1. Where’s That
During a thunderstorm when everyone else was running for cover, one woman remained outside and seemed not to be bothered in the least. They all looked out from their hiding places and wondered at her. It didn’t hurt that she was strikingly beautiful. Well, soon enough they all came out into the storm, feeling a bit ashamed, I suppose. At first, they couldn’t keep their eyes off her, glistening as she was in the rain and flash of light. Eventually, however, their eyes followed hers to the sky and what they saw was only a roiling grayness that seemed to envelop the earth. They asked her what she saw. “Home,” she said. And they, like the dumb little fish of another story, asked, “Where is that?”
2. River Notes
As I sit here writing tonight at my desk I am on the river and see myself in the flow of all things... the sounds of water, bird and wind are my voice, and all my senses are alive as though the stars are at elbow and foot... I breathe in the night and orion, aldebaran, and procyon come closer, and there you are again, musa, luna puella, your body curving and folding in the current, laughing and inviting me to dive with you beneath the rippling and lose myself at last, these words nothing but the falling rain.
3. Butterflies
for Sasha
Since no one else had the time, the old man had come out to the field with the child who was now jumping about, fluttering in the distance among the flowers and long grass, the border of dark trees like a commentary on the futility of it all. The child was set on catching a butterfly, though on that late spring day there were no butterflies. The child did not seem to mind, leaping now here now there, the butterflies seemingly just out of reach. Then the old man saw something in the distance that seemed to float just above the long grass. He looked long and hard and for the life of him he could not distinguish the child from a butterfly. When the child returned, sans butterfly, all red and green, happily exhausted, pointing out to the field, asking if he could return tomorrow to try again to catch a butterfly, the old man smiled and silently took the child’s hand. Years later, when the child had become a man, he would return to the field and find his grandpa waiting for him.
4. The Man Who Couldn't Love Some Like You
He had once been a happy man. He had loved everybody, boys, girls, old women who thought themselves still vibrant and sexy, and old men with dangerously foul breath. He found lovable what others considered obscene, like protruding teeth or flapping ears or a nasty-looking scar across the forehead. He even found drooling as attractive. He couldn’t help himself. Others thought he was delusional or simply a dirty old man, until one day, he suffered a head injury, having slipped off a ledge while ogling sagging sunbathers. After he recovered, where he had once celebrated every blemish as a joy to behold, he now found crippling fault. His constant refrain was, “Who could love someone like you?” He said this whether the person was overweight, stuttered or blinked too much or had dull brown hair or had one too many eyes. He reserved a special place in hell for redheads, whom he previously had loved to distraction. Some fondly remembered the “dirty old man,' but now putting their full faith in what had before been but a naive myth, claimed he had once been a lovely human being. They asked him what had changed and he said, “I woke up.” One day he took a good look at himself in the mirror and now saw himself as he saw others: unruly hair, yellowing and missing teeth, wrinkles that made his flaccid face look like a prune -- he even thought his skin had turned dark purple. So be it, he concluded, and banged his head as hard as he could against the glass. This time he didn’t wake up. Those who had originally thought of him as a dirty old man felt somehow vindicated. They said they had known it all along. “Plain as the nose on your face,” they said. Others, more simply, blamed it on the mirror.
5. Cum carmine in meo corde
As a child, he had always felt close to birds. It was as if the birds revealed to him some other way of being in the world, what he would now call, as an adult, another reality. As a 6-year-old and then a teenager and later as a father and a teacher, he never stopped hoping that the birds would not fly off when he came near or, more secretly, that the birds would actually come to him. They didn’t, and he blamed himself, thinking if he had been a better person or more at peace with himself and others, the birds would naturally perch on his shoulders or nest in his beard. He scolded himself for such foolish thoughts. Then one day, while on a long solitary walk in the mountains, a bird did come to him but only to drive him off from its nest. It made him incredibly sad. When he returned home from his long walk, he slept the sleep of the dead but woke in the morning with a birdlike song in his heart. To the birds, however, nothing had changed. Yet, to this day, he still sings with the birds. Sometimes they do not fly away at once but seem to listen and join their song with his. He knew he was yet again being foolish, but now, at last, he felt strangely at peace.
