These aren't particularly connected, except that I wrote all of them. I am in a mood for dialogue tonight.
"You say so often, this thing or that is most beautiful of all. You cheapen beauty, giving your best approval to everything."
"Why should not everything be equally as lovely, worthwhile in its own way?"
"Then equality is the greatest beauty, is it not? But not all things are made equal."
"Oh, come! Certainly they are!"
"Why have I speech, then, and a frog does not? Are you going to deny that it is better to have speech?"
“Grandfer,” she said. He had been studying the roof beams; he looked down, beetled brows drawn low. His eyes were dark as chestnuts, and as hard. Hers were blue.
“Well?”
Lygia sat on his couch and slipped a soft, plump hand into his veined one. She leaned her cheek against it. “Gift me wi’ a story, Grandfer?”
“No. To bed wi’ ye.” He had not heard her mother’s injunction--his mind had been with memories and phantoms. But he was old, and liked to be coaxed. “I haff na time for yeern stories.”
She opened her eyes very wide and looked at him, mute otherwise. “Whoot!” he whistled to himself. “Ye witch-child!”
“Gift me wi’ a story, Grandfer?” Lygia’s face, still a baby-face, dimpled and rounded with her smile. She was too little to hide her triumph by looking away, up and away out of the room’s single high window, which showed only a patch of the winter evening.
The question was a mere formality, but he asked it. “Which one want ye, ye pied-thistle?“ Lygia sat perfectly still, gazing upward. The evening star was just beginning to shine. Without turning her head, she pointed solemnly. “Tell me about Luceaferul.”
“I thought upset stomachs were bad for the health,” a lazy voice broke in, shattering the peace of the meadow.
Old Tambi shied away, startled. Anna sat up rather suddenly, sending her long hair flying. Between the strands across her face, she made out the general shape of a person.
“Hello, Cabbage. Why aren’t you primping before a mirror with the other girls?” The voice was indolent and vaguely amused. Anna floundered up out of the grass, and met a pair of teasing eyes. Her cousin lounged against the trunk of the willow, arms folded, and features tipped sideways. She glared at him.
“I might ask you the same, Jute Corric. Why are you spying on me instead of picking out your best tunic to impress them?” Anna waved at the grass. “Sit, won’t you? I hate to see people standing. It’s so untidy.”
The boy laughed and sat down. “Because the girls bore me, and you don’t. Why else?”
“No one would ever know, the way you flirt with them,” She muttered. “You’ve become a shameless tease, Jute.”
“Well, and why not?” He shifted lazily in the grass. Jute Corric was constantly in motion, but his movements were so slow and fluid that he gave the impression of holding still. “They like it, I like it, and when I tire of their chatter, I can come and talk to you.”
Anna’s nose wrinkled in a grimace. “I’m worried about you. What has happened to my cousin, that he spends his time ogling the girls at the well instead of helping his father? You used to love the smithy.”
“I’m tired of it.” He frowned. “The metal and the heat and the pounding hammer… even at home my head used to ring.”
“Is that an excuse, or a reason?” Anna asked.
Jute grinned, unconcerned by her grave tone. “Both, and neither.”
“Objective truth doesn’t exist, Jamie. God isn’t. Heaven isn’t. It just
isn’t. You won’t accept it, and it’s going to hurt you more than you’ll ever know when that finally gets through. There’s no stopping reality, Jamie. There’s no holding it back. You’re living a dream, marching to your own drumbeat, dancing a dance; but dreamers wake up, drummers get tired, and feet aren’t made to dance forever.”
She opened her mouth, but I held up my hand.
“It’s better to hear it from me then from some mugger or murderer. You think you’re safe. You aren’t! You think you’re free, but everything about you shows how shackled you are to the idea of a person who doesn’t exist. Give it up before it’s too late! Free yourself!” She just shook her head. How could anybody be so dumb? I wanted to shake her; not physically, but to her core, the way she’d shaken me. I wanted to burrow down beneath the flawless strength which I didn’t understand and find something that made sense.
They couldn’t seem to agree about anything. Emily objected to a class of mages, to demons, angels, vampires, brothels, same-sex unions, absolute rule of the king, and even slavery on sexual grounds. Instead, she wanted a council, a bill of rights, with corresponding punishments, an absolute law against invocation of dark, light, or in any way remotely personified powers, and a list of rules binding on the king, including actions for which he could be dethroned, one of which being divorce, and another fornication! It was unbearable.
“Can’t we leave all this morality junk out of it?” Burn asked, reigning in his temper for the upteenth time.
“We could,” she retorted, “but only because there are no tangible consequences for actions performed in roleplay.”
“Exactly! People join a guild to have fun, belong to a group, to take it up a level from the chat room tavern. They won’t accept a society where they can’t use magic or seduce the ruler. It’s just not how stories are written!”
“Question. Do the stories full of intrigue and seduction make a good read? Did you even enjoy writing them?”
“Sure,” Burn replied, casually.
“I bet you never had anything to compare them to.”
He snarled at her, stung. “I read a lot more than you think, Your Uppity Weirdness.”
“They don’t portray the whole truth, not the half of it! They take all the sick things and dress them up in tinsel.”
“Shut up.” Burn snarled. “Just shut up.”
“Why’d you call?”
“Just saying hi to my Ev. of Gov. partner. What’s on your mind?”
“Paper clips, my little sister’s birthday party, the 4th of July, and mud.”
Chuckling, Burn tossed away a handful of useless pens. How did she do that? He’d taken to putting the same question to her at random intervals. Every time he asked, she had an answer that surprised and delighted him. Bernard picked the most unlikely thought.
“Why mud?”
“It’s soft, and there’s something primal about it… like wrestling.”
