POST No. 97: GIANT AND THE FROG BROTHERS SAVE HAWK’S HOUSE

Posted on July 13, 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’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)

Lore of the Lindian Woods, as told by Raji Singh

     Once upon a time…

As Brer and Frer Frog walk down the road, the ground begins to rumble. Grasshoppers hide under leaves, scared of the earth’s quake. But the Frogs aren’t afraid because they see Giant, dancing for joy.

“You sure shake things up,” Brer says as he and Frer hop to their own special little dance.

“I can’t help it. I’m so happy living here in the Woods.”

A sharp cry echoes from the clear, blue sky. “SCREE! SCREE!” It’s Hawk. She swoops in from her mountain home and lands between Giant and the Frogs. “All your dancing caused a huge boulder to fall and block my door. I was lucky to fly out. Now what shall I do? I have no place to live, and the nights are so cold.”

“You can come live with us,” says Frer.

“No,” says Hawk. “I must be up high on the mountain. That is where I like it.”

“I understand that,” agrees Giant. “Once you have found a home, it is a most special place. I am so sorry, Hawk, that I caused you to lose it. Next time I feel like dancing, I will remove my giant boots. Then I won’t shake things up so much.”

Giant hesitates. A big smile crosses his face. “I’ll get you back into your home, Hawk.”

Hawk shakes her head. “SCREE! The rock’s too big. It’s a giant, like you.”

Hawk’s scree is a challenge to Giant. He says, “We’ll just see about that.”

“It’s worth a try, Brer says.”

The Frogs hop on Giant’s shoulders when he leans down.  He bellows, “You fly home, Hawk. I’ll follow. We giants are good mountain climbers.”

So, off they set.

When they get to Hawk’s cave home, Giant gasps.  The rock is so huge. How can he ever shove it away? He leans and lets Brer and Frer hop onto it. The green brothers leap up and down on it.

“It will never move it,” Hawk cries.

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

Welcome to the Lindian Woods (Photo by Mark Rogers)

“We’ve got to try,” the Frogs and Giant plead.

As the Frogs hop off it and onto the side of the mountain where Hawk perches, Giant bends. He pushes at the rock. He ‘ugghs’. He grunts. He ‘grr’s’.  His cliff-like forehead creases and crevasses from the strain. He pushes harder. The rock moves – just slightly.

Frer suggests,  “Maybe we can get some sticks under it to lever it out.”  They gather sticks and push them beneath the rock.

Just then, about the tiniest things Giant has ever seen began crawling out along the sticks. Ants. They came by the hundreds, thousands, maybe millions. They cheer together, “You freed us Giant!  And Frogs.   We were trapped.”

Giant grunts. “My heavy booted dancing trapped you. I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again.” He is able to gasp out those words as he struggles under the rock’s weight.

“Let bygones be bygones,” the Ants chant.

“We’re trying to save Hawk’s home,” Frer Frog says.

The Ants huddle close together to talk. “We’ll help!”

Hawk questions, “But how can the littlest on earth ever expect to help move such a big stone when even the biggest on earth cannot?”

“We can try.” Each of the millions, or zillions of ants pick up a tiny piece of earth and move it from under the rock.

The rock teeters. More, and more.

Giant suddenly yells, “Run Ants! It will soon give way.”

They scamper off. When they are all safely out from under, Giant makes a mighty ‘GRR’ and pushes. The rock rumbles down the mountainside and lands loudly, ‘THUD-THUCK’ in a muddy ravine.

“Hurray!” Hawk, the Frog bothers, and Ants all shout.

Giant wipes his brow, “Whew!” and sits on the ground.

“Well done!” Ribbet the Frogs. “Hawk has his home back. Ants are safe. And everything again is all right on top of the mountain.”

Giant breathes deep and tries to relax. “And from now on when I dance, My Dear Friends, I shall remember to remove my giant earth-shaking boots.”

Hawk, Ants, Frogs nod to each other, “And be sure we will remind you of that, Giant!”

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2014 Raji Singh

Posted in Children's stories, Fiction House Publishing, humor, Short stories, Uncategorized, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POST No. 96: THE LORE OF THE LINDIAN WOODS

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Raji Singh

as told 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)

Once upon a time…

Brer and Frer, the Frog brothers, are walking down the gravel road.

The ground shakes. They hop to stay steady. Grasshoppers and worms hide under leaves.

Earthquake?

The Frogs look up and see two tall tree trunks walking toward them. The limbs are so high Brer and Frer can’t see leaves. The trunks sway back and forth. The brothers fear they will topple and crush them.

But things aren’t what they seem.  Bending down towards Brer and Frer is a giant.

“You scared us,” says Frer. We thought you were an earthquake!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I was so happy I was dancing. My dances tend to shake things up. I’m sorry my happiness frightened you.”

“Think nothing of it,” says Brer. “We dance all the time ourselves.” They jump up and down, leap-frogging and in general having a good time.

They say at the same time, “We’ve never seen anyone so tall.”

“I’m a giant. That is my name too – GIANT!”

“How tall are you?”

“Would you like to see? Leap to my shoulders.”

The green brothers do. Giant stands up. Frogs find themselves lost in clouds. They cannot see each other.

“Ribbet, ribbet” they cry.

“Where are you brother?”

“Here, Frer.”

“Where, Brer?”

Giant laughs. “Do not be afraid.”

Suddenly they are above the clouds, just far enough that they feel they are standing on the feather-soft puffs. It is wonderful. They feel so light.

“It’s so blue and beautiful up here, Giant,” they say.

“I think of it as my own private world,” Giant says proudly. “Of course, I share it with the birds. And I can share it with you anytime you like.”

“That would be great fun,” says Frer.

Just then, Hawk flies up. She circles around the three.  “SCREE! SCREE!”

“Hello Hawk. Meet our new friend Giant.”

“Nice to meet you Giant.”

“Nice meeting you Hawk.”

Hawk lands on Giant’s head.

Frer says,“Oh no! Your claws will hurt him, Hawk!”

Giant laughs. “To the contrary, Frogs. The scratching feels quite nice.” Giant sighs, “AHHH!”

“We live in the Lindian Woods down below,” says Brer. “Where do you live Giant?”

