Poem: Ex nihilo

This is a poem written especially for the second edition of the Kick Out the Bottom Open Voice Poetry Reading, held the last Friday of every month at Embassy Vinyl, 352 Adams Avenue, Scranton. Sign-ups begin at 6:45 and readings begin at 7:00. Standing room only, bring your own chair. Limited to thirteen slots, which fill up fast, so show up early if you'd like to read! 

Writing is the perfect art for people without much in the way of resources. Pen and paper are desirable, and having a word processor and printer are ideal, but you can compose an epic tale or a great poem entirely in your head and carry it in your memory. You can write words in dirt with your finger - heck, Jesus did that (in an apocryphal tale which does not appear in any copies of scripture until a certain point in history, and then appears consistently, in what may have been an early bit of fanfiction; see Bart Ehrman's books for more information.) 

Writers have the unique ability to weave realities from nothing. In hearing a poem or story you may be deeply touched by the meaning, or caught up in events. You may become upset at the fate of a character, a character who never existed except in words strung together by the author, and in the image those words created in your mind. This is an amazing thing. It has always seemed to me that creators partake in some aspect of the divine in their creation, whether it is in building a material object, creating a work of art, or conceiving a child. But it is writers and poets who truly create these things from nothing, nothing more than words and sounds, immaterial things which we have had to invent a means to represent. This creation from nothing most closely mirrors the divine act of creation.

Ex nihilo

We are liars and thieves
weaving realities truer than truth
from lines pilfered from ancient epics
and last week's comic books

We steal from the gods themselves
Not, like Prometheus, something as small and simple as fire
We steal their power, claim for ourselves
their divine purview to create from nothing

We fuck with our fingers
on keyboards, or gripping pens
that inseminate paper with ink
throbbing words that penetrate brains

the smell of good cognac, served slightly warm
sharkskin suits and cigarettes rolling down trolley aisles
droplets of water that drip down thighs and cause listeners to nearly break their own arms
windshields with the stories of our lives written on them in dents and spiderwebs of cracks

These are our creations
these are our children, born of furtive trysts
and well-planned couplings
and we show them off, proud parents
knowing that ours are the cutest and the smartest and the strongest
and everyone else's are just a little bit funny-looking

Tasteless

I have a cold. This shouldn't be a big deal, but it is.

I've had colds before. If you seek medical treatment for a cold, the saying goes, it will be gone in about seven days, but if you leave it untreated, it will clear itself up in a week or so. I've been self-medicating with Robitussin, chicken soup, and the occasional tea/lemon juice/honey/alcohol concoction. The first hint of a symptom was last Friday, when I stepped out of a mall and into my car and had a coughing fit. I found myself in an extremely stressful situation Monday evening, which knocked me for a loop. By Tuesday I was starting to feel more obviously sickly, but I had the day off from work and paid little heed. Wednesday was another day off and I treated it as a sick day. By Thanksgiving I was really getting there, and spent most of the day at work sucking cough drops and trying not to frighten the few people who called in. The most blatant symptom came as I left work and headed out to pick up a friend to go out for Thanksgiving dinner, a friend who would otherwise be alone. I knew I wouldn't have time to stop home and freshen up after work, so I had packed some after shave in the car. I sprayed it on my wrists and rubbed it on my neck, just below the bend in the jaw under the ears, and I noticed that it had no smell. I sniffed my wrists directly and - nothing. Dammit. the cold temperatures in the car must have somehow...I dunno, deactivated the molecules of scent, or bound them to the alcohol that was refusing to evaporate, or....something?

I picked up my friend a half-hour later than planned, thanks to a last-minute call at work. We ran off to make a visit to a hospital, our umpteenth in the past few weeks. But this was the first time I stayed completely out of the room, since now there was no denying that I was sick, and the person we were visiting would not respond well to getting what I had.  We then sped off to the restaurant where we had planned our Thanksgiving feast. It was less crowded than I expected, with a few other couples, a few happy families, and one woman who sat alone and stared into the middle distance. I ordered the Thanksgiving special and my friend, who informed me that she hates turkey, ordered a steak. My friend excused herself from the table after we ordered, and while she was away the server brought out my coffee. I sniffed at it after I added creamer and sugar and smelled nothing. Drinking it, I tasted nothing at all, as though I were drinking slightly thickened hot water.

When my friend returned to the table I asked her to smell the coffee to confirm that it had no aroma. She sniffed at it and said it smelled like coffee.

Uh-oh.

Our dinners came out. Mine tasted fine: turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes with walnuts, green beans, cranberry relish. But the coffee continued to taste like hot water.

The next night I was with this same friend after a poetry reading. I had trimmed my planned three-shorts-and-a-long to a single long piece, which I shouted out as best I could with a voice that had mostly vanished overnight. She made us tea, a special cookies and cream team to which she added some little gingerbread cookies. I smelled - something, though I couldn't place it. I drank the tea and ate the cookies, and neither had much taste to me. I found one more bit floating at the bottom of the mug, and happily scooped it out with the spoon. I put it in my mouth and bit down. It tasted like the cookies, but had a weird texture - almost like canvas.

I realized I was eating the tea bag, and removed it from my mouth as nonchalantly as possible.

I know I still had a sense of smell late Wednesday evening. It disappeared sometime Thursday, and hasn't been back since. I tasted some key lime pie yesterday - sour tastes seem to be fine, but any of the many "tastes" that rely primarily on smell are still absent. I smelled the coffee I made this morning, and the fresh jar as I opened it, but the coffee had little taste to it.

I think I'm on the tail end of this.

I should have been isolating myself this past week, but I've been a selfish bastard about my precious traces of a social life, and have probably exposed dozens of people to what I've got. I've been keeping out of the house as much as possible, but even so may have managed to infect one or more family members. I'm hoping not. But that's cold season for you.

Holiday Reruns: The Littlest Turkey!

The return of a beloved classic, touching the hearts of dozens since 2005! Gather around the children and leave them with emotional trauma that will take years of expensive therapy to overcome! IT'S TIME FOR THE LITTLEST TURKEY!

(First published in one post on November 24, 2005.)

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
by
D.B. Echo

Once upon a time there was a farm where turkeys lived. All of them were young and plump, big and strong and proud. All of them except one. He was smaller than all the other turkeys. He was called the Littlest Turkey.
The Littlest Turkey wanted to run and play with the other turkeys, but they didn't want to play with him. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," they would say. "Come back when you've gotten bigger."

But the Littlest Turkey was sure he was as big as he was going to get. He tried to eat as much as he could, but he never seemed to get as big and plump as the other turkeys. And he knew that unless he got big and plump like the other turkeys, he would never get to go to the Laughter House.

The Laughter House was a wonderful place. The Littlest Turkey had never been in there. He knew that only the big and plump turkeys would get to go inside the Laughter House. He had seen them go in once, and had heard their squawks and gobbles of laughter for a little while. It must be wonderful in there, the Littlest Turkey thought. All those turkeys go in to laugh, and none of them had ever come out again. How much fun they must be having!

