Not a Love Story

Sam was a farm boy, a country bumpkin, his whole world constrained by the fences that kept the cows in the pasture and the straight rows of corn he drove the combine through in the fall. He was 18 years old when this story takes place, tall, easy in his lean, well-muscled body and unselfconscious about his good looks. He liked to spend evenings with his family, and occasionally on weekends he’d go into town with the farm hands. But when he turned 18, in order to celebrate his coming-of-age properly, Jake and Bill agreed that he should go to a real bar and drink real liquor.

“Well, Sam,” said Jake, as they were finishing up after the final milking and the cows were back in the barn, “doin’ anything special tonight?”

“Hadn’t thought of anything,” answered Sam. “You and Bill doing anything?”

“As a matter of fact, seeing as how you’re 18 and all now, legal you know, we were wondering if we could stand you for a whiskey in town later.”

“Wow, that’s really nice of you,” responded Sam. “I should ask my Dad if he needs me for anything, first.”

“Sure thing, Sam. We’ll pick you up at 8:30,” and the plans were laid.

It was a bit of a drive into town. Bill came in his pickup and Sam slid in beside Jake. He had showered and shaved and was actually a bit nervous. He’d been drinking beer on the farm with his dad since he was 16, but going to a bar for the first time, equipped with valid I.D. he could whip out if asked, was a novel experience. His social skills were a little awkward, not really having participated in extra-curricular activities at school, his folks always needing him to come home to work. Still, he did like people, and looked forward to the outing.

Bill pulled up in front of The Black Mule and, after a bit of searching, found a place to park. It was a Friday night and a new band, Evidence of Beavers, was playing. Sam gawked like a tourist as he followed the older men to the bar. “Whiskey!” they ordered, and Sam found a shot glass in front of him. Jake and Bill both lifted theirs to their lips and downed the contents in a single gulp, so Sam did likewise. He was unprepared for the sharpness of the taste, the way it burned his throat on the way down, and the tears that sprang unbidden to his eyes as the warmth spread through his chest and into his stomach. The two farm hands were watching him, though, so he smiled and said, “Wow!”

“Another?” asked Jake. “Sure!” Sam replied enthusiastically.

The room was starting to get crowded and the volume rose as the band tuned up their instruments. People were shouting to be heard, which only raised the decibel level. Sam had lost count of how many whiskey shots he’d downed, and was feeling unsteady on his feet. He also needed to pee.

On his way back from the men’s room he saw her, the girl of his dreams, like an angel, her blonde hair a halo around her Barbie Doll face, backlit by the decorative lights hung behind her. She was alone, but it was evident that her solitude was only temporary, for the places at her table were occupied by half-filled beer glasses. Her companions must have gone out for a smoke.

Sam, emboldened by the whiskey, made his way to one of the vacant chairs next to her. “Hi,” he said, shyly, “I’m Sam.”

“Hi, Sam,” the girl answered, her low husky voice sounding amused, “I’m Sam, too, Samantha. Pleased to meet you.” She extended a slim hand with manicured nails for Sam to take. He had never felt such soft skin, being used to the work-roughened hands of his own family members.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was beautiful, her golden curls cascading down her open neckline to the generous cleavage it revealed. He leaned forward and drank in her musky perfume, overcome. “Will you marry me?” he blurted out, before collapsing with his face on her shoulder.

Samantha laughed and pushed him off her. “Sorry, honey,” she said, “I’m not that kind of girl.”

Ten a.m. smoking break

“There are so many people outside, it looks like a fire drill.”

Louie laughed, exhaling a burst of cigarette smoke, and then lapsed into a coughing fit. “Except the fire is out here,” he commented to Réal, waving the lit tip of his cigarette in his companion’s face.

Réal took another drag and squinted up at the sky, the sun now peeking over the tops of the downtown office buildings. “This is all right,” he muttered, “at least it’s warm out, and it’s not raining. But I hate having to come outside to smoke in the winter; and now they won’t even let us shelter in the doorways. Nine metres. Bah!” He spat on the sidewalk.

