When Right is Left

I’ve been away for a couple of days.  Sorry to have missed the posts, that isn’t how I like to roll.  I can see the argument for preparing posts in advance and then scheduling them to be published instead of doing everything “live.”

Yesterday was more interesting than Monday.  I went on a field trip with #3’s class to an old manor house.  It was nothing like Highcliffe Castle but it was still trey cool.

And I made the finals in the 5 minute fiction contest.  Please vote.

A reader asked, “Why do the English drive on the wrong side of the road?”  I’ll let Washington answer.

4/28/1924 Brighton, England.

I had the great fortune of encountering Sir Willem Henry in the pub this evening.  I had just started in the mash portion of my bangers and mash, a fresh pint of bitters at hand, when the door blew open to reveal my old friend.  He spotted me at once and soon we were engaged in stories of the old days.

Eventually talk got round to current events and I asked him what he was up to.  “You won’t believe me,” he said.  I assured him that I would but he, as usual, turned out to be right.  It appears that the crown is still trying to win back their dominance from the Americans.  I assured Sir Henry that ship had already sailed and he nodded, but retorted that, “There is always room for folly on a ship of fools.”

It took two more pints each for him to get through the whole of it but apparently the plan is to do everything the opposite of the Yanks when it comes to cars.  Make them leak constantly, hand assemble each one so they take forever to build, and make every intersection a circle.  (He had plans with him for several such circles in Brighton.)

The coup de grace, he said, was the global expansion of British influence in the form of a head-to-head battle over which side of the road to drive on.  I shook my head.  “That’s like the American’s refusing to go metric.”  He nodded.  “The only thing crazier would be a unified currency for Europe!”

We both enjoyed a good laugh at that and then spent the rest of the night brainstorming ways to make English cars the most unreliable in the world.

Who is Honi?

I’ve put off the writing today.  Not because I don’t want to write but because there have been other things calling louder.  It is a glorious day outside and chores that usual seem like… chores have the allure of warm sunshine and fresh air.

My wife picked up a book this week that grabbed my attention immediately.  It’s called, “The CircleMaker” by Pastor Mark Batterson.  Something tickled my memory.  Then she said it was about somebody named Honi.  I wrote a story about Honi in 2006.  I had never heard of him until I researched the story, nobody I talked to had heard of him, and I haven’t seen a reference to him since.

Until Mr. Batterson’s book.

The world is full of material for art – and odd connections.  Look everywhere.  Remember everything.  I’ve added the text of the story I wrote to this post.  If you read Batterson’s book you’ll find they have nothing in common except Honi.  There are still a million different stories to be told about Honi.  What's yours?

No Rain
by Jon Stark, 2006

I was blessed by Honi at my birth that no rain should fall upon me for the length of my days.  He drew a circle in the sand, took me in his arms and danced, whirled me above him and laughed.  The sky opened and rain came to the parched desert but I was not touched.  Once the Passover had come and he was killed, my mother took me and returned with the spice caravan to her own land far to the east.

The Poet told me rain is like a lover’s kiss.  Its gentle caress eases care and worry.  The cool touch of it upon your skin is a balm against the intrusion of the world.  He said that the rain would make things new, wash away the pain and sins of my past.

My mother chased me away whenever the rain would come and then stood in it, let the falling water soak her tiny form, shivering and shouting to the Naga that she was not cursed like her son.  She warned me that Honi had kept me from the Celestial Kingdom with his curse and that the Dragon would never come for me.

The Musician told me rain is like a symphony.  It is quiet and soothing.  It comes in a violent wave that crashes against the world and make a noise like the singing of angels.  It is percussion and strings, winds and voice.  He said that the opera of nature would reach into my very soul and I would be awash in the chords of life.

I have begged Tianlong my entire life, haunted by my mother’s prophesy of damnation, to let me know the touch of rain.  I have longed for the experience of it myself, for more than just lusting after it as a parched voyeur peering at Eden through lush shadows.  I have hungrily consumed the aromas of petrichor and geosmin, searching the world for the purest essence to feed my obsession.  I have wandered the earth inhaling the scent of that which I cannot feel and imagining the sensation of droplets running down my skin.

Now, as the rain falls gently upon my face I am disappointed.  Not with the rain which is all they said and more than I have ever dreamed it could be. I am disappointed with myself, with what I have not done with my life, what I’ve left unfinished.  I was blessed by Honi at my birth that no rain should fall upon me for the length of my days.

Logan's Dig

We’ve got baseball this evening and tomorrow.  It got rained out last week and the boys were very disappointed.  There’s a chance it will be rained out this evening too.  I hope not.  I’m not very good at teaching baseball at home.  I’m not very good at teaching it anywhere else either.  That’s why I didn’t volunteer to coach.

I wonder if I could be a sports writer.  How hard can it be?  Emminson hit a line drive down the third base line, wobbling, and the bounce was fair.  Jannich scrambled but was too late to stop the winning run by the Canadian powerhouse, Eh-Rod.

Logan’s Dig
by Jon Stark
April, 2014; 227 words

                Logan ran back and forth for a minute, totally unsure of what he should do.  Everything had happened so fast and now he was stuck.  And alone.  He was in a courtyard of sorts, surrounded by a high fence on three sides and the building to the south.

                Logan slowed his pace to a trot and took measure of his predicament.  The fence seemed too high to scale but the only way know for sure was to go for it.  So he did.  The fence was too high and he was stuck in the courtyard.

                Next up were the gates.  He knew of at least two, both of which had locks he couldn’t open.  After running back and forth between them for a moment he set out to carefully examine every inch of the fence on the chance that there was another gate he hadn’t noticed.  Or that a section had broken offering him a new path.

                There were no such treasures to find.  He was without a portal through the fence.  That left only the least desirable action.  Logan hated digging but if it was the only way out, it was what he had to do.  He attacked the dirt and grass with the gusto he usually reserved for chasing tennis balls, his paws tearing through soil and stone oblivious to the pain.  Must. Get. Out.