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NonFiction – A #fridayflash Renovation


Jeff Posey had this to say about the original:

I hereby issue you a challenge: the next thing you write, circle ever use of the word “was” and replace it with a strong verb.

So here is a first revision:

He’d written versions enough of their story to impress Sheherazade. Countless genres spanning generations, stages and an impressive amount of technological advances which still left his inner Luddite scrambling for a crucifix and a wooden stake but he’d yet to tell their tale the way it actually happened. Now that a fifth century without her had slipped away into another millennium, Talesin, teller of tales, thumbed the worn pages of his memory for a final time and decided to tell the truth.

The misdirecting ballads and epic romances full of adventure and magic began innocently, born from the urgent need to conceal their strange near immortality, an unwanted gift that transformed itself from an inconvenience to a liability. She reveled in the names he chose for her. Grainne. Isolde. Guinevere. But soon wearied of distorted facts, amalgamated characters, and the way Talesin fused their bound souls to the ideals of the era like washing on the line that the wind wrung and twisted into shapeless sack cloth.

In particular she loathed Camelot, imposing it as he had over their Saxon birthplace of Wroxeter. Talesin had to admit he’d taken more than his usual lot of liberties with setting and character alike.

“Lancelot?” she raged. “Was he that foppish priest in Calais? The one who leered at me over a consecrated host no less? He’s the best model of virtue you can manage? Robbie’s head would explode if he knew, and still had a head, ever all that virtuous. Sometimes your inspirations leave me to wonder if we share the same memories at all.”

She’d refused his bed for weeks after  reading the original draft, but Talesin refused to change a word. It was his first book. Gutenberg pressed and not some jongleur recitation. He’d never seen a book, but the bible, before that first copy of his own work. His own tale, inked finely and bound in a soft leather with his name on it.   A real book acknowledging him a storyteller.

“It’s not even your real real name,” she reminded him, but he didn’t care. He took the first step towards untwining the tale’s centerpiece – their hearts.

The book placed him in good stead in the French court, garnering the admiration of Francoise’s first Queen, who took them with her when she finally deserted her pale and pious King and his staid northern kingdom. The time spent with the Duchess in her native Aquitaine proved Talesin’s most fertile writing period, but she scoffed at the shallow subject matter.

“When was I ever rendered wet to the knees by bad poetry sung off key?” she said with that snicker-like giggle and a toss of her thick red mane that drove him mad in ways too numerous for his pen to fully elaborate.

Talesin shared her less venomous views of the Duchess’s ideas about courtly love but needed her patronage. France flitted like flimsy drapery around them, but the Isles menaced them still. Time hadn’t quite laid them to rest between the covers of his books.

She had the last laugh when the Duchess ran off to their soggy brutish beginnings with the rakish Plantagenet heir.

“She’ll get precious little adoration or devotion from that one,” she said.

Talesin said nothing. His fondness for the aging Duchess led him to hope the young Duke was her shining knight. Storytellers do more dreaming while awake than in the papered world at the tip of their cold cramped fingers, but when the romance fizzled so famously, she said,

“It must bring Eleanor no end of joy to be the living embodiment of one of her insipidly tragic ballads.”

Talesin declined to admit the truth in her observation or his not altogether small role.

She left the century later. Talesin imprisoned, a writer’s fate from time to time in those days. He envied her freedom. While his was a corporeal body almost without end, hers was a soul that repeated intact from one body to the next.

To make it easy for him to find her, her habit was to select the region – sometimes even the family – of her next incarnation well in advance of her death, while he endured, waiting for her to be reborn and mature again. During her absences he spun their union into adventures and fanciful stories only she would recognize as true.

She came to the prison to say goodbye. Wizened with shoulder length hair as white as the snow owl’s and still as soft as flax, the guards mistook her for his mum. Green eyes filmy with time, not tears, she warned him.

“We’re quits then,” she whispered in his ear, freezing his thoughts with an icy breath he’d come to recognize. ” I want to hear truth from your inky tongue. Read reality on the page. Your words, Talesin. Not Beroul. Or Thomas or Malory’s. I am done with the recycling of lies.”

Talesin watched wordlessly as she hobbled past to the barred door and rattled for the guard. He knew she would not join him again unless he told their story. The truth with all its secrets and pain and plainness. But he had refused her many times over the ages, and she came back to him.

A blank screen seared his eyes like snow on the mountaintop. White and virginal, reminding Talesin of their first night together. Celestial children unknowingly casting a spell that would become a curse. The keyboard, silky under his finger pads as they drew absent circles, waited for his words. More patient than the only other lover he’d ever known. He wondered absently what to call their story. A story that only by an accident of words and timing came to include her at all, he had pointed out once, and he should be able to recount it as he liked.

