Strange how this poem never made it onto the syllabus…

See, this Lord Byron poem below did NOT, somehow, make it to my reading list.  It was written on the death of Castlereagh, the former foreign secretary. 

Now, although I myself know nothing about Castlereagh, my finely-tuned artistic sensibilities allow me to discern, through the shades and nuances of this fine poetry, Byron’s opinion of the man.

Posterity will ne’er survey
A nobler grave that this.
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveler, and piss.

*wipes a tear from her eye*

Ah, Byron.  You did have a way with words.

Ask, and ye shall receive…

“Excuse me, miss, I don’t want to disturb you,” he said.

His eyes were a wide blue, his cheeks covered with stubble.  A man in his mid thirties or forties.  Slovenly and of feeble carriage.  His voice neither deep nor high, but on the higher end; the kind you hear from whatever plane of mind you were in, drawing you into him and his world and his problems.

Because the line “I don’t want to disturb you” implies immediately that disturb you that person will.

Maybe there’s an irony here.  An irony I didn’t feel till now that I write these words.

His approach, his words, they pulled me from my head on that busy New York street.  On the curb, still moving, I turned my head at his words and took in his appearance, his tone, his words in a fleeting two seconds, and then, without pause, without a word, I kept walking.  I looked him straight in the eyes and then past him, like there was nothing to it.  Nothing to him.

And that disturbs me even now.

Life teaches you to act instinctively in a variety of circumstances.  One beggar, two, four, twenty, one hundred.  One fake limp, three, ten, a hundred.  One hoax, two, three, almost everyone.

And then the decision, reached without words and conscious thought, that almost no-one asking for money can be trusted, and that anyone asking for anything from a stranger is really asking for money.

And from there the dehumanization of one another. 

There on that blowsy Broadway corner, I took him in, computed his existence and without a word, without a blink—for reaction of any sort to a potential predator is a weakness—I discounted him as unworthy.  I fancied I could fathom his purpose from a second.  From one clause.  Unworthy of even the breath it would take to hear a second one.  Unworthy of engagement.  And I passed him without a break in stride.  (God, how dehumanizing!)

And then across the street from him I saw myself and was disturbed.

I resolved to write about him, but although I could think of nothing else on the way to work, once there I didn’t spend lunch writing.  Like that moment of actual need on the street, I found it easy to live in the rest of the day, and not in that question.

I guess there’s no truth but your own truth.  That’s the only one you can live honestly—that is, in harmony with your principles.

What I mean is—who knows about that man.  God forbid the man wanted help I could have provided and I shamed him by my treatment.  But you know what, it could have been.

Then again, maybe he’s just for some reason using others to fulfill his needs without due cause.  Due cause being he truly CAN’T get a job for a good reason.  Who knows, I don’t.  You don’t.

That morning on the street, I chose my interpretation.  I chose it.  Yes, he could have been anybody, and you know what, he was.  He was anybody, and I treated him like nobody, like I would any anonymous face.  But there is no anonymous face to the soul behind it.  An anonymous person doesn’t feel less, doesn’t feel less defaced, less degraded…

Yes, yes, I know, if he was just a cynic using public good will to satisfy a desire for drink or drugs or porn or god knows what, then my ignoring him just means someone else must give him the cash he wants.  I know.  He doesn’t see me as any more human than that, if that’s the case.  I know.

But I don’t, I don’t know.  I don’t know anything about him.  All I know is, a human being as I believe it is a special thing, and deserves to be treated with respect and dignity.  And knowing that, it’s cheaper for me to take the second or minute out of my day and spend it engaging him—that most valuable of currencies, time—and then spend the twenty five cents he requests. 

As Polonius said, “To thine own self be true; and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”  Better I should be true to myself in my ignorance and hope than that I should treat a man more poorly than he deserves. 