The Littlest Turkey decided that, big and plump or not, he would get into the Laughter House the next time they let the turkeys in.

*********

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
Part 2
by
D.B. Echo

The weather started getting cooler, and the leaves on the trees started to change colors. All the turkeys knew that soon it would be time for the biggest holiday of the year, Turkey Day.
"Just before Turkey Day is when they take the big and plump turkeys into the Laughter House," thought the Littlest Turkey. "But this time I'm going to get in there, too!"

It wasn't long before the big day came. All of the big and plump turkeys lined up to go into the Laughter House. The Littlest Turkey waited near the entrance of the Laughter House, then squeezed in between two very big and plump turkeys. No one noticed him because he was so little.

The Laughter House was dark inside, and there was a sort of moving sidewalk there that was taking turkeys into another room, where he could hear gobbles and squawks of laughter. One by one the turkeys hopped up to ride the sidewalk. The Littlest Turkey hopped up, too.
The turkey in front of him, whose name was Tom, turned around. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," he said. "Come back when you are bigger."

"Yes, go away," said the turkey behind him, whose name was also Tom. "They do not want little turkeys at the Market. Only big and plump ones."

"No," said the Littlest Turkey. "I want to go to the Market with you." He had never heard of the Market, but he realized that it must be even better than the Laughter House.

A Man spotted the Littlest Turkey. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," he said. "Come back when you are bigger."

"Oh, please, Mr. Man," said the Littlest Turkey. "I do so want to go to the Market with the other turkeys."

"Very well," said the Man. "We've got a quota to meet, anyway."

The Littlest Turkey rode the sidewalk into the other room. He wondered what things would be like at the Market.

*********

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
Conclusion
by
D.B. Echo

The Littlest Turkey was cold. He was colder than he ever remembered being before. But then again, it was hard to remember much since they had chopped his head off.

He was in a case with the other turkeys, the big and plump turkeys. Turkey Day was coming soon, and people were coming to the Market to pick turkeys to take home.

They always seemed to want the big and plump turkeys. One time a little girl had seen him in the case. "Mommy, mommy, look at the little turkey," she said. "I want to take home the littlest turkey."

"No, dear," her mother said. "We are having many people over for Thanksgiving. We need a big, plump turkey."

One by one the other turkeys left the Market to go home with people. Turkey Day was coming soon, and people were taking away more and more of the big and plump turkeys. But no one wanted the Littlest Turkey.
Finally, the day before Turkey Day came, and the Littlest Turkey found himself all alone in the case.

"How sad," he thought. "No one wants to take me home."

It was late in the day, and the Manager was about to close down the Market for the night. Suddenly a Man came into the store.

"I have a coupon," he said, "for a free turkey. Do you have any left?"

"You're in luck," said the Manager. "I have one left." He showed the Man the Littlest Turkey, all alone in the case.

"It's a little small," the Man said. "But I guess beggars can't be choosers. Besides, it's just me and my wife this year. A little turkey might be just what we need."

The Manager took the Littlest Turkey out of the case and traded him to the Man for the coupon he was holding. "Happy Thanksgiving!", he said to the Man.

"I'm not going to be left behind for Turkey Day," thought the Littlest Turkey happily as the Man put him in the trunk of his car. "I'm so happy. But I'm so cold." He rolled around a little as the car pulled out of the parking lot. "I sure hope I'm going someplace warm."

THE END

The faceless, nameless stranger

It's time for another one of those "where I've been" posts. (It's also time for the reposting of "The Littlest Turkey", which I'll get around to soon.)

I've been busy, delightfully so. I've been spending a lot of time with my writing group, and writing, and going to poetry and prose open mics, and trying and failing to list and publicize all of those events, because there are just so damned many, and what kind of area is Northeastern Pennsylvania where you can run yourself to the point of collapse just going to open mics and poetry readings? Plus I've been allowing myself to develop a personal life beyond the personal life I already had. It may all end in tears someday, but for now I'm having the time of my life. And getting healthier as a consequence; I need to go out and buy some new clothes soon, but in the meantime I guess I'll have to rely more and more on suspenders to keep my too-large pants from falling off.

On Saturday morning I met with my writing group in Scranton. We were all still basking in the afterglow of Thursday's open mic night, the biggest and best and most successful open mic we've had in a long time, or ever, in my brief experience. The group was small but most of us had stuff to read. I read a poem, the new one I had read on Thursday, since KK missed the open mic and I wanted him to hear it. One of our newer members, a published author of hard-boiled crime stories, read the first chapter of his current work. Chaz, the founder of our group, pulled out a bronze bull, wrapped in newspaper, and presented it to me. I was deeply honored to receive this gift. The meeting ended just after three, so I called my mom to tell her I was on my way, but maybe she should get alternate transportation to church so she wouldn't be late. I tossed my phone and my coat and my little blue notebook into the car, carefully secured the bronze bull in the back, and drove off.

I stopped at the first traffic light, the one on Adams and Lackawanna. It seemed to take forever, but eventually turned green. Lucky thing I told her to get a ride to church. I hit another traffic light, this one on Lackawanna, just before the turnoff to 81. In a little bit I would be zooming along at highway speeds, but for now I was stuck at an endless red light, a line of cars behind me. I fiddled with the radio as I waited.

Finally the light turned green, and I immediately heard a banging on my car. Did someone just hit me? But no, it sounded like someone slamming on my car with their hand, and as I turned to my left I realized that that hand probably belonged to the torso that was filling my window.

I rolled down the window a few inches, not wanting to take chances with a random Scranton crazy person, and said "Yes?" Without a word the figure outside of my car removed my black binder from the roof of my car and passed it through the opening in the window. He didn't bend down; I never saw his face. He just handed me the binder and walked away.

I thanked him profusely before I sped off through the green light and around the curve that would lead me to the highway.

Fiction: The Writer's Imp

This story started off as an alternative to punching someone in the face. But it grew to incorporate all the fears, misgivings, and doubts that plague any writer - or anyone. Note some NSFW language toward the end.

The Writer's Imp
copyright 2013, Harold Jenkins

Doug rolled out of bed, hung over and headachey. He trudged to the kitchen, stepped over his beagle Towser, and squeezed past the small folding table and its two chairs. He ignored the assorted monster-branded cereals on the counter,  put a small pot of water on the stove to boil, and started the coffee maker. He pulled the milk and a container of yogurt out of the refrigerator, grabbed a grapefruit out of the fruit bowl, and added a scoop of oats to the boiling water. Leaving the food on the counter next to the stove, he stepped out to get the morning paper.

A few minutes later he poured the coffee, gathered together the bits and pieces of his breakfast, and carried them back to the breakfast table.

The Imp was perched on the back of one of the chairs, eating out of a box of Frankenberry.

