I have come to lay pearls before swine!
Just kidding; you’re not swine.
At least, no more or less than I am.
Here is the fiction I’ve promised. This is what you call a character-driven narrative. It comes from a real experience I had which I then extrapolated upon with fiction. Like most stories it has a beginning, a middle and an end; a conflict and resolution; but unlike some stories you may (or may not) have to think about it.
At any rate, enjoy it. And then check out some of the links to the right there…
The Good Trick
J.D. Buston
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
-- Albert Einstein
“This is what I want to be,” she says from somewhere behind me. I turn away from the shelves of books to face her where she stands by the magazines. She holds it out for me to see. The glossy pages of the magazine reflect the florescent lights and I have to move my head around to see past the glare.
The photo—shades of grey—shows an elderly couple. Fat, underdressed and falling apart in the lockstep of a tango or a salsa or—something. The sidewalk beneath their feet actually looks younger than either of them. The people that pass by don’t seem to notice them and I wonder if they’re ignoring the couple or the camera.
I can see how either one might make someone uncomfortable.
At this hour, on this day, in the grocery store, there’s no one shopping. No one normal, anyway.
The jug of milk we came for sits on the shelf with the magazines. The naan, frozen salmon and chocolate bars we didn’t come here for are in my hand.
I rest my eyes on the stock boy down the aisle. I can almost see the grease from his hair running down his face, closing pores, birthing zits. His white dress shirt is too big, his tie too long, his green apron bearing the store logo is tied too loose because his waist is too small. Imagine what it would be like to be both trapped and lost in something like fabric.
“We should get a move on,” I say, hoping she’ll put down the magazine. “We’ve been here for hours.”
“Hours, nothing,” she says. “We’ve been here all of fifteen minutes.”
The trick to turning a minute into an hour is to spend it in a grocery store. The trick to turning an hour into a minute is to spend it with a book. The trick to turning yourself into someone else—I haven’t figured that one out yet.
When I was younger—old enough to be curious about women but young enough to have no vested interest—my best friend’s big sister showed me her breasts.
She called us all up into the tree house one by one. Including her own brother. I was last. There, sitting opposite each other on benches of pine, with all the other boys trying to look up through the cracks in the floor, she pulled up the front of her shirt. In that moment I might have tried to remember what it was like the first time I saw an apple tree. I might have asked if I could touch them. I don’t remember anything except that I didn’t touch them.
Whatever else happened there in that tree house, I didn’t touch her breasts.
Up another aisle we pass jars of preserved crap neither of us would ever eat. Why save something as useless as an egg by pickling it in salty brine that makes it inedible?
She kneels down to look at—something.
I check my watch and realise I’m not wearing one.
We came for milk, and to get out of the house, and to kill time. We’ve got milk, we’ve run out of time and I want to go home. The rumble in my gut tells me that the time between dinner and bed has stretched on for too long. I watch the hem on my pant leg, hoping to make time go away, and see the loose thread. I imagine pulling it and turning my pants into shorts like in a cartoon—and I imagine that if I could do that I could make it be spring outside.
Imagine being trapped in something like fabric.
Down the aisle a woman comes around the corner pushing an empty cart. Her face looks like the moon would if the moon were made of something more malleable than rock. Cratered, pale and deflated.
I watch her pick up two jars of pickles of two different sizes, two different brands. She turns them both as she reads the labels. She puts one down in the cart and puts the other back on the shelf. She begins to walk toward us and then stops dead. For an eternity—okay, maybe it’s just a second but this is a grocery store so it’s hard to tell—she stands there. Then, she walks backward, pulling her cart with her, and exchanges the jar of pickles she put in her cart with the one she put back on the shelf. She moves away with what she’s probably hoping looks like purpose. I know better though—she thinks indecision is a point on a map that she can get away from.
The trick to making a decision is to stop trying to make it. The trick to avoiding the feeling of uncertainty is to fake it. The trick to actually being certain? I’m still working on that one.
Up in that tree house, years and years ago with my best friend’s sister, I didn’t touch her breasts.
Much, much later—I did touch them. I was at least twice as old. On a camping trip. In a tent. She let me touch all her softer parts. Reverence is the word that describes my memories of that night.
In the dark, fumbling like the kid I still was. Her soft breath against my neck, the pulse of my heart and something else so quiet I don’t quite remember it. Pushing the fabric away from her—letting her out of her trap. Finding her where she got lost.
Spending passion like we had endless stores of it—an account that would never be overdrawn. Discovering the things we both wondered about. Learning a trick or two.
Imagine being lost in something like a dishtowel—a damp one.
I play with the keys in my pocket. She lifts and squeezes various fruits. Mangos are not in season here; these ones have ridden all the way up the coast in the back of a truck. It had to take at least as long for these to get here as it takes to drink a case of beer—and recover. Fully.