“I only roam. Most people and creatures are scared of me. So I don’t stay long in one place.”

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

Welcome to the Lindian Woods! Photo by Mark Rogers

“Come live in the Lindian Woods,” beckons Hawk. We shall introduce you to all our friends. There’s Captain Polly, The Ten Otters, the lovely Toad Sisters, Turt, Squirrel…”

“You don’t think they’ll be afraid of me?”

“Maybe at first,” Brer says. “But we shall tell them how friendly and helpful you are. To prove it, you show it.”

Frer says. “You can allow Squirrel to hop from the highest tree branch then climb to your shoulder to keep lookout for forest fires. And Birds can light on your neck to catch pesky swarms of mosquitoes. You’ll become part of our forest community.”

Hawk screes jubilantly. She flies in circles around them. “Yes, do come Giant. Your legs will look like the Lindian Woods tree trunks. You’ll blend right in.”

Tears stream from Giant’s eyes. For a moment, the Frog Brothers and Hawk think it is starting to rain.

“Don’t be sad,” they say to Giant.

“They’re tears of joy,” Giant says. He leans over and once again, Frogs pass through the clouds. Hawk flies through too. In a moment, Frer and Brer are near the ground and they hop down.

“Come with us Giant,” they say. “You’ll meet all our friends.”

And that is how a giant came to live in their Woods.

NEXT WEEK: THE FROGS AND GIANT SAVE HAWK’S HOUSE

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2014 Raji Singh

 

Posted in Children's stories, Fiction House Publishing, humor, Short stories, Uncategorized, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

CINCINNATI’S FIRST INDEPENDENCE DAY PARADE– A Whimsical Tale.

Posted on June 29, 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’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)

 Welcome to our annual 4th of July parade from  Tales of the Fiction House. Have a wonderful holiday!

Cincinatti, July 4, 1826

The Cincinnati wharf-shack sways in a light breeze. Close your eyes, you’ll think you’re drifting out to sea. But Carper’s are open and he glares at Laza Bones’ wanted poster and Laza Bones glares back. Carper asks Mariner as they eat upon tabletop Turt. “The sweet little baby Bontez really grew up to be that – ‘thing’?”

“Yessuh, he did.”

Laza Bones ‘grrrs,’ at Carper, pulls out ‘trusty blaubuster’ and shoots. ‘BAM! BAM!’ Flouted barrel smokes. Wharf-shack rattles. Carper ducks. Projectiles ‘ziinngg’ off Turt’s shell, ricochet with a ‘tiinngg’ off wall-leaning Harpoon, deflects straight at Ol Tom, who leaps, ‘MEE-OWW-OWW-OWW,’ straight up from Mariner’s shoulder.

Mariner just keeps chowin’ chowder and talin’ tales and explorin’ Turt’s tattoos.

Turt, he’s really only yawning.

Ol Tom, just napping.

“The whoppers we conjure up in our imaginin,’ eh Carper,” Mariner says. “They make for some right good tellin ‘bout to others. Bet yer imaginin’ a whale-of-a-tale now.”

Carper glances at the poster, board-stiff.

The gunfire is real. It’s outside. Old Cincinnati’s tower bells begin tolling midnight. People are whooping, shouting, running wildly about.

‘AHEM! AHEM!’ Thibidioux’s alive again and he’s prying into the worlds of others. Slyly he grins at Carper. ‘After hearin’ mah story, dontcha’ feels sorry fer me, boy?’

Carper thinks he sees the evil sneer of King Creole on Thibidioux’s face. ‘Not one bit, Laza Bones. Don’t know how you got how you did. Only knows you did. N, that’s that. I’ll jus be like the Mariner, and ignores yer hair-trigger ways.’ Carper refreezes him, and, with little boy impetuousness, glances out the wharf-shack’s porthole and becomes transfixed by the doins’.

“Nuf a my jaw-jackin, Laddie,” Mariner says. ‘Good, the boy’s seein’ more than what’s right in front of ‘ims.’ He scratches chin stubble. “This tiny ship’s not big enough to net in all your thoughts and dreams, hmm Carper.”

Carper gazes out the round, 19th century version of a television to the world. Turt joins, then Ol Tom awakens and with his Cyclops eye, he does too. “Well all right,” Mariner says, rising to pull a raggedy curtain as if pushing an off button. It barely closes and they continue peeking out. Mariner strokes Carper’s hair, pats the nape of Turt’s ropey neck, then tickles Ol Tom.

“All that hoopin’, hollerin’. It’s turned Independence Day, Carper. Country’s independence as well as yourens’. Probably the first one you’ll remember. What say we make it real tootin’ special. Takin’ a part in it. Not just watchin’. Yes-sir-ree! 1826 America. This great lands a’ enterin’ its second 50 years and two of its great makers are still ‘akicken: Tom Jeffers… and Johnny Adams.”

Mariner takes a wooden crate from his sea trunk. He tosses a glob of matches atop the conical and stick-like contents. “China-man gave me these when I docked Singapore. We’ll light up the Cincinnati sky right well to celebrate.” He picks up tiny American flags mounted on pencil-like sticks. “I got it Carper. What this stodgy ol city needs is a parade. We four ‘ll start it. The gaul-dondest’ a parades.”

That captures Carper, Tom, and Turt’s spirit. Carper observes the old salt. Aglow like crystal are his eyes, showing his excitement. It’s worth more than any gold.

“Blow the horns and git set. The si-reen, she’s abeckonin’. Time to hoist anchor.”

Turt trumpets. Ol Tom mews, and Carper claps hands as a seal he’d once seen in pictures.

“All aboard,” Mariner orders. Ol Tom leaps on his shoulder. Mariner lifts Carper to his other shoulder then climbs atop Turt. He leans the fireworks crate between his legs and the back of Turt’s head. Turt exits the shack and trumpets shrilly, excitedly down the pier then soon, onto a street. Ol Tom screeches as torturously as he would if he were perched on a fence wailing to virginal felines.

Carper sings made-up songs with words he’d heard Mariner say. “America, America, Tom Jeffers and Johnny Adams. America, America. Yessirree we’re still a tootin’ and akicken’. 50 years and for always.”

