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STATE OF GRACE

(re-post)

People smiling at me on the street as I went out this morning alerted me to the fact that I have on my 'wide open face'. Of course it inspires me to smile back. (I checked to make sure I wasn't wearing a chocolate milk mustache as I once was when people were all in a smile, but, no, it is a genuine inner catalyst.) It is the result of many things, I think: intent and focus overall, a good night's sleep, whatever I have fuelled my digestive engine with over the past few days satisfying it to function efficiently, karma, the alignment of the planets, my environment. Whatever the cause(s) I love it! It is truly a state of grace and I watch the day unfold in this mode, pay attention to the details, attempt to enjoy it to the utmost.

Posted on January 11, 2005 at 09:29 AM | Permalink

People smiling at me on the street as I went out this morning alerted me to the fact that I have on my 'wide open face'. Of course it inspires me to smile back. (I checked to make sure I wasn't wearing a chocolate milk mustache as I once was when people were all in a smile, but, no, it is a genuine inner catalyst.) It is the result of many things, I think: intent and focus overall, a good night's sleep, whatever I have fuelled my digestive engine with over the past few days satisfying it to function efficiently, karma, the alignment of the planets, my environment. Whatever the cause(s) I love it! It is truly a state of grace and I watch the day unfold in this mode, pay attention to the details, attempt to enjoy it to the utmost.

INFINITE SWITCH

(re-post)

It was a most unusual stove.  I thought it only had two burners - what a lovely excuse for not cooking at times.

The stove was in one of those used appliance stores, (on Queen Street East in Toronto), that has stoves and refrigerators and washers and dryers literally "tucked" into place.

A wringer washer and two freezers upended on each other had to be moved so I could get near to the stove.  And it was only when I had asked the price and about delivery charges that the owner decided I was  a serious buyer and moved a fridge out of the way so I could stand in front of the stove and open the oven door.

This was when I discovered that there were the normal four burners - they slid out of the way under the oven.  The oven was at eye level - such a logical height for an oven -  and had a glass door.  I'd never watched a cake of mine rise.  Maybe I could discover why my muffins didn't!

A large two-tiered storage unit swung neatly out from under the burners.  The entire stove was stainless steel and glass.

If you are the type of person who becomes attached to inanimate objects then you will understand my sweaty palms and quickened heart beat.  It was love at first sight between me and that stove.

But things were not to go smoothly.  The problem was not in the ritual of buying.  The difficulty was in understanding how the stove worked.  And making it do so.

The owner did not even bother to answer when I asked if there was an instruction booklet with the stove.

"I'll show you how she works," he said.

I may possibly, one day, forget the stove. (I haven't, obviously!)  I will never forget the seller of the stove.  His name was Norm, no names changed to protect anyone.

He had a growth out of the corner of his mouth that smoked - I guess it was a cigarette but it bore little resemblance to the neat white cylinders that come in packs.  And, of course, the smoke rising kept one eye permanently squinted.

It's hard to carry on a conversation with someone who talks without moving his lips, who appears to be in a perpetual wink, who shouts, and who is more stubborn than I am.

Norm showed me how the stove worked.  Learning to fly a plane will be a breeze compared to the learning of how to operate the appliance.

The stove was delivered.  It wouldn't work.  At least not all of it.  At least not all the time.

The delivery men phoned the store.  I could hear Norm shouting clear across the kitchen. "Just push the infinite switch!" he kept saying.

We had had a bit of a discussion about this "infinite switch" when he was showing me how to work the stove in the store.  I may one day come across an infinite switch that is logical and actually does something.  But the little dial that tells how long meat should be cooked on my lovely stove is not an infinite switch and twirling it a million times is not the reason the stove does or does not work.

Norm finally got so mad at the delivery men saying they had pushed the infinite switch but the stove still wasn't working properly that he had them lug the heavy thing back to the store.  It would have been easier, quicker, simpler for him to come to the stove, but, no, the stove had to go back to him.

Time passed.  No stove.  No call from Norm.  I finally had to give in and phone him - pressure from a family tired of eating meals that could be made without a stove.

"She's been sitting here waiting for you," he said. "Nothing the matter.  Like I said.  Just push the infinite switch.  Come and check her out before I deliver her again."

I went.  I checked.  She - uh - it worked.

A few weeks later the erratic behaviour started again.  In spite of the guarantee I bypassed Norm and had a friend, an electrician, look at it.  He found the problem in the timing system. (And simplified how to use the stove.)

I never got enough nerve to phone Norm and tell him.  But I take great delight in operating that stove without ever, ever, pushing the infinite switch.

Posted on June 12, 2007 at 06:02 AM | Permalink

VACANT LOT

(re-post)

There were a lot more empty lots years ago when I was a child. This was the thought that crossed my mind as my body - car enclosed - sped by one earlier today.

The thought niggled around, as thoughts can do, and after awhile expanded to include the idea that, perhaps there were not really more vacant lots way back then, but that my experience of them was more of a -well, of an experience and not just a drive-, or even walk-by.

So with this 'theory' in mind I took myself back to see what would come of 'method' and 'observation.'

It took awhile to recall just where I had seen the empty lot: I was, after all, speeding by.  But by a process of backtracking - I found it.  It's on Pandora, north side, between Fernwood and Camosun streets.  Nature had had full expression for several seasons, I would think, without interference of the human sort, aka mower madness.

There was evidence of my fellow beings, of course, but neatly camouflaged by vegetation: food wrappings, tin cans, a water bottle, cigarette package. 

But, oh, the surprise and beauty of a lawn left to grow high and flower:  six or seven kinds of grasses, possibly more, quite different in their tassels.  A rose bush in yellow fragrant bloom.  Trees, alongside where a house must have been, a recess in the earth but any trace of a foundation hidden by the green growth.

I might have investigated further - it was a deep lot - but there are inhabited houses on both sides and I don't mind trespassing but I try to avoid being confronted while doing so.

So I eye-trekked back further onto the property.  Wild sweet pea, dark pink flowered.  Goatsbeard or prairie oyster or salsify, the purple flowers still in their closed-thin-hand-pointing-upward state except for one full puffball which I did risk (curious eyes from the nearby houses or a sudden drop into a basement) approaching through the tall grass and liberated the seed pods with their parachutes into my pocket for later release in my garden.

Bindweed.  Wild morning glory.  Much, much, much, much............... Blue flowers along the side further along and white at the back of the property but I am unable to identify either.

An insect has landed and is exploring the back of my hand: six legs, thin body, looks like a fly; hard to write as it travels up my index finger, now onto pen.  It sits on the cap and seems content to just sit. Usually, when you tell someone you are a writer, they tell you they have always wanted to write.  "Is that what you are thinking?" I ask the fly. 

Awareness shifts from the vacant lot - and funny how it is termed 'vacant' but it is anything but! - to the traffic on the road behind me and I turn and go back to the car.  Fly comes with me and I have to give quite a puff of breath to get it to move before I put pen back into purse. "Your family would wonder where on earth you had gone," I tell it as it goes.

Posted on June 22, 2007 at 06:24 AM | Permalink

Flower petal confetti; Victoria BC

 

(re-post)

Our urban orchards are in blossom later than usual this year.  But, oh ..... so welcomed.  A pounding rainfall in the night resulted in this early morning carpet.