Louie looked at the cigarette in his hand speculatively. “They’ve put the price of smokes up again. It’s getting so I can barely afford them anymore. I ran a budget the other day to figure out what this habit is costing me.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Réal. “How much?”

“A lot,” answered Louie, “enough that I could take my wife and my girlfriend to the Bahamas for a week at Christmas. Not enough for separate vacations, sadly.”

It was Réal’s turn to chuckle. “That would be something, eh? Claudette and Marie in the same hotel room. I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”

Louie was quiet for a moment, gazing off down the street at all the smokers indulging their addiction. Some were talking with companions, like him and Réal, others were smoking alone.

“Réal,” he said, “I’m going to quit,” and as if to underline this decision he dropped his butt on the sidewalk and ground it out under his heel.

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Louie,” grumbled Réal. “You’ve been smoking forever. We both have been. I don’t think you can do it.”

“No,” said Louie, determination in his voice, “it just came to me. I could give those gals so much more if I wasn’t always nickle and diming it so I’d have enough for a pack of smokes. I could get rid of this lousy cough and I wouldn’t feel like a second-class citizen having to go outside every hour to have a cigarette. You ever notice how the others look at you when you’re heading out for a smoke? Like you’ve got a disease. I’m sick of it.”

Réal drew deeply from what was left of his cigarette. “I couldn’t do it. For one thing, I’d miss getting all this fresh air.”

A Silver Coin

I’m just a regular guy who likes coins. Sometimes when customers give me change for their purchases at the Quickee Mart, I pocket the really interesting pieces and replace them with coins of my own. In this way I’ve made quite a collection of special minted issues and foreign money that would otherwise just have continued into circulation. My boss has never made a fuss about it, as long as the books always balance at the end of the day.

One day a customer came in and bought a few sundry items: a toothbrush, cigarette lighter, bottle of cola, bag of chips and a city map. He wanted one that showed all the street names and was very insistent about that, which is what made me notice him in the first place. He was extremely tall, with a long, thin face, very pale skin, and silvery hair sticking out from a soft felt hat that was jammed low on his head as though to hide his face. His clothing was also non-descript. I got one glimpse of his eyes which seriously spooked me. They were a pale, pale gray, almost white, like some huskies’ with silver lashes and one eyebrow with a scar running through it.

He paid for his purchases with a bunch of crumpled up bills and a handful of coins. As I was sorting them for the till, I noticed one in particular that was definitely not legal tender, even though it was the right size and weight for a 25¢ piece. I examined it closely and decided it wasn’t from any country I’d ever heard of, and it seemed to be pure silver, when most coins these days are made of nickel. I dug a quarter out of my pocket, dropped it in the till and slipped the silver coin into my pants and didn’t think about it again until that night when I was undressing for bed.

Taking off my jeans, the bright bit of money fell out of the pocket and rolled onto the floor. I retrieved it and looked at it under the light with a magnifying glass. On one side was the profile of some regal-looking personage with very aristocratic features. On the other was a swirling design that reminded me a bit of Celtic knotwork and also of oriental arabesques. There was writing around the edges on both back and front which resembled some form of Indian script, but which I knew wasn’t. I tried to follow the design, feeling that if I could just unravel it I would understand where this coin had come from. But as my eyes followed the twisting path, it seemed to get longer and longer, never meeting up with the beginning. I felt as though my consciousness were separating from my body and I was falling into the waving, twisting weave.

I had a very strange dream that night. When I awoke all I was left with were impressions of horses and tall people in irridescent cloaks, of torches and silver eyes glittering in lamplight, and of a wildness that I could not describe. It left me feeling empty, longing for something that I had lost, but I didn’t know what. The enigmatic coin was still on my bedside table and I pocketed it as I dressed for work.

When I got off the bus just a block before the Quickee Mart as I did every day, I felt a cool breeze blowing towards me out of an alleyway that I had to cross to get to the store. The smell was not of rotting garbage and the urine left by unwashed bums that I was used to; this was fresh and cool, carrying scents of the country, running water and woodlands. I stopped to breathe it in more deeply and the coin in my pocket suddenly became icy cold against my leg.