Crowds gather along wooden sidewalks. They cheer the motley paraders.

You see their faces. They glisten in the streetlamps’ glitter and look wondrous with joy. And they are looking at you. Smiling. You know, by a fresh, new, and keen instinct, that you are bringing them this joy. It makes you, the floundering Carper, happy.

Mariner lights fireworks then holds them above his head for launch. ‘POW!’ Earth is stinking sulfur smoke, but the sky explodes into a glittering bouquet of red, white, and blue.

You feel more and more of your sorrowful pain slipping, disappearing, into the colors. You hear a soft voice that comes from amongst them. ‘Bonnie boy – live forever with this joy you now feel.’ Embers from the wilting colors seem soft fingers, wiping your tears of joy.

More sky bouquets. Onlookers line up behind your fours’ parade. Hootin’, hollerin’, shootin’,and fireworkin’ continue on down the street. The crowd joins in your child’s simple ditty. “America, America, Tom Jeffers, Johnny Adams…”

You learn from this that if you speak, people will listen to you – enjoy what you have to say.

And, on this day, little does Carper realize – BORN, is a showman.

The parade, introducing boy to world, exhilarates Mariner. He has chosen so much joy in a life that began so ill fated, yet he considers this his happiest time. Boy seems to have made ancient, young again. Mariner’s hopin’ he can teach every of life’s lessons he’s learned, to him.

Ol Tom ignores the fal-de-ral. He’s had a lifetime of cheering crowds among the swabbies, every time he’s cleared a pack of rats from a ship. Warm milk, an albacore head, and a soft warm feline brought on deck at the next port are the rewards he’s craved.

Turt cranes his neck high like a ship’s mast. He’s the vessel, sailing his friends through an ocean of people. Today, much as for the Carper, this is the beginning of a new life for Turt. The joy he found in old friend Kunta, then in Mariner and Carper, is now suddenly emanating from all those surrounding them. Decades of hatred of two-legs melts away. He suddenly realizes – it seems so simple now – all he has to do is to just let the hatred go, loosen fin-claw and SWOOSH! Forever, his burden – banished.

He blares out his pride of being a trumpeting creature, louder than ever.

As he does, the crowd’s cheers for he and his mates, boom. “INDEPENDENCE FOR ALL.”

Turt makes his vow this day – to forever care for the Carper, and for those he cares.

Cincinnati’s first annual Fourth of July parade begins with these four – unlikelys. The country will remember the half-centennial – bitter sweetly. On this day, the country-makers Tom and Johnny will die within hours of one another. Cincy will remember it for the shelled ship, its stooped, ancient Mariner captaining it with his one-eyed first mate and the little singing boson.

When the city celebrates the centennial 50 years hence, every blauhard ‘tween ages of 15 and 60 will have stories to tell how they or relative rode along. In 100 years, giant floating balloons and wheeled floats will depict Turt, Carper, Mariner, and Ol Tom in the first parade. In 150, at the Bicentennial, Presidents, future Presidents, and also-rans will be seen buttonholing voters – claiming Tom, Johnny and the original 4 paraders all would have supported them.

Turt will be at each of these events – watching from the Ohio River, maybe a secluded park, or, quite conspicuous in the crowds’ midst – though quite invisible midst the hundreds of concrete or styrofoam Turt replicas. He always returns. He will be at the next you can bet.

With this first parade Carper’s reputation as fixture on the streets and piers of Cincinnati – it is set. No more is he a ‘bastaad son-of-a nickel-a-night whure’, but, friend to nearly all, with words for them that are listened-to, revered, because he’ll have gleaned wisdom at the pulpit of the Mariner.

“This parade, she’s far from over. So don’t be a leavin’ yet,” shouts Mariner.

You smile. So do all the parade watchers, who’ve become paraders.

©2012 Raji Singh  (Tales of the Fiction House)

(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, and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

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

No.95: CAPTAIN POLLY’S LORE OF THE LINDIAN WOODS

Posted on June 22, 2014 by Raji Singh

(as overheard 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)

You cannot stop Captain Polly’s storytelling chatter. We here at the Fiction House don’t mind. The children like her tales. So do us adults. Better than t.v. – cheaper than movies.

Captain Polly’s the Mark Twain of the critter world. For decades, Twain toured, yarning from his E-Z chair, smoking cigars, sipping cognac. Instead, Polly paces her perch sideways on her talons, sips water, slips open sunflower seeds, spits away shells, and relays the wide repertory she’s gathered in her over two centuries of travel. I wonder if she knew Twain, maybe got a few stories from him – or he, from her.

Here is just one of her hundreds, in honor of June, National Dairy Month.

A BIRTHDAY PRESENT FOR COW

Once upon a time, Cow awoke from a wonderful dream. The creatures of the magical Lindian Woods were giving her a silver bell. It was attached to a blue ribbon that matched her most beautiful eyes.

But it wasn’t a dream. It was really happening.

The Frog Brothers tied it, in a big bow, around her neck.

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

Welcome to the Lindian Woods © Photo Mark Rogers 2014

All the Lindian Woods animals shouted, “Surprise!” They gathered around her by the pond.

“When you bend to drink, Madam Cow,” croaked Frer Frog, “or to eat grass, you will hear it. And so will all the creatures.”

Cow swayed her head and the bell softly tingled. Faster. It echoed with a delightful ‘CLANG, CLANG, CLANG.’ All the creatures clapped.

Squirrel said, “It is the shiniest thing in the Woods.”

The Ten Otters climbed out of the water. One at a time, they paraded past Cow, rang the bell with their nose, and laughed their squeaky laughs. Hawk flew in with a surprise birthday cake on her back. She and the Toad Sisters had baked it – full of Cow’s favorite things: hay, grass, molasses, and sorghum. How Hawk kept the candles on the cake lit while in flight, no one knew.

All the creatures clapped, sang Happy Birthday. Turt, no stranger to celebrations, trumpeted a musical medley in time to the singing and bell ringing. Brer Frog drummed Turt’s shell with reeds. Giant stooped, patted Cow’s head and said. “May your milk be the creamiest and all your calves grow to gentle heifers or raging bulls.”