6. The Disappearing Katharines
No one knew if Katharine was one or many because each time she vanished she came back as a totally different person who yet called herself Katherine and somehow knew things about us that only the true Katharine could know. We would perhaps have overlooked the startling changes in her appearance and personality (now like a sly cat, another time like a valkyrie or a damsel in distress) if only there had not been so many Katharines (this last time she had returned with a faraway look in her eye and raven black hair that had previously been unapologetically red) or if she had not insisted that she was in fact always the one and the same Katharine. And now she has vanished once again. We all wondered who she would be when we saw her next. Perhaps a prima ballerina prancing about in piping-hot pink pantaloons, prating on and on about some pearl of wisdom so priceless that it was actually worth nothing at all. It could never be true unless we could dance like her. We knew at least she would not be like us, blessedly familiar, wearing the spring grass down to a well-traveled path.
7. Bird 1
When I came to school today, I did not come alone. There was a bear with me. No one seemed to notice except for a girl whose eyes were filled with the glory of the morning and whose red hair played in the air. She gave me a look, laughed, and asked who was my friend. "What do you mean?" I replied. She laughed again and said "you can't fool me" and flew up into a nearby tree. Later, walking from one building to another, I heard the call of a bird, and there she was at my side. I asked, "Who are you?" She seemed surprised I didn’t know. She said she was my student and had been with me from the beginning. This time when she flew away, I growled annoyance and padded on hand and foot to my next class.
8. Bird 2
So, I thought I was alone on the beach when a sudden gust of wind blew my tattered, old hat away. It was like the hat had wings or was some sort of kite, diving and lifting over the sea, but having no string attached, it disappeared over the water and surely landed wherever it is that kites go once they are set free. But then there was the call of that bird. I turned around and there, where there had been not one solitary person for months, was a girl wearing my hat. She laughed at my surprise, handed me my hat, and flew happily off. I knew then I was not alone.
9. Something’s Missing
for K
A young woman was combing through the grass with her fingers, or rather, that’s what it looked like. Her grandfather, seeing her out the window, thought to himself, she must be thinking about something BIG. He knew, because he, while thinking about all the questions that come naturally to an old man near the END, would himself run his fingers over the page on which he was writing as if to discover some secret he had been missing. He decided to go outside to be with her. She hardly noticed he was there, so he just straight out asked her if she was looking for something. And she, as if talking to herself, answered, “Something’s missing.” Her grandfather, who wanted to be helpful, asked if she was sure she was looking in the right place. Her reply surprised him: “It’s not here, but it’s only out here in the light of day that I can even think about it.” The old man thought he understood and began running his scarred old fingers through the grass. He was thinking of her, her young life in summer and winter, and then, for the first time, she looked up at him and smiled. Somehow, each had found something.
10. Man on the Moon
Papa cried last night. It was about ten-thirty. My bedtime. I woke in the morning at six-thirty, showered, and drove to school. The sun was up. The days are getting longer now. It was hard to see. When I got home, mom asked if I knew where my father was. I didn’t. She already knew that. We ate dinner as usual at seven, then did the dishes and laundry together. After I took out the trash, I went up to my room to do my homework. I stayed up later than usual, thinking about Papa. The night was so quiet I could barely hear myself think. I opened a window and leaned out, breathing in the cool darkness. It made me feel better somehow. What was it Papa said last night? It was something about a man on the moon. I looked up to where the moon was rising over the mountains and knew Papa was gone for good.
11. The Man Who Cried When it Rained
Why are you crying? Am I crying? Yes, you are. Is there something the matter? No. I’ve had a good day except, of course, for the rain. Maybe you should get some help. What kind of help? Like from a friend. You’re my friend. But I can’t help you. Why do you think I need help? Because you're crying for no reason. But I told you. What? About the rain.
12. Two Fingers or Three
(Boy girl, sitting on a bench in lamplight. Boy speaks first.)