Shimmering in the air in front of me at the entrance to the alley was the same design I had examined so closely on the silver disc, swirling arabesques of Celtic-like knotwork. It beckoned to me and I stepped toward it, threading myself along the line of moving light until I was actually following a path, a real path under my feet, and I was no longer on a city street between a bus stop and a convenience store, no longer at the mouth of a dark and dank alleyway. The glyph faded from the air in front of me and I found myself in an open area with waving grasses, a forest off in the distance and the merry tinkle of a clear brook down to my left.

I stopped and waited. How had I got here? I was sure the silver coin in my pocket had had some hand in it. Off in the distance I heard the sound of horses, the creak of leather and the call of a silver horn. In a short time several riders were approaching, as amazed by my appearance as I was by theirs.

The leader stopped his horse and the others followed suit. Dressed in greens and browns with bows and arrows on their backs, they looked like Robin Hood’s merry men. But they, too, resembled my visitor at the store the day before, long faces with aristocratic features, pale hair and silvery eyes. I suddenly remembered my dream.

“Greetings,” said the leader. “I am Blaerieth. What brings you here to the elven lands from the world of men?”

“I don’t know,” I stammered. “I was on my way to work, and then I was here.”

“Do you carry a talisman upon you, perhaps?” the tall man asked me.

Suddenly I realized what he was talking about and I reached into my pocket and pulled out the silver coin and showed it to him. He looked at it thoughfully but didn’t touch it.

“You possess the medallion of Aleithien,” he informed me. “It was long-thought to be lost. How came it into your possession?”

I told him about the customer who had given it to me in a handful of change, how I had thought it interesting and exchanged one of my own quarters for it so that the right amount would add up in the till. Blaerieth listened attentively to me all the time, his gaze never wavering from my face. When I was done, he turned to his companions and said something in a language I didn’t understand. There was suddenly a horse standing in front of me and I understood I was to mount it.

I had only ridden a horse during the summers I spent at summer camp as a child, and was rusty at best. It took a few tries before I was able to get comfortable in the saddle and Blaerieth made sure that I wasn’t going to fall off. Then we were off, galloping across the meadow, racing the wind itself. It was exhilarating, and once more I remembered my dream of the night before.

We arrived at a large manor house and dismounted, our horses led away by grooms, and we were ushered into a large hall where other tall, aristocratic, silvery-haired men and women sat at tables and ate and drank or played cards or dice. On a dais in a large upholstered chair sat a man who was obviously the master of the house. It was him we approached and Blaerieth spoke to him in that language that I still didn’t understand.

The master turned his silvery gaze upon me and I felt chilled to the bone. Then he spoke in oddly-accented English.

“Welcome to my home, young man. I am Lord Thurien. It is a long time since anyone has crossed over from the world of men to the elven lands.”

“Thank you,” I answered. Everyone was being very polite, but I felt ill at ease, perhaps because I was the alien here. I started playing over all the things I remembered from fairy tales about mortals who had trespassed on faerie soil and began to get worried. Would a few hours in this place translate into a generation in the other? Would I return to find all my friends either aged or dead from the passage of time? Lord Thurien must have noticed the concern in my expression.

“Come, you must be hungry and thirsty from your ride. Give our guests something to eat and drink,” he called to the serving folk. The other riders and I were led to a table where we were served platefuls of fruits and nuts and given goblets of water. It was the iciest, purest, most refreshing water I had ever tasted. It invigorated me thoroughly and I fell hungrily upon the food which satisfied in a different way.

When we were done, Lord Thurien himself came and led me down a passageway to a small room that resembled a den or study. There were a desk and bookcase, comfortable chairs and a table with a fire crackling in the grate. He bade me sit and then asked to see the coin. I readily produced it and handed it to him.

