The Boatman: Part Three of Three

With a full mind to throwing herself body and soul into the river that would be her grave, the young woman flew into a bitter despair and flung her pouch, tearing its strap, at the silt of the shore. It burst open, spilling all that was in it; coins were hurled into the reeds, others hit dry ground and rolled; gems and jewels, gold and silver lay scattered all around. Her poems fluttered in the slightest of breezes and her sketches of Spain grew blotched with the damp. Her attention was nowhere, but Jones looked keenly at this conflagration of beads and personal effects. His gaze was drawn immediately to near the very centre of the spread.

Had she been looking in this instant, she would not perhaps have understood its meaning, but the crisp, clear, solar gleam of the apple could not have escaped her notice. Indeed, when she did turn in the midst of her pain, she froze, despite herself, in a scarcely witting wonder. She had picked that apple, or an apple from the usual tree, and placed it with her bread and cheese as had become habitual; it was lunch. She made no sound nor moved for long enough to find her mind empty of thought when next she knew where she was.

“I believe you asked for passage?” said the boatman.

She said nothing.

“If your hunger can resist that particular portion of your meal,” and there was no need for him to gesture towards the apple, nor did he, “Then I shall allay your… worries, and take you aboard.”

She still said nothing, but turned to look at him, eyes wide and open.

“It won’t be a direct trip,” he warned, “As that payment would be too great for a simple river-crossing. But the return journey will be assured, should you wish for it. And yes, you can reach the other side, though I can’t guarantee a precise timeframe; there’ll be plentiful wine where we’ll be going, and so you shall certainly have the means to pay. It’s a feast, see?” he intoned what was almost a request.

She assented wordlessly, moving towards the boat. She grasped the apple, the light of which made even the copper coins shine in constellations. Everything else she left, without a thought to picking it up.

“And please,” said the boatman, “Call me Jones.”

The Boatman: Part Two of Three

This particular circumstance repeated itself on a number of occasions. The young woman tried carrying several flagons at a time, she tried transporting them in a basket, even once in a wheelbarrow, but always, in one way or another, the wine contrived to spill itself on the ground before she reached the boatman. Usually it was a simple case of the skin splitting (though there is nothing simple in the splitting of four or five seemingly well-made flagons in the course of one journey), but more than once the reason for the spillage was more surprising. For instance, one day a swan flew at her and she dropped her basket, another day she was knocked off her feet by a pack of handsome hounds as a bugle called someway behind, and the day she brought the wheelbarrow it was struck by lightning and escaped her grip, trundling into a fearsome ravine. She felt very unlucky, and exceedingly hard done by.

One constant, and it didn’t escape the young woman’s attention, was that the wine was always spilt nearer to her destination than to her point of departure. She assumed after a while that this was some mean, tantalising trick of fate, as sometimes she could hear the lapping of the river at the shore when the wine was spilt, so close was she to success. She never once made it to the edge of the woods, though, with a drop of wine left in her possession. She always, however, completed her journey and, with less optimism every time, tried to bargain with Jones. She offered many things; yet more money, more jewels, bread and meat, fur and feathers, even herself eventually, but the answer was always the same.

It was on the day that he spurned this last offer that she reached the very end of her tether and, weeping copiously, told Jones the following;

“You know my face well enough by now, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked you for passage. I’ll tell you now what I shouldn’t wonder you have long since guessed, and that is that my true love is on yonder bank, and that I mean to be reunited with him. Since he cannot know he would find me here, I daresay he’s given up hope, but a promise is a promise, and if you refuse to ferry me today, I shall swim, although that the water is wide and I shall certainly drown. I shall leave you my pouch with all of its riches, for better it remain with you, dear boatman, than that it drown with me. For while I lie clay-cold and eaten by fishes, it may yet bring me solace to think that perhaps you have made your way to town to buy wine with that money for the dry mouth that so afflicts you.”

Jones said nothing at first, but gave a wry chuckle. He looked for a moment or so at this young woman, miserably awaiting his response.

“My dear,” he said presently, “I hope you have a good lunch with you, as I would hate to think of you undertaking so arduous a task on an empty stomach.”

The Boatman: Part One of Three

Where Lethe forgets what it is and becomes Eridanos of no fixed designation, the water leaves the foggy gloom and is home to Nyami Nyami, merry snake with his basket of bread, and the banks are green; the Southern shore is the reflection of the fields of Aaru in earthier hues, still ripe with reeds; the Northern shore is Salley Gardens, where pleasant men weep silently to strains of The Waters of Tyne, strummed for coppers by Orpheus, on the lam with his lyre. Lethe remembers sometimes to dip her feet in the river that bore her name upstream, just to be sure it’s still moving. She’s on the Salley side. A jetty juts from either bank a little further downstream, where the meanders of Eridanos first mingle with the flowing of Ymir’s blood from the North Sea. For a flagon of wine, the boatman (Jones to his friends) will take you across from shore to shore. Throw in a golden apple, or even a simple apple crumble, and you might persuade him to take you out to sea, across chopping waves on his little wicker ferry, to the bay where cormorants swoop at the backs of fishermen unawares, the shore where the first of the Eastern guests, the Three Pure Ones and Rostam the champion, have already crossed the beach and are on the road that will take them to the Court of King Jelly Roll, for the feast.

A young woman came down to the jetty one morning where Jones sat smoking his pipe. They were on the south side.

“Boatman,” she said, and he looked up, smiling slightly, “Will you ferry me across the river?”

“Of course dear,” he said, “If you have the means to pay.”

“Certainly I do,” she said, reaching towards her pouch, “Should I pay you now or later?”

“Now, I should think,” said Jones, amusedly, “But what manner of vessel is that for transporting wine?”

Both were looking at the pouch, “It... isn’t,” said the young woman, “It’s full of money and such things.”