Squirrel cut the cake with a sturdy twig and put slices on big oak leaves for everyone. Squirrel, Raccoon and Beaver were gathering acorns to scoop water from the pond for drinks. But Cow said to Turt, “Could you help me? An occasion like this calls for milk. And I’ll provide it.”

Turt’s fin-claws were cold, but always gentle. He grasped her udder firmly. ‘SQUISH, SQUISH, SQUISH.’ In just a few shakes of Cow’s tail, a gourd was filled as a pitcher. Brer Frog did the pouring into the acorns and the milk and cake were served.

A great Lindian Woods celebration!

Little did the Woodland creatures know their gift of sound would play a big part in their dear Cow’s life one day – and very soon.

PART II: COW’S FATE

The next day.

Cow’s hoof stuck to the railroad track as she crossed it to get to the greenest grass she had ever seen. The great steel train was bearing down. Since Cow’s moo sounded just like the railroad’s whistle that was telling her “CLEAR THE TRACK! CLEAR THE TRACK!” no one in the Lindian Woods realized she was calling for help.

“The Bell!” She told herself. Cow began swaying her neck in wild motions.

‘CLANG! CLANG!’ All her friends from the Lindian Woods heard. They came crawling, hopping, running, and skipping to see what was happening. Frer and Brer Frog moistened her hoof with their slime. Hawk swooped and fanned her wings to get the frog juice oiling between hoof and track. The Ten Otters scooched besides the railing and pulled in unison.

Others of the woods cawed, brayed, and chirped encouragement. “Pull Cow! Pull! Hurry! The long, rattling monster will be on you in only seconds.”

With but moments left, Cow moo-d, her loudest ‘MOO’, ever. Just before the train arrived, she yanked free. She, Brer and Frer, Hawk, and the Ten Otters tumbled safely away.

And that’s how the expression, “saved by the bell”, came about: Or, so tales Captain Polly.

(Read more of Turt and Captain Polly in the novel, Tales of Fiction House. 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.)

©2014 Raji Singh

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

No. 94: FATHER’S DAY SCENTS AND SENSIBILITIES

Posted on June 14, 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)

PART I – FATHERS’ SENSIBILITIES

I am James Thaddeus Fiction, the Fifth – a true Fiction. Typhoon tears me from my parents and my realities strip away. I enter another world, one of imagining, surviving. Eventually new, loving parents, Dr. Ben and Indira Singh, take me in. Now I am Raji.

But, before then…

*     *     *

The ironies of my foundling fate blessed me with three additional males to consider Fathers.

I wish on no other person the brutality – the disregard and abuse – that most in my situation must become part. I desire for all, the kindness and trinity of paternal love my other Fathers offer.

One of them, I conjured in my imagination, to ferry me through my lonely times. Who could be a more sensible guide? He too had been a foundling.

The second is real, but not human: He – an offshoot species akin to a giant land-sea turtle, a multi-centarian – is named Turt. Charles Darwin writes of him in Fiction House Publishing’s The Beagle Has Landed, ‘He is no turtle, yet they call him TURT. page 21, Chapter 19, Verse 23.

Turt was my salvation. He ferried me to shore atop his shell, and then through the dangers in the deep Lindian Woods – animals of prey, humans of prey – before delivering me to the Father who would raise me. So I might survive the journey, Turt demonstrated the sensibilities of foraging: How to sneak up on fish as only his kind could, and then how to bake them on sun burned hot stones.

My third Father, you might be hard-pressed to guess if he is human or animal if you met him in the Woods, which Turt and I did. He dressed part tiger – part man, his actor’s persona. His name is Balu Baiku. A travelling troubadour, he lived and breathed the ancient art of the Tigerman, melding cat-sly movements with human dance. His gift is that of creating a meditative calmness in his audience, peaceful as any Gregorian chant.

This sensibiliity – that he demonstrates to Turt and me to this day – taught me how to soar above my ill fate, and reach the crescendos of joy and love we all desire.

The sensibilities of my Fathers, of most all our Fathers: Where would we be without them?

PART II – SCENTS OF THE FATHERS

The first Father I described, his name James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’ Fiction, he was my great great grandfather. I met him only in my imagination. Names, we no longer share, but his position I inherit, editor of Fiction House.

Late at night in the office, he yet comes to me, as when I was a Woodland foundling. I know it is he when the warm hand rests comfortingly on my shoulder and I smell the smooth brandy and rich cigar mix of his breath. No mistaking that scent, it still permeates the walls and trimwork of Fiction House though he ascended from his worldly realm many decades ago.

I imagine I hear Blackjack’s Editor-Godlike edict, his words peppered with the ‘Come on. Take a chance’, sensibilities of publishers, from the dawn of Stone-Age tablets, up to tablet e-books of today. He proclaims. “For every six queries you reject, My Son, you must accept one.”

Then he’ll josh, because Blackjack is no humorless Editor-God.

“There might just be a whale-of-a-tale in those endless seas of words. Never forget, I let Melville slip through my nets when I should have harpooned Moby and just reeled him in.”

The Fiction House roots stem from the burgundy incense of the tobacco leaf of which Blackjack became so fond. As a boy in the 1820’s and early 30’s he made a steady income as a reader in cigar rolling factories – cavernous, giant humidors along the piers of old Cincinnati. High on a stool above the tables he sat Lord-like, relaying the great literature of the day to hundreds of anxious listeners. Six cents of a worker’s daily incomes was tithed to Blackjack. Morale, production, most important, a desire to be literate skyrocketed among workers and their families.

Born, is just one of many future markets for Fiction House Publishing’s books.

I imagine – a sixth sense, if you will – that I have much in common with Father #1, my g-granfa Blackjack. One of them however, never will be smoking. I’ve no desire to have smoldering embers near my face, nor whatever impurities they may contain, to penetrate my body.

That same desire cannot be said for Fathers Two and Three. (To each his own…)

Turt, more than once I can remember him pulling some unknown-to-me thin-leafed plant to a campfire, and imbibing of that acrid wafting smoke he draws deeply into his strongbox lungs, his deep-shelled air pockets. A bleary of eye look always follows, and then comes the munching upon whatever slithery thing he can find that crawls nearby.

I suppose there are no laws in Lindia or any of the 50 United States governing what Turt’s species may smoke or devour.