After examining it closely for some time he turned to me and spoke. “This medallion once belonged to one of our greatest heroes, Aleithien. He was killed at the battle of Glasroth and it was believed lost with him. But now you have it. Tell me how you came by it.”

I told him what I had told Blaerieth earlier. He asked me for details about the appearance of my customer, but I was not able to supply them very well, since all these elven folk seemed very similar to me. But I remembered the small scar running through one eyebrow that interrupted the growth of hair. When I gave this detail to my host, he gave an abrupt start.

“Galashien!” he cried out hoarsely. “That is who stole the medallion . We always suspected, and now we know. I’m positive he did not knowingly pass it on to you, but had it hidden in the change in his pocket so that no one else would find it, and then accidentally handed it to you for his purchases.” The old elf lapsed into silence again and appeared deep in thought.

“We must apprehend him,” he said. “He will surely notice the medallion is gone and will come looking for it. He will retrace his steps until he reaches your store and then will demand its return. You must not give it to him, for he handed it over in fair trade and you in return traded what you believed to be equal value, at least in the world of men, so that you might possess it. But he will return, of that I am certain.”

I was escorted back to the hall where the riders waited patiently and were instructed to return me to the place where I had been found so that I might continue on my way. With the coin back in my pocket, I was soon riding the same mare as before and left to dismount where the riders had first picked me up. I did not know how many hours had passed since I had arrived there, but I feared that something would be terribly amiss in my own world, the world of men.

Blaerieth made a gesture and the same Celtic-arabesque knotwork as before appeared in the air. My gaze was drawn into it again and I stepped forward, almost colliding with a passerby on the sidewalk as I stepped out of the mouth of the alleyway. Once more I smelled the musty odours of rotting garbage and hobo urine.

Quickly I hurried to the door of the Quickee Mart, but it was locked. I fumbled for my key and opened it and glanced at the large clock over the counter. I was early for work. No time had passed at all since I had walked into the elven lands. I was pleasantly surprised after all my worries.

The morning passed uneventfully with the usual customers. It wasn’t until after I returned from my lunch break that the same man from the day before arrived in his run-down clothing, his hat pulled low over his silver-gray eyes. He seemed rather nervous as he approached the counter where I was rearranging cartons of cigarettes.

“Excuse me, young man,” he addressed me in strangely-accented English. “I was in here yesterday and I believe I gave you something rather more valuable in change than twenty-five cents. I would like it back, please.”

“I’m sorry,” I answered. “The till has been emptied since last night and the contents deposited in the vault. I can’t open the vault; only the boss can do that.”

For a moment the stranger, whom I now knew to be Galashien, bristled and a strange glow enveloped him. Then it disappeared and he seemed to sniff the air and looked straight at me.

“I know it’s here,” he said quietly, “in this room. I can feel it. I would appreciate it if you would hand it over and no one will get hurt.”

“It’ll cost you,” I answered back. “Twenty-five cents. That’s what it’s worth to me.”

He started rummaging around in his pockets, pulling out bits of this and that: a bird feather, a smooth pebble, a streetcar ticket, what appeared to be some precious gems. These all fell to the floor and rolled off or scattered, but there were no quarters or coins of any kind among them. He was starting to get desperate. The anger was building up behind those eerie eyes and the broken eyebrow stood out prominently. He suddenly raised his empty hands towards me and pronounced words in that language I could not understand that I had heard just that morning. A golden glow formed around his hands and shot towards me, only to be absorbed by the talisman in my hip pocket. It became icy cold and I felt the chill right through the denim of my jeans.

It became clear to me what I had to do. I pulled the coin from its hiding place and held it in front of my face. Then I said, “Heads it’s mine, tails it’s yours,” and tossed it high in the air. He watched in troubled fascination as it tumbled over and over, falling, falling, and then suddenly passed through a glyph in the air, the same Celtic-arabesque knotwork that swallowed up the shining piece of silver. Just as quickly as it disappeared, though, another shining coin fell into my open palm and I quickly slapped it over onto my forearm.