“Ah, yes. Hard currency. It’s wine I’ll be needing, though. That money stuff’s wasted on me, dear.”

“But I haven’t any wine,” she protested, “And I do have rather a lot of money, coins of all denominations, and traveller’s cheques too!”

It was no use, though, and Jones told her, kindly enough, to return again with wine, and passage would be assured. And so she headed off, somewhat frustrated.

The next day, or two days later, she arrived at the jetty just as Jones’s boat returned, unladen, from the other side. She walked down and crouched to repeat her previous request.

“Of course dear,” he said, “But I shall need a sip of that wine first, for it’s thirsty work being a boatman. More than you might realize. You do have the means to pay, yes?”

“I did…,” she began, hesitantly, raising the remnants of a flagon, “But it was spilt on the way…”

“Oh dear.”

“I was hoping, perhaps, to offer you this instead,” she said, holding out a diamond ring.

“Hmm,” pondered Jones, “I’m sure it’s pretty enough to look at, but I daresay it does very little for a dry mouth. It’ll have to be wine, I’m afraid.”

She sighed and headed off.

Rag Villa

First they take your shoes and what’s left is a sandal consciousness but you don’t have any sandals. New wine but old glass and everything is gravy in the inch-by-inch liquid atlas. What bird caged? Coloured feathers, the joy of the exotic, caged. The bird has human skin, red, yellow, brown and green. Feet rock on sheep and the bass; I’m lulled into drunk. Lion-drenched by worry for the leopards and they’re shaky in their trees, many greens. It really takes it out of me. I was carded then I fouled. The stars had to wink to catch the past. The second part is always slow. Something happened while I was away. Police tape and the ground froze. No one loves you like I do, right or wrong.

What stabs at style, a deep breath, you daren’t wear stripes today, you breathe. Inconspicuousness is a must for any private investigator or timid soul. What’s the sphere of your existence? Can you cross a ring-road more than three lanes wide? You’re in the middle.

From "Tell It To A Hound Dog, Pedro"

The Court of King Jelly Roll

In Bacchus’ name, lift up your spoons, for the season approacheth, little things. Even now, the reupholsterers are reupholstering chairs, purple and green. The physicians are smiling, the ladies are moist. King Jelly Roll is better, thanks be to God. The dead are buried, the table is set. Put on your hats and saddle your horses, for King Jelly Roll’s court is reconvened. The frosty veil is lifted, so come, the embarrassed and regretful, take off your clothes and thrash about wildly, in the manner of a boar in the throes of death. For, in faith, the winter’s boar does die for the summer’s pork. The thin gander swears an oath, and the fool is in the mixture. Shoots are shooting, boots are new, but the ceremony will be a barefoot affair. Do not sit down by the roadside facing the hedgerow when all the world is dead, and everything in it. For, in faith, that is the time to put your hand in your trousers, and the rod and the staff shall comfort you. The road is well lit, and is not very long. In the circle, four English leagues west of the wood where tall wolves groan, four English leagues north of the marsh where grass snakes consider, four English leagues east of the plain where women wish, four English leagues south of the bay where cormorants swoop at the backs of fishermen, the festival will be met. Forthwith, then, to the circle; wrap your wife in ivy. The leopard that was in the tree now stands on one leg in the centre of the circle, and, in faith, the tree stands proud on the leopard’s back. The nephews beloved of King Jelly Roll stand at the trestles of the five innermost tables, and no rope can bind them. The attendant nymphs shine like berries. From the nub of the mound, even now the first of the guests can be seen approaching. First among them is Brutus, and not least among them, Gog and Magog. King Jelly Roll has risen from his mossy sickbed. So lift up your spoons, in Bacchus’ name, for the feast.

Dinner with Roger and Christine

John and Sally, Roger and Christine took their places at the table. It was a surprisingly well-orchestrated affair; Christine had all the cooking done and dusted, and sat at the south-western end of the room, next to the kitchen door, ready to fetch in the various courses as and when necessary. The tone and general ambience were sombre, as befitted the occasion. Talk was vapid and perfunctory, drinking slow but steady. All were reasonably at ease.

Four or so hours into the evening, Roger noticed that John was without his customary chrome-plated glasses. He made a polite enquiry on the matter. John’s face fell visibly from its already neutral countenance. He related the following short tale, as Sally rested her chin on her fist, her eyes on a place mat;

“It was last Monday, just out in the garden reading a book – Madame Bovary, you know – minding my own business, when this… thing descended from I don’t know where. It was a bird, a big bloody crow. Went off with my glasses, of all things,” John let out an exasperated wheeze, “They were… well you know how… they were custom made and… Christ! I watched the godforsaken thing fly off, most satisfied, I shouldn’t wonder. And I’ll tell you what, it’s the same blasted bird I’ve given crumbs and what have you every day – every day – for I don’t know how long. And have I seen the bloody fiend since? I most certainly have not! It was biding its time no doubt…”

“Well,” interjected a nonchalant Roger, “You might say it’s become a scarce crow.”

Sally spat.

Black Olives: The Anatomy of Joy

I've never really been one for the black olive in the general existential hum drum, but stick 'em on a pizza, I'll drink 'em like gravy. The red grape's like that too. Eat one? Well, naturally I will (it's a while since I have) but I'd rather have a white one. At least I think that's the case, as it's a while since I had a red one; I'm not really a one for fruit, truthfully. So, yes, wine anyway - red every time, without equivocation, except with certain cheeses, though I forget which. I don't tend to be a one for eating and drinking in the same three minute period, truthfully.

What to surmise? Well, there's a process, certainly. That would explain it. And it does explain it. Black, Green; Red, White. Something happens, and I like it.

Were they fruit, I expect I could love these walls.

Discuss.