VALENTINE, COME WITH ME TO THE KISSING TREE

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Who would ever think? A broken furnace boiler leading to my first real kiss.

Oh, there’d been plenty on the cheek – by mother, all the aunties, by my imaginary muses, Rrrose Heather, Mama Lucy, and yech phew!  Marr-gaa-ret.  Often came tickly pecks from Captain Polly.  From Turt, slurpy beak-snout nuzzles.  I’d feel butterfly wing flutters when I walked through the Woods.

But none of them was anything like what was to come – and on a day so appropriate, Valentine’s Day!

*     *     *

     No matter, that it is the coldest day in all of Cincinnati history, I stay warm because I burn with ecstasy as I run home from Mrs. Florsheim’s fourth grade classroom.

Before I can herald the ice-shattering good news – “NO SCHOOL, MOTHER; FOR AT LEAST A-WEEK-AND-A-HALF!  UNTIL THE NEW BOILER ARRIVES” – Mother greets me, even more excited than I, from upstairs.  “The principal called, Raji.  This means we will be able to accompany your fa on his trip.  So hurry.  Come pack.”

Within an hour, we are on the plane to New York, to connect to a Lindia flight.

“You’ll get to see Reena,” Mother whispers so she won’t disturb other passengers; or maybe she wants to share a private moment.  Perhaps she doesn’t want to embarrass me in public.  “Valentine Day is big in Lindia as in America, Raji.  I knew you might not have time to get Reena a card.”  She hands me a red envelope.  “You can give Reena your heart.”

My heart flutters like Calico, A Foundling's Gentlest Friend (©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

My heart flutters like Calico, A Foundling’s Gentlest Friend
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

I mostly turn red.  But inside my smile fills me completely.  ‘Reena!’  I haven’t seen her since last summer.

I sleep most all the way over the ocean.  I dream of Reena, working alongside as volunteers helping feed the poor, and then later playing together – jacks, cards, exploring the Lindian Woods.  When I drowsily awaken, I look out the window.  ‘Reena!’  Her semi-cupid smile and sweet chocolate hair sway gently in dreamy cloud drifts.

Our plane lands in Lindia City.  Fa goes to consult on a free clinic he and other doctors are establishing.  Mother and I visit smooth-face aunties and gray-bearded uncles.

After so many cheeky kisses, both bristly and soft, Mother brings out a costume the aunties have made for me.  The scents of their exotic perfumes, absorbed by the yellow silk cloth as they sewed it, lingers as I put it on.  A scarlet-teethed beetle nut chewing uncle whiskers my face with black paint and marks my bare arms with orange blotches.  I am to be a young tiger, alongside dozens of other similar young human cats, at a benefit for the clinic.  Another of my uncles, Uncle Balu, a real life Tigerman, will be the entertainer.

~ ~  editor note:  The art of the Tigermen is ancient, its Lindian origins unknown.  The performer in tiger costume and regalia dances lithely as the big cat, and sings-growls hauntingly of its plight.  Tigerman troubadours traveled cities and villages entertaining as circus, movie, and tv do today.  In the 21st century, Tigerwomen have joined in this resurging cultural phenomenon.  You can see a demonstration and learn more of it in Raji Singh’s novel Tales of the Fiction House.  ~ ~

The curtain falls on our performance.  The tiger kids gather around Uncle Balu, adulation, as if he were a rock star.  I feel a paw on my shoulder.  I turn.  ‘Reena!’  She’s a face painted young tigress in golden slacks.  She was a dancer too.  I just hadn’t seen her in the masquerading tiger troupe.  Uncle Balu motions with his claw.

‘Go with Reena, Raji.  We’ll see each other often while she’s in school.’

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

Welcome to the Lindian Woods
(Image ©2014 Raji Singh)

Reena and I walk into the bright sunlight, paw in claw.  I had thought when we first saw each other we would screech and howl like wild cats, and pounce into the Lindian Woods.  Instead, we walk slowly and our words, especially mine, come like timid purrs and near-silent meows.

“Purr!  Its been so long since I’ve seen you, Raji.”

     “Meow.”

Reena takes a paper lace heart from her small purse.  “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Meow!”  I reach into my pocket.  Oh no!  I left the card on my suitcase when I changed for the show.  If only there was some tiger-magic that could make it bound through the window and fly to me.  Before I attempt to stammer, “I…I have a card for you too Reena,” I hear a voice saying,

“Aark!  Ark!  I know what you’re thinking.  I’m on it.”  It’s Captain Polly.  She’s in a tree, camouflaged by colorful leaves.  I should have expected her to be spending a tropical few weeks here, while it’s 20 below in Cincinnati.  Inconspicuously, she swoops away.

Reena looks around.  “Did you hear someone calling for someone named, Mark?”

“Meow!”  A cat that swallowed the canary, I.  “I don’t think I heard anything, Reena.”

We walk through the woods, our purrs, our meows slowly becoming human words.

“Will you be coming to Lindia this summer?”

“Definitely, and for the whole summer.  We’ll work alongside each other, again.”

Behind the golden face paint, Reena’s smile becomes sun-bright.  I’m emboldened.  I twist my neck so our faces are inches apart.  Reena closes her eyes.  I wet my lips and I ready to…

A trumpeting blare coming from the close-by river startles us.  We pull away from each other.

Of course, I should know by now.  Where Captain Polly is, nearby, probably too will be Turt.

‘Darn it!  I suddenly realize.  Turt’s blast was intentional – my shell fellow’s good-natured ploy of scaring, enabling me to take Reena into my protective embrace.

I hear,“Aark!  Aark!” once again.

Reena once again hears Mark, and walks around the woods looking for someone by that name.

Captain Polly carries the red envelope in one talon.  Swift as a falcon she swoops down, lights on my shoulder, and slips it down the back of my shirt.  She whispers so Reena cannot hear.  “Take her on a romantic cruise.”

I’m confused.

“Upon Turt, silly boy.”

I know my facial expression asks, “Where?”

“Turt knows,” Captain Polly says, and flies, disappearing among tree leaves before Reena returns.

I open my mouth, no words, not even a timid meow or purr, come forth.

“Raji.  Are you okay?”

Suddenly Captain Polly’s voice becomes deep, and it’s as if she’s talking for me as Cyrano de Bergerac talked for the stupefied Christian to Roxanne.  “Mi Lady, your card.”  I remove it from my shirt.  With jittery fingers, I take it from the envelope and give it to her.

“Oh Raji.  It is beautiful.”

“Take my hand.  Come sailing with me,” Polly-Cyrano requests.

We walk to the river and board Turt’s carriage of a shell.  We sit close to one another and hold hands tight.  As an excuse, we say, “So neither of us might topple into the water.”  Turt sets sail, always looking straight ahead to allow us to be alone.  Neither of us talks as we drift; free of all school and playground worries.  Our winged Cyrano keeps her big beak out of our privacy by flying parallel to us, an unseen chaperone hidden in the woodland.

The warm breeze pushes through the round curls of Reena’s hair.  I feel I’m drowning deliciously in the jasmine perfume of her shampoo.  I put my head to hers.  She doesn’t pull away.  I know we both are feeling the pulse of each other’s temples beating as one.  Even when a curious alligator swims up to investigate the goings-on on his or her river, and Turt opens his razor-sharp beak-snout to ‘HISS’ him or her away, we do not separate.  Are we oblivious, or are we blissfully in lo…No, I’m sure I’m too young for that.

After 20 minutes, Turt ports riverside.  Gently I hold Reena’s hand and we disembark.

Captain Polly-Cyrano de Bird-gerac re-emerges from her quiet.  “Come Mi-lady.  Walk with me.”  Turt motions with his beak-snout the path we should take.  Slowly he trails us.

I’m dying to speak for myself.  Just when I start to, Captain Polly shows herself and squawks, “Aark!  Beware, Raji, Reena, Turt.  Behind you.”

When danger arises, Turt can step sideways on his fin-claws fast as a spinning top.  The entirety of his sharp-edged shell frame becomes a deadly cudgel if need be.  As Reena and I turn, Turt is already facing a 600 pound tiger that has leaped from the Lindian Woods, and is within one bound of us.  The beast’s scream-roar vibrates the trees in the Lindian Woods.  The Lindian River, and those of fin, within it tremble.

Reena pulls my arm.  “Let’s run, Raji.”

“Aark!  Stay where you are,” squawks Captain Polly.  “He’s just jealous, Reena, Raji.  You both make prettier tigers than he will ever be.  Turt and I will cure him of his raging jealousy.”