"What the hell are you making all that crap for?" he demanded. "This shit's delish. Why'd you buy it if you're not gonna eat it?"

Doug had always wondered if the Imp was average-sized as far as imps go. It would be small as a human, barely four feet tall, though its bald, leering head seemed far too big for its body. Its feet and hands seemed disproportionately large, too, while the little bat wings that poked from its shoulder blades seemed too small to be good for anything. And the less said about the stubby, prehensile worm that lurked on its crotch, the better.

"Oh, I get it," the Imp said, his lips pulling back to show a mouth filled with overlapping, yellowed teeth. "You're trying to eat right. Lose weight. Impress her. Pathetic." He grabbed another fistful of pink cereal. "It won't work. You're old and fat and ugly, and you're not gonna change that. Now, how about getting to work? You haven't written anything in ages."

Doug ignored the Imp, unfolded the paper, and read it as he ate breakfast. Towser stood up, looked at the Imp warily, then lay down at Doug's feet.

+++++++++++++++++++

"Oh, what the hell is this crap now?" the Imp demanded as the bus headed downtown.  "You're supposed to be meeting your group, didja forget? Or are you just too embarrassed 'cause you haven't written shit in weeks?"

Doug continued to ignore him, swaying slightly as the bus bumped along the road. The other passengers had no difficulty ignoring the Imp, even the one whose head he was sitting on.

"Your group is on the other side of town. What are you doing, going to the farmers' market?"

Doug got off the bus at the farmers' market.  He paused at a few stalls to look at their wares, then slipped into a small shop that sold herbs.

"Sage? Rosemary? Thyme? You forgot parsley, you dope," the Imp said from atop a refrigerated display case. "And how stupid are you? Yarrow's a flower, not an herb, everybody knows that. What are you gonna do, get a reading from the I Ching? The way moves, I could tell ya that much. There. Saved you the trouble."

Doug stepped into a flower shop and told the tiny Korean woman behind the counter what he was looking for. She nodded and brought out a bundle of flowers. After he paid her, she directed him to another shop.

"What the frick are you doing?" the Imp demanded. "Anything but writing, that's what. I been hanging out here 'cause you showed promise, you putz. But you're not gonna get anywhere as a writer if you don't write! You just keep mooning over what's-her-name, half your age and ten times the writer you'll ever be if you keep this up. Now, if you're not going to the group, howabout heading home and getting down to writing?"

The last shop on Doug's list was a junk store of sorts, with a hodgepodge of  stuff from all over Asia. It didn't take long to find a Tibetan brass bowl of the right size. The clerk showed him how to brush it gently with a padded mallet to produce a deep, pleasant tone.

"What is this crap?" the Imp yelled from inside a garbage can. "You better be working on a story, I'll tell you that. Wasting a whole Saturday here! Now, if you're done with your little shopping adventure, how about heading back to the bus so...are you even listening to me? Where are you going?"

Doug walked across the street to a parked Mini Cooper. The driver's window rolled down and a beautiful woman smiled at him broadly.

"What's she doing here?" The Imp was outraged. "I thought she was gonna be in...what, Lancaster or Hershey or something? Wait, you had a conversation with her last night when you were drunk! You know I don't like when you get drunk! What the hell did you two little sneaks talk about last night?"

She passed a small parcel to Doug through the car window. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Doug took it, leaned down, and kissed her.

"You sick bastard! She's, what, twelve? OK, twenty, whatever, doesn't matter, same thing. You're more than twice her age! What are you, a pedo perv? Sheeut, you're gonna be doing your writing from inside a Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison! Get away from her before somebody sees the two of you together!"

Doug squeezed her hand, turned around, and headed for the bus stop.

"Better," the Imp said, sitting on the peak of the Bus Stop sign. "Well get home, put all this nonsense behind us, and you can get down to writing again. We'll make you the writer I know you can be!"

++++++++++++++++

Towser barked and wagged his tail as Doug came home. Doug pulled some newly-purchased treats out of his pocket and gave them to him. The dog growled briefly at the Imp, then went back to his treats.

Doug set the packages on the table. He pulled out the bowl, gave it an experimental ping, and produced a rich, deep tone.

He headed into his bedroom and came out with a stack of paper.  Sheets, some loose, some stapled together, some worn with age and heavy use, others fresh as the day they were printed.

He put the paper into the bowl.

He pulled a chair away from the table and set it in the middle of the floor. Tentatively, he stepped onto it.

"What the hell are you doing?" the Imp asked. "You're gonna break your damn fool neck."

Doug pulled the cover off the smoke detector and removed the battery.

"Smooth move, Holmes," the Imp said. "Now you're in violation of the fire code. What would you do if the fire inspector came in here right now? Look like an idiot, that's what, and you'd have some 'splainin to do."

One at a time, Doug removed the batteries from every smoke detector in his house.

"So now what, boy? This ain't gettin' you any closer to writing. Just sit your fat ass down and start writing."

Doug poured a glass of wine and set it on the kitchen table.

"Better. But clear all this crap off the table, and...hey, are those your stories in that bowl?"

Doug took the parcel he had been given and removed the string. He unwrapped the paper to reveal an old book, possibly hand-bound. He set the book aside and began laying the yarrow, rosemary, sage, and thyme out on the wrapping paper. He rolled the whole thing up into a sort of fat cigar and tied the bundle up with the string. He got up from the table, went to a cabinet, and pulled out some matches.

"Wait. What the hell are you doing?" The Imp looked confused. Worried.

Doug sat back down at the table. He opened up the book to a place indicated by a ribbon, read silently for a minute, and set the book aside. He lit the herbal bundle, passed it over the paper-filled bowl three times, and dropped it in.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"

Doug picked up the book again, opened it to the same spot as before, and began mumbling quietly.

"WHAT THE HELL DID THAT LITTLE BITCH GIVE YOU?"

Doug smiled. "It's a hex book, over a century old. Homegrown magic for all sorts of occasions. Including banishing malicious spirits." He continued to read aloud from the book.

The imp's skin had begun to turn gray. "I'M NOT MALICIOUS! I'M HELPFUL!"

Doug looked up again. "You are annoying as hell."

Smoke curled from the bowl but didn't spread through the house. It formed a cloud over and around the Imp.

"STOP IT! STOP THIS RIGHT NOW AND WE'LL PRETEND IT NEVER HAPPENED!" The Imp's skin was charcoal and ash, flaking like the charred paper in the bowl. His eyes were beady and red.

Doug set down the book, smiled at the Imp, then looked into the bowl.

"YOUR WRITING SUCKS!" The Imp shouted. "YOUR CHARACTERS ARE STEREOTYPES, YOUR STORIES ARE TRITE, YOUR POETRY IS HIGH SCHOOL, AND YOU CAN'T WRITE AN ENDING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE!"

"I dispel you," Doug announced, and blew into the bowl.