For oh, I did not stop to let him disturb me, but it was I, in the end, who disturbed myself the entire day long.

the best laid plans…

I was planning to fall into a deep slumber.  I was planning to get to it immediately.  I didn’t see that I could stay awake one more minute.

So it was no surprise–or rather, it ought not to have been–when I got a text that would veer me utterly off course.  L was in the country.  Not just in the country.  To be more precise, he was in the country AND in town, and L and I are usually continents apart.  In fact, I hadn’t seen him for 16 years, not since I left Africa.

So when he suggested we meet up, it was clear that no slumber would be had anytime soon.  I saw through this glass clearly. 

“Come over now,” I said, and with those words dashed out of my apartment to buy groceries.  I would make a delicious, quick and low-fat meal.

That, dear reader, is where I stopped seeing through the glass clearly.  Clearly.

Instead, I served what I’m going to have to call “glump.”  What is glump?

Glump: 

A mass of various undistinguishable mashed foods served from one dish, usually with a ladle. 

Now, glump can be yummy, or it can be horrid, or it can be, as it was when they arrived, tasteless.  It’s miraculous that way, glump.

I was putting the final touches on my glump–in other words removing it from the heat and frowning at it–when the bell rang.  I ran to the door, tearing my apron off.  (My name is stitched on its front as if I get muddled sometimes and must look down to confirm it.) 

As I unlatched it and wrenched it open, I smacked my face with apron and was left with it half on, drooping awkwardly from my waist.  No worries–L’s doubtless seen me much less dignified.  So I let them in and gave them the tour.

“This is my living room,” I said, gesturing expansively to my sofa and dining room table.  They ooh’ed and ah’ed beautifully.  “And this is my furniture,” I said, in case they hadn’t noticed.  They cooed kindly. “This is my hallway,” I said, and stopped as if to survey it, causing them both to bump into me.  They looked about in the tight space and nodded. “And this,” I said, walking into the dark room, “is my bathroom.”

They paused at the door with a giggle. 

“Come in!” I said.  And so they did. “Come here,” I said, and stepped into my bathtub.  With another laugh, L complied.  And then he saw my view and understood the appeal.  We stepped out and P surveyed the view.  (Trust me, it’s worth the extra step in the dark.)

But now I couldn’t delay dinner any longer.

I made P taste the glump before dishing it out, so that he could judge how hungry he was.  He tasted it and maintained a politely interested yet faintly surprised miraculously neutral expression.  In a way that only a South African living in England can.

“Can you save it?” I asked.

I didn’t have to ask twice.  He moved quick.  Rummaged through my spices.  Only two had English lables.  Rosemary and fenugreek.

“Rosemary should be added earlier in, er, the process,” he said, and so we added fenugreek.  And then more fenugreek.  And then P made the executive decision that my expired parmesan wasn’t really expired.  And I have to say…he made it yummy!  We ate the whole pan of glump, the three of us, together with salad and buffalo mozzarella cheese.  ‘Twas oddly perfect with my dark chocolate and the South African pinotage and Chilean cabernet they’d brought.

Then again, I can’t in all honesty report that.  I never made it to the cabernet. 

I think we all had a great time in the end.  We hung out till after midnight, and my new dining room table got properly eaten and spilled upon, so all was wondrousness.    I was TOAST at the end of the night, crawling into bed around 1am, and there was no way I was getting up in four hours to write.  So I slept late; got up at seven and indulged in two cups of coffee and absolutely zero brain activity.

All this is to say that I should know better than to plan.  For although the best laid plans can disintigrate into a much fuller and truly wonderful, irreplaceable evening, they indeed are so prone to dissolving as to make one feel one is brazenly tempting fate when one says (as I’m about to now):

This is going to be a great writing weekend!

Turkish bath and Sunni mosque in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia

that magic feeling

Scenes don’t stand alone in books.  They fit, they move, they’re living parts of the organism that is a book.  Ideally.