Captain Polly flies, talons bared toward the top of the tiger’s head.  She gouges, again, again, grounding him mid-pounce as he leaps toward us.  That’s when Turt rams the tiger’s stomach with his shell.  Turt’s automobile-equal weight winds the beast, and he flops lamely to the twiggy floor.

Turt clamps his fin-claw atop the breathless tiger to imprison him.  He winks and motions with his beak-snout proudly raised high, as if to say, ‘You three proceed.  I’ll have no trouble making sure he doesn’t follow.  I loyally await your return.’

“Follow me,” beckons Captain Polly.

In a few minutes, we arrive at something so majestic, so overpowering, so like I’ve never before seen, that my eyes water.  A lump forms in my throat and I am speechless.  Towering above us is two Lindian Fan Trees.  By their height, and the sturdiness of their entwined roots that grow together as bastion legs just above the ground, I know they’re well over 100 years old.  Their lean trunks grow at a slight angle upward, and then veer inward 15 feet in the air, merge, as two mouths meeting, before continuing their separate paths skyward.

“The…the…”  Reena can hardly speak either.  “I’ve heard stories of it.    But I never really thought it existed.  It is so grand.”

“Aark!  The Kissing Tree,” squawks Captain Polly.  “Kiss her you, fool.”

I take Reena in my arms and our mouths meet.

The Kissing Tree (Image ©2014 Raji Singh)

The Kissing Tree
(Image ©2014 Raji Singh)

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories. My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2014 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Children, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, whimsy, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CHEF R.K.’S GOURMET SURPRISE

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

I am James Thaddeus Fiction, the Fifth – a true Fiction.  Typhoon tears me from my parents.  I alone survive.  I become an orphaned foundling, taken in by new loving parents, Dr. Ben and Indira Singh.  Now, I am Raji.  These are my found and foundling tales.

CHEF R.K.’S INGREDIENT I.  A LARGE PORTION OF CAN DO

Once upon a time as a lad, I possessed a plastic picture finger ring.  From the first day I saw it in the bric-a-brac shop – MAGIC!  Twist it, just slightly.  A glittery red, white, blue image quickly changes, back and forth, from Old Glory to President Kennedy.  I listen as his courageous profile challenges me:

“Ask not what your country can do for you, Raji.  What can you do for it, hmm?”

I fury, fume, and wonder aloud.  “How can I help?  There must be a way.  There must!”  But, to a ten year old in Cincinnati, everything seemed right in my world.

When my parents overheard me and saw the ring they said, “Raji, you are too young for the late President’s Peace Corps.  Yet there is much you can do.”  For this task, they took me to their homeland, Lindia.

Though Lindia is but my adopted country, as an orphaned foundling, its kind people had saved my life.  So this is where I began my many ‘can do’ summers, volunteering for something I’d not anticipated, certainly not relished – a road kill clean-up crew.  Many wonderful things came from it:  Just one of them – meeting lifelong friend, Chef R.K.

(His real name is Rhandi Khan.  But because of his unusual roadwork, initials R.K. seemed more appropriate.)

INGREDIENT II. A TOUCH OF MAGIC

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

Welcome to the Lindian Woods
(Photo Copyright 2014 Raji Singh)

     A type of painting similar to the here-now flagged-later Kennedy ring, murals the side of Chef R.K.’s twenty-foot long wagon that sits alongside the road in the Lindian Woods.  The painting shows Lindia’s Goddess Nardesha.  Blink and her outstretched palms lift from her creamy silk gown.  She raises upward, Heaven bound.  Other images painted on the wagon:  long lines of crunched road kill.  You can almost hear Nardesha whisper to them.  “Come with me, my gentle creatures.  The bondage of your spirits to this earthly realm is complete.”  You blink; mongoose, cobra, lizard, squirrel, a fish – a FISH? – And dozens of other artist-depicted road kill puff out, are reborn, and then parade proudly skyward. Hundreds of beautiful butterflies guide them.

Calico, A Foundling's Gentlest Friend (©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

Calico, A Foundling’s Gentlest Friend
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

“You like picture?”  Chef R.K. asks, hardly looking away from his cooking.  His grill is the length of the wagon, and three-feet deep.  Covering its surface are sizzling meats he filleted from flattened critters.  They intermingle with steamy vegetables and pots of bitter-smelling broth.

R.K, in his 40’s is lean and tan, his face clean-shaven.  He is shirtless, and in short pants to keep cool in the warm Lindian sun.  His arms, hand and head move so fast you’d think his ancestors were octopus.  His magic dust he sprinkles constantly:  Ground herbs and spices in pouches hanging from his belt.  They marry the bill of fare then birth tantalizing sweet scents.

R.K. controls his outdoor kitchen as a concert pianist does piano keys.  Nothing burns.  He removes sumptuous morsels, large and small, round, square, long, that were once animal sacrifices to the speeding steel gods of the highways.  Now the critters are platefuls of inviting delicacies.  Mongoose-cobra, rat-wildcat, eternal enemies sauteed together as one.  He passes the dishes quickly to a line of other volunteer boys and girls who distribute them to the hundreds of bedraggled poor.

“The impoverished, Raji” he says, putting his mouth near my ear so I may hear midst the clattering pots and pans.  “They too have the right to taste the wealth of Goddess Nardesha’s sumptuous array of bounty.  Her food minions such as I; we have the ability to provide it, lovingly, tastefully.  This is why I do what I do.  I serve but the freshest of kill.”

Because of all the chattering of the gathering, and all the happy eating sounds, I can hardly hear Chef R.K. say “hello-goodbye” to my parents.  He knew they were bringing me.  After hugging me, they leave, not wanting to be in the way.

I know I won’t see them for weeks, but it is hard to feel my sadness at their departure for too long because R.K. instantly puts me to work midst the frenzy.

INGREDIENT III.  ENDLESS HUMBLE OFFERINGS

Everything R.K. serves comes from the Lindian Woods.

He points to boxes of orange and yellow cocoa pods other volunteers gather.  “Crack open.  All these, Raji.  Separate bean from white.”  His voice necessarily is staccato, to keep pace with his swift actions.  I slam the pods together like castanets.  They open easily.  The insides are marshmallow soft, chocolaty pungent.  I barely have time to taste it.  R.K. ratchets it away and spreads it on the grill for flavoring.  He waves his arms from his chest, outward, to indicate to me the impoverished.  “Today, we serve them.  “So we eat last,” he orders.

When all the pods are open – “Good Raji,” he says tersely.  “Now.  Sprinkle this on the oxen’s grass.  He gives me a bucket of sour smelling powder.  “When that is done.  Shovel up their droppings.  Bring them to me.”

One of the other busy volunteers – a freckled, black haired girl my age, who for reasons I couldn’t understand at that time in my life – smiles hugely at me, and whispers.  “The powder is R.K’s secret extract.  It makes the droppings smell sweet as clover when burned.  This is a must.  Because it is with it he heats the grill.”  She fidgets timidly in her jeans and t-shirt.  Her black eyes sparkle.  She smells sweet, like vanilla ice cream.  “My name is Reena, Raji.”

Dozens of tasks I accomplish that first day on the road kill crew – stoking the lavender aroma flames, washing pans, slicing pineapple, mashing mango – all for the purpose of feeding those in need.  By now, I am drained of energy.

Reena brings fresh coconut milk and we share a half-shell.  Inconspicuously, she wipes my face so R.K. doesn’t see we sneaked it.  Briefly, she holds my hand.  Her fingers are warm, lithe.  I breathe deeply.  This moment of joy like, I’ve never known before, this brief respite from President Kennedy’s “can do”, renews me.

“YES!”  I shout inwardly.  I suddenly understand, feel the importance of President Kennedy’s words.  To me they mean, ‘only by helping others will you help yourself.’

Though we’ll eat nothing until all are fed, this thought would power me through the afternoon, then the rest of the summer, stay with me throughout my life.  And the succulent scents – they would give me strength of willpower as well as muscle.

INGREDIENT IV.  FISH, BUT NEVER FOUL 

Every so often, a volunteer runs up, shouting and carrying a dead fish.  “She’s delivered another one.”

R.K. takes it, sniffs, smiles, says.  “I can always count on her to deliver only fresh.”

‘Her?’  I look around.  ‘Her, who?’  I wonder.

Finally, another curiosity gets the best of me.  I must ask, “How…a fish as road kill?  How could so many keep falling off trucks?”

R.K. laughs, but the mournful sound seems a dirge.  Midst his busyness, he takes time to explain.  “There is sea kill too Raji.  The wood and fiberglass gods of the water – the yachts – they leave much torture in their wake.  As long as there is sea kill and road kill you will find me here summers and holidays.”