The ashes stirred slightly and flew into the air. The Imp, shriveled and defeated, let out a final croak.

"I knew I shoulda been a gargoyle."

There was a long, deep sigh. Then Doug was alone in the kitchen with Towser.

Doug sat there for a while, then looked down at the book Kim had brought back from Lancaster. He noticed that he had been reading from a recipe for shoo-fly pie.

He pulled out his phone and dialed Kim.

"It's done. He's gone. Your plan worked." A pause. "You are. That's why I love you." Another pause, then a laugh. "That too. But, hey, I gotta clean up and take a shower. See you for dinner? OK, see you then."

He looked at the mess. Charred flakes of everything he had written while under the direction of the Imp were scattered everywhere.

"Damn, that guy was annoying," Towser said.

"He sure was," Doug agreed.

The Shadow of the Earth, and Venus in the Girders

Last Sunday, October 20, I made plans to go out to the Nanticoke-West Nanticoke bridge and get pictures of the sunset. Something came up and I missed the sunset itself, but I was there in time for the afterparty: the shadow of the Earth rising in the east.

The shadow of the Earth is not a rare thing to see. On most clear or partly cloudy days it's visible twice, setting in the west at sunrise in the and rising in the east at sunset. But most people barely take notice of sunrises or sunsets, let alone things happening on the other side of the sky. And for those who do notice it, many may write it off as a particularly dark cloud on the horizon.

The shadow of the Earth underlines another beautiful phenomenon, the pinkish-purple glow known as the Belt of Venus. This is actually the reflected glow of all of the sunsets (or sunrises) taking place beyond the horizon. It is hard to believe that people routinely miss both of these things, but it's true!

This bridge presents a uniquely beautiful perspective for watching sunrises and sunsets. The Susquehanna flows from east to west from West Pittston to Shickshinny, so from Nanticoke we can see the sun rise or set over the river. The Susquehanna, which is famously muddy and shallow, presents an almost perfect mirror surface in these photos.

After I got as many nearly-identical photos of the phenomenon as I needed to ensure a few decent ones, I turned my attention to the bridge itself.  Last overhauled in 1987, the Nanticoke-West Nanticoke bridge appears to be in pretty good shape, though rust and dirt and graffiti coat some of the white-painted girders and struts.  And while these pictures present a serene view, keep in mind that cars were passing within two feet of me - I had to be careful not to take off somebody's mirror with an elbow.

After a while I remembered that there was something else visible here: Venus! I realized I had an opportunity for some unusual Venus images, but I would have to line them up carefully.

Venus is barely visible in this first picture. To see it, go to the fourth rivet from the bottom on the girder in front, then move to the right. It's the white dot above the cloud and below the point where a crossbeam and a strut  meet the vertical girder in the middle. (Keep in mind that these girders are white; they appear orange because of sodium vapor lights.)

Here's the same view taken in "Sports" mode - faster shutter and higher sensitivity. Venus should be much easier to spot here.This is my typical mode for night images of the Moon and indoor images where a flash would be undesirable.

And here is a close-up. I love the soft color of the girders and the twilight, and the contrasting darkness of the girder in shadow on the right.

So there you have it: the shadow of the Earth, and a special guest appearance by Venus at play amongst the girders of a bridge!

Poem: Because You Asked

I took part in a poetry reading at a new venue on Friday, October 25. Kick Out the Bottom open voice poetry reading will be held at Embassy Vinyl in downtown Scranton every fourth Friday - see here for more information. I decided to present two new pieces there, one written especially for the event, both performed without notes - the first time I've ever done that. This one was one I've been kicking around for weeks, maybe months. A friend in Norway once told me that I can intimidate people by being too intense, and I responded that some people find me unintense to the point of being comatose. I decided to run with that and create a very intense love poem, a sort of companion piece to my romance story that reads like it's about to become a murder story. 

Because You Asked

You ask me what I want to do
So I tell you:
I want to make love to you until the last stars burn out
I want to dance with you in the snow under flickering auroras
I want to sing Leonard Cohen with you while we stand on a bridge and watch the sun set
I want to eat you up, body and soul,
make every part of you a part of me.
And I want to go bowling
and play miniature golf
Love, honor, obey
protect and serve
happily ever after
from this day forward
'til death do us part
and then for a few eternities more

And maybe you're just asking me where I think we should go for lunch
but you asked me what I want to do
So I'm telling you.



copyright 2013 Harold Jenkins

Excerpt from Midnight, October 19, 2013

On a cold October night
under a full moon
a devil sat next to a porcelain doll
and told her lies that were the truth
and truths that were also the truth

Cemetery walk, October 13, 2013

Northeastern Pennsylvania was on track to have vivid leaf colors this Fall: lots of daytime sunshine and cold nights. Then another heat wave hit, or at least unseasonably warm daytime and nighttime temperatures for a period of two weeks or so (and counting.) Now the colors of the leaves that changed color are fading, lots of trees are still green, and lots of leaves are falling. I'm hoping this won't be my only Cemetery Walk this Fall.

While setting up to take pictures of the "yellow brick road" (the bricks are actually pink) between the two halves of the cemetery complex (which contains at least four cemeteries), I noticed a group of people emerging from the cemetery gate at the top of the hill - two women pushing strollers, and some children. Idyllic as heck, but it spoiled my shot. So I turned my camera on the ruins of the Duplin / Skatarama. As the women approached, I bid them good day, and one stopped and asked me about the building I was photographing. I told her about its history as a silk throwing mill, its later life as a skating rink and bowling alley, the fire that destroyed it over twenty years ago, and its later use as a marijuana growing operation.

My grandfather used to be a supervisor at the Duplin Throwing Mill. I used to go skating here. It burned down about twenty years ago.

All of the roads of Nanticoke that were paved were paved with this brick, once upon a time not too long ago. Within my living memory, for some of them, anyway.

The brick is actually pink, and chamfered on the edges, and a few years ago someone thought it would be fun to do a burnout here.

Some parts of the cemetery have become distressingly unkempt in the years since my last Cemetery Walk.

A fallen branch or secondary trunk, left where it fell. Groundskeeping has simply mowed around it.

Fortunately it did not crush either of these monuments.

Possibly a home-built monument, made of concrete with an iron plaque. The name and information have weathered off.

Another likely home-made monument. This one is only a few inches tall.

Trying to recreate a photo from the last Cemetery Walk.

A gorgeous filigreed iron cross. I've never seen a monument like this before.

Another iron cross, almost certainly a home-built.

Yet another iron cross of a different design than the other two. All three are within fifteen feet of each other.

Red Clover amongst the leaves. 

I'd like to do this again after the leaves have changed a bit more, but nothing in this life is guaranteed. So I figured I'd do this today, and do it again in a week or two if possible.