Posted on May 15, 2011 at 09:58 AM | Permalink

 

Posted on May 16, 2023 at 06:00 AM | Permalink

 

(re-post)

Our urban orchards are in blossom later than usual this year.  But, oh ..... so welcomed.  A pounding rainfall in the night resulted in this early morning carpet.

Posted on May 15, 2011 at 09:58 AM | Permalink

 

Our urban orchards are in blossom later than usual this year.  But, oh ..... so welcomed.  A pounding rainfall in the night resulted in this early morning carpet.

(re-post)

(re-post)

Our urban orchards are in blossom later than usual this year.  But, oh ..... so welcomed.  A pounding rainfall in the night resulted in this early morning carpet.

Posted on May 15, 2011 at 09:58 AM | Permalink

 

Our urban orchards are in blossom later than usual this year.  But, oh ..... so welcomed.  A pounding rainfall in the night resulted in this early morning carpet.

(re-post)

Our urban orchards are in blossom later than usual this year.  But, oh ..... so welcomed.  A pounding rainfall in the night resulted in this early morning carpet.

Too Much Information

(re-post)

Many years ago we had a neighbour who, if asked in the casual way one does, "Hi, how are you?" would reply in great long detail.  Much of it had to do with her son's list of ailments. 

One day we had a fire in the chimney of  a fireplace and were standing out in the garden looking at the smoke seeping out between the  stones waiting on the firemen.  Neighbour wandered over to see what was going on and, distractedly, I said, "Oh, hi, how are you?" 
"Well" she said,  "Jeremy's mucus is turning and....."

I wonder what my reaction - and tone of memory - would have been had she said, "Well, we just won a million dollars in the lottery and I had to tell someone."  Why does TMI always seem to involve negative news (the Christmas letter being a whole 'nother subject!)?

Which brings me to the newspaper, the present day media in general.  Are we not smothering in TMI.  No question mark: rhetorical question. People are aware of this and some have experimented with cutting down or out their exposure to the 'news'.  I suppose these are the ones who feel a concern that it is detrimental to the quality of  life and report that they experience less stress, better sleeping, improved attitude when they filter or block the input.  Makes me wonder what percentage this is of the general population.

I noticed a man pick up a newspaper in a restaurant  and this intrepid investigative journalist watched to see what he read.  He skimmed the news and the features and began to work on the crossword puzzle.  It was 'work' - he was concentrating and intense;  only when he left the crossword and turned to the comics was the contrast so marked.  His body relaxed in his chair, his face muscles softened,  he took a deep breath. He didn't laugh or even smile, but he spent time reading most of the comics.

I wonder if the comics were on the front page would we lose the need to read the rest of the paper and would that be such a bad thing.

Posted on May 12, 2008 at 03:58 AM | Permalink

 

Many years ago we had a neighbour who, if asked in the casual way one does, "Hi, how are you?" would reply in great long detail.  Much of it had to do with her son's list of ailments. 

One day we had a fire in the chimney of  a fireplace and were standing out in the garden looking at the smoke seeping out between the  stones waiting on the firemen.  Neighbour wandered over to see what was going on and, distractedly, I said, "Oh, hi, how are you?" 
"Well" she said,  "Jeremy's mucus is turning and....."

I wonder what my reaction - and tone of memory - would have been had she said, "Well, we just won a million dollars in the lottery and I had to tell someone."  Why does TMI always seem to involve negative news (the Christmas letter being a whole 'nother subject!)?

Which brings me to the newspaper, the present day media in general.  Are we not smothering in TMI.  No question mark: rhetorical question. People are aware of this and some have experimented with cutting down or out their exposure to the 'news'.  I suppose these are the ones who feel a concern that it is detrimental to the quality of  life and report that they experience less stress, better sleeping, improved attitude when they filter or block the input.  Makes me wonder what percentage this is of the general population.

I noticed a man pick up a newspaper in a restaurant  and this intrepid investigative journalist watched to see what he read.  He skimmed the news and the features and began to work on the crossword puzzle.  It was 'work' - he was concentrating and intense;  only when he left the crossword and turned to the comics was the contrast so marked.  His body relaxed in his chair, his face muscles softened,  he took a deep breath. He didn't laugh or even smile, but he spent time reading most of the comics.

I wonder if the comics were on the front page would we lose the need to read the rest of the paper and would that be such a bad thing.

Many years ago we had a neighbour who, if asked in the casual way one does, "Hi, how are you?" would reply in great long detail.  Much of it had to do with her son's list of ailments. 

One day we had a fire in the chimney of  a fireplace and were standing out in the garden looking at the smoke seeping out between the  stones waiting on the firemen.  Neighbour wandered over to see what was going on and, distractedly, I said, "Oh, hi, how are you?" 
"Well" she said,  "Jeremy's mucus is turning and....."

I wonder what my reaction - and tone of memory - would have been had she said, "Well, we just won a million dollars in the lottery and I had to tell someone."  Why does TMI always seem to involve negative news (the Christmas letter being a whole 'nother subject!)?

Which brings me to the newspaper, the present day media in general.  Are we not smothering in TMI.  No question mark: rhetorical question. People are aware of this and some have experimented with cutting down or out their exposure to the 'news'.  I suppose these are the ones who feel a concern that it is detrimental to the quality of  life and report that they experience less stress, better sleeping, improved attitude when they filter or block the input.  Makes me wonder what percentage this is of the general population.

I noticed a man pick up a newspaper in a restaurant  and this intrepid investigative journalist watched to see what he read.  He skimmed the news and the features and began to work on the crossword puzzle.  It was 'work' - he was concentrating and intense;  only when he left the crossword and turned to the comics was the contrast so marked.  His body relaxed in his chair, his face muscles softened,  he took a deep breath. He didn't laugh or even smile, but he spent time reading most of the comics.

I wonder if the comics were on the front page would we lose the need to read the rest of the paper and would that be such a bad thing.

Listen carefully, please.....

(re-post)

...I would like to share the sight and  sound that stopped me in my stroll and had me eye-swivelling and head-turning in curiosity and wonder.

It was this :  willow branches heavy with newly-forming leaves  being swept by the wind back and forth along and across the corrugated roof of a workshop.

The sound was like knuckles on a washboard;  a stick along a picket fence.  But it was the 'voice' of willow branches prancing  across a wavy roof on a windy spring morning.

Posted on April 27, 2009 at 01:01 AM | Permalink

...I would like to share the sight and  sound that stopped me in my stroll and had me eye-swivelling and head-turning in curiosity and wonder.

It was this :  willow branches heavy with newly-forming leaves  being swept by the wind back and forth along and across the corrugated roof of a workshop.

The sound was like knuckles on a washboard;  a stick along a picket fence.  But it was the 'voice' of willow branches prancing  across a wavy roof on a windy spring morning.

CHAPTER FOUR THE HERMIT PART 2 THE PARTY

 

At 1:30 the next day Piya and Ingrid and Bill were already at the corner by Mr. Earle's house.  Then came Ellen and Lucy and John.  Then came Joshua.

"Where's Sam?" Ingrid asked anxiously, when it was nearly 2 p.m.

"I'm so glad we got back," said Lucy.

"Shall I go get him" Bill fretted.

It was two o'clock.

The gang was all in a fidget.