“Always the magician, eh, Merlin?” she questioned. “Illusions and sleights are the tools of wizards and writers?”

“The feelings are always true,” he’d said in his own defense.

“Weighted like kittens in a sack,” was her reply.

“I’m a storyteller,” he said.

“That’s for certain.”

Talesin caressed the qwerty and began.

NonFiction #fridayflash


He’d written their story every way but the way it actually happened and now with a fifth century without her slipping away into another millennium, Talesin, teller of tales, decided to tell the truth.

The misdirecting ballads and epic romances full of adventure and magic began innocently, born as it was from a need to conceal their strange near immortality, a gift that was less a liability in the beginning than it was now. She had loved the names he chose for her. Grainne. Isolde. Guinevere. But she wearied of the distortion of the facts in short order and the way Talesin fused their love to the ideals of the era and area until it was twisted and wrung out of shape.

In particular she loathed the round table and Camelot, story elements of which he was particularly proud.

“Lancelot?” she raged. “Was he that foppish priest in Calais? The one who leered at me over a consecrated host no less? He’s the best model of virtue you can manage? Robbie’s head would explode if he knew, and still had a head, and was ever all that virtuous. Sometimes your inspirations leave me to wonder if we share the same memories at all.”

She’d refused his bed for weeks after  she’d finished reading the orginal draft, but Talesin refused to change a word. It was his first book. He’d never seen a book, but the bible. His own tale, penned finely and bound in a soft leather with his name on it was not something he would forego for anyone. Even her. A real book that acknowledged him as storyteller

“It’s not even your real real name,” she’d reminded him, but he didn’t care.

The book placed them in good stead in the French court and garnered the admiration of the Queen, who took them with her when she finally left Francois. The time they’d spent with the Duchess in her native Aquitaine proved Talesin’s most fertile writing period, but she scoffed at the shallowness of it all.

“When was I ever rendered wet to the knees by bad poetry sung off key?” she said with that snicker-like giggle and a toss of her thick red mane.

He shared her views of the Duchess’s ideas about men and women but needed the patronage, and it wasn’t safe for them to return to Britain. There were still others. They were too well remembered.

She had the last laugh when the Duchess ran off to the soggy isle with that rakish Plantagenet heir.

“She’ll get precious little adoration and devotion from that one,” she said.

Talesin said nothing. He liked Duchess and hoped young Duke could  fashion a grown woman out of someone so determined to be a maid, in spirit if not in fact. It had long since occurred to him that his Lady’s infatuation with chaste love was yet another method humans used to slow time or turn it back. And when the romance fizzled so famously, she had said,

“It must bring Eleanor no end of joy to be the living embodiment of one of her insipidly tragic ballads.”

She left the century after. Talesin was in prison when she was taken ill and missed her passing. Imprisonment was a writer’s fate from time to time in those days. He envied her freedom. While his was a corporeal body almost without end, hers was a soul that repeated intact from one body to the next.

To make it easy for him to find her, she would select the region – sometimes even the family – of her next incarnation well in advance of her death, and he would wait for her to be reborn and mature again. During her absences he would spin their union and adventures into fanciful stories that only she would recognize as true.

But she had not returned to him, or at all as far as he could tell. Even those rare times when death had snatched her unexpectedly with reunion plans not yet made, Talesin had been able to find her. She’d warned that she would not join him again unless he told their story. The truth with all its secrets and pain and plainness. But he had refused. She’d always come back to him.

“We’re quits then,” she whispered into his ear the last time he saw her. ” I want to hear the truth from your inky tongue. Read it on a page in your words. I am done with the recycling of lies.”

The screen was blank. The keyboard silky under his finger pads as they drew absent circles waiting for his words. He wondered what to call their story. A story that only by accident came to include her, he had pointed out once, and he should be able to recount it as he liked.

“Always the magician, eh, Merlin?” she questioned. “Illusions and sleights are the tools of wizards and writers?”

“The feelings are always true,” he’d said in his own defense.

“Weighted like kittens in a sack,” was her reply.

“I’m a storyteller,” he said.

“That’s for certain.”

Talesin caressed the qwerty and began.

The Stuff You Sell


One of my favorite George Carlin bits is about the accumulation of stuff and the difference between “shit” and “stuff” and the maintenance of supply lines.

Last Saturday was the garage sale. The saga leading up to the sale and the events that followed are here and here, but the sale itself is worth a quick recounting.