“Tails!” I shouted. “It’s yours. Here, take it,” and I handed him the now very ordinary quarter and smiled. He backed away, not touching the proffered coin, until he suddenly turned tail and fled from the store. I knew then that the talisman of Aleithien was now safely in the elven lands and my erstwhile customer would finally come to justice for his theft.

I still find and collect unique coins, but none quite as interesting as that one.

Waiting for Edward

     I opened the door and walked into the lobby, the sound of toilets flushing behind me, my neck still damp from the cloth I’d held to the back of it, and I wished, not for the first time, that I had never met Edward, that we had never begun this tawdry affair, or that he would divorce that harridan wife of his and make an honest woman of me already.

     The bright lights of the crystal-dripping chandeliers made me squint and I fished around in my handbag for my sunglasses, the darkened lenses affording me some small relief as I made my way to a couch between two enormous potted palms where I could sit and wait for Edward to arrive. If only I hadn’t woken up with that damned migraine, if only I weren’t so weak and malleable that I leapt at Edward’s every beck and call.

     What did I see in the man anyway? Could I not have found love elsewhere, real love, with someone who wouldn’t keep me dangling on his every whim, meeting him for lust-filled weekends at fancy hotels like this one all over the country? Someone who enjoyed my company for my wit and intelligence and not just as a sex toy?

     At least, that was what I was feeling then as I waited for Edward to show up, late as always, my head pounding in pain, my left big toe blistered from my new high-heeled pumps (Edward liked me in sexy footwear). That would all change, I knew, when he swept me up in his embrace and carried me off to the bridal or some comparable suite to frolic for two days non-stop in satin sheets, whirlpool bath, with champagne, caviar and chocolate profiteroles. On that particular afternoon, I was not interested in the pleasures ahead. I only wanted to die quietly in a corner, preferably a dark and silent corner, but of course, that wasn’t part of Edward’s plan.

     As I sat on the couch, pretending to be interested in a sculpture of a cowboy on horseback lassoing a steer, not a badly wrought objet d’art, but the subject matter certainly not to my taste, I was joined by two men deep in conversation about some kind of pathology. It occurred to me that they must be there for a medical conference. I tried not to appear interested in their conversation, but I couldn’t help eavesdropping, medicine something I had begun studying before dropping everything to be available for Edward’s lecherous whims. What a fool I was!

     The doctor next to me looked at his watch, said something about catching a train, and was gone, leaving a gap between his colleague and me. For the first time I got a good look at him: youthful middle age, full head of hair starting to gray at the temples, a neat beard, also gray, and horn-rimmed glasses framing the most amazingly blue eyes I’d ever seen. I was so astonished I took off my sunglasses to see them better, when he caught sight of my own bloodshot eyes.

     “Miss, are you all right?” he asked. For a moment I considered whether or not I should answer him. Imagine, a stranger like that taking an interest in me, the proverbial mouse, Edward’s mouse at that. But then, there was genuine concern in his voice and expression, he was a doctor, and he did have those gorgeous blue eyes.

     “As a matter of fact,” I began, “no, I’m not all right. I have a migraine that would fell a horse, I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, my friend is late and I have an annoying blister on my left foot from these damned shoes!”

     Suddenly, he was next to me, looking in my eyes, touching my head, all very professional of course, but I realized at that moment that Edward was over, he was a thing of the past, of no moment whatsoever, that the whole point to our tawdry trysting had been to put me in this particular place at this particular time so that I could meet this man and say to him, “Are you busy right now? Could I interest you in tea at the coffee shop across the street?” and for him to answer, “Why, I’d like nothing better.”

     And so, arm in arm, I with dark sunglasses on against the bright afternoon sunlight and limping slightly, we left the hotel lobby where Edward no doubt eventually arrived, only to find me gone, no one to slide around with on the satin sheets or feed oysters to, while I discovered that the adage “the good ones are all taken” was about to become true.