But for them to work like that requires vision and a sense of the larger story, of the whole.  When I started writing, they just popped onto the page without much of that vision-thing going on.  Sure, it required creativity, commitment and work, and it wasn’t until about 70 pages that my REAL story reveal itself to me. 

As soon as it did, it became clear that I’d be hacking out scenes that were great but didn’t belong in this story.  Anything that doesn’t strengthen the story risks weakening it. 

Well, once I sensed my real story, it became much easier to write.  The scenes fit and they had direction. 

But then again came a point where I felt that I couldn’t move forward but sloggily, because the scenes didn’t fit.  Oh yeah, I could get a scene to fit the ones before, sure.  But they didn’t fit the future.  I knew they weren’t connecting the past to an intrinsic whole.  They didn’t have integrity.  They didn’t have vision.

That was the squelchy, muddy bit I had a couple of weeks ago.  I’d hit the middle of the book.

After a hard period where I tried a bunch of different methods, finally it came back.  The vision, so obscured and hazy and just a mite too ungraspable, suddenly returned.   

Does that mean I know every turn before I take it?  Nope.  But the integrity has returned.  Scenes fit front and back, and as I clarify certain questions from earlier in the book, my current situation “on the ground” becomes clearer and clearer, and the possible future paths more distinct and urgent.

Relief.  Relief, to be facing urgency again.  Relief to feel compelling dark corners again.  Relief to feel integrity again.  Relief.

And that sort of mad euphoria that is fear and anticipation while writing.    I’ve not lost that magic feeling. 

On the Road, Republic of Georgia

Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night…

It’s amazing, in writing fiction, how much research can be required.

It started off a simple question.  And tumbled larger and larger, bouncing up high and ricocheting wild and fast, with me running about it like a gnat, one moment ahead of my question and the next behind, often at risk of being squashed by its various and sudden new directions.

Whoah!  And yet at the same time, keep going, crazy tiger! 

It turns out many of the books I now need to read are indeed very close to me, shelved in the stacks of the New York Public Library’s main building on 5th Avenue.  All I must do is pass between the two guardian stone lions and beneath those weighty pillars.  But these books I want–and I’ve checked on this–are books I can never take out of that building.  No, those books are in the closed stacks.

Peer at them, I may.  Read them, mayhap.  But remove one precious page from the august institution–nay.  Not one. 

That’s fine.  I love libraries.  I’ll sit there and pontificate and research and screw my brain (and ergo my dependent face) into all sorts of shapes as I contemplate how to fit all my pieces together, loyal to both reality and imagination.

A million years ago (though some might call it twelve years back), I remember a professor of mine nudging me to start on my thesis already. 

“But I’m not done researching,” I whined, terrified of the commitment of writing.

He looked at me stonily. “You’ll never be.  No-one ever is.”  It had taken him ten years to finish his PhD.  I didn’t want to spend ten doing my thesis.

So I stopped and began writing.

So my process now, knowing what a glutton I am for research–and I am, I’m the first to own it–is not to separate the two worlds out.  I research while I write.  The details can shift if truth demands it.  But I will find a truth that matches my tale. 

History is too varied for me not to find the perfect key for my little lock that I’m crafting.  Lots of peepholes, lots of things to sneak a peak at; it’s too easy to search and search and search, growing addicted to the bramble and siren song that is historical research.  But I’m gonna find the answer to mine little question and all the teeny rivulets that have sprung from it.  And it’s gonna rock. 

And indeed it’s been rocking again, after a bit of a hard spell.  Felt like slogging through mud at times, surrounded by a thick and glutinous fog, heavy and unrelenting.  But slogging and slogging regardless, with a dash of reading great new stuff (new to me, at any rate), has paid off.  The story is COMING ALONG. 

I wish you guys success too!!!  How’s your writing going??

Bryant Park at night, behind the New York Public Library

At Long Last…

I don’t even know where to start.