She holds up the mango to me and says, “I think we should get some.”
I tell her to go ahead and get a dozen.
She knows things about me that no one else does—or will. Ever. She knows things about me that wouldn’t be true with anyone else. She knows things about me that I had to learn from her. She knows… She Knows.
I remember the night, two summers ago, sitting on the bank of the river and watching the ducks in the dark. All you could really see was the wake they made swimming, the way it shimmered in the little bit of light that made it down to the water. I remember the heat—the sweat that coated every inch of me—and still wanting to be as close to her as possible. I remember it because that’s what it’s like in bed still. Sweating in February, not wanting to roll over. Not even wanting to move enough to turn up the cool side of the pillow.
The salmon is beginning to thaw in my hand. I’ll need to return it to the freezer and take another before we leave.
The trick to remembering the past is to relate it to the present. The trick to enjoying the present is to relate it to the past. The trick to not fearing the future—I wish I knew.
Up in that tree house, years and years ago with my best friend’s sister, I didn’t touch her breasts.
By the time she died though—I had.
After she died, at her funeral, I stood before the casket wishing I could reach in there and move her hands. They were crossed carefully over her chest, protective and lifeless. I don’t know what I wanted to see more—her breasts one last time, or the desperate gashes I knew were inside her wrists.
Imagine being trapped, lost and confused in something like a funeral shroud.
The trick to finding belief in God is seeing breasts for the first time. The trick to loosing faith in Him is seeing them covered and dead. The trick to getting through life without Him is something I won’t know until I’ve taken my last breath.
Imagine knowing that everything is dissolution and that nothing lasts forever. Imagine memories of the past that constantly intrude on the present. Imagine seeing life as a series of incidents, moments, places and people. Imagine a string of tricks you pull like a magician in order to get people to believe you know what you’re doing. I doubt you have to work very hard at it to know what I’m talking about.
In the checkout line I see she’s buying the magazine. The one with the photo of the old couple dancing. I know what she means by, “That’s what I want to be.”
She means: “That’s what I want us to be.”
I can’t dance. I’m embarrassed to try. And I don’t know what to expect—maybe there’s a trick. Maybe I’ll figure it out. Maybe I won’t.
Imagine being limited by something like fabric—something like yourself.
The trick is something I’m going to have to figure out.
The trick to life is realising there is no trick to life. Just a bunch of little tricks to get you through the moments that make up the whole. Not that you’ll ever know all the tricks. But you can try. I know I will. What else is there?
Just kidding; you’re not swine.
At least, no more or less than I am.
Here is the fiction I’ve promised. This is what you call a character-driven narrative. It comes from a real experience I had which I then extrapolated upon with fiction. Like most stories it has a beginning, a middle and an end; a conflict and resolution; but unlike some stories you may (or may not) have to think about it.
At any rate, enjoy it. And then check out some of the links to the right there…
The Good Trick
J.D. Buston
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
-- Albert Einstein
“This is what I want to be,” she says from somewhere behind me. I turn away from the shelves of books to face her where she stands by the magazines. She holds it out for me to see. The glossy pages of the magazine reflect the florescent lights and I have to move my head around to see past the glare.
The photo—shades of grey—shows an elderly couple. Fat, underdressed and falling apart in the lockstep of a tango or a salsa or—something. The sidewalk beneath their feet actually looks younger than either of them. The people that pass by don’t seem to notice them and I wonder if they’re ignoring the couple or the camera.
I can see how either one might make someone uncomfortable.
At this hour, on this day, in the grocery store, there’s no one shopping. No one normal, anyway.
The jug of milk we came for sits on the shelf with the magazines. The naan, frozen salmon and chocolate bars we didn’t come here for are in my hand.
I rest my eyes on the stock boy down the aisle. I can almost see the grease from his hair running down his face, closing pores, birthing zits. His white dress shirt is too big, his tie too long, his green apron bearing the store logo is tied too loose because his waist is too small. Imagine what it would be like to be both trapped and lost in something like fabric.
“We should get a move on,” I say, hoping she’ll put down the magazine. “We’ve been here for hours.”
“Hours, nothing,” she says. “We’ve been here all of fifteen minutes.”
The trick to turning a minute into an hour is to spend it in a grocery store. The trick to turning an hour into a minute is to spend it with a book. The trick to turning yourself into someone else—I haven’t figured that one out yet.
When I was younger—old enough to be curious about women but young enough to have no vested interest—my best friend’s big sister showed me her breasts.
She called us all up into the tree house one by one. Including her own brother. I was last. There, sitting opposite each other on benches of pine, with all the other boys trying to look up through the cracks in the floor, she pulled up the front of her shirt. In that moment I might have tried to remember what it was like the first time I saw an apple tree. I might have asked if I could touch them. I don’t remember anything except that I didn’t touch them.
Whatever else happened there in that tree house, I didn’t touch her breasts.