"If we're late he might change his mind," Ingrid said in horror.  It had never happened but that it might was enough to worry the entire gang.

"We have to go," said Ingrid hopping from one leg to the other.

"Okay, we'll go," said Joshua, "but we'll tell Mr. Earle Sam is likely to show up at any minute."

The gang hurried down the street.  Sam was hopping from one foot to the other in front of Mr. Earle's house.  He had his hand clamped over his mouth.  "Where were you!" he squeaked, his normally loud voice squeezed out between his fingers.

"Where were YOU?" the rest of the gang was asking Sam.

"Right here," he said.

"But we always wait on the corner," Bill reminded him.

"I was late so I came right here.  I thought you had all gone in!"

"Let's go, let's go."  Joshua herded them up the front path.

The Hermit opened the door as soon as they knocked.

"We're a bit late," Ingrid explained.

"Come in, come in.  Don't worry."

The gang gave a huge sigh in unison.

The Hermit was always telling them he hated it when people were late.

There was a table set up in the corner with great things on it.  Normally the table had a lot of neat junk.  Now it had a lot of neat food.

The gang kept glancing at it as they found places to sit.  Old Ray didn't have nine chairs - he didn't even have room for nine chairs - but he had lots of cushions and two small stools and one-half of a nail keg and a big old rocking chair.  Now the chair was the most special seat and like the tree house they got to take turns sitting in it.  But since they only were invited into the Hermit's house on rare occasions Lucy figured it would take years until they all had a turn.

"Whose turn is it today to ride the chair?" Mr. Earle was asking.

"It's Bill's," they all said.  They were going by age because Old Ray said that remained a constant.

"But ages change," John had said.

"But never the order," said Old Ray.  "You'll always be the same age in relation to all the rest so your turn will come when it's supposed to.  Do you see what I mean?"

John didn't but he said he did.  He thought he'd figure it out eventually.

There was a watermelon on the table, cut up into neat sections.  And a big bowl of jello.  And some potato chips.  And a big jar of Kool Aid.  And some doughnuts.  Old Ray knew how to feed kids.

For just a moment Lucy thought that the jar with the Kool Aid was the one that normally held Mr. Earle's goldfish but then she saw that jar over on the floor by the window with the fish in it so she relaxed.  She loved Kool Aid.

"My lumbago is bothering me so I'm a bit cranky today," Old Ray said.  His lumbago meant his knees hurt. "But I promised you a party and here it is.  Now what shall we do?"

Lucy thought Mr. Earle should plan out the party beforehand and then tell them what he had decided.  She was about to say this but Ellen was staring hard at her as if she knew what she was thinking and didn't want her to say it.  Ellen thought it was a perfect way to run a party, to let your guests decide.

"We could hear your latest letters," Ingrid suggested.  Old Ray liked to read the letters his pen pals sent him.

"Or polish your brass collection," said Ellen.

The boys were all silent.  Mr. Earle looked at them.

"What do you want to do first?" he asked, knowing full well.

"Eat," shouted Sam, behind his hand so it came out fairly normal.

Old Ray chuckled and then laughed.  "I thought so.  Okay. Okay. So we'll eat first."  The gang squirmed and grinned at each other, even the girls.

Mr. Earle had several times since the previous day gone out and looked at the face John was carving in the log.  He thought of it now and getting up from one of the small stools where he had been sitting he picked up a paper napkin, put a doughnut on it and handed it to John. "For my friend, John, the artist," he said and no one laughed.  John took what was offered and said a very quiet, "Thank you."  Then the party returned to normal and everyone got food and ate and talked.

Piya swallowed a watermelon seed and wondered if it would grow in her stomach, if it got caught in the folds.  She liked to look at her aunt, the doctor 's medical books and was fascinated by the illustrations of what was inside the body.

Bill worried that if he got up out of the special rocking chair to get seconds of food someone would take his place.  He didn't think they would but they might.  He was in a frenzy of worry until Mr. Earle asked, "Hey, Bill, don't you want some more?"

"Yes, I do," Bill said in such a miserable voice that Ingrid came over and stood by him and waited for an explanation.

"Your Mom won't mind if you have more," Ingrid told him.  "She won't even know."

"Save my chair, Ingrid?" he asked her.

"Oh, fuss pot, so that's your problem," laughed Lucy.  She would have simply told anyone who sat in the chair if it were her turn to get out - and thumped them if they didn't.

"Don't mind her," Ingrid said and slid onto the chair for a quick rock while Bill got seconds.  She was older than Bill and had already had her turn so she knew what a great chair it was.  It didn't only rock backward and forward it sort of also swayed from side to side and was most fun.

When they had eaten all the food everyone helped Old Ray clean up the dishes.  This just meant carrying stuff across the bigger room which was the main living area into the smaller room which was the kitchen and bedroom combined. 

The gang had tried to decide one day if it was a kitchen with a bed in it.  Or a bedroom with a kitchen in it.

"Whatever it is it's weird," Lucy had thought, but not out loud.  Old Ray's comment was that whoever had built the house had their head screwed on wrong because the hall way that went clear through the center of the house and which led to the tiny bathroom at the back and a large waste space going out the back door could have made three perfectly good sized rooms with a little thought. "It's a bit lacksadaisacal, but it suits me okay," he had finished.

John had rolled the word lacksadaisacal around and around in his mouth until he could taste each sound and he thought he could likely draw a picture, either on paper or with his hands, of the word.

When they had put the paper napkin plates in the garbage and the serving dishes in the sink and the glasses and cups on the counter they went back into the bigger room and sat down again.

"Oooohhhh my lumbago," Old Ray complained as he lowered himself onto the small stool.

"What will we do now?" Sam asked behind his hand because he saw Ellen look thoughtful and he was afraid she would suggest they all go home if Mr. Earle wasn't feeling well.  Sometimes he thought she was just too darned polite.  He got that enough at home from his mother and one of his sisters.

Bill was wondering if he should offer to give up his turn on the rocking chair so Mr. Earle could sit in a more comfortable spot.  But he didn't want to.

"I could wash my shirt and make it rain," Mr. Earle said with an innocent face but then he looked at Piya and grinned hugely and everyone realized he was teasing her.  And Piya giggled to show that she didn't mind.

"I'm sort of sorry you're not magic," Ellen said, "I'd like to know someone who has magical powers."

"I know someone who has," Joshua said and this was so unexpected that everyone stared at him.

"You'll likely laugh," he said, taking off his glasses and rubbing them up and down on his shirt even though they weren't the least bit dirty, "but my Mom is magic.  Just at times."

Nobody said anything.  They continued to stare.

"She has dreams," he said slowly.  "I mean everyone does, but she has a certain kind of dream - different somehow.  And...," he paused and wiped his glasses and wouldn't look at anyone.  "And they come true," he finished quickly.

Then everyone spoke at once.  "Wow!" shouted Sam before he could clamp his hand over his mouth but everyone else was talking too so his voice wasn't so startling.

"That's amazing," said Lucy.

"You're kidding," said John and Piya both at the same time.

Ingrid didn't say anything but she looked as if she didn't really believe it.

Bill opened his mouth but if words came out they weren't heard in the din.

Old Ray was asking, "Can you give us a for instance?"

"Sure," said Joshua, relieved that he was believed, at least by some of them.