I have hosted but one other garage sale and it was a resounding flop in terms of turnout and sales. That we made any money at all was due largely to the sale of furniture and appliances. Nearly everything else from that sale ended up at the dump or Goodwill.

The dump, you say?

Yes, Goodwill has its standards but garage salers and their patrons do not.

This time we wisely chose to pool our resources with others in our little hamlet. The association that runs things organized and promoted and even sponsored a hockey equipment swap during the afternoon to drum up business.

We opened the garage at 8:30. Not ready, but in order to fan out into the driveway. We had customers within ten minutes despite the fact that the sale was advertised to begin at 10AM. Later that day a neighbor reported that people were knocking on her door at 9 to ask her if she would open up early. Seasoned garage sale customers are a hardcore lot. They arrive early. They have want lists. They know how to haggle. They often have their own shopping bags and they are quick to dismiss your stuff as shit.

“I don’t see anything here worth looking at,” was the pronouncement of one of our early patrons. She arrived with two other women and were apparently in hot pursuit of old jewelry. Not the 15 to 20 year old costume crap I had out, but heirloom quality stuff that people mistakenly put out because they never knew it belonged to Great-Auntie Julia or came back from Europe with Granddaddy. It’s shaming enough to know you’ve wantonly accumulated too many things of questionable value but to have it labeled so publicly by a stranger is enough to make you want to brand yourself with a big W for “waster” or an interlocking pair for “Walmart Whore”.

The first 30 minutes saw a steady stream without sales until the first deluge flooded down the alley and then it was a blur of wheeling, wheedling and taking people’s money. If I was able to do this kind of intense people interaction for more than a day at a stretch, I could be a salesperson. I am very good at wearing resistance down. I didn’t spend 17 years bending middle school students to my will without learning a trick or two about the art of persuasion. But I am only a tad and a bit more able for people overload than Rob is, and I would ultimately punch out and never return if I had to work sales.

Rob fetched, carried and made the occasional transaction if I was occupied or during the two breaks I took between 8:30 and 3PM. Too many people makes for an uncomfortable and unhappy Rob. Although he claims to have no great expectations for his natal day, he has modest dreams of peace and quiet and hosting a garage sale doesn’t fit the bill.

When I had time, I watched the people. They ran a range, but for the most part they were either older or younger families. For once having girl clothes was a coup. Normally when I have tried to rid myself of Dee’s cast off’s myself or through the garage sales of my best friend, I have run into the “This is such cute stuff. Too bad I just have boys.” Nothing but mama’s and papa’s of girls this time, and they swooped and snatched and made off with nearly every item of clothing and every outgrown toy.

Dee was promised the proceeds of the sale of her toys. She sought me out every so often to check the balance sheet I was keeping and keep track of her earnings. She did well, too, as she watched her stuff float out of the garage in the hands of other children. At one point though she sidled up slightly teary eyed and said,

“Why are those older kids making fun of my stuff?”

Two preteen boys were joking with an older sister who was sufficiently embarrassed enough to shuffle them out and away as quickly as possible. I assured Dee that the boys in question were simple minded and she recovered, but I knew how she felt. It’s humbling to put your stuff on display for humanity regardless of its level.

Except for a few items which I googled for pricing estimates, I mainly pulled random figures from the air and applied them without rationale. It occurred to me after the last garage sale that people are willing to part with anything from a quarter to a couple of dollars for items that are valueless but will balk at the idea of paying 5 or 10 dollars for usable items that would cost them three or four times as much on Kijiji or eBay and more than that brand new.

And it’s next to impossible to give things away.

Last time we had this old color tv, circa 1988, that we eventually stuck a “free” sign on. Plenty of people looked, asked, were assured it really did work, and still walked away. “Free” has negative connotations it seems. This time I wrote “it works. $2” and sure enough it was sold by noon.

Conversely, you can’t sell stuffies. Even for a quarter. But stick them in a box marked “free for the taking” and people suddenly need a stuffie. But only one. Despite being free with no stipulations, people don’t feel right about taking more than one. I found one woman debating over four of the furballs.

“I work at a shelter downtown,” she explained. “They would make great additions to the toy baskets we make for the kids during the holidays.”

“Really?” I said. “Well then please take the whole box.”

I nearly had to twist her arm, but in the end she took them gratefully.

Normally I like to give things away when I know that they are needed. The remains of the sale went to the County Clothes Closet, an organization like Goodwill but the money remains in our county for grants to volunteer and community groups. But I found the sale gratifying. I am a bit tired of bits of our life wandering “free”.