All of a sudden, I hear a familiar voice.  “Aarrk!  Catch Raji.”  I look into the blue sky.  Just in time to put my hands out, and grab what Captain Polly drops – a four-pound fish – bigger than her; her biggest delivery of the day.

“Ahoy, Captain Polly,” I shout, so excited in my surprise to see her.

“You know our Captain Polly, says Reena.  “Often she helps us.”

“We are the best of friends, in Cincinnati.  Geez, Reena.  It’s such a small world.”  Suddenly I have this desire to show Reena all my hiding spots and favorite places in my neighborhood back home.

My smile gets huge as Reena’s as she looks at me.  I’ll just bet she knows what I am thinking.

Reena stammers a little, and glances away briefly, deciding what she will say.  “Umm, Raji.  Uh, well…  Captain Polly certainly does get around.  Maybe you know her compatriot in the water?”

I look through the woods, to the river that parallels the road.  I see the top portion of a tattooed brown shell bobbing above the water.  “Turt!”  He winks at me and with his beak-snout scoops up unfortunate road kill and tosses it skyward.  Swooping Captain Polly seizes it in her talons.  She grunts as she’s pulled slightly down by the weight.  She manages to stay airborne.

Oh, so that how she’s able to deliver such huge loads.  Her momentum plus willpower propels her.

Captain Polly drops the fish to R.K., then lights on my shouder to rest.  I smile, pet her glistening plumage.

R.K. laughs.  “Well, Raji.  Appears it is old home week.  It ought to be an adventurous summer for you three musketeers.”

I look at Reena and say to myself, “the four of us.”

INGREDIENT V.  REPLENISHING THE SPIRIT     

Its getting dark.  The poor, fed for another day.  Only the volunteers remain.  We eat, yet plentiful uncooked food remains.  “Nothing wasted,” declares R.K.  “We’ll slow cook the remaining overnight on the cooling grill.  It will provide many breakfasts.”

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

Walk With Me to the Kissing Tree
(Photo copyright 2014 Raji Singh)

With the help of Turt who moseys up from the river, we all load the grill onto the wagon.  Captain Polly squawks directions.  “Higher, lower.  Aarrk!  To the left, right.”  We yoke the oxen and harness them to the wagon.  The volunteers disperse.  Reena remains.  She pulls me aside.  Her face shimmers in the starlight.  “My parents will be picking me up soon, Raji.  I…I…just wanted to say how glad I am we met.  I’ll be returning to help R.K. again next week.  I…I’m anxious to see you again.”  Headlights beaming onto Nardesha indicate a car approaching.  Reena kisses my cheek, and runs to the car and gets in.

I feel…I don’t know what I feel.  Surprise?  Joy?  Shock?  All these emotions reel wildly within me.

THE FINAL INGREDIENT.  CONTENTMENT

The oxen, so used to R.K.’s route, pull the wagon by rote.  They know to stop just before daylight, so R.K. can ready for another day’s cooking.  He and I recline on sleeping bags atop an elevated bunk on the wagon.  We’re far above any wild animals that are fortunate to avoid becoming road kill.  Captain Polly is dozily reliving the day with Turt as she rides atop his shell.  He rides on a sturdy sidecar-like storage platform attached to the wagon.

R.K. points skyward.  “You will learn the constellations as summer passes, Raji.  It is so relaxing to search the heavens.  See there.  That is Orion.  Look, Andromeda.  She is a beautiful young princess.”

I study the formation, but I don’t see stars, only Reena.  I think R.K. reads my thoughts.  He says, “You like Reena, yes Raji?”

I nod.

“Good,” he says.  “She is a sweet girl.  She has been a little helper of mine, almost ever since she could walk.  She lives by my restaurant in Lindia City?  I am sure you’ll get a chance to see her a lot.”

R.K starts telling me about himself, his wife and grown children, his history with road kill wagons – he has one of them in each of Lindia’s 40 provinces, all with their cooks, volunteers.  I hear what he says, but my thoughts are on Reena.  I anxiously ask, “Will Reena come back soon?  Does she have a boyfr… Before I can finish, Captain Polly, half squawks half sings, “Reena, dear Reena.  Our dear Raji is smitten.”  Turt joins the serenade, with a trilling trumpeting.

EPILOGUE:  THE FINAL GARNISHMENT

I went to the Lindian Woods one summer, decades later, to visit R.K.  Nowhere in sight.  I returned to Lindia City and stopped at his always-crowded restaurant.  The road kill wagon sat cobwebbed in the alley.  He took a few moments to visit.

“The steel gods of the highway Raji:  They’re ever bigger, soar ever faster.  Yet there is little road kill to collect.  Who would ever think?  It is because there are so few of Nardesha’s creatures remaining to pass from one side of the road to the other.  Who can say why so many are no longer here:  Chemicals, pesticides, changing temperatures, the flooding coasts?  SAD!  Which species will be next, Raji?  Yours and mine?”

If you knew R.K. as I do, you’d know he is undefeatable.  He pats my shoulder before returning to the grill.  “Raji, we road kill chef’s have a new weapon.  It is something so simple.  It is called ‘NOTHING WASTED’.  We make sure there is no waste in any of our restaurants.  From just here in Lindia City, we feed hundreds of thousands poor each year.”

R.K. smiles broadly as he happily flips, fillets, and fricassees.

WHEN NEXT WE SEE REENA AND RAJI:  ‘WALK WITH ME TO THE KISSING TREE’              

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories. My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2014 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, Short stories, whimsy, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

USE YOUR IMAGINATION TO FIND YOUR PASSION

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

I am James Thaddeus Fiction, the Fifth – a true Fiction.  Typhoon tears me from my parents.  I alone survive.  I become an orphaned foundling, taken in by new loving parents, Dr. Ben and Indira Singh.  Now, I am Raji.  These are my found and foundling tales.

Last Week:  I discover that my ‘giving-back to the world’ summer job as youngster would be volunteering on a road kill clean up gang.  How can this help others?  Soon I would see, and it would change my life.  A strange and wonderful sixth sense would awaken.

*     *     *

     My parents and I walk along the gravel roadside, amongst Lindia’s most impoverished, to meet the man in charge of the road kill crew.  A crescendo of sound and scent, mixing, becoming an almost indescribable sixth sense, overpowers me.

 

 I.  The Scents:

Welcome to the Lindian Woods Where I Was Found (Image ©2014 Raji Singh

Welcome to the Lindian Woods
(Image ©2014 Raji Singh

Carried on a spicy bed of gently warmed cinnamon twigs, propelled by a soft breeze, comes a unique sweet-coconut, sleepy-cocoa aroma one smells only in these Lindian Woods.  Quilting it are the sour of lemon drips, the pungent shavings of ginger, earthy cumin, the licorice smell-taste of fennel, and the sharp mint of coriander.  These delicacy scents, savored daily by even Lindia’s poorest.  These are all combinations completely new to me.  I would learn all about them that summer and they would remain with me, in my smell and taste sensations to this adult day.

II. The Sounds:

The scents mix with the sweet, hypnotic strings of sitar music that flow smoothly through the pungent air, mixing, roiling together until they become one –the unknown sixth sense.  Where have I heard these soothing sounds?  So familiar.  I feel I am swept onward by the wave of humanity in which I travel, toward the smell, toward the sound.  The music and the aroma do not get more intense and louder.  Instead, they mingle even more; become even more – as one – if that is possible.  Then I realize.  The music is from an identical, scratchy, yet still beautiful old 78 Victrola record Mother so often played.

Calico, A Foundling's Gentlest Friend (©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

My Joyous Friend, Calico
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

From Beethoven’s Ninth – Ode to Joy played in gentle solo by Ravi Shankar.  His echoing strings seem to still the Lindian Wood’s bird whistles and small animal chirps.  Are the creatures studying the tone, so they can later join the serenade?

I tell myself.  This is the most beautiful music ever composed; and played at its most beautiful.

III. The Intermingling:

I imagine myself a movie cartoon.  My nostrils flare to breathe in all of the scent that I can.  I puff up my face as if a hot air balloon.  My body rises, is parallel to the terra firma that my feet no longer touch.  My ears enlarge, as those of an elephant; they flap like wings to take me to the sweet sound and smells.

Not my parents, not the crowd, notice as I soar up and above them.  Airborne, the scents are ever fresher, and the chords of the sitar sing out even more clearly.

My sixth sense allows me to smell-hear the crackling sizzle of car and truck flattened monkey, mongoose, and cobra dropping onto a grill and being filleted and fricasseed.  Magically, it seems, there is not one shred of gamey meat or melting fur drifting my way.  I realize – it is nothing supernatural.  The Chef’s culinary way, combined with Maestro Shankar’s unparallel intonations creates this never before known sixth sense.

