Short story

Well, well, this has been a rather productive day for me. Cleaned my room and arranged it - it's beautiful, people, you're all invited!! Did all the washing, and even my shoes. Had a lovely swirly bubbly bath!!! Cooked for myself!! L achi died this morning. A bit sad... She was a bit of a family icon, bless her! I will write about that another day though. In the evening, at prayer, I felt God wanted me to write and I had to obey... This is what came out, a bit different from my other short stories. And real short. But I think it's lovely nevertheless. The inspiration came from where I am in my life (but that's not obvious ;O) and the verse that says 'The King is pleased with your beauty'. I think tis in the psalms... biblegateway.com fails me :(. But here it is... PTL


NO FATTED CALF


She sat still, arching her back against the bars of the bench. It gave her aching shoulder blades, weighed down with oblivion, some respite. She did not know where next. She had come a long way from the clinic. Fighting for answers till she was too blind to see them. She had been weeping too loud to ever hear.

Funny that. Women can go into a crescendo of crying until there’s nothing more to cry about, I think. Nothing more to be said. The silence seems frightening from the threshold. Inside, time stops. Funny that.

She had been in a cocooned crescendo for the past month. Like a train blurring through the underground, filling the darkness with noise. She had known, as surely as she knew herself, that she would reach a point when her inward self-torture would stop. Having reached fruition. Unbidden thoughts, the kind of thoughts you easily forget how to hold with your fingers, thoughts that were ancient questions – they were her voices of the night for these weeks. An almost incessant night, warm and stifling. Sometimes you close your eyes to forget.

She had closed her eyes last night. Only the formula must have missed the mark somewhere. She told me she thought it had worked. The angry crowd with distorted faces only made her laugh. No, it was not all contempt; it was at some levels genuine laughter which she believed she had lost. Perhaps it was a reaction. The onset of hysteria? Perhaps. But she did laugh.

It was that man with the little girl holding on to his one outstretched finger. He smiled at her. Surprised her. Then he turned back to the girl. She looked away, at her watch. She was in good time. He held out the flag under his arm to someone else, suddenly disembodied from the crowd. Maybe he had never been in the crowd. Maybe he had. Then they made their way and kept playing that game. Silly, inane game. Painful game. Precious game. Catharsis. ‘Pick your finger, princess, any one’.

So how did she find herself here in the next room to where she was going? The frightening silence had come – with an impossible sense of time. The noise merged with the crowd… outside. All outside. She was here, and suddenly she was listening – to the silence. With a gabble of words, she started to question again. A different kind of torture. Questions of absolution. The answers not inaccessible enough for ease. The solutions hitherto unacceptable.

Yes, she was weeping for herself. But it was so changed from these last months. It was a quiet cry, the comforting kind – not so loudly alone.

What was that he had called her? Princess. Rough-soft hand that her whole face could just about fill. We can play out today, princess, you and I…Rough wood under her, carry her lightness, as she carved perfect semi-circles in the air. Rumbling laughter, mingling with her own much softer giggles. Sometimes a third part would harmonise. It’s Sunday, princess, wake up. Wake up.


There were no more tears – for now. She had received freely, hadn’t she? Funny though that she had forgotten how. They would still be there. Shocked maybe, hurt certainly, but available. There would be the sound of understanding instead of this silence… She could easily learn to live with the happier kind of noise.

She got up, off the absurd seat, and shook off the dusted memories. They fell gently around her, handles intact. No. No, she could not go back. She had nothing to give. And this silence was… Well, whatever this silence was, she was holding on to the only thing she understood now. Time trebles distance. The past was too far away. But this silence smelled of eternity. It was not the familiar pause of conscious time she had dreaded. Maybe this quietness would change things later. But for now… No. She was not going back. Her steps quickened.

I found her reading old worn words under the autumn tree. To learn to freely give, she said, she must learn to receive again.