and with a shake of her head, stalked off. Tully gave an assessing look to the old man and the boy before heading down the path Taran had taken.

“What?” Niko asked confusedly, “What did I say?”

Alden, whose face was cradled in his palms, looked up again with rage in his eyes. “You are a naïve child. Do you not understand why she might take offense? When you begin to doubt her humanity?”

“I didn’t mean -,” Niko started, but Alden broke in again.

“What? You didn’t mean to call her an animal?”

“I didn’t… I just… and don’t your people revere animals?” Niko defended, not wanting to let go of his idea.

“We revere and respect their place and our connection with them. But just as an insect should never be mistaken for a bird, a human being should never be mistaken for something he or she is not How dare you strip her of the last thing she feels in common with those around her. Just because you cannot explain it with your contraptions and theories, doesn’t make it not real. There are things beyond explanation.” He sat down again with a forceful exhalation.

Niko, who had started to cower under the weight of Alden’s words, snapped back to attention. “I don’t think that’s true. Everything has an explanation.”

Alden roared furiously into the night. “So what it it’s true? Does knowing the explanation change something for you? Does it make you its master?”

Niko couldn’t find anything to say.

“Just because you can’t explain it,” Alden said, “Doesn’t mean it’s not real or substantial. You can’t explain away how Taran saved your life today. That doesn’t make it unimportant that she did so.”

Niko shifted uncomfortably on his log, staring into the fire to avoid Alden’s eyes. The old man shook his head again and sighed as he went to his tent for the night.

Questions from the author: Does the dialogue seem realistic? Do you get the impression that Niko is a young man trying to prove himself? Do you feel the age difference and experience difference between the two (without any serious background info)? Do the characters reactions seem realistic?
**Please note that this is all first draft material**

Oh That Sound

Let's just say this comes of homesickness. Let's just say I've been thinking about how people pronounce their words indistinguishably where I am. Let's just say I can't wait to get back to The South. Let's just say this has terrible flow, is fictional and I'd love some comments to help me draft it.

Oh That Sound

“But mah dee-uh, sh-oughly you cain’t be seery-us,”

this fine southern woman said to me, sitting in a salon chair

with her curls being perfectly set by an overpaid stylist,

“Whut do you mean you’ve nevah gotton yauh hay-uh dunn?”

It wasn’t the first time that my “do” was commented on

and I was sure that it would not be the last. Such is the life

of a less-than-southern woman. I smiled back with affection –

she was a recently acquired family member and I loved

every moment of it. The fifty-something-you’d-best-not-guess-how-old

leaned forward between curls and sipped at her tea, always sweet.

 “In mah guhlhood, I would nevah hay-ve gone aowt!”

Over the next four hours, I had my “hay-uh dunn”

and my “nayals dunn” like “ruhspectable fulk” while being prodded

 as to whether or not my “yung may-yun” was “treetin’ you raht.”

 After being away for so long, I couldn’t imagine leaving again. 

Here's to posting a first draft. 

Dear Life

This week's Red Writing Hood prompt (one of them) was to write a letter to your character's fear. I have a fictional character I've been writing for a while in a fantasy setting who is human but has an unnaturally and somewhat unusually long life.

Dear Life,

To most, you are just that – something held dearly. It seems strange, but the longer I go on, the more I get the feeling that you hold onto me. Too long have I walked this earth, the lives of three women, end on end, and too many generations to count or remember. Death is not your opposite, but humans cling to you to avoid it. It is not death I seek, but rather the resting end of you. It is not even that you have been bad to me and I am wishing the torture would end. No, it is the weariness of a traveler who has walked too far on a road that has no end in sight I seek to escape.