The Sybil of Cumae

The story went something like this:

        During the seven years when the Theban prophet Teiresias had been a woman (he had encountered two snakes copulating on the path and had struck the female, immediately transforming into a woman; seven years later he came across the same snakes on the same path engaged in the same activity and struck the male, thus reverting to his previous state) he was said to have had a daughter, Daphne, radiant as the day. It is no surprise that she caught the attention of a god, Apollo no less, who granted her the gift of prophecy and anything else she asked for. She grabbed up a handful of sand and demanded to live as many years as there were grains of sand in her grasp, but neglected to ask for eternal youth. When she spurned Apollo’s love, he refused to grant the omitted boon, and she was fated to grow old. She became the Sybil of Cumae, in Italy, and continued to age, withering away until she was hung upside down in a bottle, saying only that she wished to die.

        Ruth folded up the tourist brochure and looked around the site. There wasn’t much left of Apollo’s temple at Cumae, near Naples, but she could appreciate the antiquity of the place. Over the tumbled stones and toppled columns lay an aura of great age. She imagined that if she were quiet enough, and patient enough, the stones would talk to her, but no matter how long she stood with eyes shut, hands on the rough rock, no voices spoke. The gods were dead, she decided, dead and gone. It didn’t just happen to gods; but people too, once dead and forgotten, ceased to exist as memories of them faded. Only very famous ones who had left great legacies, like Mozart and Michelangelo, were remembered, but more for the art they created. Their actual lives as people were embellished until one could no longer separate the truth from the fiction.

        It must be the same for dead gods, thought Ruth. In their heyday, the Greek pantheon were all powerful. Now they are relegated to myth and legend. Someday the same fate will befall our modern religions, no matter how fervently people believe in them right now. She wasn’t sure exactly how she felt about this revelation. It would be nice if some things lasted forever, but sadly, even the stones of this once imposing temple were being corroded by acid rain.

        As Ruth moved along the path following the tourist in front of her, she thought she heard a moaning sound coming from among the fallen rubble. It was very faint, easily mistaken for the sighing of the wind, or two branches rubbing together. She stopped and focused all her attention in the direction from which it came, shutting her eyes and closing out all other distractions. There was definitely a sound coming from the ruins. She took a step towards it and then stopped.

        What was she doing? This was an archeological site. She couldn’t start scrabbling around in the dirt, she wasn’t a qualified archeologist. But the sound was pulling at her now, filling her with despair, as though someone needed very badly to be rescued. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, she stepped off the path and into the ruined temple. The sound was stronger here, and sounded less like the wind and more like a voice, a real voice, moaning in pain, terrible pain. Ruth took another step towards it and this time thought she could hear words, but she couldn’t understand them.

        There, under a fallen column, tucked in behind a chunk of rubble, was a bottle, bound in leather, ancient, looking for all the world like a piece of garbage. Carefully Ruth reached under the stone and grasped the neck, pulling carefully lest she break it. She was very nervous, afraid that a site guard would catch her, that she would be made to give up her find, be thrown in jail. She had heard stories about people who robbed archeological sites of their antiquities. But, when she glanced up, no one was paying her any attention. There seemed to be a gauzy curtain dividing her from the path where the other visitors were slowly wending their way, as though she had stepped across a threshold into a different realm and was invisible to everyone else.

        She picked up the bottle and brought it close to her face, examining the leather wrappings. Once it had been a harness of sorts with a loop, long worn through. It had hung from a hook. The bottle itself was earthenware, red with black figures etched on it. At home she had a book describing the different styles of Greek pottery, she could consult it later. For now, the sound had ceased. Making sure no one was watching, Ruth dropped her find into her knapsack, and slung it back on her shoulders, making her way as nonchalantly as possible back to the line of tourists working their way through the site.

        Later, in her hotel room, Ruth removed the stolen artifact from her backpack. She didn’t quite know what to do about it, thinking that maybe she could enjoy it for a few days, and then turn it over to the proper authorities before it was time to take her plane back to London. Carefully, she pulled it out and lay it on the bed. It was quiet. She hadn’t heard the moaning since she picked it up. It was a mystery to her what had made the sound in the first place. She attempted to remove the leather, but age had made it brittle and it would not slip over the rounded shoulders of the bottle. The opening was inside the harness, and it appeared that it had been hung upside down from the hook. How odd, thought Ruth.