It’s hard being an early-riser sometimes.  The past week in particular has been really tough.  On Friday, I had the fortune to wake up bright and happy at 4:30am.  Deliciousness–a crisp morning of writing awaited me.  And indeed, I was fruitful and the pages did multiply, and all the problems of weeks past were chased away.  Brilliance.  Only something else also happened EACH DAY.

Namely, before it was decent, whilst windows across the street were still dark with slumber, time and again, I would come upon in my research an amazing, absolutely gut-bustingly fantastic little-known fact that I HAD TO SHARE.

But with whom?  With whom?, I cry!  (Yes, worthy even of mid-sentence sentence-ending punctuation.)

I know, I know.   Thou thinkest I exaggerate.  No.  Not I.  I never use hyperbole. 

Sample Gut-Busting Fact:  In 1545 (see, already your blood begins to rush with excitement), a little town in France had its vineyard destroyed by flies.

What, you say, suddenly wondering if these early mornings (or perhaps the unfiltered coffee I favor) has made me bonkers.

But I’m not done.  WAIT FOR IT, folks:

What did the townsfolk do, seeing their crops thusly destroyed?  That’s right.  They sued the insects. 

There, I thought you needed a moment.  [Waits patiently for the jaws to hover above the floor once more.]  Yep, they sued them.  So, the flies were assigned representation by a distinguished canon lawyer.  He must have been good, because the insects were acquitted.  His case was strong.  He cited God’s will, you see, that the flies “be fruitful and multiply.”  Thus in eating the crops, they were fulfilling God’s will, and could not be judged as wrong-doers.

The court agreed.  But what to do about the crops?  Finally they came upon a genius solution.  GENIUS.  (Wait for it.)  They assigned another field for the flies to eat of.  Yep.  That’s right.  Want to read that line again?  They assigned another field for the flies to eat of.

Did this gentle compromise work?  Apparently we may never know.  You see, the reports of success have not made it to our century.  They were, it is said, destroyed by insects.

[You can thank me later for this tidbit, which I KNOW you're dying to share now, as I was these past few mornings, along with other similar fascinating facts.]

And on this painfully delicious information was I forced to sit and not share.  On this bounty did I bounce impatiently waiting for the time to tell the world.

Consider yourself, World, told. 

Ah, and in case you were wondering if in between the gathering of salacious facts I actually got any writing done:  YEAH, BABE!  The story is zooming.  ZOOMING.

Love it. 

Subway Station in Brooklyn

On the latest Hamlet out on Broadway…

Really good theater is more than timeless; it’s a cord that the actors and director pull which unearths the past in the present, connecting us in an almost eerie, ephemeral and visceral way; pulling us into a journey in which finally we are but a timeless audience ourselves in homage to the joy, the revelry, the delighted surprise or pain that is the “human condition” in art.

Just that kind of experience was Hamlet last night.

It was the kind of show that you sense, while in it—ah, see, I’ve said we were in Hamlet, rather than we were watching it—is more than simply a production of a show.  It was a piece of history in the making.

The kind of performance that enters history on its own powerful wings, that gives pulse and flight to Shakespeare fit even to astound the playwright himself.  I believe Shakespeare himself would have walked out like us last night, aware he had seen greatness; that he had seen his words filled with even more soul than ever even he’d imagined.

Oh, to share that with the wider world in the US…

I hate collecting unnecessary things, including paper.  I’ll collect a million notes and whatnot for my books—yes.  I’ll collect books themselves—yes.  But nothing else, really.  I don’t like to have too much.

But by the time the first act ended, I was scrambling for the playbill I’d tossed aside, and I clutched it close thereafter.  History’s in that playbill.  Some of our finest actors are in there now, forever captured in their great roles.

I won’t lie, my first thoughts were less…lofty.  My first thought, as the scene opened with Hamlet on the floor, dressed in distinctly not-old Scandinavian garb, the light and music highlighting his silent inner torment, was: “Oh, they’re using music?  And simplifying the wardrobe?  Hm.  Sigh.”  And then, only because I said I wouldn’t lie, I’ll admit to another thought: “Huh, so Jude Law really is that handsome in real life.”