Up another aisle we pass jars of preserved crap neither of us would ever eat. Why save something as useless as an egg by pickling it in salty brine that makes it inedible?
She kneels down to look at—something.
I check my watch and realise I’m not wearing one.
We came for milk, and to get out of the house, and to kill time. We’ve got milk, we’ve run out of time and I want to go home. The rumble in my gut tells me that the time between dinner and bed has stretched on for too long. I watch the hem on my pant leg, hoping to make time go away, and see the loose thread. I imagine pulling it and turning my pants into shorts like in a cartoon—and I imagine that if I could do that I could make it be spring outside.
Imagine being trapped in something like fabric.
Down the aisle a woman comes around the corner pushing an empty cart. Her face looks like the moon would if the moon were made of something more malleable than rock. Cratered, pale and deflated.
I watch her pick up two jars of pickles of two different sizes, two different brands. She turns them both as she reads the labels. She puts one down in the cart and puts the other back on the shelf. She begins to walk toward us and then stops dead. For an eternity—okay, maybe it’s just a second but this is a grocery store so it’s hard to tell—she stands there. Then, she walks backward, pulling her cart with her, and exchanges the jar of pickles she put in her cart with the one she put back on the shelf. She moves away with what she’s probably hoping looks like purpose. I know better though—she thinks indecision is a point on a map that she can get away from.
The trick to making a decision is to stop trying to make it. The trick to avoiding the feeling of uncertainty is to fake it. The trick to actually being certain? I’m still working on that one.
Up in that tree house, years and years ago with my best friend’s sister, I didn’t touch her breasts.
Much, much later—I did touch them. I was at least twice as old. On a camping trip. In a tent. She let me touch all her softer parts. Reverence is the word that describes my memories of that night.
In the dark, fumbling like the kid I still was. Her soft breath against my neck, the pulse of my heart and something else so quiet I don’t quite remember it. Pushing the fabric away from her—letting her out of her trap. Finding her where she got lost.
Spending passion like we had endless stores of it—an account that would never be overdrawn. Discovering the things we both wondered about. Learning a trick or two.
Imagine being lost in something like a dishtowel—a damp one.
I play with the keys in my pocket. She lifts and squeezes various fruits. Mangos are not in season here; these ones have ridden all the way up the coast in the back of a truck. It had to take at least as long for these to get here as it takes to drink a case of beer—and recover. Fully.
She holds up the mango to me and says, “I think we should get some.”
I tell her to go ahead and get a dozen.
She knows things about me that no one else does—or will. Ever. She knows things about me that wouldn’t be true with anyone else. She knows things about me that I had to learn from her. She knows… She Knows.
I remember the night, two summers ago, sitting on the bank of the river and watching the ducks in the dark. All you could really see was the wake they made swimming, the way it shimmered in the little bit of light that made it down to the water. I remember the heat—the sweat that coated every inch of me—and still wanting to be as close to her as possible. I remember it because that’s what it’s like in bed still. Sweating in February, not wanting to roll over. Not even wanting to move enough to turn up the cool side of the pillow.
The salmon is beginning to thaw in my hand. I’ll need to return it to the freezer and take another before we leave.
The trick to remembering the past is to relate it to the present. The trick to enjoying the present is to relate it to the past. The trick to not fearing the future—I wish I knew.
Up in that tree house, years and years ago with my best friend’s sister, I didn’t touch her breasts.
By the time she died though—I had.
After she died, at her funeral, I stood before the casket wishing I could reach in there and move her hands. They were crossed carefully over her chest, protective and lifeless. I don’t know what I wanted to see more—her breasts one last time, or the desperate gashes I knew were inside her wrists.
Imagine being trapped, lost and confused in something like a funeral shroud.
The trick to finding belief in God is seeing breasts for the first time. The trick to loosing faith in Him is seeing them covered and dead. The trick to getting through life without Him is something I won’t know until I’ve taken my last breath.
Imagine knowing that everything is dissolution and that nothing lasts forever. Imagine memories of the past that constantly intrude on the present. Imagine seeing life as a series of incidents, moments, places and people. Imagine a string of tricks you pull like a magician in order to get people to believe you know what you’re doing. I doubt you have to work very hard at it to know what I’m talking about.
In the checkout line I see she’s buying the magazine. The one with the photo of the old couple dancing. I know what she means by, “That’s what I want to be.”
She means: “That’s what I want us to be.”
I can’t dance. I’m embarrassed to try. And I don’t know what to expect—maybe there’s a trick. Maybe I’ll figure it out. Maybe I won’t.
Imagine being limited by something like fabric—something like yourself.
The trick is something I’m going to have to figure out.
The trick to life is realising there is no trick to life. Just a bunch of little tricks to get you through the moments that make up the whole. Not that you’ll ever know all the tricks. But you can try. I know I will. What else is there?
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