Am I the only one who realizes this?  If so, why?

Have my suddenly acute senses, via imagination, helped me discover my life’s passion?

Next week:  CHEF R.K.’S GOURMET SURPRISE

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories. My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2014 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Children, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, whimsy, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

IMAGINE…DREAMING AS A KING, INSPIRING AS A GANDHI, UNITING AS A MANDELA (or simply – using laughter to lighten another’s load)

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

     I am James Thaddeus Fiction, the Fifth – a true Fiction.  Typhoon tears me from my parents.  I alone survive.  I become an orphan foundling, taken in by new loving parents Dr. Ben and Indira Singh.  Now I am Raji.  These are my found and foundling tales.

*     *     *

     At least twice a year – from kindergarten to high school – Lindia bound with my parents.  Away from comfortable home quarters at the Fiction House Medical Clinic in Cincinnati, we’d fly, to some impoverished hospital half-a-world away.

Side by side, they ‘cared for’; with me fetching blankets, ferrying bandages, filling water bottles.

“You are learning of one of life’s greatest and yet simplest gifts,” Mother would tell me after a long day.  “Giving!”

Fa, ever the believer that, “there are good lessons to learn in every situation, son,” would add, as if he were prescribing a long-known miracle drug.  “Every unselfish act, Raji, helps you avoid, septem peccata mortalia, those seven deadly sins that tempt all humans:  Lust, envy, gluttony, sloth, greed, envy, wrath.”

I enjoyed helping the sick by assisting my parents, but a nurse or doctor I’d never be.  Soon, they sensed this.

“Many are the ways for you to help people, Raji,” they agreed.  “You will find one if you use that vivid imagination of yours.  In the meantime, we have just the right thing for you while we are at Hospital.”

Calico, A Foundling's Gentlest Friend (©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

Calico, A Foundling’s Gentlest Friend
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

As any other ten-year-old – Adventure – that is what I yearned:  I’d just read Robinson Crusoe.

So, as we traveled, to where this mystery assignment would commence, I was allowing my imagination free play, as a way to wile away the early morning hours.  Never ending are the tales a tyke can create while riding alone in the back seat of his parent’s sedan.

I smiled broadly and said to myself.  “My parents will sense my desire.  They’ll let me ‘give’, by allowing me to work on a cobra-milking farm – where the venom is transformed into healing medicines.  I’ll become the Number One Squeezer in all Lindia.”

I hear a deep ‘Hah!  Hah!’

Did Fa hear my thoughts; or sense my thoughts?  No he and Mother are chit chattering about illnesses.

Welcome to the Lindian Woods (Image ©2014 Raji Singh

Welcome to the Lindian Woods Where I Was Found
(Image ©2014 Raji Singh

Poppy Sol, bouncing brightly along the treetops of the Lindian Woods, looks through my window.  He’s nearly out of breath from trying to keep up with our vehicle’s pace, but still he’s able to sputter.  ‘Hah, lad.  Kidding ye must be.  Never would your Fa, let alone your Ma allow you to become a Squeezer.’

My aspiration of adventurous altruism skids to a dead stop.

But one of Poppy Sol’s stray rays allows a flickering rebirth of hope.  ‘Holt on a minute now, me young bloke.  Just perhaps, I may have a gra-a-a-nd way to bring about a change of mind in them.  Let’s say we…’

I am so excited, but I cannot understand the rest, so, to the glass I put my ear, to, better hear.  Sol can be a mighty prankster – at least in my tyke imagining.  But I’m just sure this is no pranking.

Luny Mum’s beam enters, right through the window glass on the other side of the vehicle.  She taps my shoulder.  ‘Don’t you be believin’ a word that fabricatin’ ol Sol be tellin’, Raji.’

Loving Mum, she’s readying to bid adieu to the day, but still she takes time for me.

‘Raji, as your earth mum says, “use your imaginin’.”  Dream like a King, mi lad.  And Think.  Of how might you inspire?  How might you unite?’

Hmm!  I wonder.  How?  Then a flash of brilliance comes.  ‘I know what I’ll do Luny Mum.’  Poppy Sol glares through the window at me, anxiously awaiting my decision.  This time I know he won’t guffaw.  My great idea burns in my thoughts hot and bright as Sol.  I sniff.  I think I smell my brain afire.  Burning brain:  It smells rubbery.  I never took time to notice the acrid scent of smoldering synapses in the hospital, if ever there was an occasion to notice such a thing.  I look around:  No smoke billowing from my ears.  Look up:  My cowlick isn’t a red flame lick.

‘THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP!’    

The sedan hit a pothole, causing a flat tire.  That’s what I smell.  Fa retreats to repair it.  Mother keeps him company.  As we sit, a line of chauffeured silver and gold Rolls Royce and Bentley pass us.  I blink.  No, I’m not imagining this.  I see it – with my own eyes.  I just hope not all those well-dressed passengers had my grand idea at the same time I did.  And now they’ll beat me to the punch; or in their case, the champagne.

Luny Mum interrupts my thoughts.  ‘Tell us your plan, young ‘un.’

‘I’ll become a tiger trainer.  We’ll take the big cats to the hospitals to entertain the sick.’

‘Whaat ho, lad?’  Queries Poppy Sol.

I look out; think I see laugh lines creasing Sol’s glow.

‘Hah!  Hah!  The patients are there to be cured.  Not get eaten.  Don’t be daft, lad.  They wouldn’t let your creatures past the front doors.  Hah!  Hah!’

‘Sol’s right, Raji.  You must think of other ways to help.’

But I thought it was such a good idea.

My parents get back in and we’re off.  Curious, I ask.  “What are all those fancy cars doing so far from Lindia City?  On such a desolate road?”

Mother turns, squinting to see me midst Sol’s glow of curiosity.  He also wants to find out why.  Mother’s soft face is aglow with compassion as she explains.  “Often these days, Raji, such royal caravans may be seen.  They too make pilgrimage, for a sole purpose – to give food to poor people.”

“HA!  HA!”  This time the laugh isn’t from Poppy Sol, but Fa.  He looks briefly from the road ahead to address Mother.  “You know well as I Indira, why they journey.”

“But at least they do, Ben.  That is enough for me.”

Fa begins carrying on a ‘prescription’ conversation with me, glancing at me in the rear view mirror almost as much as he does at the road.  “As Goddess Nardesha proclaims, Raji.  It is easier for an elephant to traverse safely through an active beehive than for gentry to enter the glorious hereafter.”

Mother laughs.  Luny Mum joins her.  I wish the two could meet.  I know they’d enjoy the others company.  Maybe one day they will.  Mother says, “Goddess Nardesha has an irascible sense of humor that your Fa likes, Raji.  And she is right.  To appease Nardesha:  That, I believe is why the royal caravans have come into existence…

“Watch the road, Ben.”

As their front seat chit chattering focuses on elephants, beehives, and gentry, Luny Mum’s gentle beam strokes my shoulder.  ‘Other ideas lad, other ideas.  You’ll not want to become one of Nardesha’s pachyderms.’

‘I know just the thing, Luny Mum.  To the sea, I could sail.  Train otters to catch fish for me.  Then I’ll bring the nets-full, to the poor.’

‘Never,’ glares Sol.  ‘Fish!  Where’s the ADVENTURE?  Besides, those you mayest ‘elp be land bound.  In your journey, the floppers would half-bake in me heat.  Would do more hurt than ‘elp.’

‘You’ll have to imagine another way to help the earthbound,’ Mum glows.

“Ben, watch the roa…”  ‘SCREECH!’  Fa swerves to avoid creating road kill of a mangy mongoose.

I’m pushed against the door.  The jolt frees the answer that must have been in my thoughts all along, but trapped.  ‘I know Poppy Sol.  I know Luny Mum.  I shall give back, by helping.  This solution will be unbeatable.’

The celestial glares and glows show that Sol and Mum are interested in this latest proposal.

In unison.  ‘Go on lad.  We await your decision.’

I am so excited I talk so fast I hardly stop for breaths.  ‘Poison tip dart artisan for tribesman to use in their blowguns.  To defend their forests from foreign tree rustlers who ravage the land for selfish profit motives.  Those, elephants, care not a whit about the people, animals, and plants they displace and destroy.’

Sol glistens.  ‘Blimey, lad.  Poison tips.  An excellent idea to rid the undesirables.’

Mum’s stern reaction.  ‘Nonsense you two.  Never ‘ave I heard anything so ridiculous.’

‘No, no, Mum.  Fa has medicines that deaden but do not kill.  The rustlers are unconscious, just long enough for the tribesman to inform authorities to come and jail them.’