But then it began.  Horatio (Matt Ryan) and the guards seeing Hamlet’s dead father’s ghost, and in horror summoning Hamlet (Law).  Hamlet questioning them and dashing up.  Within two scenes the humor, the madness, the compassion, the loyalty and friendship, the fear, the profane and profound, and we were hushed and breathless.  And now I can add to my summation of Mr Law that that man can act. 

No, not just act.  Not just inhabit a role. 

There simply is no way to explain it.  The actors acting as Horatio, Hamlet, Polonius (Ron Cook)—at whose name alone I already begin to giggle in anticipation—and Guildenstern (Harry Attwell) were stand-outs.  Ah yes, and the King (Peter Eyre) and Hamlet’s uncle (Kevin R. McNally). 

I tell you, those actors did their entire (what shall I call it?—craft? industry?) profession justice of the highest caliber.  They bowed before us when the show was over, but I tell you, we might have bowed to them.  Bowed in gratitude that they brought us a living, fraught Hamlet.  They delivered Shakespeare from the 17^th century for us.  They brought us back, brought us in and delivered us back home safely but changed.

They were brilliance.  There were scenes so powerful—in acting, lighting and directing (and never has the impact of that strong nexus been so clear to me as in this production)—that one felt the audience itch to clap but refrain, in fear of distracting the players in the next scene, or missing a single moment of the drama. 

At the end of the first act, I turned to my friend J and said, “This makes me want to reread parts of the play.”  But what madness, I already do from time to time reread parts of the play.  By the end of the entire performance, I had regained my senses.  “This makes me want to reread most of the play.”  (I can skip some of the political scenes, I admit it.)

And when I got home, I did.  And as I did, I strove to hear their voices, their cadences in the words.  For the life in their words was such as to fill the play as never had it been filled before for me.  I can still hear Hamlet’s voice now in my head…  Polonius’s…  Horatio’s…

Never had I heard these speeches as I did last night.  Never had I felt such compassion for Hamlet, but likewise never had I loved Horatio before, and never laughed so hard at poor, confused Polonius.  Never had I felt anything much for the Queen at all.  Never had I pitied the Ghost King.  Never had I marveled at the control of the King Usurper before all unraveled.  Never had I sorrowed over the loss of faith betwixt Hamlet and old buddies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 

Oh, oh, oh.  What brilliance and what beauty was that play. 

If you get the chance, please see it.  You will see history thrumming with life, heart and fury.  You will bleed.  You will love.  You will blog.

* Directed by Michael Grandage; Set & Costume Design by Christopher Oram; Composer & Sound by Adam Cork, and Lighting by Neil Austin.

Ode to History

I used to die of boredom in history.  I was resurrected during recess, when I ran off to figure out what homework was due for my next class. 

I remember my poor history teacher.  She loved the Renaissance, but mostly she loved French words.  I think I heard the word “renaissance” more times in my world history class than I did “atom” in chemistry.  But I digress.

Is it just me, or do you think more students would benefit by having teachers focus more on the magic, the sheer eery, transcendant magic of every discipline, rather than simply the mundane facts?  Or at least spark the class with magic before introducing said framework?

For instance, must I first learn (and forget) the cut and dry history of the Reformation (boring!) with everyone’s names and all the dates–and only decades later discover that the nursery rhyme about Little Jack Horner is filled to the brim with mad brilliant hot intrigue and scandal connected to the changing religious/political power games of the period?

Have I mentioned this before?  It’s my latest kick.  One of many, I’ll own.

Remember the rhyme?

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner

Eating his Christmas pie,

He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum

And said, “What a good boy am I!”