"One time she dreamed the train to St.Catharine's crashed when my Dad was supposed to go there the next day and she wouldn't let him go and it did crash and people were hurt."

"Wow," said Sam again but this time he said it softly and some of the gang turned to stare at Sam because his speaking softly was as shocking as what Joshua was saying.

"And another time she dreamed about our moving to another house - before we moved here - and it wasn't the house we were nearly buying so she said no, we shouldn't buy it, it wasn't the right house, the right house was white stucco with green shutters and so we didn't buy that house even though my Dad was sort of mad and the man selling the house was really mad but then we saw this one, the one we're in now and it was a better house and not so much money and so we bought it.  And it had green shutters so my Dad painted the stucco white over the gray.  And afterward they found out that other house, the one they nearly bought, had a leaky basement."

Everyone was fairly silent.  Ellen was thinking she'd pay more attention to Joshua's Mom next time she saw her.  Piya was a bit afraid to see her.  Old Ray just looked thoughtful.  Bill rocked faster and faster.  He thought there had to be a logical explanation but he didn't know what it was.

"Want to hear my newest letter?" Mr. Earle asked suddenly.

Everyone said yeah.

Mr. Earle had an old Times Journal delivery bag hanging on the back of the door into the bedroom/kitchen.  It was filled with letters held together with elastics.  Each packet was from a different pen pal and they came from all over, some from the States and some even from Overseas.  Ingrid was fascinated by the stamps and loved to look at them.

"This one came this morning," Mr. Earle said taking one from the top of a thick pile that had a wide brown elastic around it.  "It's from a lady who doesn't live far away but she is such a fascinating person that I feel I've been to a foreign country when I read her letters."

Sam and Lucy frowned at each other because this didn't make much sense to them.  John was nodding - he thought he knew what Old Ray meant.

"I won't read it all to you.  I just want to share one little part - it reminded me of it now we were talking about magic."

He looked over the pages of the letter, "Hmmm, let me see, oh yes, no, not that part, I'll save that for another time.  Oh, and this too, my, my imagine that..."

Sam was getting restless and started to swing his legs and kick against the rungs of the stool he was sitting on.  Bill put out his hand to stop him but Sam kicked out at Bill and Joshua and Ingrid both frowned so strongly at Sam that he stopped.

"Bossies," Sam said but mostly with his lips.

"Here it is," Mr. Earle said at last.  "Now listen."

He began to read, " 'I must tell you about he circle of fairy stones in the next field over from our corn.  My husband says that particular section of land will grow only rocks so it's been left alone and I just happened onto it because I was following a butterfly and then came across a perfect circle of stones.

"Now most people would not be impressed but I think you will share my feeling that they are fairy stones and who knows what lovely gatherings occur there of the little people.  It's moonlight that brings them out, is it not?  I plan to creep out one bright night and try to catch them unawares.'"

Old Ray smiled as he folded up the letter and it was a quiet sort of smile that was not really for others but mostly for himself.

"There," he said.

Piya didn't say it out loud but she was thinking that if Mr. Earl wasn't actually able to do magic the next best thing was that he believed in fairies.

 

 

 

The Wife.

(re-post)

Short Story

 

The television studio lights were hotter than he had expected, far hotter.  He was glad he had declined when that nice young lady asked if he had wanted her to add some colour to his cheeks: right now he felt they must be flaming.

The talk show hostess was introducing him and he was listening to her words but it was frightening.  It was as if she were describing someone else, a stranger, offering him the part.  He supposed he would have to accept it. It was a bit late to get up and say it was all a mistake and he was going home.

"So, George, tell us," she invited a reply, "how you, for fifteen years, were two personalities, both your wife and yourself."

George knew she would ask this and he was prepared to answer confidently, clearly, without making a fool of himself.  So he proceeded to do so.  It would never do, though, to take himself at his word so, while his voice was describing HOW he had done it, his mind was telling himself WHY he had done it.  

He supposed it had started early on in life, maybe even before his first impersonation of his sister, but this is what he remembered and it sort of set a tone.  He'd been eleven or so, his sister a year older.  He was a reader.  She was not.  The local library only allowed children to take out one book at a time and, for some silly reason, only one a day.  Well, he was bored that summer and craved to read.  His sister, being over twelve could take out limitless number of books, but she hadn't used her library card in months.  

So one day, in some fit of pique, George had dressed himself in her clothes and used her card and checked out seven books.  The experience exhilarated him

and gave him enough reading material for the next three satisfying days in the tree house someone had built in the maple in the backyard. It was freedom and power, his achievement, not to be taken lightly by one eleven years of age.

It wasn't as bizarre an experience as it sounded, this taking on his sister's identity.  It only involved shorts and t-shirt and he maybe could have worn his own clothing but hers were more of a believable shade of Ruth Henderson (his faded blues were definitely of the George gender).  It was the detail that really counted, the sandals he dug out of his book bag and put on before checking out the books (he switched footwear in the reading books section while pretending to look terribly interested in one of the toddlers as if he were babysitting) and which he as quickly replaced with his beat up sneakers once out of the library.  And the dowdy hat, not at all like his baseball cap, but sort of floppy and - yeah, well - girlish, but what the heck it was in a good cause.

And it worked!  The librarian hardly glanced at him.  The card said Ruth Henderson. It wasn't as if Ruth hung out and was known in the library.  After the second time he borrowed her card he didn't even bother sneaking it back into her room and she didn't even miss it.

The second time it was easier - and he didn't even worry about the sandals.  Actually  one of the librarians was beginning to know him and actually said, "Well Ruth, you're quite a reader."  George didn't exactly avoid her after that but he tried to even out his check-outs amongst the staff so he wouldn't get too well known by any one.

George checked in to make sure he was still giving credible answers to the talk show hostess about how he had done all this. He was. She let him talk and then asked a sensible question that set him off again.  Off he went.

There were some small instances during his high school years of being somebody else for some good reason.  He'd forgotten the details but these incidents were laying a foundation.

When he got to college he took an entire course for his roommate, went to classes, made the notes, wrote the essays, passed the exams.  He got a B+. The why of this was quite simple - he needed the money Andrew paid him to do it. It had started out as a joke, "Hey, smart ass, wish I could step inside your skin and take this Philosophy course next term - it's a bugger and I need the damned thing for some reason," Andrew had said, sprawled on George's bed.  Andrew slept in his own bed, which he never made in the whole two years of residence living, but used George's bed as a chair, chesterfield, exercise mat, whatever he needed.  George's bed was occasionally made.

"I'll step in your skin for a price," George kidded back.

"I'd pay a lot not to have to take the course," Andrew said seriously and named a sum that made George, digging through the clothes on the floor of the closet, jerk his head up and say, "Really?"          

"Really, my man," answered Andrew. 

"I'll do it, " said George.  And he did.

The talk show hostess was taking a commercial break and didn't seem to mind that she didn't have to make small talk with him.

He drew both parts of himself together to deal with the memory of Andrew wanting him to take a Maths course for him the next term.  George then had not the time nor inclination and neither did he need the money having discovered he was good at selling large appliances in a downtown department store.  He told people the most outrageous things about the stoves and air conditioners and they believed him.  Or pretended to - and George suspected this was his gift; they knew he was having them on and he knew they knew so they were all taking part in this wonderful game.  And hey, if you had to buy a fridge you might as well have some fun doing it.