Father Three, Tigerman, a sensible man, takes a sensible approach to the scents he inhales. An ancient ‘smoke’ from Lindia, the ‘Krekal’, is his choice. Made of sage and rolled in light paper, its addictive properties lie only in the pleasantly savannah-arid aroma it produces, and the calming ‘krekal, krekal’ sounds the smoldering leaves makes. It is like the clatter of a roller coaster continuously striking its track. Only, it is nearly silent.

When Tenille, our children, and I go to a carnival, I cannot help thinking of Father Three. Listen! In those briefest of moments that there is quietude along the midway, and there always is, I hear ‘krekal, krekal’. I breathe deep. Midst the sweet wafting of kettle corn and cotton candy, I detect the sharp piquancy of krekal. I peek like an ever-curious youngster, into all the show tents. I am just sure I’ll find my Tigerman performing. I cannot wait to see him again.

*     *     *

These other Three Fathers of mine: The scents and sensibilities they evoke meld as one – INTO LOVE.

I close my eyes. I sense their presence even when they are not there. Because of them, I am never a lonely foundling.

Thank you, Three Fathers. And, of course, Father Ben, and my late father too.

 

(Read more of my Fathers in the novel, Tales of Fiction House. 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.)

©2014 Raji Singh

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POST NO. 94: DRONE TATTOOS – AT LAST, THE INSCRIPTIONS TAKE FLIGHT

Posted on June 6, 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)

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. As an adult I return to my roots – as editor and archivist of Fiction House.

*     *     *

Here at Fiction House Publishing the intrigue of the surreal outer body experience of tattooing grips us: been so for nearly two centuries. The inspiration for these needly imprints is a long-lived land-sea creature akin to a giant Galapagos tortoise.  We call him ‘Turt’. He’s ever anxious to set sail on some voyage so he is an on again off again resident of the Fiction House.

Turt’s an all-around family friend.

A succinct description of Turt comes in the 1830’s by one of Fiction House’s former authors, Charles Darwin in his seminal work The Beagle Has Landed.

Sir Charles theorizes. ‘There is artwork on his shell. It is Exquisite! Like those of sailors who are completely illustrated. Surely, it is the work of the finest tattoo visionaries.’

My theory is that people want to add their personal avant-garde graffiti to Turt because, like a message in a bottle, some stranger in some strange land one day will see what their mind’s eye has to say.

I have always hankered to have a tattoo of at least just one of the images gracing my pal Turt.

Tenille says, “No Raji. If you get one, the children will be pestering me for one. No, I say. Not until they are 18. Then they may do as they choose.”

Hmm! I want to say, “But I am over 18,” but I dare not.

Still, to have even just one of Turt’s images on me is so beckoning. Turt’s been around long as I can remember. I guess maybe that he’s the big brother I never had. Maybe I want to emulate big bro, at least just a little.

Is that so wrong?

As I archive the writings of Fiction House Publishing, I’ve been coming across notes my Russian immigrant great grandmother, Shelva made concerning one of the House’s hired hands concerning an alternative form of tattoos. It is interesting, but kooky. Seems most all of his – his name is Efraim Ephraim – his ideas fit into the category of kooky.

‘Ach! This Efraim,’ g-granma Shelva writes. ‘He thinks he can train butterflies. To carry on their wings at night – fireflies. The firefly blinks will illuminate onto his arms multi-butterfly hues. And the scent of the firefly-warmed butterfly flutters will make him smell as if he’s his own personal perfume factory.

My Pet Calico (©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

My Pet Calico
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

‘“I tell ya Mz. Shelva,” mine dupa hirert handEfraim Ephraim he says to me, “I’ll be an irresistible, sweet-smelling work of art to all the single ladies when I promenade down Mainstreet at night. I’m sure to find a wife afore summer is over.”

‘Ach! That Efraim. Pretty soon he will be wanting to ride downtown, upon Turt’s shell. He’ll want his butterflies and fireflies to carry paper-thin mirrors so he can project Turt’s tattoos onto himself. So he can garner a whole harem with his ever changing array of body markings.’

I say to myself after reading g-granma Shelva’a analysis of the situation. “Hmm! Kooky as it all sounds, maybe there’s something here to consider. No, not with the wife, the harem, the butterflies, or fireflies. But with the tattoos.”

As the taletellers say, “Well, to make a long story short…” I know now how I can have a Turt tattoo for myself, many of them, and, ever changing. The 21st century’s new technology will allow it. Better yet! Tenille cannot object.

I take the projection idea and discard the rest of the kookiness. The result: My own miniature drones, tinier than any butterflies.

They ferry minsiscule cameras, almost microscopic compared to a firefly.

Circling me constantly, they project onto my skin pictures of the tattoos that bless Turt.

I’ll not mind the myriad of onlookers who will stop to gawk at me. I’ll just pitch them on my Non-Indelible Tattoo System, NITS (patent pending) that they and you too, soon, may order from Fiction House Publishing for a reasonable price (plus shipping and handling).

Be the first on your block, in your city, possibly in your state to own it. (Not legal in the state of Vermont, or the cities of Cincinnati, Ohio, or International Falls, Minnesota.)

(Read more of Turt in the novel, Tales of Fiction House. 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.)

©2014 Raji Singh

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No. 93: HOW I GOT MY NEXT THOUSAND OR SO TATTOOS – TURT’S STORY (repost)

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Raji Singh

by Raji Singh (editor-archivist, Fiction House Publishing)

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)

If my pet friend Turt, a giant land-sea creature, could write, this tale he would scribe…   

I experienced unparalleled bliss as the kind ‘two-leg’ gently carved the very first tattoo into my shell.  The “scritch, scritch” scratched incessant itches beneath my shell.

Ecstasy!

I was hooked.  So I allowed other two-legs to satisfy my craving whenever possible.

Of course, even my ‘super’ dome isn’t large enough to hold so many tattoos – paintings, drawings, carvings.  Most wear or wash off as decades pass.  Strangers add new ones.  I am an easy target.

The “swish, swish” of their brushes is always – Nirvana massage.  Feels like when I roll around in a forest of coral.  A pencil point’s poking – It’s not as rough, but just as effective acupuncture to my shell as a shark’s futile “clackety” chomps on it.