Turns out this dumb little ditty is not so dumb at all (she said, ducking tomatoes from the peanut gallery).  Nay, friends and cohorts!  For it is rather salacious…

Turns out, “little Jack Horner” was the steward to the Bishop of Glastonbury, which was the wealthiest Abbey in England.  They had property coming out the wazoo, to use the historical terminology I favor.  And when King Henry VIII decided to dissolve all of the monasteries in the land in order to seize their sizable wealth for himself, the Bishop balked.  He decided to bribe the King.

He sent his steward, Jack Horner, to the King with the deeds of twelve estates, hoping the King would be satiated and not go after everything else too.  The bribe, the deeds, were hidden to thwart thievery by brigands along the way.  Hidden, as apparently was the custom, in a pie.  (Does the plot begin to thin for you?)

Our friend in the corner, little Jack Horner, up and stole one of the deeds himself.  He got a plum property–in other words, the cream of the crop. 

The Bishop’s plan was not received well by the King, who not only took all of his lands, but destroyed his Abbey, and had the Bishop put to trial for treason.  Rumor has it, our friend in the corner, little Jack Horner, was in the jury.  Needless to say, the punishment for treason was unpleasant and did not end with death.  Why stop there, after all, when a man’s dead body can be mutilated and put on display to deter others from… well, whatever you want to deter them from doing.

The estate remains in the Horner family to this very day.  They refuse to discuss the ditty.

Now THAT, my friends, is history.  Right???

Isn’t it a thousand times more compelling to hear this and then, while the images still thrill the imagination, ask questions about the shifting constellation of religious and political powers in England?

Am I being mental?

Poor History, beggar to none, but painfully betrayed and shrouded by textbooks that forget that everything we humans do has magic and spice to it.  It would be so easy to fascinate future historians; all we’d have to do is release History from those stale garments that are high school textbooks.

History is merely a list of surprises.  It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.

~ Kurt Vonnegut

Myth Built this Historical Beacon

Not an Elizabethan Tragedy

I was only an exit away.  In other words, I was primed to be stopped by the cops.

It was October 1, 2002.  My last day living in Washington, DC.  My first day living in New Jersey.  A state roundly mocked by one Ralfast only seven years and three weeks later. 

I was stuffed into a rental car with my belongings, making the drive to my new home.  I wasn’t, to be honest, very happy about this move.  I had been having bad dreams about it.  But still, I was speeding toward my new home.  Because that’s what I did.  Speed.

It’s less about the destination and more about the journey, after all.

And so it was, one exit away from my new home, that I saw the lights pick up and the car swerve behind me, and I knew the day was getting even better.

He walked up to my window, so I rolled it down.

“I stopped you,” he said slowly, chewing over his words, “because you were flying.” 

He didn’t bother looking into the car; standing authoritatively above me was good enough for him.  For me, too.

I silently passed him my license and registration.  I mean, I’m of the mindset that I’m free, and likewise free to pay the consequences of my actions.  I don’t ask to be released from tickets.

He took my info and walked away.  I rested my eyes on the ramp sign ahead and tried not to think of my life left behind, and the feeling I had that I was heading for trouble.   He came back, cleared his throat.

“Your plate’s from Virginia,” he said, as if this was news to me.

“Yes,” I said.

“What’re you doin’ out here?”

“I’m moving.”  I tried not to think about the fact that I was moving.

“Where to?”

I tried not to think about it.  But I had to answer him anyway.

“Elizabeth.”

Now he lowered his head.  Looked in the car.  Right at me. 

“Why?”

My lips trembled and I spoke quickly, to get the words out before my feelings could take me over.   Tears rolled out anyway.

He was silent, watching me.

Then– “Have you SEEN Elizabeth?”

“Yes!”  Now I bawled.  I sensed him walk away.

I was sniffling when he returned.  He snapped a sheet of paper into the car.  I took it from him.  I didn’t look at it.  Was it over?  I looked at him. 

“This,” he said, “is a non-moving ticket.”