There's something bothering you, isn’t there? No, I’m fine. No you’re not. I tell you I am fine. I’ll believe that when you can tell me how many fingers I am holding up. Two. No, I was holding up three. No you weren’t. Yes I was. Try again. How many fingers? Two! No, three again. Something's not right. Well, there’s nothing wrong with my eyes. Maybe not, but I know there’s something bothering you. You’re right! YOU are bothering me. I knew there was something. I hate how you always think you know. Like now? Exactly! I'm leaving. Then leave already. I can’t. Why not? Because I don’t know where to go. Home? No. Why not? I can’t tell you. Well, you can come home with me. Thank you. Two fingers or three? Just drop it. What? You got what you wanted, right? What's that? Me.
13. The End of Days
He looked alive or at least no one seemed to notice that he was moving too deliberately to be really living. He retreated undetected to his office. He sat at his desk and surveyed the books he had yet to read and he student papers to be graded. What to do? Nothing is better than something, he thought. By some chance, he heard a passing girl say, “Fuck this shit!” and began to write. His writing took on the curve and vitality of a woman he had seen the night before. She had caught him looking and didn't care. He described her too tight dress and her dark eyes, her crude cursing, the jerk of her hands as she bitched on and on about how some clueless creep with balls for brains treated her like dirt. She was beautiful! When he left his office to teach his next class, he was almost gone. The students hardly noticed he was there. He sat in his chair and began to rock back and forth to their highs and lows, just pleased to catch them unaware. He continued writing about that badass beauty on the prowl. She was happy to oblige. The student to his right, for some unknown reason, began to write, and then another. When would class begin? It never did. After all, it was spring. He had nothing to teach them. Soon enough, they were all writing. About what? He had no clue. It seemed to him they didn’t need him. He left them there. No one noticed he was no longer there.
14. Why me?
If I could have found the words, I would have stopped teaching on my own. Telling my students that I really didn’t know what I was talking about and that they would have to figure it out on their own, just like me, 79 years old, fifty some years into a teaching career, still standing in front of them like a ricket-racked escapee from a home for wannabe poets, spouting nonsense that they benignly mistook for wisdom -- like the world is our soul inside out, a psychedelic mirror only an ardent Narcissus could love – none of that worked. The students knew I didn’t believe there was such a thing as a soul, but they still thought I was onto something. That much was true. I was after something that would put me on the road again, some meandering mumbo jumbo by which I could convince myself I really did know something true and wise and send me off into the November rain. If I could find the words, I could quit, since there would then be no point in going on with this charade. Teaching is all about searching for meaning. If you ever found the key, you could bid your students good luck and goodbye, your last words as you walked out the door, “See you in Tulsa.” Didn’t they know that the writing I assigned them was a thinly contrived excuse for me to find the words? You see, while I was hired to teach these innocent boys and girls, to have them read the golden oldies so that they could discover what had oft been thought, but ne'er so well expressed, I instead had them respond to creative prompts that I wrote along with them. But here’s the kicker – if somehow I found the words, the writing assignments, the whole house of cards would collapse, and I would be free. The students would be on their own and, no doubt, some of them would someday become teachers too, throwing sand in the eyes of their students and making them dream.
But then it happened – not the words yet, but one day Daisy What’s-Her-Name realized she really wasn’t learning anything and complained to the administration – her parents, she said, were paying good money for her to attend this exclusive school and here was this sad excuse for a teacher telling his students not to let schoolwork get in the way of their education. His teaching was nothing but the worst sort of humbuggery, the sort where the humbugger tells you to your face that what he’s selling is not for sale, though she used other words like fake, senile, lost. She may have mentioned dementia. It was like the administrators had known this all along. The next day, I was gone. The memory circuits of the institution simply deleted me and rebooted. I was on my own, but now the words came to me unbidden – it was surprising because the words were phrased as a question. All this time, I had been looking for something else. (I confess some small part of me, some primitive generous impulse, was calling out to students I was never to see again: It’s a question. Ask the right question and you can busy yourselves with other things, like getting rich, if lots of money will make you happy.) Abjectly kneeling before a beaming Aristotle, I asked, Why me? Why not a zombie? and was good to go.