“I’ll take your heart. We’ll need it later,” and she reached her hand deep inside his chest, and she pulled it out with something ruby and pulsing held between her sharp fingernails. It was the color of pigeon’s blood, and it was made of pure light. Rhythmically it expanded and contracted.
-Neil Gaiman, “American Gods”
Hi, what are you up to? I text Tom on a Monday. Working late, he responds, as he does sometimes.
Another friend who occasionally claims to enjoy my company said he’d be in town Monday evening. Hi, wanna meet for a drink after my assisting gig? I text him. Sorry, no, he replies, I’ll be too far still.
And so I stop by a store, have a snack alone, go home alone, go to bed alone. Except I am not. Continue reading “Monday Evening Company”
Nina encouraged her birthday party guests to prepare something for the delight and entertainment of other guests. I chose to read a tale from the “Fairy Tales and Stories” collection by Max Frei for the Birthday Salon. To be precise, I impromptu translated it from Russian. Despite my getting occasionally stuck looking for the right word, the tale delighted.
Part I of the “Fairy Tales and Stories” book could have been titled, if one were to translate it, “Weird Mythologies”. It’s unlikely to be translated though, because many of the tales there build on the children’s literature and culture we grew up with in back in 1970ties, 1980ies back in the urban Soviet Union, and the initial familiarity is a substantial component of the wonder and thrill of the weird mythologies. Fortunately, the particular tale I read built on broader cultural context, so I brought it to the salon and I’ll translate it here for the delight and entertainment of those my readers who don’t read Russian, more thoughtfully than at Nina’s birthday salon. (If you do read Russian, head over here for the original and the rest of it.)
Through many a storyteller, in great detail, in many voices (so as to find a version for every listener, according to their size and intelligence), the history tells us the tale of Doctor Faust, as she remains stubbornly silent about his contemporary, neighbor, and the closest friend named Peter.
One of my occasionally unhelpful patterns is to connect with the people who are leaving. I thought about that, uncomfortably, one of the deep Fall evenings we shared the way home.
There is another way to see that. Continue reading “A Traveler’s Friend”
I went to church on Tuesday. Well, sort of. Continue reading “A Soldier’s World”
Love letters understated 