I can’t say why humans want to mark me.  What creature ever knows what a two-leg thinks from one moment to the next?  Maybe magically, mystically, both the male and female of the species are drawn to my artworks as I crawl along a riverbank or float in some peaceful inlet.

I ask myself.  A future artiist, yet another, surrealist Man Ray wanna-be, tarries my way?’  I smile as he or she rows out or walks up to me.  A look of anticipation canvasses their face.  The air seems slightly warmer around them – from the rise in their body temperature – from that anticipation.

The two-legs have a common scent at this moment.  It penetrates my sapient nostrils.  Reflexively, I clench the muscles in my beak-snout, because the smell is the acrid stink of an oil slick coat upon the ocean.  But worn by the two-leg it is a perfume of sweet, fresh life – not the old moldy of million-year old dinosaur decay.  So, now I breathe deeply.

How can I sense all this:  By my centuries of contact with the two-legs:  Big, little ones I encounter throughout my travels:  black, brown, red, white, yellow ones.  If I don’t see, smell, feel these things, as they approach, then I am wary.  Then my natural defenses make me impregnable, uncatchable.  I shell-up, or I submerge and swim away.

Otherwise, I am never afraid.  I look forward to the two-leg’s humming, singing, poeticizing, philosophizing, as they paint, pencil-mark or carve.

So that they can tell their stories on some clear space on my plating – that is a most wonderful feeling of sharing for me.

Maybe two-legs yearn to leave their imprint in this world, like their ancient ancestors, the cave wall drawers, and mountain rock carvers that my forbearers may have observed.  Perhaps I’m as a message in a bottle to them.  Their ideas transport by sea to faraway lands.  Maybe it helps them make sense of their life – for at least, that moment in time.

In the end, it doesn’t matter.  The itches beneath my shell are relieved, and, the two-leg camaraderie is pleasing.

~ ~ Editor note:  I can attest to Turt’s numbers on the tattoos.  In my archiving of the Fiction House, I’ve uncovered a virtual plethora of pictures of Turt taken by staff photographers, by my great-great grandfather, James Thaddeus ‘Blackjack’, and by my great grandfa, granfa, and fa.

All show different pictures emblazoned on his shell from one decade to the next:  From the many sketches, paintings, and carvings of Turt by his renowned artist-friend Kunta from the early 1800’s; to the mid-century, glossy daguerreotypes of Turt, where other images decorate his shell.  Onto Matthew Brady credited Civil War era photographs of Turt, into the 20th century vivid 35 mm Leica, onto instant Polaroid, finally to my sterile digital – the distinct markings show an always-changing Turt-shell into the 21st century and beyond.

Enough images for us to form a separate gallery for them in the Fiction House Museum.

A wing in the gallery is dedicated to the painting on canvas of Turt in his wrap of shell art.  They are works by mostly unknowns.  But over the years the Fiction House has purchased early canned Warhol’s, pancake droopy Salvador Dali’s, and blotchy Jackson Pollack’s – of Turt, before prices for those artists’ works rocketed stratospheric.

Just possibly, we may be in possession of a rare, though not yet verified, color-full starry night of a Van Gogh, Turt.  (We’re wishing on those stars).

ROCKETING STRATOSPHERIC AT THE FICTION HOUSE: 

For the kids and the sake of, kitschy, we’ve included a number of 1950’s era pristinely kept Japanese movie poster by the noted graphic artist, Yoshira Kergasi, where Turt is  the jet-packed model for Gamera Saves Tokyo Harbor from Codzilla – and its many sequels that Turt appeared in. ~ ~

    …While strolling along an isolated Tokyo dock one eve, dozens of skinny, camera toting two-legs waylay me.  They strap rockets to my shell.  3, 2, 1, blast off…

~ ~ editor note, little did Turt know he was being made a non-voluntary stand-in for an  animatronic Gamera who’d short-circuited in the fog. ~ ~

…As I fly through the sky, air, not a care, have I.

Sayonara for me – NAY!

Domo Arigato – YEA!  I’d do it a thousand times more.

Any sweet Terry-pins out there game for a ride of their lifetime, contact me at Tales of the Fiction House.com.  This could be the beginning of a highflying shell romance.  Don’t be wary, Terries.  You can read and learn all about me, in my friend Raji’s book Tales of the Fiction House.

©Raji Singh, 2012

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No. 92: PET DATING SERVICE GOES VIRAL (A HEADLINE WE’D LIKE TO SEE)

Posted on May 30, 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)

In celebration of National Pet Month, we’d like to refer you to what your pet REALLY needs! (Repost)

*     *     *

Want to find the best mate for your Rex or Ol Tom?  Here at Fiction House Publishing we’re considering a new idea, online matching for critters.

“Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.”

“Trot it around the track.  Will it make the finish line?”

No!  Madison Avenue testing cliche’s are not good enough here!  Our pets are too important to be left to an advertising committee.  Got to go right to our creatures to discover the Mr. or Ms. Right for them.’

Here is how I believe my lifelong friend, Turt, would fill out the forms to find his perfect soul mate.  (with a few of my own minor insertions to embellish his desirability)

Have some fun.  Try answering along with the questions with your pet-friend in mind.

Question 1.  WHO AM I? 

Call me, Turt (for that is what is written on my shell).  I am a titanic, half-land – half-sea creature.  A Trumpeter.  From the island of Jericho.

My friend Charles Darwin termed my species, turtus trumputus.

~ ~ Editor note:  see Darwin’s The Beagle Has Landed, page 81, verse 19, line 22, ‘He is no turtle, yet they call him Turt.’  Fiction House Publishing, 1838.  (soon to be added to FHP online library.)  ~ ~

Question 2.  WERE YOU HATCHED OR BORN?

Hatched.  In what two-legs call the year, 1800 I’m still strollin’, floatin’ some 200 years later.  I’m crusty, but spry.

Question 3.  WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST MEMORY?

My tribes’ trumpeting sounds.  They turn heavenly harp as they scythe through thin grass blades and then scale the lushly forested mountains.  Just one word two-legs have for the ascending crescendo – BEATIFIC.