I see I’ve convinced Sol, but Mum, she still needs work.

“Watch the road, Ben.”  ‘SCREECH!  THUMP!’  Fa slides into the back Rolls of the royal caravan.  To protect from injury Mother braces her hands against the dashboard, and Fa holds tight to the steering wheel.  I am tossed, over and into the front seat, landing, jostling safely onto Mother’s lap.

‘Youch!  That’s gotta hurt lad.’

“Not really, Sol,” I say aloud.

“What say, Raji?”  Mother asks, gently stroking my cheek.

“Oh, just imagining,” I say.

Luny Mum strokes my other cheek.  ‘It is time I take my leave, lad.  Glad everyone is safe.’  With no fanfare, Mum fades, disappearing into the blue.

We get out of the car just in time to see the train-like chain reaction of Rolls and Bentleys slowly bumping, one at a time, undamaged into the car preceding it.  Their natty sarong and dhoti-attired owners are too occupied to notice, or care.  They’re quite conspicuously appeasing Nardesha by directing their tuxedoed butlers to distribute, from porcelain tureens, sweet smelling delicacies, to the unending lines of raggedy passers-by.  Some of these poor stop to taste, but only for a moment.  Most continue the ongoing movement forward, as if some holy destination lays ahead, some nirvana worth passing up the caravan’s mere morsels.

As Mother, Fa, I, and, Poppy Sol follow, I notice dozens of youth, around my age.  They load unfortunate road kill onto carts, then they also move forward.

I squint upward.  Anxious in my curiosity I query Sol.  ‘From your position, you can see what is ahead.  Where is everyone going?  Is the reason they’re not stopping to eat the gentry’s food, does that have something to do with it?’

‘HA!  HA!’ is Sol’s reply.  ‘Raji, I can see quite clearly from here the job your folks have arranged for you.’

‘Tell me.  I am so anxious to know.  What it is?  Tiger tamer?  Cobra Squeeze?  Poison tipper?  Otter fisher?’

‘You’ll not like it, young bloke.’

‘You’re wrong Sol.  Any helpin’ kind of daring-do adventurin’, ‘ll do me fine.’

‘Well then, brace yourself, lad.  Your ‘elpin’ ‘ll be…

‘On the road kill gang.  Surely that’ll ‘elps ya from becomin’, a elephant.’

It’s a good thing our whole conversation took place in my imagination:  Because my mental shout of ultimate disappointment would have deafened all within a mile.

What possible good for humankind could the road kill gang provide, I ask myself?

And, just where, oh where – are all the poor, bound?

NEXT WEEK:  ONWARD, TO SAVOR CHEF R.K.’S GOURMET SURPRISE

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories. My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2014 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Uncategorized, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A FOUNDLING’S LIFE: FROM TRAGEDY TO LARK TO TRIUMPH

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

I am James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction – a true Fiction.  Typhoon  tears me from my parents.  I alone survive.  I become an orphaned foundling, taken in by new loving parents, Dr. Ben and Indira Singh.  Now, I am Raji.  These are my found and foundling tales.

I. The Tragedy

THE FOUNDLINGS

We are left writhing by roadsides or under trees.  We are dumped in trash heaps.  We are cradled in now rigor mortised but once tender arms of parents killed by war, plague, inferno, flood, or scores of other tragedies.

We are the foundlings.

Welcome to the Lindian Woods Where I Was Found (Image ©2014 Raji Singh

Welcome to the Lindian Woods Where I Was Found
(Image ©2014 Raji Singh

Around this big world, we, the tiniest, are the most helpless.  We are abandoned to the whims of the elements, animals, sometimes, worst of all, to the wrath of humans.

We come into the lives of others naked, or nearly so.  Those other babes and toddlers in our predicament, thousands, maybe millions – no one knows – most never survive.

Sometimes wild animals nurse, feed, protect and raise us as their own.

How do we cope?  How do we survive our beginnings then thrive?  Through the goodwill of others, by mere chance, but finally and ultimately, by fantasy we spin in our feral yet developing minds.  As we grow, unbeknownst to those around us, we retreat to a blissful make-believe of serendipity and lark to keep us sane so we can flourish in a life in which we are given a second chance.

Now cometh our stories and those of whom help and hinder us – our, Tales of the Fiction House.  For all those ‘WE,’ of whom I am one, now do I speak for they have beckoned me to do so —           Raji Singh

Calico, the Butterfly, My Gentlest Friend (©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

Calico, the Butterfly, My Gentlest Friend
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

II. The Lark

Little Known Famous Foundling Facts (LKFFF)

A.  MOSES: (nicknamed ‘Nile’s Basket Boy’ by his intimates) Ancient publisher. Initiated move away from cumbersome tablets, to innovative strains of lightweight papyrus rolls.

B.  JAMES THADDEUS ‘BLACKJACK’ FICTION: aka ‘The Carper’ 19th century publisher (FICTION HOUSE) and abolitionist. Popularized the now banned (yet still-practiced underground) ‘sport’ of gloved, Cat Boxing along the Ohio.

C.  LIL’ TOM – alias ‘Puss ‘N Gloves’: First and foremost of the cat boxers. Two of his three gloved,  posing posters are known to exist. Hoped for third: whereabouts a puzzle; is considered the “Holy Grail” of the Cat Boxing collectibles. Estimated value if found, in even fair condition – TWO MILLION DOLLARS.

III.  The Triumph

(Here is my four-year-old great-great-grandfather’s triumphant foundling beginnings.

In 1826, he’s taken into a crusty ancient mariner’s riverside wharf shack. )

“This is Ol Tom, Carper. Ol Tom, this is Carper.”

Ol Tom raises paw in welcome and the boy instinctively takes it.

“Ol Tom,” Carper quietly says.

“Meow.” The sleek, one-eye gray feline looks approvingly over their guest then leaps to his usual perch, Mariner’s stooped left shoulder.

“He likes ya Carper. If he didn’t he’d been out the door. He can tell a young sailor who’s worth his salt,” Mariner says, stroking the cat’s glistening fur. Ol Tom is handily the cleanest thing in the wharf-shack. A bed of greasy straw and a seldom-used tub for washing is on one side; a chair that long ago lost its stuffing, the other. Sailor clutter- periscope, scrimshaw, bottled ship, swamps the top of a rotting bureau. Conch shells are all about. Dominating the middle of the room is a bottomless bucket over a hole in the floor – toilet to the river. Surrounding it are piles of corncobs and wrinkly newspapers.

“Ol Tom’s a Cincy legend. Fathered most of the cats on these docks, he did. Nears I can tell, not done yet. I reels him in as a young stray, just like I did you. Hiszen’ line will one day rule this fairen’ city.[1] How ‘bout you boy? Got ideas liken that for youren’ self?”

Mariner’s look locks Carper’s; makes Carper feel an equal. As he prattles, Mariner goes to stir bubbling clam chowder he had put on a small coal-burning stove earlier in the morning. He sweeps dried peas off a rickety wooden table. Carper listens to their hypnotizing ‘tick, tick, tick’ as they spatter to the floor, then ‘blip, blip, blip’ into the Ohio.

He is in a daze. Barely can he feel or sense as Mariner half-sings – half-bellows. “Time ta swab yer deck, Matey. Gotta be ship-shape for galley call.” With a wet washrag he mops the boy clean. Where once was soot, emerges sparkling ivory skin. Where ashen sameness of shape existed, appears definition – lithe fingers, willowy legs and arms, sharp shoulders, carnation pink cheeks reflecting in charcoal-hue eyes. “Handsome lad ya are,” he barks, brushing soot from Carper’s straight, black hair. Mariner’s resolve hardens. “No do-gooders’ll get our Carper into an orphanage. Eh, Ol Tom?”

Ol Tom adjusts his-self to his comfort level on Mariner’s shoulder and winks good eye, inches from ship-shack master. “Meeeooow.”

Mariner ladles two bowls. Carper runs to one, sits, and devours. Mariner layers the Cincinnati Daily Opine on the stove as a chopping block. He whacks off his catch’s head and tosses it on the floor. As Ol Tom leaps for it, begins batting it around between bites, the famished boy pushes away empty bowl and begins on the other.

“Eat your fill son. None go hungry here.”

Carper pulls a red silk handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his chin. Mariner breathes the silk’s sweet perfume. He knows the scent, but from where? Then, as he tosses the carp into a salt bucket to preserve until dinnertime, he notices an artist-rendered picture of a woman in the newspaper. He wipes away fish blood and squints closer at it, then at Carper. He sees the resemblance. Instantly he knows from whence the handkerchief came.

Mariner knows-from now on, this must be the boy’s new port of call.