I stared at him, confused.  “What?”

“A non-moving ticket,” he explained helpfully.  I didn’t know where to look.  “For not moving,” he said.

I was numb.

“But, isn’t that…the opposite of what I was doing?”

He walked away. 

I should have mulled it longer, but instead I put the ticket away, and sped to my new home.  I’d end up forgetting about the ticket; discovering indeed, the move was a mistake (although it was also the life-changing kind that teaches you a lot about yourself and therefore you cannot regret it); taking on community theater (joys!); living on ramen noodles and coffee in between scant paychecks, and later being subpoenaed to go to court (provoking new rounds of shock and horror) to pay the forgotten bill (which had been sent to my old address).

What a year.  And what a way to start it. 

Construction Worker Takes a Call

Full of Sound and Fury (Signifying a Stolen Quote)

So I ignored them, the clamouring firetruck outside and the screeching fire alarm shaking the building.  For I was writing, and could not be incommoded. 

I could, however, spare a glance out the window, and so I did.  Hm.  Yup, the firetruck had stopped right at our door.  That was okay, though.  I was living in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and blaring firetrucks were part of the local soundtrack.  For some reason they’d often hurtle down the town’s few streets only to brake before our doors, but each time I’d flee the scene of seemingly impending disaster, I’d reach the ground floor only to watch them drive off into the distance.  With, mind you, nary a fire in sight.

So you begin to understand how this particular evening, perched comfortably before my laptop with a hot cup of coffee at my lips, I was in no mood at all to rush downstairs in some sort of panic.

This said, my firemen were acting somewhat atypically.  To whit, rather than leaving the scene of the non-fire with their usual screeching grace, why, they had taken the time to don full hazard gear and were presently occupying themselves by running into my building with a huge ass hose.

This is the official terminology, by the way.  Huge ass hose.

“Hm.”  I tapped a finger on my lip.  “They do seem to be taking themselves awfully seriously today.  I wonder…”

And then I flew into action.

I do not panic in the face of emergencies.  I was calm, cool and collected.  Clearly there was a fire or a firefighting party, and I’d best get me out, and rather quickly if I might.

I dashed into the bedroom and collected the essentials.  A sweatshirt, my keys, my lip therapy, moisturizer, our cordless phone, and the Blockbuster movie due that night.  See–a most composed and competent me.

I ran to the door and opened it.  But two doors down an entire team of firefighters prepared to kick down a door. 

“Gack!” I said.

Burly and grim faces turned to me.

“Get in! Get in!” they shouted.

“Meep!” I responded, shutting the door on my own nose in my haste to begone.

“Get out! Get out!”  they yelled.

“Which is it?!” I screeched (calmly).

“In or out, you choose, but now!”

Well, I have to tell you, THAT was an easy choice.  Out I hurtled like a hobbit late for a lunch date.  Down the stairs I leapt like Aragorn after an orc.  (Can you tell what I spent last night rereading?)  Out the door I smashed like Boromir after The One Ring.  (Okay, that was unfair.)  And then I was out in the cold air.

A crowd had gathered.  Like blithering idiots, they’d assembled right at the foot of the building.  I moved away rapidly.  Moments later the window was shot through by the fire hose.  Glass flew across the street, and dark smoke billowed out.  Still moving away, I tried to use my cordless phone.

Yeah.  Who’s the blithering idiot, you’re thinking.  (‘Ruth,’ your internal voice answers helpfully.)

Needless to say, it wasn’t working.  I wouldn’t be able to let my roommate know we’d had a fire and that the street was congested.  Oh well.  I switched off the phone, a redundant act.  And then I saw him through the crowds, pushing his way towards me. 

We met in the middle of the street.  For a moment we looked at each other in silence, the plume of smoke hanging over the road.

“Did you bring the video?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Great minds think alike. 

It was a week later that I realized that in my cool, calm and collected haste, I’d returned the wrong video. 

No worries.