~ ~ Darwin – from his journal:  ‘After studying fossil remains on Jericho Island, and reading the Captains’ logs from a multitude of exploratory ships, I have come to the conclusion that, for millennia, the population of Trumpeters was in the hundreds of thousands.’  ~ ~

Question 4.  WHAT ARE YOUR MOST VIVID MEMORIES? 

That’s E-Z.  Those of my halcyon shell-ing days:

a. Smelling the baked pungency of seaweed marinated with jellyfish and crab corpse as I crawl the warm crystalline beaches of Jericho.  (What sweet Terry-pin wouldn’t just love such a moonlight dine!)

b. My first foray into burbling and swirling tide-pools.

c. Staring for hours at the mirror-clear estuary, and seeing myself swimming there for the first time.

d. Watching a shell-ing my age and size being scooped by a flyer and taken away, forever.  The glee I felt because it wasn’t me.  (So wrong a feeling, I now know.)

Question 5.  DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE CREATURE FRIEND?

Indeed.  Her name is Captain Polly.  Strictly platonic, ladies.  Who among creature or two-leg can say they’ve a 200 year long pal-ship, despite OUR rancorous beginnings – of wanting to ‘murtilate’ each other.  (Read of how we met in Chapter 27 of Raji Singh’s Tales of the Fiction House.)

NAME YOUR MOST DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: 

Fin-claws.  I can crack lobsters in the fronts, and coconuts in the rear – simultaneously.  Ladies, I am distinguished but I am no weakling.  For you more mature ladies – my top shell may be slightly greyer, but, upon your swaying oyster bed, I’ll be a stay-er.

Beak-snout.  Ditto that vice-wrench capability.

Shell:  So voluminous, if hallowed out, heaven forbid, could hold a hundred Captain Polly’s.

Tattoos:  I shall show you them, ALL, EVERYWHERE, when you’ve gotten to know me more intimately.

IDEA OF THE PERFECT DATE:

Sl-o-o-o-w moonlight strolls on a Johannesburg beach with a shell-endowed bachelorette Terry-pin.  Purpose:  Romance, sl-o-o-o-w and steady.

LIKES: 

Riding out a rambunctious typhoon in the Gulf of Mexico.  So vivid the sights, sweet Terry: ‘See the seahorses gallop to the safety of their coral corrals…’  Few greater physical pleasures than swirling plankton being swept along your under-shell.

Sliding down South America’s Iguazu Falls.  Nothing beats the slapdash spirit of onrushing waters.  Come, swim with me, sweet Terry.  And feel my spirit.

TURNOFFS:

Pirates of the late 1700’s who decimated my picaresque island for the bounty that was Trumpeter shell, eyes, meat.  Clubbing, splitting us open; gathering us into gunnysacks, buckets.  As a shell-ing, I watch as my ma and fa are… auugh… To this day, I cannot think about that final dreg raid.

     ~ ~ Editor note:  see, Tales of the Fiction House for a full account.  ~ ~

MOST INTIMATE THOUGHTS:

Am I the last of my species?  That is why I travel.  Searching.  Is there another of my kind out there.  Somewhere on the earth or in the sea?

‘On new shores I trumpet my anxious call, then wait, fearing there are no more of my kind to hear.  I listen.  No answer.  With fin-claws, I scrape the sand.  I sniff.  No familial soothing dank pungency to assure me my own were here or still might be in existence?  My blare resonates with my melancholy.’

The dreg raid haunts me for the first few decades of my life.  To this day I only ‘live with it.’  I can never forget.

LIFE’S TURNING POINT: 

The day I encountered my first Fiction.  The ‘throw ‘im back’-size four-year-old was appropriately called Carper by my friend the ancient Mariner.  Carper was an orphan-foundling as I.  We bond – closely as any creature and two-leg can.

~ ~ editor note – read the account of Carper, my g-g grandfather and his now best friend in Tales…~ ~

YOUR ALTRUISM:  (I mustn’t be modest.)  Watching over the Fiction line for well over a century and a half.  Their guardian, their protector – their ‘watch-trumpeter’.

This completes the online dating form.  Please add any information you’d like that a future mate might find helpful in selecting you.

HOW I GOT MY FIRST, MY FAVORITE TATTOO:  The renowned artist, Kunta, the two-leg who found me, took me in,  carved his African village into me when I was a shell-ing and he a tad-ling.  I’m proud to still wear it.

© Raji Singh 2012

(Read more of Turt in the novel, Tales of Fiction House. 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.)

©2014 Raji Singh

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

No. 91: THE TALE OF THE CREATURE WHO SAVED ME

Posted on May 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 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)

I am James Thaddeus Fiction, the Fifth – a true Fiction. Typhoon tears me from my mother and father on board a sinking ferry near the Lindian coast. I alone survive. I become an orphan foundling, taken in by new loving parents Dr. Ben and Indira Singh. Now I am Raji.

I owe my life to my dedicated pet.

*     *     *

Turt purges air pockets within his shell that keep him afloat. He submerges, swims to the ferry, and surfaces beside it. Typhoon escalates from teen rage to manhood’s force. Gale winds, screaming, tilt the ferry. Turt realizes he must trumpet warning to alert the two-legs.

Turt extends neck and blasts his trill. Steady chords, the consistent somber of a foghorn but with a carillon’s tone, resonate, beatific as Gabriel’s herald. It pulls passengers from Typhoon’s trance and helps them briefly forget their sudden fear, petty concerns, and animosities; enables them to look deeply at those they care. Turt is reassured. Humans truly aren’t the uncaring beasts many creatures believe.

Typhoon slaps the sea, thundering curses at Turt for purloining his audience. Smug, theatrically temperamental, Typhoon’s certain he will control the final act.

Only the Fictions know the meaning of Turt’s ominous trumpeting. Last they heard it – at the river nightmare before Turt fetched drowning James. Once again, they’re given moments, precious ones, to take son to bosoms; final moments to say, “I LOVE YOU!” Moments spent dreading, but spent together. James squirms, not understanding.

Pandemonium erupts around them. Deck chairs, Typhoon’s surrogate jaws and fangs, gobble up their occupants. Poles, hoisting multi-colored flags of the seven seas, do Typhoon’s bidding. They snap then swipe into ducking passengers.