        Finally, unable to contain her curiosity, she retrieved her pocket knife from her bag and cut through the hard substance, which finally separated under the ministrations of the sharp blade. The leather fell away from the pottery and revealed the painting on it, a beautiful woman sitting on an ornate chair, a look of utter disdain on her face as a supplicant knelt at her feet. Behind her, with an expression of combined disappointment and longing, was Apollo. She recognized the Greek letters for his name and looked for others, finally finding them: delta, alpha, phi, nu, eta. “Daphne,” she whispered aloud, letting her held breath out in a rush, “the Sybil of Cumae.”

        Ruth tilted the bottle to see the name better, and something poured out of the opening, dust, ash, sand, she could not tell, onto the hotel bedspread. She didn’t want to touch it, thinking that it could very well be the remains of the oldest Sybil ever, and yet found herself reaching nonetheless towards the small pile in front of her. As she gathered the dust into her hand, she heard a voice in her mind like the wind in lonely places, “Θέλω να πεθάνω.” * Then it was gone.

       As she watched, the bottle cracked and broke into tiny pieces, the leather casing crumbled into dust. All that remained was a pile of dirt on the bedspread. Oh dear, thought Ruth, how will I ever explain this to the maid?



Sibyl of Cumae, Andrea del Castagno, 1450, Florence , Sant’ Apollonia Gallery.

* “I want to die.”

Crystal Clear

     If I were transparent, sunlight would shine right through me. I would cast strange shadows, like jellyfish floating in the sparkling sea, tendrils dragging the sand, their mauve brains surrounded by water-clear gel. Light passing through me would bend and refract, leaving rainbows in my wake. I could start fires just by clenching my fist and focusing the sun’s rays on a piece of driftwood.

     If I were clear as glass, I could stand perfectly still and become invisible, or I could play tricks on unsuspecting pedestrians, tripping them with a strategically placed foot, or sidling up behind them and whispering lewd nothings in their ears. I could sneak into movie theatres and concert halls, standing in the shadows and avoiding the rainbow-making light.

     There is no transparency here. We are opaque and obscured by our inhibitions and our fears. We do not reveal any more than we have to, lest we become vulnerable to attacks on our delicate soft souls. The jellyfish washed up on shore and left by the ebbing tide dies in the sunshine, exposed to the drying air and the sand shovels of holidaying children.

     We cannot risk leaving our own mauve brains to the elements, so we build shells around them, construct castle walls with ramparts and crenellated towers from which to launch our counterattacks. Then we feel safe, solid, impervious to light and rainbows.

Sounds of Summer

       On a hot summer’s night when you leave the windows open hoping for a breeze to cool off the still air, when you twist and toss, throwing sheets off you, flipping your pillow for the fresh side, you hear conversations outside—perhaps neighbours are sitting on their front steps, chatting in the dark, or a couple is taking a midnight stroll, talking as they walk—and you are drawn to the sounds, maybe catching a word here and there, maybe a whole sentence or two. But it’s a distraction, a further distraction from the sleep that is held at bay by the heat and your sweat and the headache starting just between your eyes.

       You think about things, silly things, like the movie you saw earlier that evening, the cinema blessedly air-conditioned, or the comics in the paper that morning, or the plight of a character in the book you’re reading. You play over conversations in your mind, repeat the words of popular songs, recite poetry memorized in junior high school, speeches from Shakespeare learned for Mr. Gildner’s grade 10 English class, and you still can’t sleep.

       Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a real breeze comes through your open bedroom window and cools the sweat on your overheated skin. The neighbors have retired, the strollers long gone; it is quiet and you actually begin to feel chillled. So you pull the sheet up from where it lies bunched at your feet, smooth it out and fold down the edge, cover yourself and turn your pillow one last time before finally drifting off to sleep, so long denied, so welcome now.