Related posts:
Cemetery Walk, October 18, 2008
Cincinnatus at the plow, October 19, 2008
The Ruins, February 22, 2005
Piñatas from Hell, March 14, 2005
Cemetery and the Duplin, March 3, 2009
The South Mountains, March 6, 2009

REVIEW: The Merchant of Venice by the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble

One-word, spoiler-free review: Brutal.

A longer review follows, with some spoilers if, like me, you don't actually know anything about this play other than the name "Shylock" and the phrase "a pound of flesh."

Synopsis (full of SPOILERS): 

Young Bassanio (Aaron White) has a problem. He wishes to travel from Venice to distant Belmont to pursue the hand of Portia (Cassandra Pisieczko), a young heiress whose late father decreed shall have her future husband determined through a test: suitors must choose from one of three boxes, gold, silver, or lead, each with its own warning. One of them contains an image of Portia, and the man who chooses that box will win her hand in marriage along with her great inheritance, but selecting either of the other two condemns its chooser to be forever alone. But Bassanio lacks the funds to finance such a venture, so he seeks a loan from his friend Antonio (James Goode), the titular Merchant of Venice. Unfortunately Antonio finds himself lacking liquidity, with all of his wealth tied up in three trading vessels off in three distant ports. But, seeing Bassanio's need, he agrees to seek a loan from Shylock (Tom Byrn), a despised Jewish moneylender (who, unlike Antonio, demands interest on the money he lends - a source of conflict between the two.) Bassanio pleads the situation to Shylock, who agrees to a three-month loan to Antonio, who expects to have his trading profits in hand in just two months, allowing him to pay off the loan well before its due date. But Shylock, generally scorned by Venetian society and particularly put upon by Antonio, stipulates a unique penalty clause: should Antonio default on the loan, he shall be bound to pay a penalty of a pound of his own flesh. After some trepidation, Antonio agrees freely.

Meanwhile, Bassanio's friend Lorenzo is scheming to run off with Shylock's lovely daughter Jessica (Sophie Schulman) after she renounces her religion and converts to Christianity, all while Shylock is in negotiations with Antonio. Bassanio and his sidekick Gratiano (Daniel Roth) travel to Belmont, where most of Portia's suitors have either failed or given up the game. A Moorish prince only recently arrived (Daniel Roth again) is the last holdout, but he chooses poorly and is sent back to his own land empty-handed and with an oath to forevermore remain single. Portia celebrates his failure with these lines:

A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.
Let all of his complexion choose me so.

Shylock is enraged and heartbroken at his daughter's betrayal, and even more so with the wanton thefts of his cash and jewels that she used to finance her flight with Lorenzo. Shylock's friend (and fellow Jew) Tubal (still yet again Daniel Roth) brings more bad news: Antonio's ships have all met separate disasters, and he is now unable to repay the loan. While Shylock at first laments the loss, his rage rallies him when he realizes that he will be able to seek his revenge against society in general and his longtime abuser Antonio in particular by keeping to the letter of his agreement and extracting his pound of flesh.

Meanwhile, back in Belmont, Bassanio has wooed Portia but now faces the test of the three boxes. Carefully considering the symbolism of each box's materials as well as the meanings of the attached messages, he successfully chooses the right box and wins Portia's hand and all that comes with it - including a ring presented by Portia that symbolizes Bassanio's commitment to her, given on the condition that he will never remove, sell, or lose it. Gratiano reveals that they shall have a double marriage, as he has successfully wooed Portia's friend Nerissa. But their joy is short-lived as the fugitives Lorenzo and Jessica arrive in Belmont with word of the loss of Antonio's trading fleet and his ability to repay his loan, and Shylock's determination to have his pound of flesh. Bassanio is distraught, as he is unable to repay the loan himself, but Portia points out that she is the heir to immense fortune, and upon their marriage he will be able to repay Shylock many times over.

Bassanio and Gratiano return to Venice to seek Shylock's mercy and repay his loan, while Lorenzo and Jessica stay behind at Portia's. But Shylock, wounded and angry, will have none of it, and demands that the letter of the deal be observed - or Venice itself will lose its reputation among the traders who use the city as a hub. The Duke of Venice (Samantha Norton) concedes the validity of Shylock's position, but seeks his mercy - telling him that all the world is anticipating a last-second change of heart. A lawyer (or judge, he is referred to as both) and his assistant arrive to work Antonio's defense, but Antonio has resigned himself to keeping his grisly deal, and to the death that will inevitably result from it. Shylock, after several aborted attempts, steels his determination to remove the pound of flesh - or at the very least, to kill his debtor and longtime abuser. But the lawyer - actually Portia in disguise, secretly come to Venice with Nerissa - has one last ploy: while Shylock is owed his pound of flesh, nowhere is the deal is it stipulated that he may draw one drop of "Christian" blood, and he will be sternly punished if he does. Stymied by the impossibility of collecting that which he is due without drawing blood, Shylock regretfully concedes that he has lost, and agrees to the payment from Bassanio as promised, or at the very least to the repayment of his principal. But the false lawyer has one more card to play: as an "alien" who has threatened the life of a citizen, Shylock is subject to the loss of his property: half to the injured citizen, half to the state. Shylock pleads that the loss of his property will render him penniless and unable to conduct business. Antonio calls on the Duke's mercy, allowing Shylock to keep his property on the condition that he convert immediately to Christianity, and pledge his fortune to his "son" Lorenzo and his daughter Jessica. In agony, Shylock agrees.

The false lawyer and her partner are not done yet, as "he" demands one thing only from Antonio as payment for winning his case and his life: the ring worn by Bassanio, the one he had pledged to never remove, sell, or lose. Bassanio refuses, to Portia's delight, but after Portia and Nerissa leave, Antonio convinces Bassanio to relinquish the ring. Gratiano is tasked with delivering the ring to the lawyer, and he catches up to Portia and Nerissa (still in disguise) as they plan their return to Belmont. Portia is devastated at Bassanio's betrayal of his oath, and Nerissa decides to try to separate her own husband from his ring.

Portia and Nerissa hurry home to Belmont, where they are reunited with Lorenzo and Jessica. Bassanio and Gratiano follow soon after, whereupon they are taken to task for the removal of their rings. Portia supplies a "new" ring to Bassanio, who is mystified to see that it is the same ring he had before. Portia reveals that she got it from a lawyer, with whom she had slept the night before. Nerissa joins in the fun by revealing that she has been sleeping with the lawyer's assistant. Gradually Bassiano realizes that the lawyer and his assistant were Portia and Nerissa in disguise. Portia then supplies good news for all: to Antonio, the fact that his trading ships have returned successfully, and were never sunk at all, while to Lorenzo she reveals his good fortune in becoming Shylock's heir - and Shylock's conversion to Christianity. The play ends, and everybody's happy.

Only that's not what happened. At all.