Andrew had gotten nasty, threatened to report George to the authorities for impersonating him the year before.  George had reasonably pointed out they both would suffer; Andrew seemed desperate and past caring.  George had slugged him and knocked him cold, the first and last time he ever was moved to violence. And when Andrew came to, George had apologized.  Things were never right between them again but there were no more threats.

The commercial break was over and the talk show hostess was asking him WHY he had done it.  So George switched his attention and began to tell her.  He locked eyes with a woman of perhaps his own age in the front row of the audience and for a moment both his voices, internal 

and external, were stilled. The woman looked so damned interested, like she was taking him seriously and believing in him. He couldn't cope with this.  The hostess sensed a stall and gently tapped him on the arm, "As you were saying, it was a necessity at a very impressionable age that made you steal your sister's library card..." 

Oh shit, he thought, but he let her lead him and started to talk again.  Both voices. He did not again look at the earnest woman in the front row.

HOW had he begun to impersonate his wife?  Well actually he wasn't so much impersonating her as creating her.  He  didn't have a wife.  He had had one, once.  It had been a mistake for both of them, the marriage, and they had gotten out of it fairly reasonably.

It was years later when he was moving across country that it had just, well, happened.  The store where he was selling furniture (large appliances had lost their appeal with their sameness; there was a challenge in things that changed colour and style and almost function - a water bed, for example)  had opened a new branch and offered him a senior position.  He took it. He had little if anything to keep him in the place where he was.      

The audience was laughing; he'd made some kind of joke and it had gone over well, had he, oh - no, it was the face he'd pulled to illustrate himself in his first sister enactment to the librarian who was appreciative of his reading habits.

He'd moved across the country, bought a house in a quiet neighbourhood, and one day, while taking in some dry cleaning the clerk had asked, "Will you pick this up or will your wife?"

Did he look like a man who had a wife.  Instead of replying to this he had been struck with mischief and said, "My wife will. She doesn't get out much.  The errand will do her good."

Of course he didn't have to follow through on this - he could have joked his way out of it when he went to pick up his clothes, charm the plain lady with his bachelor status.  But no.  He'd gone through with it.  He invented a wife.  And became her.

It gave him an interest, something to do after work, in the new town where everything was both unfamiliar and impersonal.  In his old place it had been impersonal but not at all strange.  This was a whole new experience.

And it wasn't hard.  He got a really good wig - drove to the nearest large city for this.  Bought a book on make-up in that same city and experimented.  Padded his cheeks, got some glasses, flared his nostrils when he talked so it gave his voice a different flavour and kept him in character. He also added an irritating little throat clear to Sybil's conversation and coupled with  'her shyness' he got out of talking a lot.

He was heartily sick of the name Sybil before the first year was out.  What had possessed him to choose it.  It made him wonder if the good lord had seen fit not to give him children when he really did have a wife because he would have named them one thing and regretted it when it was too late to change it. Names were so permanent.  Sybil's went on and on.   

What was this, another commercial break.  It was just as well, the hostess had been asking him about cross dressing and he had parroted some rehearsed feelings he had about whether or not this applied to him but it was a script - he kept forgetting what cross dressing and all it implied meant so it made no sense to talk about it for real.

After this break they would be coming down to the ending, the nitty gritty part, WHY he had stopped.  It was rather traumatic and he thought he'd best have the second voice in the wings, if not on stage, so he put the HOW conversation with himself into fast forward.

The neighbours had expressed astonishment when they found out he was both his wife and himself; this was to be expected.  He had not expected the hostility of some of them; it was as if they were mad at him for tricking them.

He had no idea why it went on for so long.  It got to be a habit, he supposed.  Sybil (he actually called her Marion, to himself, for the last eight years) was not a difficult wife.  She was retiring and spent a great deal of time indoors ("thought she was bloody agoraphobic by things he let on to us over the years," one of his neighbours had told the newspaper).  And she had a sister back east she visited quite regularly.

"Didn't the neighbours, the townspeople, think it strange that they never saw the two of you together?" the talk show hostess was asking him now.

"Yes," George said and would not be drawn further by her questioning look.

The neighbours, when asked that same question by reporters, the police, had looked confused, irritated, foolish.  

And now the hostess was asking him to explain WHY he'd ended it and what had happened.  George was glad the hot lights would account for his redness and no one would suspect he was blushing.

"I sent her on a permanent visit to her sister and people began to think I'd killed her."

There was almost a gasp from the audience.  What was the matter with these people.  Surely they had read the newspapers and knew what had happened.  Were there stage hands holding up cards that said "Gasp!"  "Act surprised" as they might cue, "Applause"?  George looked to his right and left to see if this might be the case but he didn't see anyone prompting the audience.  The hostess looked to see what he was looking at as well and then she blinked rapidly, trying to get back on track.

"So you were forced to end the charade by admitting all in order to escape serious consequences..."  she invited.

He wanted to say the gallows might have been preferable to what he had gone through, what he was going through still, but this sounded a bit much even for his love of drama.  Besides, she might take it as a slight on his appearing on her show.  Once more he was doing something for the money.  His court costs were astronomical!  And he'd heard his first wife was threatening to sue him for deframation of character or some such damned thing. 

  "Yes," he answered and smiled at her charmingly.  She was not moved.  Gregory Peck had smiled at her once.

She rushed easily through events and the final acceptance of his innocence, "...although I understand there are those who still say there were definitely two people and you have somehow gotten rid of your wife..." she said it archly, inviting him to halt on a rebuttal and perhaps add fuel to the doubts.  He did not.  So she smoothly went on, "What do you intend to do next?"

The question surprised him.  He was not prepared for it.  His second voice rushed out onstage but it too was unable to answer.

For a moment he looked at her, really looked at her with his entire self, and she had the most eerie feeling pass through her.  She had interviewed many people in her long career, famous, notorious, the highs and the lows of humanity.  She had some weird feeling that this nondescript little man bordered on the truly great.  What a silly idea.  But she did not fill in the silence, she ignored the hand signals from the director, she simply waited on this man's answer.

Finally he spoke, "I guess I'll have to find another distraction."  He sounded a bit puzzled, but definite.  Oh yes, very definite.

She let out her breath as if breaking a trance.  What an extraordinary interview.  And Ernest would give her holy hell for that long pause.  With practised ease she thanked her guest, announced the next one, led into the commercial, all the while wondering if this guy George was okay.  He looked so withdrawn.

He was withdrawn.  Both voices had come together in a realization that might have silenced the need for them to exist in this tandem manner.  He had been called to a role and he had played it.  He had played it well.  

Maybe he could let the curtain fall now, for once and for all.  And if he didn't - well, his next appearance was going to be a whopper!       

Posted on September 01, 2023 at 08:00 PM | Permalink

 

Short Story

 

The television studio lights were hotter than he had expected, far hotter.  He was glad he had declined when that nice young lady asked if he had wanted her to add some colour to his cheeks: right now he felt they must be flaming.

The talk show hostess was introducing him and he was listening to her words but it was frightening.  It was as if she were describing someone else, a stranger, offering him the part.  He supposed he would have to accept it. It was a bit late to get up and say it was all a mistake and he was going home.