[1] LKFFF: There is a famous marble statue in Cincinnati’s main library – a one-eyed cat reading a book. It’s been in different locations in the city for over a century and a half. Its origin is unknown.

 

Carper will grow up to become James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, publisher and abolitionist. (See picture)

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.   My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

FOR THE LOVE OF BOOKS

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

It’s 1826, Cincinatti.  4-year-old orphaned foundling Carper is taken in by a sea-crusted ancient mariner.

In only a few minutes Mariner and Carper are at Mariner’s isolated ‘STATEROOM.’ A barnacle on the backside of an abandoned warehouse, the ten-by-ten foot wharf-shack juts out over the Ohio. It’s built of rancorous vegetable crate-wood. The river’s fishy odor is less offensive. Two nose-smudged porthole windows peep out. The oilskin tarp door groans a tired welcome when Mariner moves it. Inside, Carper scrunches his face and breathes cautiously.

One can see the sloshing water between inch-thick gaps in the planked floor. The structure sways like a ship in even moderate knot breezes and this makes it truly home for the Mariner. “I built ‘er seaworthy, Matey. Can launch this ‘skiff’ if I’ve a mind. Sail away wheres I choose iffa the city starts overtakin’.”

Firmly anchoring the wharf-shack are shelved books. They line the walls. Mariner can’t read, but pretends. For hours, he will stare at the print and mouth words he believes should accompany pictures.

You stare intently, entranced by the array of Mariner’s exotic objects never before this moment have you seen. BOOKS – bound in leather dyed blue, black, and red. The bindings’ wild animal pungency – primal; the pulp pages emit sweet, pleasant mustiness of the forest. These soothing scents overpower the wharf-shack’s odor. These scents, intoxicating, will draw you under their covers. Soon you will sleep. Dream. All their pages of excitement, knowledge, mystery will awaken a passion for life’s grandeur in you that never will dull.

There is no way that at this moment can your child’s mind perceive all you feel so deeply. You only experience…

The BOOKS: They begin leaping from the shelves. They slide down Harpoon. Its long face, snaggled with sharp-barbed tooth, is still gleaming with the sweet ardor of some past battle glory. When they reach the floor, BOOKS, in cadence begin marching round a three-legged stool and toward you. ‘Hup! Hup! Hup, hup, hup!’ In parade. Voices echo in unison, ‘JOIN US, CARPER. DON’T LET US PASS YOU BY!’

How do they know your name? Other books are open on rickety stands and on the floor. You smile as an artist’s drawing of a wiry pooch ‘WOOFS’ at you. On the page next to him, a little wooden boy dances clip-cloppity. You want to tweak his funny, ever-growing nose. But, ‘Ouch!’ You are afraid of splinters.

On the pages of a floored book, a pretty, golden-haired girl in a silver gown looks down from atop a leafy tree. She reaches for you. She has wings of silver, ruby, and gold. She reminds you of the butterfly that spent the night with you under the cart. You whisper, “Calico?”

Our Friend Calico (©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

Our Friend Calico
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

‘COME FLYING WITH ME CARPER!’ she sings. She swoops down, takes your hand, and off you go go go, landing on the picture’s cloudy mountaintop. You lock hands and sing, skip and play ring around rosy, pocketful of posy. Ashes, ashes… all…fall…

‘No! No! You fist your hand in defiance. The fire-breathing monster won’t eat me,’ your thoughts shout, as you partly remember the nightmare. You blink. No longer do you hold her hand. You’re still clasping Mariner’s.

“Ouch! Carper, you got a clam’s grip there,” Mariner says as he bends creakily and closes the fairy tale book. Butterfly girl winks good-bye. Carper doesn’t feel scared or sad. He feels protected by Mariner and this place. He can visit the butterfly girl any time he wants. He will find many joys like her in – BOOKS. Carper will have read and absorbed each one in this dry-dock library before he turns eight.

BOOKS. They will become his life.

Carper will grow up to become James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, publisher and abolitionist. (See picture)

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.   My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Like the New Year, Life is Full of Beginnings

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Raji Singh

By Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

THE CARPER’S TALE   (From Tales of the Fiction House)

1826 

Daylight for just 15 minutes and already summer’s heat has dried dew from the Cincinnati pier.  A stoop-shouldered ancient mariner in an age-cracked slicker gamily trudges the seemingly un-ending stretch.  Alone.  Sunken jaw ratchets, way to below Adam’s apple, as he grumbles,

“How long I gonna live?”

These would be the first words my great-great grandfa, four-year-old James Thaddeus Fiction, would remember hearing for the rest of his life.  From beneath an abandoned fish cart, he mimics squeakily, “How long I gonna live?”

Mariner looks about, swigs Kentucky stump juice to relieve an aching molar.  “Ahh!”  He squints curiously down at his fresh-caught carp wrapped in yesterday’s Cincinnati Daily Opine.

The boy echoes, “How long I gonna live?”

The sing-song reminds Mariner of albatross he heard while sailing around the Cape of Good Hope.  He clunks down his bamboo fishing pole and peers under the cart.  “Why, you little carper.  You just parrot me?”  He reaches for and reels into the sunlight a soot-covered boy still trembling from the night’s chill.  Mariner’s knobby knees blink at him through dungaree holes.

Our Friend Calico (©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

Our Friend Calico
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

A calico butterfly of silver, ruby, and gold had lit on the youth’s head.  “I see one of my friends been keepin’ ya company.”  Mariner winks at it as it flits away, “Happy sailin’, Calico.”  He bends to the boy. “So what’s youren name?  What you been rollin’ round in? And what in the name of Poseidon’s ocean you doin’ schoolin’ here?”  Sniff.  “Eew!  Yer rank as my giant pal Turt after e’s swum the Atlantic.”

Boy wants to say, “How can you smell me over your owen’ self?” Manages only, “Umm…”

Mariner squints at his first catch-of-the-day and grumbles to it.  “Likes that one too, I do. Don’t think I’ll throw ‘im back, either.”

Boy’s face crinkles prune-wrinkly as he flinches; not so much from being level with something looking so like the fire-breathing monster of the nightmare he’s just awakened from – wild silver hair, blood eyes, warty cheeks and knife nose – but from  the sour smell reeking from pebbly-textured mouth.

Everything before this moment – who he is, where he’s from, how long he’s been here – is blank, dark as his previously alabaster torso.  He wears only short pants with pockets hastily stuffed with childhood trinkets, marbles, tin soldiers, a spinning top.

Escaping bed and building during the fire.  His mother ferreted away.  Wandering aimlessly.  Collapsing here from fatigue.  36 hours have since passed.  For him it easily could have been 36 days or 36 minutes.  The wrenching scars his memory – as happens with most foundlings.  Yet, after all that, he doesn’t fear this living monster.

     “I said, what you doin’… Oh never mind.  I start you carpin’ and you look like the type’ll never clam it.”  He engulfs the boy’s hand in his bony fingers – arthritic from a lifetime of casting nets and setting sails – elevates him, until toes are level with his whale-bone belt buckle; surveys him as he would a catch.

A passing paddle-wheeler on the mucky Ohio steam-whistles out a baritone ‘ahoy’ to old salt and young dawg.  “Let’s sail, Carper.  My stateroom – she’s up the way.  I’ll get ya cleaned and chowed.  Then we can find youren.  Unless yer a stray.  You stray from the orphanage, Carper?  If that be, well…all the more power.   Believe me,” he rasps, angrily clenching fishing pole, rap, rap, rapping its hard butt against the dock….”I know first-hand how’s ya don’t wants to be in a place like that!”

The boy’s thoughts are blank as they walk and he clutches Mariner’s hand:  No happy or sad as he looks up into a face equally expressionless as his, only a primitive gratitude for the presence, for the touch of another human.

Next Week: The Carper’s New Life in the ‘Stateroom’

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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YOU WILL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT, RAJI – A LINDIAN CHRISTMAS STORY

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

(In the holiday spirit, we offer this tale from the Fiction House archives.  The Red Rider is peacefully interred at the Fiction House Museum.  Benny Franklin and Mariner will return next week.  Happy Holidays and see you next year!)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we’ll never have lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Just like the bespectacled Ralphie in the movie A Christmas Story, as an eight year old I yearned for a Red Rider BB gun.  Growing up in Cincinnati’s Lindian community – not big meat eaters or hunters – no one truly listened when I said I wanted this.

I dreamed of making grand safaris into the magical, mysterious Lindian Woods not far from my house.

“With my Red Rider…” quite often I excitedly boasted to a kindly, yet unsympathetic old Uncle or Auntie.  “…I could fortress in the wilds of the Lindian Woods and protect the city from errant tigers.”