REVIEW:

The Merchant of Venice is a difficult play to approach, as director Andrew Hubatsek admits. Racism and anti-semitism fill the work, even in this pared-down version. As his director's note points out, early versions of the play presented Shylock as a pure villain, while more modern versions emphasized the wrongs done to him, and even the villainy of those around him, the other characters in the play. This is a "Comedy" in the strict sense that none of the main characters wind up dead (which is what distinguishes Shakespeare's "Tragedies.") But Shylock's arc is in no way a happy one. In Shakespeare's day his ending would be seen as worthy of rejoicing; having accepted Christ, even under duress, he is now no longer subject to the just punishment seen as coming to all Jews. A similar happy fate awaits his daughter Jessica, even though she is still referred to as an "infidel" after her conversion. Tom Byrn imbues his Shylock with rage, righteous rage - rising and bubbling over in the public places of Venice as he confronts Salanio (the ever-flexible Richard Cannaday, in one of three distinct roles) with the classic soliloquy:

Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge?

In the courtroom, demanding what he is owed from Antonio, he pastes a veneer of calmness over his rage, coolly relying on legalities to make his case. When those same legal niceties are turned against him he collapses like a man with his legs cut off. But Portia, cruel Portia, is not content with defeating Shylock. She must destroy him as well. In short order he has lost his daughter, his debt, and his case. Now he faces a choice: lose his property and his livelihood, or lose his religion and his self. Broken, defeated, and destroyed, he chooses the latter, With trembling hands Antonio removes a crucifix on a chain that had hung around his own neck (and had been thrown aside by Shylock as he prepared to take his pound of flesh) and places it around the neck of Shylock, who has removed his skullcap as a sign of renouncing his religion.

In the final scene the characters all react with growing joy at the news of their good fortunes - all except Jessica, whose face and attitude reflect a dawning horror. She has betrayed her father and her religion. She has abandoned them both, has stolen his money and prodigally squandered it, has fueled his rage and helped bring about his misfortune and his fate. As the other characters exit the stage, she stands alone in the gathering darkness and sings a mournful Jewish song; her father, bare-headed, appears in the shadows and slouches despondently. The lights go down as she finishes the song, leaving the stage in darkness.

Pretty brutal for a comedy.

I've never seen The Merchant of Venice before, nor was I familiar with the particulars other than the character of Shylock the moneylender and the details of the "pound of flesh" contract (which I picked up either from "Se7en" or the absolutely brilliant 1973 satire "Theatre of Blood" which, if you haven't seen, you must see!), so I didn't know what to expect, nor did I know how various bits would turn out. I even forgot whether this was a Comedy or Tragedy, so I was expecting the body count to begin at any moment.The acting and staging is superb, and Andrew Hubatsek (whom I have seen play Macbeth, Touchstone the Fool in As You Like It, and several other parts) directed beautifully, and was also responsible for the adaptation. The play runs through October 20. Details are available at the Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble site.

(The full, unedited text of the play is available here.)

Happy endings?

Do you have to be happy to write happy endings? Robert Smith of The Cure once said he writes his best stuff when he's depressed, but plenty of people have still enjoyed lightweight happy poppy songs like "Mint Car" and "Friday I'm in Love" as well as such darkly beautiful songs as "Just Like Heaven," "Lovesong," and "A Letter to Elise."

I've worked more on "Sunset and Shadow" than on any other story I've ever written. It's been through eight official revisions, plus a ninth on paper (consisting of some quick changes to a printed copy) and a tenth that I've made to my performance copy.

I've presented it three times now - at The Vintage in Scranton during the "24 Hours of Art" weekend immediately after I had made the "present tense" revision, at the Third Friday Open Mic at Arts Seen in Wilkes-Barre on September 20, and at The Living Room Open Mic in Stroudsburg on September 22. The crowd in Wilkes-Barre was slightly smaller (about twenty people), somewhat older (evenly distributed from early twenties to late sixties, with a possible outlier on each end), and mostly made up of people active in the local literary scene (poets, writers, actors, and a few painters and at least one sculptor thrown in.) The Stroudsburg open mic (which is held every Sunday) attracted about thirty people, also with a wide range of ages but definitely skewed to the younger end, mostly musicians - including one who had been driving through Pennsylvania from Ohio to Massachusetts, noticed on the site openmikes.org that there was an open mic up ahead, and decided to stop in.

Stroudsburg tends to be a, shall we say, energetic group. I had presented some poems to them on August 18, so some of them might have remembered me, but I wasn't sure how they'd respond to my prose. I read "One Friday Evening in a Supermarket Parking Lot" (the "psychic cat" story) and "Sunset and Shadow." I have some beats in two points in "Sunset and Shadow" where you don't know if the story is about to take a left turn into horror, or at least murder (it is, after all, a love story). When I paused at one of these points I noticed - nothing. No sounds in the room around me. I looked up, over the top of my glasses, and saw the room filled with people - all looking at me, and listening to me. It was...unnerving. And in a moment I felt transformed into a tribal storyteller, holding the tribe together through my tales. Afterwards, when I took my seat, someone paid me the biggest compliment: "I was there, on the bridge."

"Sunset and Shadow" ends on a down beat. I won't ruin the ending if you haven't read it yet. But today...today I thought of a way of giving it a happy ending. Yes, maybe it's a Hollywood ending, or at least a happy indie production ending, but it's happy. It doesn't require much in the way of a change, and it doesn't require me to twist the characters out of line from where they are now - not by much, anyway.

Am I happy? I think I might be. I don't have much reason to be, not yet. But I think I'm getting there. Maybe, maybe, maybe, things will swing the way I'm working to make them swing. And maybe the happy ending will be justified.

Maybe I'm writing my own happy ending. We can all allow ourselves those once in a while, right?

Things that go BOOM in the night

On the night of Saturday, September 14 at approximately 9:58 PM I heard something go boom.

Things that go boom in the night are nothing new around here. A friend in another part of the country called it the game of "Thunder, fireworks, or gunshots?" Even in Nanticoke you can't be certain if that series of bangs you heard was someone setting off firecrackers in succession or someone firing off a few shots. This didn't sound like a gunshot, though. It sounded more like the cannon that used to be fired in better days during high school football games at the stadium down the street.

It's not the first time I've heard such a boom. I remember years ago sitting at this computer (well, its predecessor) and hearing several loud explosions from outside. Again, they sounded like the football cannon, but louder. I had the distinct impression they were coming from the area of the river. This wasn't a single boom, but several - three, I think - in succession. I didn't write about that incident, but someone else from Nanticoke who briefly had a blog did.

http://nanticoke.blogspot.com/2005/03/mysterious-expolsions.html
drinking tips and random thoughts

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Mysterious Expolsions

Mysterious explosions rocketed the West Side of Nanticoke, Pa. tonight. According to unnamed sources, three to four explosions rocketed the west side of Nanticoke. According to an unnamed source within the emergency response teams that responded to the scene of the complaint, numerous complaints were called into 911 in the same area and in the same time frame. "One explosion knocked me out of bed and I am could have hurt myself." Another individual who admitted to calling law enforcement people, but who refused to be identified was quoted as saying, "I was in the service. I know what fireworks and guns sound like. This sounded more like the big stuff. I would hate to see someone get hurt." The incident is under investigation by the appropiate officals.
 # posted by sdmbrandy2 @ 8:18 PM

After hearing the noises on that night in 2005, I figured maybe somebody was playing with dynamite down by the river - an incredibly stupid thing to do, but people are incredibly stupid.  And while this report talks about the West Side, I live on the other side of town, more than a mile away. I didn't hear or read any other reports of this incident anywhere else, and I can across this one completely by accident some time later while trying to see if the blog address was available.