"So, George, tell us," she invited a reply, "how you, for fifteen years, were two personalities, both your wife and yourself."

George knew she would ask this and he was prepared to answer confidently, clearly, without making a fool of himself.  So he proceeded to do so.  It would never do, though, to take himself at his word so, while his voice was describing HOW he had done it, his mind was telling himself WHY he had done it.  

He supposed it had started early on in life, maybe even before his first impersonation of his sister, but this is what he remembered and it sort of set a tone.  He'd been eleven or so, his sister a year older.  He was a reader.  She was not.  The local library only allowed children to take out one book at a time and, for some silly reason, only one a day.  Well, he was bored that summer and craved to read.  His sister, being over twelve could take out limitless number of books, but she hadn't used her library card in months.  

So one day, in some fit of pique, George had dressed himself in her clothes and used her card and checked out seven books.  The experience exhilarated him

and gave him enough reading material for the next three satisfying days in the tree house someone had built in the maple in the backyard. It was freedom and power, his achievement, not to be taken lightly by one eleven years of age.

It wasn't as bizarre an experience as it sounded, this taking on his sister's identity.  It only involved shorts and t-shirt and he maybe could have worn his own clothing but hers were more of a believable shade of Ruth Henderson (his faded blues were definitely of the George gender).  It was the detail that really counted, the sandals he dug out of his book bag and put on before checking out the books (he switched footwear in the reading books section while pretending to look terribly interested in one of the toddlers as if he were babysitting) and which he as quickly replaced with his beat up sneakers once out of the library.  And the dowdy hat, not at all like his baseball cap, but sort of floppy and - yeah, well - girlish, but what the heck it was in a good cause.

And it worked!  The librarian hardly glanced at him.  The card said Ruth Henderson. It wasn't as if Ruth hung out and was known in the library.  After the second time he borrowed her card he didn't even bother sneaking it back into her room and she didn't even miss it.

The second time it was easier - and he didn't even worry about the sandals.  Actually  one of the librarians was beginning to know him and actually said, "Well Ruth, you're quite a reader."  George didn't exactly avoid her after that but he tried to even out his check-outs amongst the staff so he wouldn't get too well known by any one.

George checked in to make sure he was still giving credible answers to the talk show hostess about how he had done all this. He was. She let him talk and then asked a sensible question that set him off again.  Off he went.

There were some small instances during his high school years of being somebody else for some good reason.  He'd forgotten the details but these incidents were laying a foundation.

When he got to college he took an entire course for his roommate, went to classes, made the notes, wrote the essays, passed the exams.  He got a B+. The why of this was quite simple - he needed the money Andrew paid him to do it. It had started out as a joke, "Hey, smart ass, wish I could step inside your skin and take this Philosophy course next term - it's a bugger and I need the damned thing for some reason," Andrew had said, sprawled on George's bed.  Andrew slept in his own bed, which he never made in the whole two years of residence living, but used George's bed as a chair, chesterfield, exercise mat, whatever he needed.  George's bed was occasionally made.

"I'll step in your skin for a price," George kidded back.

"I'd pay a lot not to have to take the course," Andrew said seriously and named a sum that made George, digging through the clothes on the floor of the closet, jerk his head up and say, "Really?"          

"Really, my man," answered Andrew. 

"I'll do it, " said George.  And he did.

The talk show hostess was taking a commercial break and didn't seem to mind that she didn't have to make small talk with him.

He drew both parts of himself together to deal with the memory of Andrew wanting him to take a Maths course for him the next term.  George then had not the time nor inclination and neither did he need the money having discovered he was good at selling large appliances in a downtown department store.  He told people the most outrageous things about the stoves and air conditioners and they believed him.  Or pretended to - and George suspected this was his gift; they knew he was having them on and he knew they knew so they were all taking part in this wonderful game.  And hey, if you had to buy a fridge you might as well have some fun doing it.

Andrew had gotten nasty, threatened to report George to the authorities for impersonating him the year before.  George had reasonably pointed out they both would suffer; Andrew seemed desperate and past caring.  George had slugged him and knocked him cold, the first and last time he ever was moved to violence. And when Andrew came to, George had apologized.  Things were never right between them again but there were no more threats.

The commercial break was over and the talk show hostess was asking him WHY he had done it.  So George switched his attention and began to tell her.  He locked eyes with a woman of perhaps his own age in the front row of the audience and for a moment both his voices, internal 

and external, were stilled. The woman looked so damned interested, like she was taking him seriously and believing in him. He couldn't cope with this.  The hostess sensed a stall and gently tapped him on the arm, "As you were saying, it was a necessity at a very impressionable age that made you steal your sister's library card..." 

Oh shit, he thought, but he let her lead him and started to talk again.  Both voices. He did not again look at the earnest woman in the front row.

HOW had he begun to impersonate his wife?  Well actually he wasn't so much impersonating her as creating her.  He  didn't have a wife.  He had had one, once.  It had been a mistake for both of them, the marriage, and they had gotten out of it fairly reasonably.

It was years later when he was moving across country that it had just, well, happened.  The store where he was selling furniture (large appliances had lost their appeal with their sameness; there was a challenge in things that changed colour and style and almost function - a water bed, for example)  had opened a new branch and offered him a senior position.  He took it. He had little if anything to keep him in the place where he was.      

The audience was laughing; he'd made some kind of joke and it had gone over well, had he, oh - no, it was the face he'd pulled to illustrate himself in his first sister enactment to the librarian who was appreciative of his reading habits.

He'd moved across the country, bought a house in a quiet neighbourhood, and one day, while taking in some dry cleaning the clerk had asked, "Will you pick this up or will your wife?"

Did he look like a man who had a wife.  Instead of replying to this he had been struck with mischief and said, "My wife will. She doesn't get out much.  The errand will do her good."

Of course he didn't have to follow through on this - he could have joked his way out of it when he went to pick up his clothes, charm the plain lady with his bachelor status.  But no.  He'd gone through with it.  He invented a wife.  And became her.

It gave him an interest, something to do after work, in the new town where everything was both unfamiliar and impersonal.  In his old place it had been impersonal but not at all strange.  This was a whole new experience.

And it wasn't hard.  He got a really good wig - drove to the nearest large city for this.  Bought a book on make-up in that same city and experimented.  Padded his cheeks, got some glasses, flared his nostrils when he talked so it gave his voice a different flavour and kept him in character. He also added an irritating little throat clear to Sybil's conversation and coupled with  'her shyness' he got out of talking a lot.

He was heartily sick of the name Sybil before the first year was out.  What had possessed him to choose it.  It made him wonder if the good lord had seen fit not to give him children when he really did have a wife because he would have named them one thing and regretted it when it was too late to change it. Names were so permanent.  Sybil's went on and on.   

What was this, another commercial break.  It was just as well, the hostess had been asking him about cross dressing and he had parroted some rehearsed feelings he had about whether or not this applied to him but it was a script - he kept forgetting what cross dressing and all it implied meant so it made no sense to talk about it for real.

After this break they would be coming down to the ending, the nitty gritty part, WHY he had stopped.  It was rather traumatic and he thought he'd best have the second voice in the wings, if not on stage, so he put the HOW conversation with himself into fast forward.

