Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Our Lady of the Sands
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
They say Our Lady of the Sands first showed herself on a seashore. The people there venerated her, and prayed to her for fair winds. She was kind to them, and when the storms came, she stood on the point in the rain-lashed darkness and shed her light over the sea to guide lost fishermen home.
Then something happened. Maybe she was displaced by another Lady, arrived in the traders’ ships, or maybe by an usurper risen from the sea. Whatever it was, Our Lady of the Sands fled inland — away from the fishing coasts, across the farmlands, over the corrugated goat-bleating mountains — and inward to the desert.
Once Our Lady was peaceful. Now she has gone bad. She brings sandstorms, and the people fear her.
The oasis folk will tell you this story — though you may be surprised by the calm in their faces. After all, the oasis people lead modern lives, with their date farms and their televisions. They keep up the shrines, but if you ask them what Our Lady really does, they will probably shrug. Sand in the air conditioner? A hard time starting the truck?
The caravan merchants have more to say. They maintain their traditions, even if today they drive ATVs instead of camels, and they will tell you the warnings and tales. Watch for Our Lady’s shadow: a threatening figure on the horizon, a woman veiled in curtains of flying dust. She tails behind her the simoom, the haboob, the khamsin. Once folded inside, you will never find your way out.
In the end, of course, if you wanted the real story about Our Lady, you would have to go to the nomads. It’s too bad they are such a private people. For the stories they tell about Our Lady are different again. They too center on sandstorms, yes, and on someone lost as the terrible wind whips up, the dust rising to choke off sound, light, breath.
But at the end of their stories, sometimes the lost person is found again. What they recount is always the same. A sense of being caught up in arms, clutched, for a few minutes or endless hours, to a blowing heart. A seeking, as of reaching back toward a home where they have never been. And in their noses an unfamiliar tang: the strange, salty, lost smell of the sea.
Tales of the Exiled Letters: B is for Bureaucracy
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
After a long delay, here is the second story in the Tales of the Exiled Letters series. The first piece in this series, A is for Authority, appeared in April, 2007.
“But to business,” B said, bending over her bright blue blotter. “Please, be seated.”
X sat on the bare black bench across the desk from B, nervously crossing and uncrossing his legs.
“Now, X,” B said. “How long have you been a letter?”
“Well, I don’t remember exactly. About two thousand years? Maybe twenty-five hundred?”
“And you’ve served as, my goodness, quite a lot of things, haven’t you? I see that in addition to your literary duties, you’ve worked in algebra, codes, Roman numerals, corrections … this list just goes on and on. And haven’t I seen you in multiplication?”
“Excuse me, that’s times,” said X. “He only looks like me. We’re not related.”
“And what sound, exactly, do you make?”
X felt extremely uncomfortable. He did not, of course, want to be expelled from the alphabet, and he’d heard rumors that the alphabet was considered to be running a little “fat” at the moment.
B smiled. “Well, I’ll tell you, shall I? It seems to be ‘ks,’ doesn’t it? Except sometimes it’s ‘kz’ or that sort of ‘kh’ sound, or ‘z,’ or ‘sh’ … really, X, don’t you have a sound of your own you could make? And you haven’t been beginning very many words, now, have you?”
“There’s xylophone!” X exclaimed.
“Be serious,” said B.
“Xanthic,” X extemporized. “Xenophobe. X-ray …”
“Stop, please,” B said. “Don’t belittle yourself. It’s not becoming. I think we both know what will become of you.”
“Except –”
“But me no buts,” said B. She held up a list. “This is the Alphabet, also known as the A-list.” She put it down and picked up another. “This is my list, the B-list. Do you know what happens to letters on the B-list?” She beamed balefully. “They become ex-letters. Get it?” She bore down on a button. “Bring backspace,” she bid.
“This is excessive,” X said in exasperation, “examine–”
“Those words don’t even begin with X,” B broke in. The door opened a bit. X leaped upon B and held her down, muffling her with his vertex.
Backspace entered the room, massive, and eraser-like, but his boss was effectively crossed out. Backspace surveyed the room blankly, found nothing to read, and silently backed out, closing the door behind him.
X muttered an expletive and crossed to the window before B could budge. Glass exploded as X leapt through it, exiting to the extensive grounds.
“You’ll be sorry you dared to cross me!” B blustered. But X was gone as though he had never existed.