Even if I expire along that road traveled so long, I fear that the priests, shamans and mages might be right. If you do not simply end at death, if you are eternal in some other form after all of this time I have spent here, then there is no rest to come. Everlasting life sounds so good to them. It comforts them as the go to sleep at night, that there is no reason to fear death for it all goes on afterward. How can they not be weary? How can they not want that same sleep that they go into after such a long day of mundane tasks? I watch others go about their daily lives. They work to gain something for themselves in their short time on this earth and age faster than they wish, all the while shunning the wisdom they have gained and ignoring the exhaustion that comes upon them until the surrounding vigorous youth forces them to see – you force them to see. And then the strangest thing of all – they cling to that your youth as though their decrepit bodies could ever again achieve such activity in you again. They fall apart trying to live beyond their means, but all in the comfort that they will see youth in everlasting life.  Is that all a human can crave? To never end the busyness, the going and the doing?

Am I even still human? After going on like this for so long, I do not think I know anymore. I do not want as these humans that surround me want. I hunger for food and drink, but I hunger more for rest to come, for some sight of the end of the road, even if it lay at a cliff on the ocean. If that be the case, I shall make my bed in the sea as did the eternal being, with the rocks as my pillows and the seaweed as my cover. If I must see you again at the end of that road, then you shall only see me in despair.

            My one hope is that you and I will truly expire together at the end of all this.

Your grudgingly obedient,

Tanith

This pov is fairly early on in the development of this character. Ever the romantic, I revive her human connections and she realizes she can still empathize - that she still is human.

Comments welcome.

The Arrowhead

Here's another Red Writing Hood prompt up for the week. They called for fiction (no problem here), so while this may be inspired by reality (the friend) it will be a gross exaggeration of everything else (the object) and completely fictional in the happenings. Here's the prompt:


"In the middle of the night, you get an urgent call from a friend you haven’t talked to in years. Something terrible has happened. What is it and why is he/she calling you?"


It's a tad longer than 700 words, but not by too much.

The Arrowhead

I jolted awake at the ringing of the telephone. Still drowsy, I assured my husband's inquiring grunt that I would get it. I knocked a book off my bedside table as I felt for the phone, which rang again. 

"Hello?" I asked raspily, still half asleep.

"Katie?" The voice sounded familiar.

That name woke me up a bit. I hadn't been called anything but Kate or Kathryn by anyone since I was fourteen. 

"Who -? Danny?" I asked.

"Katie, I need to talk."

"Okay. Hold on."

I set the phone down and sat up, planting my feet on the floor to steady me. Images of the tire swing by the channel and our secret fort in the marshes flashed before my eyes. I hadn't heard from Danny since...

"Babe?" a sleepy voice asked from the other side of the bed, bringing me back to the darkness of the room.

"It's alright. Just a phone call I need to take. I'll be back to bed soon."

Not knowing why I was doing it, I grabbed the phone. I crept down the hallway past the rooms of my sleeping children and down the stairs to the kitchen. Gathering my night gown under me so that the chair wouldn't be so cold on my thighs, I sat down and lifted the phone to my ear again.

"Danny?"

"It's just Dan now, but yes, it's me. It's... been a long time." I could hear the smile in his voice.

With good reason, I thought before saying, "Is there something wrong?"

"Yes. My grandfather has just passed away." The smile had vanished, grief replacing it. He had always been close to his grandfather, the Colonel.

"Oh. I'm sorry. You needed to talk?"

There was silence for a moment. “I was just at the reading of his will.”

Now that would be an interesting read, I thought. His grandfather was a particular and frugal old man. Money aside, he had one of the largest privately owned collections of Civil War artifacts on the East Coast. He must have just died tonight for the reading to be this late.

“He left me everything.”

“Wow,” I said lamely, thinking of the emotional mess that would probably cause Danny, keeping the grief close at hand. Danny had always been emotional. One of the rough-it-tough-it boys, it was personal when it came to his family and you didn’t get in the middle of that.

At least not without a mess, she thought bitterly.

“Katie, I need to ask… do you remember that arrowhead I gave you when we were kids?”

Again, my mind was filled with images of my childhood: the secret fort, my initiation into our secret club The Guided Stones – after the Georgia Guidestones. His grandfather had told him about The Order, a society he was a part of that centered on that “American Stonehenge”.

“Katie?”

“Yes, the arrowhead that you gave me at the marsh fort. Part of that… what was it?”

“The Stones.” I could hear the capitalization and the hurt in his voice that I didn’t remember.

“Right. What about it?”

“Do you still have it?” He sounded desperate.

“I don’t think so. It would have been in a box with my toys from when I was a kid, but Mom sold or donated all that stuff years ago when she moved out of the house.”

“You’re sure you didn’t put it anywhere else? Maybe in a box you kept?” he asked, even more urgent.

I thought for a moment, but replied again, “I’m sorry, Danny. I really don’t think so. I’ll keep an eye out, but when I left Bennettsville, I left everything behind. I’m in Washington now. I’m sure you understand…” my voice drifted off.

“It’s okay, Katie. I understand. I know why you left. I just thought you might have kept it, that’s all.”

“Why do you need it?”

“Well, it wasn’t an arrowhead. It was an awl that my grandfather got out of a dig in Oklahoma. It was…” his voice lost its vigor and died.

“What, Danny?” I said his childhood moniker again, hoping to take him back in time as I had been – to let him trust me.

“It was the oldest bone awl ever found in the US. It was worth about three million dollars and the Order says it’s important.” The Order.

“I’m so sorry, Danny. I didn’t know.”

A few more condolences given, he hung up the phone with even more grief in his voice.

-

Three days later in the Jerusalem Church of Rincon, Georgia,  I nodded to a Salzburger member as I entered the third small meditation room on the right side. I closed the small door and listened to the quiet before pulling out a brick just above the floor-level. Out of the hole came a piece of fabric. Unwrapping the awl, I smiled.

“I knew it was the one.”




Comments welcome.

Orphic Mission

Today's post is another from the P&W prompt series (again, thanks to Angelspeak):


Flip through the dictionary and randomly choose 10 words. Write a poem with each word in every other line.


Here are the words I collected (with definitions from Merriam-Webster):


perigee - the point on the moon's elliptical path closest to Earth (making it look large)
apogee - the point on the moon's elliptical path farthest from Earth (making it look small)
quintessence - the most typical example of a thing; the essence of a thing in its most pure/concentrated form;the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies
divest - to undress or strip
orphic - having to do with Orpheus (the poet/musician who almost rescues his wife Eurydice from Hades by charming Pluto and Persephone with his lyre)
lignin (or lignify) - the substance that makes wood cells hard ( to convert into wood/woody tissue)
tissular - relating to organismic tissue
embrew (another spelling of imbrue) - to stain (something)
wame - (chiefly Scottish) the belly; in a woman, the womb
forbear - to hold back or abstain, particularly with effort


I got some from links on the front page of the site and rest from browsing the dictionary by letter. It wasn't until I looked up quintessence a second time that I got the celestial/alchemical definition, but by that time I already had 8 words and a theme was starting to arise. Words like changeling started coming to mind, so I came up with a draft: (the link is really worth reading if you don't know too much about about changeling/fairy lore - some of the references will make more sense)

With sweat streaming, a woman on an orphic mission

made her way up ol’ fairye hill, her fair complexion ruddy

with the strain of climbing. So close was the perigee moon

and with it the hope of recovering her baby for this changeling,

the hope that the quintessential vulnerability of her child, her real child

kept it safe from the little people’s wicked ways.

This child, stock or fetch, lignifying in her arm, failed to thrive.

Its tissular structures became rigid as she neared the stones-

her last chance at saving her little girl. The tugging of fear at her wame

collapsed any confidence she had left, embrewing her thoughts

 divesting her of her power to have an effect. Passing the lump in her arms

through the Crick stones thrice, she waited her child with hope.

The moon forbore its ancient potent, as though the apogee had come

too soon.


Because that was just terrible and the interesting words I had picked were often too obscure to really convey well the meaning, I drafted again, dropping the words where necessary, but trying to retain their meaning as much as possible.  

Orphic Mission

Sweat streaming into her eyes, a young woman panted

up ol' fairye hill, her fair complexion ruddy with strain.

The full moon bloomed large over the crest of the hill

a terra cotta medallion, her only remaining hope.

Pulling at the swaddling blankets in her arms, she glanced

at the false infant, a stock or fetch, lignifying before her eyes

a failure to thrive that was apparent from the moment she saw

the out-turned coat on the floor, fallen from the cradle.

The struggle to breathe, a hint of blue at the tips of the fingers

Gasping and grasping, a suddenly fussy changeling lay

where once was nestled a tranquil child, touched by the heavens

The deceitful being she held became more and more rigid

as she neared the stones - her last chance at saving her little girl

A fear tugged in her belly, collapsing any confidence she held,

imbruing her thoughts and divesting her of maternal power

Passing the body in her arms through the crick stone thrice

She awaited the arrival of her child, hope waning

The moon withheld its ancient potency, as though the perigee

had come too late




Comments welcome.

Dork Tourette's

So I grabbed (very last minute) a Red Writing Hood prompt from The Red Dress Club:


This week's assignment was to think of someone - it could be a fictional character, a public figure, someone you know - who gets under your skin, and write a piece from his or her perspective.

Dork Tourette's


Okay... just talk like a normal person... breathe in.

The awkward boy of fifteen sucked in a deep breath, pulling up the waistband of his loose swim trunks and brushing dark bowl-cut bangs out of his eyes.

Breathe out.


He pushed the breath out hard, some spittle dripping down his chin, which he embarrassedly wiped away with the back of his hand as two bikini-clad girls walked by. They barely glanced in his direction and his shoulders slumped.

No. No getting down on myself today, he thought more forcefully, forcing himself to stand up straighter as he walked out to the public pool, Just remember what Mom said. These kids are just as awkward as I am and I just have to act like I'm one of them...

He placed the smile on his face that took him an hour to perfect in the mirror at home, but one weak corner of his mouth gave him away. He sidled up to a group of classmates that he was pretty sure were his friends. He had spent the last two years at school with them in the library courtyard at lunch. He went to their parties and had his Mom help him pick out their birthday presents. They had even been to Frankie's Fun Park for his birthday last year, all of them donning laser tag gear and winning little bronze tokens after eating a cake in the shape of a Jigglypuff, which they didn't even laugh at him for.

Even so... he was never quite sure if they were really his friends or not.

"He-... hi guys," he said, tripping on the steam in the concrete, but catching himself on a lounge chair.

"Hey Walter" chorused the group at large before going back to listening to Brandon's speech. Brandon was the glue in the group - you know, one of those kids who everyone just wants to be around and keeps everyone interested. He was just a cool guy to be around. At the moment he seemed to be telling them about a book he had recently been reading.

"... so then the bounty hunter corners the criminal, only to have him reveal he's the bounty hunter's dad - so totally a Star Wars hack, man, but it's not that bad. And this guy, he's hunting - the dad - he's a total badass. His bounty is worth, like, a trillion dollars or something ridiculous like that, so everyone is out to find this guy and turn him in, but once our bounty hunter figures out that his father only abandoned him to save his life he starts helping him on the run. Totally badass," Brandon finished impressively.

"Yeah, that sounds awesome, man,"Charlie affirmed.

"They're making it into a movie, I heard," added Katie, one of the two girls in the group.

"Yeah," Walter joined in. "It reminds me of this anime I really like called Trigun. There was an animated series and then a movie that came out more recently. I went to see it in the theaters. It's about this total badass," he continued, borrowing Brandon's words," who has a bounty of like sixty-thousand million-"

"You mean sixty billion?" Katie asked with a small laugh in her voice.

"Yeah - sixty billion double dollars. And he -"

"Double dollars? What's that?" Charlie interrupted.

"I don't think it means anything special. It's just about how much money he was worth for all the stuff he'd done. And he's called The Human Typhoon, but his name is really Vash the Stampede. And in the series there's this whole thing in the first episode with this guy named Descartes and you start to get that Vash is kinda like this nice guy all along. And he's totally cool and kinda dark, but complex, you know? And the movie came out - I saw it in the theaters - and they tried to keep the original seiyuu, so the animations a little wonky and stuff, but it mostly works. The only thing is I don't think it's really true to the original series because Vash is all over Amelia and she's not really into him, so he comes off as kinda pathetic and if you ask me it's really so that they could get more girls to watch the movie and the series, but he's really a total badass, so if you ignore that part of the movie, it's really good - you know what I mean?"

Walter actually looked at his friends, rather than imagine all the parts of the movie he liked, for the first time since he had started talking. He realized with a suddenness that made his armpits itch with sweat that they were all looking confused or bored. The girls had looked at each other and started giggling. He could have drown himself in the two foot kiddie pool next to them as he felt himself turn red.

"Yeah?" Charlie tried.

The silence continued as Walter tried to think of what anyone else would say... What would Mom-

"Did everyone put on sunscreen? It's really bright out today and it's really important to put your sunscreen on. You could get skin cancer if you don't cover up," he blurted.

Everyone looked more confused at this random outburst.

God... I must have dork Tourette's. 


"Yeah - we did. Thanks, Walter," Brandon said, smiling genuinely. He sometimes did that - saved the day when Walter needed. "Hey - you wanna go swimming guys?"

"Yeah!"

"Sure, let's go."

As everyone moved to the pool, Brandon smiled and gave Walter a soft, but manly shoulder punch.

"There you go again, trying to impress the girls, Walter." They shared a smile before cannonballing into the pool, causing all of the girls to shriek.

Finally... P&W Prompt 2

Prompt (which I picked up at Angelspeak):

Write an erasure poem:  Rip out one or two pages from a magazine or newspaper.  Read through them, underlining words and phrases that appeal to you and that relate to each other.  Using a marker or WhiteOut, begin to delete the words around those you underlined, leaving words and phrases that you might want to use.  Keep deleting the extra language, working to construct poetic lines with the words you’ve chosen to keep.

--
Since I am in Hong Kong and only have one magazine, which I just very recently acquired and do not care to rip up, I took the first article that appeared when I chose “Random Article” from the task bar. I got “Bernard Mandeville”. I ended up using 51 of the 67 words that I chose from article. I've set up a page on which you can see the entire process, but because of the long nature of writing this short story, it was too much to put in a single post. Here is the final product of this prompt:
 


The World Unmasked

Cold, sharp evenings of the ides of November always drove folk into their homes or taverns or brothels come evening. Into the dank of a peacefully seedy bar stumbled a group of five, the likes of which were rarely known to give patronage to such a lowly den. But men cannot be divided into lower and higher, or at least will not. Thus the well-respected company, known in the society pages for their conversational abilities and relations with one another, acted contrary to the impulse of their nature and enjoyed the entertainment of the common.  None of this activity was actually detrimental to their reputations, they who thrived until age or lack of wealth brought them tumbling down; they were far superior to the brutes found in such establishments.

One man among them, The Philosopher, a satirist, had led the crowd into the bar. He was of the “ministry of advocating intellectual progress” and therefore endeavored to enlighten his wealthy peers, hoping to make them knaves turned honest by exposing them to the cruelty of lesser living.His search into the nature of society piqued the interest of several society types:

One, The Gentleman, who was the patron of our fine philosopher, looked more like a parson in a tye-wig than a financier. His reputation did not fare much better, but his well-paid bankers did and so he came to be a patron of free thoughts. Short and stout, he panted along slightly in the wake of his longer-legged companions, always trying to keep up and steaming from his sweaty effort in the cold night air.

The Poet, another under the patronage of The Gentleman, was famous for his unknown origin. He had come to France to learn the language from which he sculpted his craft and succeeded so remarkably that many refused to believe he was a foreigner. His pièce de résistance had emerged within his first year, two hundred doggerel couplets to his name, leaving all of Paris a grumbling hive of bees for another comedic burlesque.

With the men traveled two women: a pair rarely separate when seen in society. The Prudefemme and The Temptress, Exactness and Beauty personified. The two had managed to forgo falling out of the societal limelight by playing an exigent balancing act in which each embodied the foil of the other. The Prudefemme, shrewd and judicious, was known for her righteous proclamations for the cause of justice. The Temptress, the more socially risqué of the two, was reputed to have graced the homes and beds of the most extravagantly wealthy men in the world. Each of their private vices resulted in various public benefits: while the former was known to obtain the confessions of and absolve the latter of her sin, the latter kept the former active in and attractive to society.  The give-and-take arrangements between the two partners had allowed each to navigate the social waters of being taken in by a man and returning out again, each reputation unscathed. Their sometimes seemingly invisible cooperation had, however, led to the relentless struggle against social death for many a man.

“Come and have your fortunes read,” croaked a decrepit woman from the corner. She sat with a single candle burning low and a glass of some deep brown liquid clasped in gnarled hands, a kerchief binding her hair. A gypsy - such women were not unknown to the niches of Paris, said to come from the basest and vilest of origins. Nor were they unknown to those of a lofty position in society. Those most high dabbled into these lower arts, claiming them as entertainments, for “evil desires existed only in the hearts of the truly wretched”, whose lack of means drove them to petty crime.

Amid their already drunken exuberance, the party of five decided to pursue such historical inquiries as could be conjured by such a woman. She would play the guide that garnered truth in their game of guess-and-tell by properly channeling the ghosts of untold pasts. The crone sat bent in her corner, eyeballing each member of the party as they crowded around her table to meet their destiny. Swaying from side to side, her creaky voice buzzed with a deep hum only to stop abruptly.

To The Gentleman she looked, her voice raised high, startling the ladies to shrieks and making the gentleman jump on their stools, "Beware women! You find close company with a wolf in sheep's clothing. Alas, he has pulled the wool over your eyes. For chaste he may seem, but only to hide his vicious greed for the dexterous management of the female body."

Doubting their ears and looking around nonplussed for the convicted, the company followed the gaze of the woman. The two women, having flocked near the man who invoked the image of the clergy all evening, came contemporaneously to a vile conclusion regarding The Gentleman’s previous absence of sexual pursuit. He must be much more crafty than they had suspected, partaking in “mischiefs that ought justly to be apprehended” as The Prudefemme would later say. The stout man gurgled with anger and fear, opening his mouth to object, but was interrupted by another squawk of their aged reader.

To The Poet this time, the woman spoke not loudly, but in a whisper that brought all faces closer to the candle’s flame: “You were born to the netherlands of an opportunist male … no, female prostitute.”  

All eyed the latest victim with wonderment, not knowing if this would harm or enhance his stature. With writers, one could never tell.

As though she could detect the belles getting comfortable with the higher ground, the conjure woman called again:  The Prudefemme, known for seeking honesty and virtue was revealed as The Hypochondriack, subject to hysteric passions, largely believed to be brought on by immoral tendency. Her cohort, The Temptress became The Virgin Unmasked, belying her reputation of sexual progress.

Now the men turned to the gentler sex and gawked like school boys. The Prudefemme tried to regain her previous countenance as her partner fell into apathy, utterly paralyzed.  Something of their conjoined wonder had gone.

Without the desire to continue the crone’s revealing game, the dismayed group gathered their cloaks for departure and made their way out of the grungy bar, wondering at the still solid reputation of The Philosopher, suspicious that he himself may well have been involved.





As always, I appreciate comments and suggestions.