     They’d reply, all the while laughing gently at their own impromptu humor.  “PSHAW!  Precious Raji.  50,000 Bengals fill the football stadium every other week.  You could never keep enough BB’s in stock.”  Then these wizened elders, the tiny bells on their sarongs jingling, the beads on their shirts beating as they jiggled from the laughter, would add something like, “Cobra and Mongoose from our homeland have yet to find a way to traverse the oceans.  So we need no protection from them.  What then remains, dear boy, for you to save us from – the furry little rabbits and squirrels?  They are not so vicious.”SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

     Then, just as Ralphie’s teacher, his mother, and even Santa replied to Ralphie, the Uncles and Aunties guffawed to me, “You’ll shoot your eye out.”

But Ralphie’s fa, ‘the old man’, had a Red Rider when he was eight.  He surprised Ralphie with the pump-style air rifle on Christmas.

An equally understanding – at least, seemingly, at the time, old Uncle came forward for me:   on my Christmas.  He always dressed nattily, in starched, pressed cotton pants, and a vest over a dhoti shirt white as his wavy hair.  Every glance, every eye flicker, and every movement of his lean body professed to the world his philosophy of life:  ‘To stand on ceremony is the duty of all.’  (He must have come from generations of British Colonial influence.)

The BB gun – He presented it to me as ceremoniously as if he had been a Royal Brigade officer back in Lindia, and he was pinning a medal of valor on my jacket. SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

I remember vividly to this day standing as if frozen briefly in time, a new recruit in front of Colonel Uncle.  The emotions I felt – They are indelibly imprinted in my thoughts:

That day…That day…  

The Red Rider isn’t shiny and new like Ralphie’s.  The wood stock is worn and faded.  Nicks, gouges, and dents tattoo the tarnished barrel.  But I feel just as lucky as Ralphie.

I run my fingers over the cold steel and splintered wood.  All my eight-year-olds senses absorb the ardor of battle my Red Rider must have encountered over the decades.  I smell the decaying rot of defeated cobras saturating the stock.  I can almost taste the dank of the fur of a charging tiger, “brought down by just a single BB”, I imagine someone bragging over ale at a bistro.

As if it were a seashell, I put my ear to the barrel hole.  Instead of ocean, I hear the calamitous trumpeting of a herd of elephants scared away from an isolate village’s garden, and back into the jungle.  I stroke the splintered teeth marks of a vicious mongoose that tore wildly into the weapon before being subdued.

After a ceremonious pat on the shoulder from crater-faced old Uncle and the even more ceremonious statement,

“Now go forth young Gamesman” –

Welcome to the Lindian Woods (Image ©2014 Raji Singh

Welcome to the Lindian Woods
(Image ©2014 Raji Singh

Into the Lindian Woods, I foray, to take my place among the tribe of humankind known as, INTREPID HUNTER.

I dribble a handful of copper BBs into the holding chamber.  I pump the cocking handle.  I take aim skyward, at Poppy Sol.  He glares, reprimanding me with a stinging ray.  So I move my point, toward a gluttonous cloud.  ‘I’ll pop that belly.’  I feel like Papa Hemingway readying to bag his first Rhino.  My hands sweat as I pull the trigger.

The loudest cannon fire BANG!

     That is what I expect.

A…phht!  is what I get.

The BB arcs like a rainbow, for not more than 20 feet.  I see where it goes…toward the pond…toward the rubbery lily pad where the Frog Brothers, Frer and Brer, rrriibiit on about the daily news of the Lindian Woods.  Plink.  The BB lands between them, breaking their conversation, and then it bounces off, plunking into the water.  Their sudden stares and immediate deep CRROOAAKS indicate they mock me.

‘There’s that Raji kid again.  The one who almost shot his eye out with the slingshot, last week,’ says Frer.

‘A nuisance he can sometimes be,’ replies Brer, sticking his tongue out at me and simultaneously nabbing a fly.

In unison, they croak loudly, ‘You’ll shoot your eyes out, kid!’

Again and again my shame heightens among the Lindian Woods inhabitants as the velocity of the BBs lessen with each shot.  (Seems the relic Red Rider can’t hold the charge of hand pumped air for more than a few seconds.  But I wouldn’t discover that cold fact until later in life.)  Another shot strays into the water, splashing between a circle of ten napping otters, who hold hands as otters outta whilst sleeping, to keep from floating away from each other.  Seemingly, one at a time their eyes open and they berate me for disturbing their slumber.  ‘You’ll shoot your…’  I get a feeling they’re readying to turn together on their sides, like a wheel, and roll over the water to chase me from their Woods.

I quickly scamper to a meadow where birds are singing joyously.  I shoot skyward.  POP!  The singing abruptly ends and the birds scatter.  Out of nowhere, the Lindian Woods Sky Patroller, Hawk, barrels in from out of nowhere, grabs the BB mid air, flies, just feet over my head, and flings it down hitting me on the head.

“Ouch.”  That is the fastest one of the projectiles flew that day, or would ever again fly from that dilapidated Red Rider.

‘Never do that again,’ I know is Hawk’s plaintiff cry.  Hawk eyes me viciously and then missiles out of sight.

Sigh!  I guess I may now know just why we Lindians are no hunters.  Likely, we’d starve.

O.K., I will shoot at trees.  Not one barks at me as I take aim.  So I fire.  Relic Red Rider suddenly takes on a life of its own – but unfortunately, it is in the form of a death gasp.SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

The BB spits weakly from the barrel, barely going two feet before it drops.  I hear a screech.  In animal parlance, I believe it means – “Hey, whattaya think yer doin!”  I look down, just as the BB bounces off the head of a rabbit, then ricochets as the little fella jerks its head.  The BB flies five feet horizontally, and nearly takes out the eye of a squirrel.

The rabbit’s screech, the squirrel’s angry, loud ‘CHHIIRRP!’ tells me,

“Run, Raji!!  Like your life depends on it.”  As angry as the critters sounded, I am sure my life really did.  (Harmless creatures, as Uncles and Aunties claimed; Hhrmph!)

Squirrel and rabbit give chase.  They’re on my heels, snapping, grr-ing, for hundreds of yards, until I am well clear of the Lindian Woods and onto a city street.

I near my Lindian neighborhood, out of breath, and I see my ceremonious old Uncle.  He is sitting cross-legged, on a small rug under a Lindian Fan Tree.  It is as if he has been waiting, patiently, for me.

“And how went the hunt, young Raji?”

Wait, is that what some would call a ‘knowing smile’ that slightly crescents his face.

I return the gun as ceremoniously as it was given to me.  I summon enough breath to say.  “Take it Uncle.  Never bring it back.  No matter how careful, it’s only a matter of time, before,

     “I shoot my eye out.”            SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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No. 115: THIS COULD BE THE BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP.

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Raji Singh
Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

by Raji Singh

LAST WEEK: Benjamin Franklin strolls the woods near Paris. He’s taking a break – from his duties as emissary of the united American colonies to France – of trying to finagle francs from the aristocracy to finance the colonies’ Revolution. Franklin meets an American mariner whose ship’s in.

The ‘Mariner’ is brewing stump juice.

“Give ‘er a gulp and return temerraw, Benny,” Mariner says. “She’ll cure yer gout quicker than a hoi’ class Champs-Elysees whure cans prop-y-zition a foine gent.”

Franklin tastes… and tastes. “Ahh! The nectar of the Gods is your juice-de-stumpe, Good Sir. With your brewing know how and my marketing savvy, together we shall reap righteous bounty from the Paris elite.”

THIS WEEK:

Entering the woods, Benjamin Franklin shouts“Ahoy, Mariner.” The sky is greyly overcast. Thunder claps. Lightening sizzles a steady rain.

“Greetings Ambastard-dor Franklin,” Mariner harpoons in a friendly joshing. “Didn’t figger on seeing you this foin’ day. Supposed you’d be portin’ the impendin’ storm in some West Bank cafe.” Though in his early 20’s, Mariner’s already a seasoned salt of the sea. To him, the inclement weather – barely noticeable. “You’re sailin’ right along without your walkin’ stick just 24 hours after your first dose-a-the-stump, Benny. A tad list to the starboard side. That’s not nothin’ another tankard won’t cure.”

“Right you are good fellow,” Franklin says, twisting his three-point colonial cap so the rain drips onto his shoulder and not along and down his bulbous nose. (Cannot have anything interferring with the sweet-sour bouquet of juice-de-stump.) Franklin carries packages. He adjusts his cape to keep them dry.

