seanessay.com
…
Written on Free Fall Friday
…
Prompt- stop yelling
Words to live by. Nobody yells about the falsity or truth of the Pythagorus theorem, or the pigments in acid green. No, we only argue about the most unprovable subjective things.
It was Dale Carnegie who pointed out that no one ever wins an argument. If so, then what? Perhaps instead of talking to persuade, you could talk to use “I” statements. Yes, and then our reptile ego would be saying “my way or the highway.”
Perhaps a better way would be to “discuss to explore.” Yes, but that takes some humility, because you might learn something new, humility because you might have to respect a person for being just as entitled to an opinion as you are. If you just happen to be an expert then say so, humbly, remembering that in “American culture” experts are not very trusted. Go figure. Tell people that research says X and watch them say that social media is wiser than scientists.
… …
Prompt- kaleidoscope
Good Lord, I have retirement looming and I could say my life has a kaleidoscope of memories. That is, unless I’m like my camping friend Paul Swift who never once has looked at the stars and “wept, he knew not why.”
My memory is of a bazar for the crippled children, what the British would call a rumble, where you bring the sort of junk you would have at a garage sale but you present it on nice tables, with a fortune teller in the corner, and a popcorn machine in the other corner, and the night is more fun than a day at the flea market. I well recall buying a magazine called Planet Stories where the cover showed a close up of a prone spaceman with arrows in his helmet. There was a short novel, or novelette inside, by Canadian Gordon R. Dickson, and years later I was to see that same novel as part of an Ace Double (remember them?) But for the copyright it merely said the novel had been published in a magazine. I guess they were embarrassed at the title.
At that same bazar I bought a friction ray gun, with a red barrel that had some sparks when you cranked the trigger. My brother told me it was a disintegrator, I didn’t know that word. “It makes things disappear” he said. Later there was a cartoon where a boy found one, and made a magician’s table box have a round hole and his rabbits escaped.
Also at that bazar was a kaleidoscope. Did I tell you I’m getting near retirement? The short story of that name opens with, “The rocket split open, and little silver figures spilled out.” The haunting final paragraph is of a spaceman, like a lonely merchant mariner, wondering what his life has been for, and whether his has ever helped anybody, ever lived to tell space stories to little boys. A boy and his mother are walking in the dusk. They see a falling star. “Make a wish” says his mother, “make a wish.” Such was the final line…
I suppose when I’m old I can sit on a seaside park bench and let children look into my kaleidoscope. Or at my feet I can have a bottle and a plastic ring the shape of those old radio direction finders, only in miniature size, and let the children dip in and blow bubbles.
“Quick, before the bubble collapses, make a wish!”
… …
prompt- embarrassing
So there I was, before a flickering fireplace, and I said to Frank, “I’ve been thinking about embarrassing.” Frank sipped his port. “The word,” I continued “the concept, the state of being.”
We were at the back of the Rat and Parrot, and the night was young.
“You mean, Joe,” he said, “like the time you slept on the porch because you didn’t want to wake up your wife, and you couldn’t find your key? And all this time she was at her mother’s?”
Now, the Rat was kind of a sports bar, I mean the TV never showed the news except on election night. Right then I was embarrassed by Frank, so I responded, “Like when Delvicio fumbled the ball at the second down, before a national audience, wasn’t that something?”
I hoped Frank wasn’t thinking about me still, as he savoured his port. “Ya, that was as bad as the time your mother-in-law… never mind,” he said, as he saw me putting my wee purse back in my pocket—hints don’t get any louder than that, and he really wanted me to buy the next bottle. Now it was his turn to wildly seek a distraction. “Athletes don’t care. They have a, a sort of zen, yes, a zen of focussing on the game.”
I used my all purpose “Harumph!” Flames crackled. I said, “I’ll tell you who doesn’t feel embarrassed. Fascists. Think about it.” We both thought of the same fascists as I continued “Have you ever, even once in your life, ever heard of an embarrassed German? Or Vlad Putin? They are going wildly through the countryside with their tanks and their cranky plans and do you ever hear of them blushing? Even if they cause the greatest Crop Failure?… It’s beyond zen. It’s psychotic.”
“Thank God for port” said Frank.
“Ya, let’s buy some more.”
… …
… …
Sean Crawford
Parallel to the Queen Elizabeth II Highway,
Listening to a fine assortment of rock music,
on the Raven (“caw, caw”)
of the Lexus, Dakota Sioux nation
November
It was already 8 a.m. in Wetaskiwin and two cars in the drive-through told us they would let the workers know that we were standing outside their locked door.
2022
Blog note: “prompts” are what start us writing madly in free fall at Free Fall Fridays. The method was invented by novelist W.O. Mitchel. There is a room devoted to him at the railway station museum in High River.