Dr. Fiction helps his wife toss out microscope, stethoscope, and medicine from the trunk. They push their confused boy between documents and packing material so he’s egg carton firm. Butterflies burrow close to him.

From fear, from wildly racing heart, James drifts in and out of consciousness. He feels his mother’s kiss. Father’s hard, wet cheek touches his for an instant, but it seems like for a whole life. His breath brushes James’ ear. “I love you, Son.”

There’s a deafening thunder-bust. Son barely hears father, “Obey Turt”.

James closes his eyes and drifts into the calmness of imagination.

Dr. Fiction glares out to sea. He knows Turt watches, and, because of their lifelong friendship, he knows Turt can read his expression, ‘Deliver James, old friend.’

The ferry boat begins breaking apart. Dr. and Mrs. Fiction and other passengers are catapulted overboard. The trunk thunks into the sea. A thousand minus one will die on this dark day. Turt lunges, catching the rope attached to the trunk. ‘I’ll tow James to atop Typhoon’s 70 foot wave.’

Atop it is the safest place, Turt knows. He waits coolly, calmly. When the wave’s angle is gentlest, he bows neck, tucks fin-claws and belly-rides to the crest. Typhoon whips, spits, but cannot wrench away the lifeline to the towed trunk, nor dethrone Turt.

Turt ‘shell-rides’ the curl. Suave, debonair as he hangs ten, he deflects bodies, boards and banana boxes Typhoon spits-out to sink them. Typhoon’s rage is futile.

Turt doesn’t know how saturated the trunk is getting. Midst sea’s clamor, he can hear little boy rasps but no ‘baby’ whimpers. ‘Yes, this is a true Fiction,’ Turt beams.

He knows his canyon-peak precipice is unreachable. He feels he can almost stretch, and tear down Typhoon’s curtain of black clouds. He has outlasted, defeated Typhoon.

I LIVE. TURT HAS SAVED ME!

(Read more of Turt in the novel, Tales of Fiction House. 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, Short stories, Uncategorized, Whimsey, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

No. 90: PET TO HUMAN DEDICATION – WHY WE HAVE NATIONAL PET MONTH

Posted on May 27, 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)

I am James Thaddeus Fiction, the Fifth – a true Fiction. Typhoon tears me from my mother and father on board a sinking ferry near the Lindian coast. 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.

*     *     *

‘CALL ME TURT

‘For that is what is written on my shell. I too am a foundling. A kind human took me in as a shelling. On new shores, I trumpet my anxious call, then wait, fearing there are no more of my kind to hear. I listen. No answer. With fin-claws, I scrape the sand. I sniff. No familial soothing dank pungency to assure me my own were here or still might be in existence? My blare resonates with my melancholy.’

SUMMER, 1966

Turt’s leathery head, the shape, the size of a football, bobs above the glassy Lindian Ocean surf. He notices that absent suddenly are the screams and strafing of gulls. ‘Flyers know things,’ Turt thinks, ‘something is amiss.’

Octopi carcass oils pucker Turt’s tongue as they skim past his beak-snout. Blue water fleetingly shines vermillion then dulls. Clear sky mirrors the change. Turt’s sea-senses, honed over the past century-and-a-half, warn of these signs no ‘two-legs’, humans, could recognize: ‘Young Master Typhoon is born, grows beyond the horizon. Snake-sly is he. In a blink, those white-capped fangs will grow deadly. He will devour all who are upon the sea.’

Ordinarily, Turt welcomes riding out a typhoon’s rambunctious nature and thrills at their slapdash spirit. Today he is wary. For Turt is on a mission. He shadows a ferry, the Bashri Raku, to protect three passengers, Dr. James Thaddeus Fiction IV, his wife, their four-year old James the Fifth.

They are taking a two-year Peace Corps leave of their free clinic in Cincinnati that treats the city’s growing number of Lindian immigrants. They hope to recruit a Lindian – a Dr. Singh – to practice in Cincinnati and help them better understand his people’s ways.

Turt has vowed the Fictions eventual safe return to their home half-a-world away.

The family knows Turt is near, though he seldom surfaces. Faithfully, he has followed, down the Ohio, Mississippi, through the Gulf, out to sea. He dines quite nicely on sumptuous scraps the cooks toss overboard, and delicacies that swim too close. Whenever some curious critter queries ‘Whither thou goest, Traveler?’ he explains, then adds, ‘In strange lands, best I follow quietly – lest I end up in two-leg soup served in mine own shell.’

A LOYAL HOUND IN ARMOR TO GENERATIONS

Most of his life, this giant of sometimes land, sometimes sea, has looked after the Fiction line. It started with helping protect the patriarch, the foundling James Thaddeus Fiction, the Carper, 140 years earlier, from all variety of nemesis – man, animal, nature.

At a picnic two years before now, Turt rescued impetuous James V (that’s me, Raji) after he stripped off britches and skimmed quietly into the Ohio. Turt slipped quickly from bank, coursing swiftly to the rescue. Submerging, rising, he emerged with the boy fish flopping atop his shell. He delivered James safely to shore, to frantically searching parents who had looked away for ‘just seconds.’

Why does Turt do this? Quite simply, pet-to-human dedication: He is a loyal hound-in-armor to generations. Only those animals with the freest of spirit, as Turt, choose this highest form of be-knighted pet-hood. Turt has seen all the Fictions’ frailties, foibles, faults, traits that turn humans from one another. Of all pets, only the most loyal fully sense these things, never understand them, always forgive, and make fidelity, as Turt does, paramount. Turt’s bond to the three on board has been fused, hardened, and forged through generations.

Humans would call it love.

Turt will not let even the most powerful Master Typhoon pull it asunder.

But the sky reddens, ripples patter the Bashri Raku’s stern – nudging, warning, ‘The Sea is MINE.’ Belligerence rapidly grows as Typhoon reaches adolescence. Now, waves batter. Wind slaps. ‘All in it, or upon it, belong to ME!’

Next Time:  THE TALE OF THE CREATURE THAT SAVES MY LIFE

My Pet Calico (©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

My Pet Calico
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

(Read more of Turt and Calico in the novel, Tales of Fiction House. 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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