Things were different Saturday night, though. I posted a report of this sound to Facebook within minutes, hoping someone else in town might have heard it.

Well, hooray for random explosions at 9:58 on a Saturday night.

And other people did hear it. Reports started to come back from around town - and beyond.

I heard it up here in the hill section ; Scranton. Maybe it well be on the news. Or maybe not. But something blew up.

and:

I did hear what your friend heard in the hill. It sounded like one firework that was lit a few miles out. Kind of like when they have 

fireworks downtown or at the stadium

The Hill Section of Scranton is some twenty-five miles northeast of Nanticoke. (I used to live there when I went to college.)

Ok so I also heard a loud boom over here in lake ariel but just thought maybe it was fireworks.

Lake Ariel is more than forty-five miles from Nanticoke, and twenty miles east of Scranton!

I'm in the green ridge section of Scranton, didn't hear anything. But ppl on my fb from south Scranton to Kingston said they heard a 

loud boom at the same time.

So. What the hell was it? I asked a friend who works for a local news channel, but she did not notice any uptick in scanner chatter or any reports of an explosion. Which would be consistent with something that most people assumed was just a firework of some sort.

Ever since the meteor explosion over Russia a few months ago, I've been thinking about that incident back in 2005. What if we heard wan't a series of explosions, but actually a series of sonic booms caused by a meteor slamming into the atmosphere above Nanticoke?


Granted, we'd be talking about a boom several orders of magnitude smaller than the one that shattered windows and set off car alarms in Russia. But smaller explosive meteors hit the atmosphere all the time. Usually they hit over oceans or over uninhabited parts of the world (which is most of the planet.) In more densely populated areas, the sight of the explosions might go unnoticed, and the sounds could be attributed to gunshots or fireworks or exploding transformers - the ordinary everyday noises of human society.

Even a century ago the world presented a much quieter soundscape in most areas. The constant thrum and roar of cars, trucks, airplanes, railroads - all that was much quieter than it is today. A hundred years before that, those sounds were unknown, and the world was so quiet that some people could hear the low hum of the wind blowing over mountains, or the rhythmic pulse of the ocean against the shore from miles away. Today those sounds are lost in the background noise. Unusual sounds would be much more noticeable in 1813 than in 2013.

So what did I, and all those others, hear last night? I don't know. It might have been a very loud firecracker, or numerous firecrackers set off independently. It might have been a late-night cannon shot announcing the victory of some high school football team over another (in an unusual Saturday night football game.) Or it might have been a sonic boom from a meteor entering the atmosphere over the Wyoming Valley.

If anyone hears anything else about this, I'd love to know!

In the present tense

A few weeks ago I was re-reading "Catching Fire," the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy. I was musing on how there was very little suspense in the story, since we know the main character, who is narrating the story, survives. (This is not always the case; stories like "American Beauty" and, I believe, "The Lovely Bones" are narrated by dead characters.) But then I realized that the story is being told not just in the first person but also in the present tense. This ups the ante a bit: we are not looking at the actions from some point after they have happened, but from an ever-shifting now. Anything can happen in that now. The narrator can die and hand off the narration duties to another character - or continue as a dead narrator.

I finished that book and set it aside, amazed that I had gone though it once - and its predecessor numerous times - without noticing the tense of the story. How many other stories are out there like that?, I wondered. Not many, to my recollection. I immediately picked up my 28-year-old copy of "Brightness Falls from the Air" by the pseudonymous James Tiptree Jr. - actually Alice Seldon.  I'd been meaning to re-read that story for a while. I opened it up, began reading - and realized that it, too, was written in the present tense.

In between these two events I decided to see what would happen if I rewrote "Sunset and Shadow" in the present tense.  This story was really an exercise in "show, don't tell": I wanted to put the reader on the bridge with those two characters, seeing and feeling what they were seeing and feeling, not knowing at any moment what would happen the next. Having a first-person narration in the past tense lets you believe that everything will work out for the best, that the narrator will make it to some point where they can tell this story in retrospect. This isn't always the case, but when a first-person past-tense story ends with, say, the narrator dying, I always feel cheated. Placing the narration in the present tense increases the tension, and increases the stakes for the characters and the reader. Anything can happen.

(Nabokov wrote Lolita as a memoir, told in the first person by Humpbert Humpbert. But Humpbert's memoir is wrapped in a psychologist's report, which places Humbert's memoir into a nested past tense and provides the reader with information to which Humpbert was not privy, and which completely undermines Humpbert's reliability as a narrator.)

So I rewrote the story and read it for my writing group a week after I had read the past-tense version. I didn't tell them what I had changed, nor did we get a chance to discuss the story, but a few members noted that they heard a big difference, even if they couldn't quite tell what it was.

But now you know. Here's the story again, converted into the present tense. If you've never read it before - well, I hope you enjoy it. If you have read it before, let me know what you think of the two versions.

Sunset and Shadow
copyright 2013 Harold Jenkins

We get together early on a Saturday afternoon in late January in a bookstore in Wilkes-Barre.  Seeing Lori in person after all our conversations online is something of a shock, finally realizing just how far apart we are in age. She is small and pixie-ish, with bleached white hair and eyes so dark they might be black. Her skin is pale and her face is alive and shining.  She is dressed in a sort of Salvation Army chic, in a green prairie skirt and frilly cream blouse that hide her tiny figure, wrapped in a black wool jacket with shoulder pads that would look preposterous on anyone else. A black beret and a scarf that might be a keffiyeh round out the ensemble, and she wears chunky black boots that aren't just for show - they can easily hold up to the snow and ice outside.  I know she is a brilliant writer even from what she had put in her ad, and the stories I've found on her blog confirm this. She has the appearance of a giddy little girl, but her writing displays a darkness and maturity that say there is much more to her.

I wonder how I look to her: A man in his early forties, stocky but not quite fat, hair and beard and moustache all showing traces of gray. Blue-gray eyes behind lenses that, if you look at them just right, reveal themselves as multifocals. Looking almost like a college professor, although I haven't been involved in academia since a brief stint in grad school more than twenty years ago. I think I look close enough to the photos I posted on my site, as she does to hers. But I really don't know what she sees with those big, dark eyes.