“You wrestle much?”
“Alternate Thursdays.” There it was again, the laughter-brimming undertone. Emily could be pure sunshine when she didn’t have her walls up.
Burn grinned. “Uh-huh. Who with?”
“God.”
She hung the word out like a signal, like an ancient Christian drawing a fish in the sand. Burn remembered reading about such symbols during the long hours spent on his mother’s sunny bedroom floor with an encyclopedia.
“I betcha God wins,” he said lightly. “What do you wrestle for?”
“Priorities. Peace of mind, mostly. Joy that doesn’t rub off. Humility. I tell him I don’t need him and he tells me I do, and then we wrestle and he wins. I’m glad.”
“How come?” Burn asked softly.
“Because if I won, I’d be in charge. That would be horrible… and impossible.” “Yeah… well…” He never knew what to say to her about religion. Burn wished she wouldn’t get off on the subject so much, but he respected it and kept his distance.
“In my life….there is someone who touuuuuuches my life….” Anne warbled from the bathroom. Emily stuck her head around the doorjamb.
“Namely, who?” She smiled at the fourteen-year-old reflection with its hands in its hair.
“Namely God.” Anne replied, grinning.
“Amen.”
Emily turned away, and Anne went on, pleased that “namely God” fit the meter of the song as a replacement for “waiting here.”
“Look at the size of those trees.” Michael said admiringly to Geordie, who happened to be standing beside him. He pointed at two old giants, one on either side of the porch.
“Big.” Geordie agreed amicably.
“There are barns further up the lane.”
“Yes. We can tell Kate there are horses too. I saw them.”
“Where?”
“Other side of the house. There’s a field.” Geordie waved an ambiguous gesture. “What do you think?”
Michael shook his head. “I haven’t seen enough yet. Look, there’s Matthias yelling for us. He must have found something.”
The boys set off for the orchard at a run.
“Did you ever see such a funny staircase?” Anne poked her head out of one bedroom and found herself staring down two steps at a sunken landing, and then up two steps to the rest of the hall. “ It’s shaped like an ‘L’.”
“Oh! What an odd bathroom!” Squealed Katherine, who was not listening.
Anne descended the two steps, ascended two more, and looked in. “The bath tub has foots.” She remarked dubiously.
“Yes, but look at this window!” Kate peered out. “I can see the orchard, and the boys!”
“I don’t think bath tubs should have foots.” Anne continued oblivious. Her eyes fell on the bathroom door. “What funny knobs this house has. They stick out.”
“It’s lovely,” sighed Kate. “It’s so old-fashioned.”
Anne nodded solemnly. “Do you think Mother likes it?”
“So…” Dad inquired, lifting his sandwich in both hands and cocking an eyebrow at us, “How was Sunday school?”
A swift glance shot around the table. None of us were eager to be forthcoming. The silence stretched for a heartbeat, then two. At last I realized with some disgust that we were behaving just like the dead class of poor Mr. Sands. Somebody had to speak.
“It was… interesting.” As happened often, Matthias stepped forward to engage the difficult question. I felt a sudden wave of gratitude towards him; although he did it no doubt out of a sense of duty, it was well done and kind, giving the rest of us time to collect our thoughts.
“How was the message, Dad?” I felt it only right to return the pleasantry. Dad chewed meditatively and swallowed.
“As a whole, not bad, but there were some parts which require…” He stared off into space, searching for a word.
“Closer scrutiny,” Mum offered.
Dad grinned at her, and pointed his fork at the older two boys. “Take notes.” He said. “There aren’t many women around like your mother, but I expect you to be worthy of a couple.”
The boys nodded solemnly. Dad leaned over to kiss Mum. We “ewwwed” loud and long, and they took no notice except to tease for our squeamishness. It was a long-established custom with the Sayekirk family. We six complained about kissing; Mum and Dad made witty rejoinders which we could not answer sufficiently, and the whole exchange degenerated into laughter. By the time they finished, Dad was ready to drift into another vein of conversation: physics. It sounded like a foreign language to me, but some of the others (notably Matthias) lapped the stuff up as Dad doodled happily all over the whiteboard which hung on a wall nearby and Mum protested that she couldn’t do math. Finally we rose to clear the dishes. No more mention was made of the church. I thought the matter was closed.
I wandered into the family room to talk to Geordie. There was no good reason for it, except that I felt at loose ends and after all, what else are siblings for?
“Geordie?”
He was curled up in his usual favorite place, a corner of the couch. I tucked myself in opposite and prodded his toes with mine. Geordie barely looked up from the thick book in his lap.
“Hmmm?” He replied dreamily.
“What do you think about what Dad said?” It was as good an opening as any. I poked again, more vigorously, and forced his feet up a little. That woke him up a little, and he shoved back.
“Which part of what Dad said?”
“The swing part.”
“Oh,” Geordie reopened his book and appeared to forget all about me. Annoyed, I prodded with feet and tongue at the same time.
“Well?”
“Black Widow Spiders are known for the red hourglasses on their undersides.” He responded vaguely. “They are extremely poisonous and a human being who has been bitten by a Black Widow can die within hours.”
“Give me that!” I snatched his book away. “I’m asking you a question!”
Geordie stiffened, offended. “It’s not kind to take my book.”
I had no decent retort, but that didn’t stop me from being defensive. “You weren’t paying attention to me.” My voice sounded sulky, even in my own ears.
He regarded me oddly, then, “I forgive you.”
“I didn’t say I was sorry.”
“No, but I forgive you anyway. The Bible says to.”
I had to melt. Geordie was my brother and my friend. “I am sorry, Geordie.”
He only smiled and turned the conversation back to my original question. “What
about the swing?”
Well, that was random. :-)