The neighbours had expressed astonishment when they found out he was both his wife and himself; this was to be expected.  He had not expected the hostility of some of them; it was as if they were mad at him for tricking them.

He had no idea why it went on for so long.  It got to be a habit, he supposed.  Sybil (he actually called her Marion, to himself, for the last eight years) was not a difficult wife.  She was retiring and spent a great deal of time indoors ("thought she was bloody agoraphobic by things he let on to us over the years," one of his neighbours had told the newspaper).  And she had a sister back east she visited quite regularly.

"Didn't the neighbours, the townspeople, think it strange that they never saw the two of you together?" the talk show hostess was asking him now.

"Yes," George said and would not be drawn further by her questioning look.

The neighbours, when asked that same question by reporters, the police, had looked confused, irritated, foolish.  

And now the hostess was asking him to explain WHY he'd ended it and what had happened.  George was glad the hot lights would account for his redness and no one would suspect he was blushing.

"I sent her on a permanent visit to her sister and people began to think I'd killed her."

There was almost a gasp from the audience.  What was the matter with these people.  Surely they had read the newspapers and knew what had happened.  Were there stage hands holding up cards that said "Gasp!"  "Act surprised" as they might cue, "Applause"?  George looked to his right and left to see if this might be the case but he didn't see anyone prompting the audience.  The hostess looked to see what he was looking at as well and then she blinked rapidly, trying to get back on track.

"So you were forced to end the charade by admitting all in order to escape serious consequences..."  she invited.

He wanted to say the gallows might have been preferable to what he had gone through, what he was going through still, but this sounded a bit much even for his love of drama.  Besides, she might take it as a slight on his appearing on her show.  Once more he was doing something for the money.  His court costs were astronomical!  And he'd heard his first wife was threatening to sue him for deframation of character or some such damned thing. 

  "Yes," he answered and smiled at her charmingly.  She was not moved.  Gregory Peck had smiled at her once.

She rushed easily through events and the final acceptance of his innocence, "...although I understand there are those who still say there were definitely two people and you have somehow gotten rid of your wife..." she said it archly, inviting him to halt on a rebuttal and perhaps add fuel to the doubts.  He did not.  So she smoothly went on, "What do you intend to do next?"

The question surprised him.  He was not prepared for it.  His second voice rushed out onstage but it too was unable to answer.

For a moment he looked at her, really looked at her with his entire self, and she had the most eerie feeling pass through her.  She had interviewed many people in her long career, famous, notorious, the highs and the lows of humanity.  She had some weird feeling that this nondescript little man bordered on the truly great.  What a silly idea.  But she did not fill in the silence, she ignored the hand signals from the director, she simply waited on this man's answer.

Finally he spoke, "I guess I'll have to find another distraction."  He sounded a bit puzzled, but definite.  Oh yes, very definite.

She let out her breath as if breaking a trance.  What an extraordinary interview.  And Ernest would give her holy hell for that long pause.  With practised ease she thanked her guest, announced the next one, led into the commercial, all the while wondering if this guy George was okay.  He looked so withdrawn.

He was withdrawn.  Both voices had come together in a realization that might have silenced the need for them to exist in this tandem manner.  He had been called to a role and he had played it.  He had played it well.  

Maybe he could let the curtain fall now, for once and for all.  And if he didn't - well, his next appearance was going to be a whopper!       

(re-post)

Short Story

 

The television studio lights were hotter than he had expected, far hotter.  He was glad he had declined when that nice young lady asked if he had wanted her to add some colour to his cheeks: right now he felt they must be flaming.

The talk show hostess was introducing him and he was listening to her words but it was frightening.  It was as if she were describing someone else, a stranger, offering him the part.  He supposed he would have to accept it. It was a bit late to get up and say it was all a mistake and he was going home.

"So, George, tell us," she invited a reply, "how you, for fifteen years, were two personalities, both your wife and yourself."

George knew she would ask this and he was prepared to answer confidently, clearly, without making a fool of himself.  So he proceeded to do so.  It would never do, though, to take himself at his word so, while his voice was describing HOW he had done it, his mind was telling himself WHY he had done it.  

He supposed it had started early on in life, maybe even before his first impersonation of his sister, but this is what he remembered and it sort of set a tone.  He'd been eleven or so, his sister a year older.  He was a reader.  She was not.  The local library only allowed children to take out one book at a time and, for some silly reason, only one a day.  Well, he was bored that summer and craved to read.  His sister, being over twelve could take out limitless number of books, but she hadn't used her library card in months.  

So one day, in some fit of pique, George had dressed himself in her clothes and used her card and checked out seven books.  The experience exhilarated him

and gave him enough reading material for the next three satisfying days in the tree house someone had built in the maple in the backyard. It was freedom and power, his achievement, not to be taken lightly by one eleven years of age.

It wasn't as bizarre an experience as it sounded, this taking on his sister's identity.  It only involved shorts and t-shirt and he maybe could have worn his own clothing but hers were more of a believable shade of Ruth Henderson (his faded blues were definitely of the George gender).  It was the detail that really counted, the sandals he dug out of his book bag and put on before checking out the books (he switched footwear in the reading books section while pretending to look terribly interested in one of the toddlers as if he were babysitting) and which he as quickly replaced with his beat up sneakers once out of the library.  And the dowdy hat, not at all like his baseball cap, but sort of floppy and - yeah, well - girlish, but what the heck it was in a good cause.

And it worked!  The librarian hardly glanced at him.  The card said Ruth Henderson. It wasn't as if Ruth hung out and was known in the library.  After the second time he borrowed her card he didn't even bother sneaking it back into her room and she didn't even miss it.

The second time it was easier - and he didn't even worry about the sandals.  Actually  one of the librarians was beginning to know him and actually said, "Well Ruth, you're quite a reader."  George didn't exactly avoid her after that but he tried to even out his check-outs amongst the staff so he wouldn't get too well known by any one.

George checked in to make sure he was still giving credible answers to the talk show hostess about how he had done all this. He was. She let him talk and then asked a sensible question that set him off again.  Off he went.

There were some small instances during his high school years of being somebody else for some good reason.  He'd forgotten the details but these incidents were laying a foundation.

When he got to college he took an entire course for his roommate, went to classes, made the notes, wrote the essays, passed the exams.  He got a B+. The why of this was quite simple - he needed the money Andrew paid him to do it. It had started out as a joke, "Hey, smart ass, wish I could step inside your skin and take this Philosophy course next term - it's a bugger and I need the damned thing for some reason," Andrew had said, sprawled on George's bed.  Andrew slept in his own bed, which he never made in the whole two years of residence living, but used George's bed as a chair, chesterfield, exercise mat, whatever he needed.  George's bed was occasionally made.

"I'll step in your skin for a price," George kidded back.

"I'd pay a lot not to have to take the course," Andrew said seriously and named a sum that made George, digging through the clothes on the floor of the closet, jerk his head up and say, "Really?"          

"Really, my man," answered Andrew. 

"I'll do it, " said George.  And he did.

The talk show hostess was taking a commercial break and didn't seem to mind that she didn't have to make small talk with him.