A Perfect Vessel for Making Stump Juice (Photo by Mark Rogers, 2014)

A Perfect Vessel for Making Stump Juice
(Photo by Mark Rogers, 2014)

Mariner hears a chortling echoing from one of them – a small box covered with a dark cloth. The cloth moves as if something is trying to escape. ‘A ghostly appyration?’ Mariner ponders. ‘Maybe Benny’s a magician along with bein’ an inventor.’

Franklin notices Mariner’s curiosity. “With the help of these,” he says, “and this weather, I’ll demonstrate to you how we can get our business venture launched much quickly than we anticipated.” Franklin slowly imbibes the concoction Mariner ladles. “Mmm, sumptuous! As I always say, ‘Wine – in this case juice-de-stumpe – is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy’.” He swirls it in his mouth, trying to decipher which fermented fruit of the stump provides the tangy, which herb supplies the bitter, which fruit the sweet, and just what gives it that devilish poke, poke, poke at the tongue and throat.

“I can hear that silent wondering of youren’, Benny. No use you tryen’ to map out the recipe. Mama Lucy taught me to blend the mixins’ just, so fine, that a dozen flavors become just one.”

Mariner spits onto his ship-calloused palm and holds it out. “I do the secret ingrediaten’. You do the marketin’. 50/50 split. Deal, eh”?”

Franklin ignores the spittle hand. He takes from his vest pocket a scroll and unrolls it. “I worked up a basic contract to protect us both, Mariner. Losin’ the patent on my Franklin Stove taught me a great lesson. I intended it to be a gift to warm the downtrodden of the world. Not to line the pockets of the scalawags who absconded with my idea. As I always say, ‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.’

Mariner briefly peruses the print. His eyes water and he wipes them with a gnarled handkerchief. He’s overcome, for the first time in his life with a deep emotion he’s never before felt – SHAME. He sniffs with the pretense, “Some of Mama’s spices is steamin’ up from the mix, Benny.” How could he reveal to the great Benjamin Franklin – the man helming the building of a nation, one whose simple yet life-saving invention, the Franklin Stove, kept him from freezing to death a hundred times over, in the icicle Boston orphanages before he finally escaped to the freedom of the sea – How could he reveal, ‘I cain’t read Ambastard-dor Franklin. Not a lick.’

Mariner rips up the contract, seizes the back of Franklin’s hand, spits onto the palm, and then clasps it, so hard Franklin winces. “Don’t need cold words on paper to tie brothers of a cold world together, Sire, though one be a land hound and ‘tother a sea dog. Flesh to flesh binds us. Brothers!”

Franklin starts to say, “As I always say Mariner, ‘Honesty is the best…’”

“Put an anchor to those adages ‘a yourens, Benny. Had me a snootful of em from San Fran to Singapore by a loafer who leaned againt the mast seems the whole voyage, spoutin from your Poor Little Richie Almanacky. Let’s set sail for truly the important ports in life. That bein’ stump juicen.”

Another Worthy Vessel(Photo by Mark Rogers, 2014)

Another Worthy Vessel(Photo by Mark Rogers, 2014)

NEXT WEEK: WHAT’S UP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S PUFFY SLEEVE AND WHAT’S THE MAGIC IN HIS BOX.       

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2014 Raji Singh

       

Posted in Fiction House Publishing, humor, satire, Short stories, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

No. 114: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN HAPPENS UPON JUICE-de-STUMPE AND THE WORLD IS FOREVER CHANGED

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction ‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’ These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House. I cannot refuse. (Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

My orphaned foundling great-great grandfather, James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, was taken in and raised by a scraggly ancient mariner. ‘Mariner’ himself was an orphan. He relayed many-a-tale to Blackjack. They’ve been passed through the generations.

Here is Mariner meeting a renowned new land-mate, Dr. Benjamin Franklin.

*     *     *

A FOREST ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF PARIS ON A WARM SUNNY DAY: THE 1780’s.

A friendly shout out: “Bonjuur Musuur!” Tinging the words is a sophisticated Massachusetts, America accent.

The ‘Musuur’s’ reply is in French, but it in such a thick Baastan, Mass. nasal throatiness that it is unrecognizable. It quickly changes to the unique U.S.A. version of English when Musuur Mariner, realizes who approaches. “Well, I’ll be a son-of-a-mermaiden. If it’s not the ol’ publicity hound, Benny Franklin. I heard tell aboard ship you were porting, pretty permanent-like here in Paree.”

Ambassador to France Franklin approaches Mariner, smiling. “I left the city for a quiet, contemplative walk; maybe find a pond to take a dip. Swum just about every day of my life I was able. Bet you didn’t know that about me?”

“Can’t say I did. Well, iffen that be the case we could of used you for life-savin’ at sea many a time.”

Franklin breathes deply, dramatically, as if he’s in a Shakespeare drama. “The pungency of the scent of your stump concoction beckons me, Kind Sir. Sweet, like the pastry shoppes of the Monmarte. What ingredient pray tell, gives it such – je ne sais quoi?”

“My stump juice has genay-se-what?” Mariner says. Then he just smiles as he puts a lid on a canister of powdered herbs and roots to keep the mixings for his recipe a secret.

“Smart American man of business, you are, not giving away anything.” Franklin congratulates. “ You must have read and absorbed all the lessons of my Poor Richard’s Almanac.” He takes a monogrammed handkerchief with his face printed on it from the pocket of his waistcoat. Wiping sweat from his brow, he holds up the handkerchief, and says, “Quite handsome likeness, don’t you think? I sell thousands of theses little ditties in Paris shops alongside other Franklin souvenirs – teacups, saucers, toiletries.”

The lean but muscular Mariner puts aside his stirring branch and shakes Franklin’s outstretched hand. Each man winces, surprised by the other’s strength. Mariner looks up at the golden winged butterfly that lights lithely on his sailor’s cap. “And this, Doc, is my friend Calico. She’s patron saint to foundlings like me. I was left on the doorsteps of a Boston orphanage nigh on two decades back. Calico’s been lookin’ after me ever since. She’s flyin’ a little crooked today from the stump nectar. That’s just fine. Every guardian needs a break, now and then.”

Our Friend Calico (©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

Our Friend Calico
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

Franklin bows. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Madam Calico. Your friend, the Mariner, looks quite familiar to me, Madam. For the life of me, I just cannot place him.” He adjusts his bifocals and closely examines Mariner’s face, high cheekbones, and deep black eyes. He remembers his oh so lusty forays in Boston over 20 years back. A possibility plays jovially in his thoughts. ‘Let’s see, there was Betsy, Molly, and Dolly… No he just can’t be my…’

Mariner is thinking, as he studies the man over 50 years his senior. ‘Les see. He needs a walking stick. His gout-ed foot’s ‘a bandaged. Yet he’s got a clam’s grip of a handshake, like he’s still a young Turk. And he’s hardly a wrinkle. The colonies can’t fail at inderpendence with the likes of him looking out for us.’

Mariner asks the Ambassador. “Say, what’s that creature living on your head, Benny? I think I could catch a shark, maybe a whale, with it for bait.”

Franklin crescents a wry smile. “They’re all the rage of Paris society, my good Mariner. Everyone wants one of Benjamin Franklin’s beaver pelt caps. Can’t get them shipped from our frontier lands fast enough. You too, my good man, could become a Paris elite – via my skills at promoting, IF that juice-de-stumpe of yours is as sumptuous as it smells. And, if we can work a trade. Here, have my chapeau, as a good faith deposit.” Mariner removes his sea cap and Calico flits to Banjamin’s shoulder as Mariner doffs the Beaver.

Mariner clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and admires his reflection in the transluscent stump juice. “The fine loidies of Monmarte would think me quite a dandy, I’m just sure of it. We’ve got a trade. And, for good measure kind suh, with this batch you’ll be getting something extry and unexpected – that something down New Orleans way they call a ‘Lenyap’. All courtesy of the healer who invented this recipe, my old gal Mama Lucy. Thanks to her stump elixir-slickens, you’ll be seeing a rapid improvement on that gout, then a healing.”

A Perfect Vessel for Making Stump Juice (Photo by Mark Rogers, 2014)

A Perfect Vessel for Making Stump Juice
(Photo by Mark Rogers, 2014)

Mariner ladels out a tankard for Franklin. He sips, grins, “AAH, delicious,” and adds, “so how long you in port for sailor? I just may have a proposition not only of mutual benefit to you and me, but also for the future of the colonies. What with the Mama’s recipe, my promoting, and your brewing juice-de-stumpe, Mariner, all Paris will be at our feet.”

NEXT WEEK: ‘THIS COULD BE THE BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP.’

(Join me every Sunday night at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.  They are completely different stories.  My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2014 Raji Singh

Posted in archeo-apologist, humor, satire, Short stories, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment