Death and Politics at the end of the world

(This is the next section of my WIP 'Death and Politics at the End of the World'. The first chapter can now be found at the top of the page under it's own page it you want to catch up. It might be helpful to know that you are entering an otherworldly realm as you journey with my character. In my last post, I was asked what genre I was writing in. My response wound up being "Genre... think magical realism meets surrealism meets Quantum Physics meets my imagination and the authors who have influenced me (including Jeanette Winterson!" things happen that are out of the extraordinary at times as a sort if so be prepared!! If you need to catch up, the first part is in the tabs at the top!)

Relative State

            If life were fair, the missing person would not be the genteel, affable woman who nourished the population of Key West. The MIA would be the detective in charge of the investigation. Alas…

His bearing is an uncomfortable parfait of govinator and Looney Toon stutterer as he ambles up to the veranda where we foxhole against the sun’s intense onslaught, the jaunty entrance invading our grief, faux royalty denying bona fide poverty. Hand outstretches, I reach out only to have his cool, dry foreignness enfold mine, a too-familiar caress pumps gently up and down, all the while eyes train on Dave, as the two exchange perfunctory greetings and my uncle asks for an update for my benefit as he slips to unawareness, clearly word weary.

“It does seem strange…” Nothing but the facts ma’am nothing but the facts … words hum, a noxious plethora of nothingness. “…but it appears she jumped over the bridge around twelve-thirteen Sunday night.” He completes the briefing, an anthropomorphic auto-attendant.

            “Did you fi--- where was she?”

            “The body?” He glances at the air over my head, then back at my uncle.

            “Body? My aunt.” I bite off the words, chafed at the reduction.

            “We haven’t found the body… yet,” His voice begins again, regurgitating evidence, snatches getting past the inner protests raging in my ear. “witnesses…”

            You don’t know crap! Idiot!

            “Left a note…”

A God-damned catechism

 “searched the perimeter…”

            We believe in

            “no trace”

            God the Father

            “no reason not to believe”

            The son and the…

            “it was suicide”

            “Holy shit!” A detonation of silence stiffens the room, then yields a mushroom cloud of resentment. “You cannot possibly believe that my aunt- Louisa Jean Cook- could possibly… She’s got a great life, a husband who adores…”

            “Your uncle tells me you’re a scientist?” Infuriating speciousness.

            “What has that got to do-”

            “Then you understand the difference between inference and actual data …” Condescending, patronizing presumptive pedagogue. “blah, blah-seem one thing-blah, blah-never know blah, blah get all the testimony-blah, blah- dope points to, blah.”

His Reaganesque “facts” were irrelevant. I am not one of those shell-shocked women who scream and cry out, refusing to correlate gun with hand, only later recognizing dark moods, caliginous silences, emotional meltdowns: Precursors of destiny. My eyelids lower, slowly shuttering out the incongruent, incompatible scene.

“blah- so very sorr-blah, blah …” There might have been a condolence amidst the disembodied syllables but it was lost in his candy-coated southern drawl.  “Best be going.”

Moving toward the door, the bereaved husband’s arm valanced the lawman’s shoulder as though he were the one in need of comfort, his low voice reassuring, even apologetic as he thanked him for his visit. The two men clasp each other gingerly, then turn to face their lives, one man’s stride cocky and insolent, the other ponderous and dilatory.

Words float back as he reaches his patrol car. “I’ll put ya’ll on the prayer chain. God doesn’t give us more than we can bear, but this is difficult, I know.”

I long to race into the yard to give an impromptu seminar for the protist on protocol, human relations and… “religious sensitivity!”

“He’s only trying to be helpful, Alex.” My uncle’s eyes hold a gentle reproach, then settle back to enveloping sorrow.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean to… I wasn’t… He shouldn’t say that shi... To assume… helpful?! … What an ass… unprofessional. It’s wrong!”  Vocal chords compress producing a raucous graunch. “If there was a god…”

A death mask faces me and my soaring passion hits the ground, wings abruptly clipped. “People do the best they can,” He recedes into unoccupied space. “Doing the best I… we can…” He wanted consolation, consideration, rather than the breaking storm of skepticism. The endeavor of inhaling, exhaling, heart pumping, limbs moving are all he can sustain, the added weight of my turmoil too much.

“You don’t really think… it’s impossible, not her at all. You don’t believe it?”

“Yes, What choice? I don’t know. No. I never would have thought, it’s not something she’d do, never in a thousand years… But it’s there, her last words. She loves,” He disappears into the framework of their memories. “loved. She loved me…” The final words float back, nearly absorbed in the gulf’s tender breath, as he lumbers up the front steps of the small conch home the pair shared for over half their lives.

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Don't forget to check out Meanderings of a Wandering Mind! I've written a blog featuring our favorite (but missing) MSNBC political commentator, Keith Olbermann! "He's Back!"

The lie I told...

SPOILER ALERT: If you are here to read the challenge, I mistakenly linked to my blog in my haste to figure out what I was going to write and missed Rachael's directions to link the post so click here  to get to CHALLENGE #1!.

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OUT MY WINDOW

A flutter of paper-white wafer
quietly filtering onto the ground
the single flake quietly
evanescing into earth 
to be quickly followed
by another and another
until the air is aswarm with alabaster crystals
Quietly they find their way 
down 
to where the earth cradles the white flakes 
producing a dappled landscape 
until the browns of winter are asphyxiated, 

leaving behind a stifling blanket of white. 

The hold of darkness is released and the earth glows, 

producing an ethereal beauty that can be felt 

in the silence of the soul. 

Artists and poets attempt to capture the somber beauty 

but their efforts fall short 

resulting in a copy of very poor relief.

With the ascending sun 

the broadcast of school closings! 

the Silence is broken. 

A collective shout for joy is heard 

among the children of the community 

as they anticipate a day full of adventure... 


But to my older, weatherworn frame
with the snow 

comes temperatures that benumb the bones

and freeze the toes

days are short 

and the SAD days of the past are fought off with an effort

The roads are afright 

and the traffic's a terrible plight
in spite of the beauty  

or the poetic nature of the fluffy whiteness that bedecks the

trees outside my window 
I will tell you

I HATE SNOW! 

Lisa Potts did indeed get it correct! As did Anonymous who shall remain anonymous... 


P.S. to all those who guessed Einstein... Einstein's name was used for creative license only so you weren't wrong obviously I could not literally argue with Einstein as he is a dead man unless I am a medium and channel him (which I am not and do not!). But I do have an annoying habit that if I feel that I am right about something, I will not let it go, I will argue about it (and I will research it to find out if I am right to make sure- if I am wrong, however, I generally admit to my incorrectitude).

P.S.S. to any who guessed stage fright-- you are right, I do not. I was not describing stage fright but rather a quirk that I have- I am a singer and I visualize the sheet music in my head as I sing. However if I lose my place while I am singing I am doomed! I have to start over or stand there completely speechless-- which has happened a few times to my embarrassment!!!

P.S.S.Yes, I do go a little blotto over an unfinished puzzle. I enjoy doing them so much that we have to make rules in the house to leave it alone or I'd sit and finish a puzzle in no time. I guess that's a sort of secret. I haven't ever told anyone that before although it's known in our household. My darling Mo makes me promise not to finish the puzzles while he's out if I'm home alone.   

Death and Politics at the end of the world

(This is the next section of my WIP 'Death and Politics at the End of the World'. The first chapter can now be found at the top of the page under it's own page it you want to catch up. It might be helpful to know that you are entering an otherworldly realm as you journey with my character. It is not fantasy nor is it magical realism although perhaps that might be a helpful touchstone... things happen that are out of the extraordinary so be prepared)

Relative State

The house gapes at me in surprise as though a stranger were climbing out of the rental and starting up the walk rather than the woman from child who once magic carpet rode down the stairs and swung on grinning screen doors. I launch myself up the wooden stairs and through the front door, silence wrapping around me in smothering folds. The contentment and tranquility of homecoming that bolstered me as I drove onto the island has been achingly stripped away and I stand alone in a sarcophagus of destitution.

            I pause, straining for the creak of a floorboard or water meandering through pipes. “Hel--lo?” The vowels rice crispy crackle in my throat. A rushing stillness swarms into the room in reply and I glance around, claustrophobic. I back toward the door anxious to escape suffocation, frightened of the flesh-eating feeling that runs up and down my arms.

            Interminable seconds later, a mattress spring groans reply and a rhythmic thump marks time as someone makes their way toward the stairs. The familiar scuffle of tattered Cookie Monster slippers make their way to the the landing until they slip finally into view; a long, audible breath escapes the confines of my lungs. The quantum dose of relief that has begun to trickle down my spine quickly evaporates as our eyes lock on the reality of sorrow between us and a tidal wave of emotion floods the room. His lips contort into familiar patterns but the customary syllables echo and bounce around the room as he stumbles forward and collapses onto my shoulder. He slides into a mournful skiffle that caroms with unintelligible lyrics. The scattered words I comprehend are lost in an echo chamber of confusion. The room swirls into turmoil, walls sway, floors arc, chairs waltz in a dizzying maelstrom of mayhem. A trio steps out from amidst the undulating drywall to accompany the lament, repeating the descant “she’s gone” in a low, solemn murmur.

            “There must be a mistake,” refusing the rain of anguish, I interject evasion. “I just talked-- she was on the phone, I told her I was coming. Everything seem- was fine. Don’t you think-”

            “NO!”  His response coagulates into intelligible words but snatch at me with disconnected tendrils “missing…days…  jumped… no body.”

            “No mistake! She’s go-o-o-ne, oh why? She’s gone” the chorus repeats contrapuntally as their arms extend in Temptationesque choreography. My gaze narrows on the ethereal centerfold and she backs off timorously, gripping her fellow crooner’s arms, quietly receding back and out of focus. The bizarre aria fades and the singers dissolve into the floorboards. The walls slink toward me, leaning silently inward anticipating my collapse. 

Pieces of a Man

It's s a sublime moment of irony, that moment when we stand by helping someone who is incapable of doing the task at hand (or seemingly anyway), yet insists they are going to try anyway. It might be our child, just learning to ride a bike, "let go, Mom, let go!" and we reluctantly let go and watch as the bike tilts and wobbles, rolls a few yards then falls to the ground, the child's knee scraped and bruised. An angry tear or two is wiped away but the child climbs back up onto the bike and heads off again, shaking off the aching knee and advice with a shrug of the shoulder. In a child's case, riding a bike is a rite of passage and while painful to watch, it is part of the parent's responsibilities to let the child go off on their own, learning to ride the bike, however painful it might be to watch the lesson of learning unfold.

But when you are showing a deaf person the way to the books on CD or a blind person how to use the computer, the line becomes a trifle blurred which is the spot Seamus* is in when he is loading the clay bird for his blind boss, King Cole**, as he sits on the beach shooting at his target. As he aims wildly into the air, missing at each launch, he explains to his young protege that he was given the gun because he had spent his youth with the now deceased Bertram Stoddard on this very beach, loading the trap, making .10 for an hour's worth of launching but given a "lifetime between the powder." And when his eyes were going, Bertram had asked the doctors to save them, so that the boy could grow up to be a newspaperman.

Seamus nods. Whatever. It still seems ridiculous to him to be shooting clay birds out into the sky so that a blind man can shoot at them, missing them over and over again.
But the command comes again. "Fire" Seamus slingshots the disks into the cerulean blue skies over Key West. The bullet finds it's mark and Cole launches himself out of his chair with his indigenous laughter, waves his arms and firearm at the heaven in celebration,


"Did you see that Bertram? They mighta kept the eyes but we got that clay bird! Oh Bertram, we did it!"  

There is a beauty in this moment that causes a tear to well each time as I watch Pieces of a Man (episode 5 of 'Key West'.) He has overcome adversity to become the person he was meant to be. He did not need to shoot the clay bird to overcome his blindness. He already was a newspaperman! But the last symbol of his being all that he wanted to be and that Bertram Stoddard had wanted for him was symbolized by the gun and shooting the clay bird- he could see everything he needed to see without his eyes.

*Fisher Stevens
**Ivory Ocean