He drew both parts of himself together to deal with the memory of Andrew wanting him to take a Maths course for him the next term.  George then had not the time nor inclination and neither did he need the money having discovered he was good at selling large appliances in a downtown department store.  He told people the most outrageous things about the stoves and air conditioners and they believed him.  Or pretended to - and George suspected this was his gift; they knew he was having them on and he knew they knew so they were all taking part in this wonderful game.  And hey, if you had to buy a fridge you might as well have some fun doing it.

Andrew had gotten nasty, threatened to report George to the authorities for impersonating him the year before.  George had reasonably pointed out they both would suffer; Andrew seemed desperate and past caring.  George had slugged him and knocked him cold, the first and last time he ever was moved to violence. And when Andrew came to, George had apologized.  Things were never right between them again but there were no more threats.

The commercial break was over and the talk show hostess was asking him WHY he had done it.  So George switched his attention and began to tell her.  He locked eyes with a woman of perhaps his own age in the front row of the audience and for a moment both his voices, internal 

and external, were stilled. The woman looked so damned interested, like she was taking him seriously and believing in him. He couldn't cope with this.  The hostess sensed a stall and gently tapped him on the arm, "As you were saying, it was a necessity at a very impressionable age that made you steal your sister's library card..." 

Oh shit, he thought, but he let her lead him and started to talk again.  Both voices. He did not again look at the earnest woman in the front row.

HOW had he begun to impersonate his wife?  Well actually he wasn't so much impersonating her as creating her.  He  didn't have a wife.  He had had one, once.  It had been a mistake for both of them, the marriage, and they had gotten out of it fairly reasonably.

It was years later when he was moving across country that it had just, well, happened.  The store where he was selling furniture (large appliances had lost their appeal with their sameness; there was a challenge in things that changed colour and style and almost function - a water bed, for example)  had opened a new branch and offered him a senior position.  He took it. He had little if anything to keep him in the place where he was.      

The audience was laughing; he'd made some kind of joke and it had gone over well, had he, oh - no, it was the face he'd pulled to illustrate himself in his first sister enactment to the librarian who was appreciative of his reading habits.

He'd moved across the country, bought a house in a quiet neighbourhood, and one day, while taking in some dry cleaning the clerk had asked, "Will you pick this up or will your wife?"

Did he look like a man who had a wife.  Instead of replying to this he had been struck with mischief and said, "My wife will. She doesn't get out much.  The errand will do her good."

Of course he didn't have to follow through on this - he could have joked his way out of it when he went to pick up his clothes, charm the plain lady with his bachelor status.  But no.  He'd gone through with it.  He invented a wife.  And became her.

It gave him an interest, something to do after work, in the new town where everything was both unfamiliar and impersonal.  In his old place it had been impersonal but not at all strange.  This was a whole new experience.

And it wasn't hard.  He got a really good wig - drove to the nearest large city for this.  Bought a book on make-up in that same city and experimented.  Padded his cheeks, got some glasses, flared his nostrils when he talked so it gave his voice a different flavour and kept him in character. He also added an irritating little throat clear to Sybil's conversation and coupled with  'her shyness' he got out of talking a lot.

He was heartily sick of the name Sybil before the first year was out.  What had possessed him to choose it.  It made him wonder if the good lord had seen fit not to give him children when he really did have a wife because he would have named them one thing and regretted it when it was too late to change it. Names were so permanent.  Sybil's went on and on.   

What was this, another commercial break.  It was just as well, the hostess had been asking him about cross dressing and he had parroted some rehearsed feelings he had about whether or not this applied to him but it was a script - he kept forgetting what cross dressing and all it implied meant so it made no sense to talk about it for real.

After this break they would be coming down to the ending, the nitty gritty part, WHY he had stopped.  It was rather traumatic and he thought he'd best have the second voice in the wings, if not on stage, so he put the HOW conversation with himself into fast forward.

The neighbours had expressed astonishment when they found out he was both his wife and himself; this was to be expected.  He had not expected the hostility of some of them; it was as if they were mad at him for tricking them.

He had no idea why it went on for so long.  It got to be a habit, he supposed.  Sybil (he actually called her Marion, to himself, for the last eight years) was not a difficult wife.  She was retiring and spent a great deal of time indoors ("thought she was bloody agoraphobic by things he let on to us over the years," one of his neighbours had told the newspaper).  And she had a sister back east she visited quite regularly.

"Didn't the neighbours, the townspeople, think it strange that they never saw the two of you together?" the talk show hostess was asking him now.

"Yes," George said and would not be drawn further by her questioning look.

The neighbours, when asked that same question by reporters, the police, had looked confused, irritated, foolish.  

And now the hostess was asking him to explain WHY he'd ended it and what had happened.  George was glad the hot lights would account for his redness and no one would suspect he was blushing.

"I sent her on a permanent visit to her sister and people began to think I'd killed her."

There was almost a gasp from the audience.  What was the matter with these people.  Surely they had read the newspapers and knew what had happened.  Were there stage hands holding up cards that said "Gasp!"  "Act surprised" as they might cue, "Applause"?  George looked to his right and left to see if this might be the case but he didn't see anyone prompting the audience.  The hostess looked to see what he was looking at as well and then she blinked rapidly, trying to get back on track.

"So you were forced to end the charade by admitting all in order to escape serious consequences..."  she invited.

He wanted to say the gallows might have been preferable to what he had gone through, what he was going through still, but this sounded a bit much even for his love of drama.  Besides, she might take it as a slight on his appearing on her show.  Once more he was doing something for the money.  His court costs were astronomical!  And he'd heard his first wife was threatening to sue him for deframation of character or some such damned thing. 

  "Yes," he answered and smiled at her charmingly.  She was not moved.  Gregory Peck had smiled at her once.

She rushed easily through events and the final acceptance of his innocence, "...although I understand there are those who still say there were definitely two people and you have somehow gotten rid of your wife..." she said it archly, inviting him to halt on a rebuttal and perhaps add fuel to the doubts.  He did not.  So she smoothly went on, "What do you intend to do next?"

The question surprised him.  He was not prepared for it.  His second voice rushed out onstage but it too was unable to answer.

For a moment he looked at her, really looked at her with his entire self, and she had the most eerie feeling pass through her.  She had interviewed many people in her long career, famous, notorious, the highs and the lows of humanity.  She had some weird feeling that this nondescript little man bordered on the truly great.  What a silly idea.  But she did not fill in the silence, she ignored the hand signals from the director, she simply waited on this man's answer.

Finally he spoke, "I guess I'll have to find another distraction."  He sounded a bit puzzled, but definite.  Oh yes, very definite.

She let out her breath as if breaking a trance.  What an extraordinary interview.  And Ernest would give her holy hell for that long pause.  With practised ease she thanked her guest, announced the next one, led into the commercial, all the while wondering if this guy George was okay.  He looked so withdrawn.

He was withdrawn.  Both voices had come together in a realization that might have silenced the need for them to exist in this tandem manner.  He had been called to a role and he had played it.  He had played it well.  

Maybe he could let the curtain fall now, for once and for all.  And if he didn't - well, his next appearance was going to be a whopper!       

🎶 Blowing In The Wind.....

......... a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962 which is relevant now in 2024.

 Dylan was born on May 24 in 1941 which makes him eighty three.

I have enjoyed his music for almost seventy years and I wish him a Happy Birthday.

International Turtle Day

This is  Myrtle the Turtle,  Hart House's mascot, a novelty for the residents.