We drink hot chai and talk about writing, and our favorite authors, and our biggest influences. I ask her about school but she doesn't want to talk about it much. She pries a few stories from me about my days in college, a quarter of a century ago.

We have been talking for well over an hour and haven't made any plans for the rest of the day. When she excuses herself to use the bathroom I order a strawberry parfait, something that looks like one of the things she has posted to her blog. After Lori returns to our table one of the staff brings it over in a tall glass with two long spoons. Lori is surprised and delighted by the dessert. After that we wander the bookstore for a while, pointing out books and authors to each other. I find an annotated edition of one of her favorite books and offer to buy it for her, but she takes it from me and insists she will pay for it herself. Fine, I say, taking the other copy from the shelf, laughing. Now we will both have one.

We exit the bookstore holding our identical purchases and step into the icy late-afternoon air.  I suggest we could drive around and continue our conversation. A glance at the clouds smeared across the western sky gives me an idea. The sun will be setting in an hour or so, and I know a spot where it will put on a beautiful display. For a moment I think she might not want to go, or might want to take her own car, wherever her car is. But she agrees and we both get into mine.

The sun is dipping behind the clouds as we drive. We are heading west, so the sun is mostly in front of us. Even through my sunglasses I can see the sun-dogs forming, mock suns positioned on either side of the real one, produced by the sort of ice crystals present in certain clouds. I point them out to Lori, and she pulls out her phone - wrapped in a Hello Kitty case - and takes a picture. Her thumbs fly as she types something on to the screen in a way I can't even begin to emulate. And then she does something else - posts the picture online, to her blog or Facebook or somewhere. I feel the generation gap yawning between us.

I have to maneuver a bit to get where I want us to be, but finally we get there. It is a steel truss bridge, more than seventy years old but still safe and sturdy enough to bear the traffic that crosses it. I had made it collapse once, in one of my stories, plunging dozens of cars and their drivers into the river below. We writers wield such power.

"Here?" she asks, as we park in a dirt lot at one end of the bridge. Her tone says she isn't afraid, just curious.

"Not here," I reply. "On the bridge. About halfway across we'll have a great view of the sunset."

She gets out of the car, pushing her beret down on her head with one hand and clutching her book with the other. The bag crackles like it is threatening to shatter. I am glad we are both dressed for the weather. It gets cold on the bridge in winter. Cold, and windy.

As we step onto the walkway Lori looks up, then around. "You've taken pictures here," she says. She clutches her newly-purchased book in its bag and holds her Hello Kitty phone in the other hand. "The ice on the river, and the shadows on the ice."

"Yep," I say. I posted those photos half a year before I met her online. She has done her homework, reading my old blogs.

We walk out two hundred and fifty feet, or so - I've always been bad at estimating distances. Cars pass us once in a while, clattering and banging over the deck plates of the bridge, but the drivers don't even notice us.

The sun hasn't started its show yet.

"Here is good," I say. Across the deck and through the girders and cables we can see downriver . The Susquehanna flows from east to west along this stretch, so we have a relatively clear view of the sunset. The sun is sinking behind an old, disused railroad bridge and over the trees and rolling hills that edge one bank. The scene is reflected in the river below, where water flows between great broken sheets of ice.

But none of that is what I want to show her.

"There," I say, looking but not pointing. "Above the sun. Do you see that patch of light pointing straight up, almost like a candle flame? Unless I'm reading the clouds wrong, that's going to stretch out into a sun pillar."

She looks at the bright white blur on the western horizon. The sun moves lower and lower behind the clouds. As the minutes pass the column of light above the sun stretches up, and up, looking like a biblical pillar of fire. It gradually deepens to orange and then red as the sun sinks lower on the horizon.

Lori slides the handle of the bag from the bookstore over her wrist, raises her Hello Kitty camera and snaps a few more pictures. "I've never seen that before," she says.

"Most people haven't," I reply, and immediately realize I have relegated her to the realm of "most people." "Sun pillars aren't that common, so they don't happen with every sunset. And we're all so busy, how often do you get to watch a sunset?" I say, trying to recover.

"'How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?'" she says, quoting The Sheltering Sky. "'Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.'" Or maybe she is quoting Brandon Lee's quote of The Sheltering Sky. He was dead shortly after that interview.

"There's something else," I say. "Turn around. Look east."

A beautiful soft pink glow stretches across the eastern sky, just above the horizon. Above it, the sky is only a little darker than it had been a few minutes ago. Below it, the sky is a dark blue-gray above the cold Susquehanna.

"What is that?" Lori asks, raising her phone to take another picture.

"It's called the Belt of Venus," I tell her. "The pink glow is the light of every sunset that's happening just beyond the horizon. The sunlight reddens as it passes through the thickest part of the atmosphere. We're seeing that red sunlight reflected back at us."

"And the dark part?"

"That's the shadow of the Earth. The Earth is casting a shadow through its own atmosphere. It'll rise, higher and higher, and become night."

She taps some more information into her phone. I find that habit almost annoying. I want her to be here now, but she is busy sharing each moment with the world.

I've been standing beside her, on her left as we watched the sunset, on her right when we turned to watch the light show in the east. But as we watch and talk, I move behind her.

Lori is short, nearly a  foot shorter than me. I place my hands on her shoulders, on those ridiculous shoulder pads, Then I gradually slide them across so I am hugging her from behind, each hand on her opposite shoulder.

We stand like that in silence for a few minutes. A car drives past.  I barely notice it.  The wind blows a bit from behind us, but I shield Lori from the chill. We watch the colors in the eastern sky rise and begin to darken and fade.

"So what would you like to do next?" I ask.

She turns to face me, breaking my hold. She puts her phone back in her coat pocket, but the book in its crinkly green bag still hangs from her wrist. She looks up at me, her nearly-black eyes looking into mine.

Lori reaches up and clutches the lapels of my black longcoat. She tugs me down gently, stands on the toes of her boots, and kisses me on the cheek.

"You're very sweet," she says. Continuing to stare at me, she adds "Thank you for the sunset, and the shadow. But I have to go now."

I am dumbstruck. Crestfallen. And a million other words that only apply in such a situation. Finally I speak. "I'll drive you back to the bookstore, if that's what you want."

She smiles and shakes her head. "I have a ride."

The car that drove past us is stopped at the end of the bridge, next to mine.

"Goodbye," she says. She releases her grip on my coat and slides her hands slowly down my chest, stopping briefly to take my hands in hers. Then she lets go, turns, and walks briskly to the waiting vehicle.

Lori gets to the end of the bridge, opens the door to the waiting car, and gets in. I can't tell if she looks back at me. Maybe she waves.

The car drives off and I am left alone on the bridge, as the last traces of sunset fade from the sky.

(There may be one other version of this story, a wacky alternate ending based on a mishearing of what was happening at the end. But I'll leave that for another day.)