A Cross for Maria by Baden
The Serbian woman meets me at the door. She has long curly hair that falls below her shoulders, sallow skin, a round face and small eyes, the colour of which I can’t make out. She’s tall and well built. She invites me inside with a smile and a wave of her arm.
“Welcome, welcome,” she says, walking ahead with an accent that vaguely reminds me of old horror movies, “busy day, busy day” she continues, “let me take you to meet Mrs. Bambridge.”
I drop my bags in the hall and follow her into a large room at the back of the house where an old lady is sitting in an armchair, her wide square face, framed with a mop of curly white hair, is half-illuminated by the pale winter sun that has snuck through the window.
She looks at me flatly as I enter but remains silent until I speak.
“Nice to meet you Mrs. Bambridge.”
“Yes, yes. I hope you had a good journey.”
“It was…”
“And I hope you’re a hard worker. The last one was a lazy little good-for-nothing.”
She pauses.
“Wasn’t he Maria?”
Maria smiles unconvincingly and turns to me.
“Wonderful lady. She is…full of life.”
“Yes I am,” Mrs. Bambridge says dryly, “full of it. Unlike The Captain.”
“Mr. Bambridge?” I venture.
“Captain Bambridge. Where are you from, young man?”
“Birmingham.”
“Yes, that’s right, the office told me.”
I stand there for a moment.
She looks at me. Maria is rubbing her hands together, her face fixed in a smile.
“Well?” Mrs. Bambridge says.
“Well?” I say.
“Well - get on with it.”
Maria quickly unclasps her hands and turns to me, ushering me out.
“I’ll show you your room,” she says.
“What about Captain Bambridge?” I say.
A moment of silence.
“He’s sleeping.”
I take my bags from the hall and return to the foot of the stairs where I hear a groan, at first faint and then crescendoing. It seems to be coming from behind the door to the right of the staircase.
“The Captain?”
“Don’t worry,” she says, pushing me up the stairs.
A bell rings and then a scratchy voice cries.
“Jenny, Jehhnnny” .
“Here’s your room”, Maria says quickly as we reach a door, and turns to hurry down the stairs
“I’ll take care of this.”
“Who’s Jenny?” I say to her back.
“Me.”
“But you’re…”
“His memory is…” Maria gives me the briefest of smiles, “I’ll take you to see him in about an hour when we are due to get him ready for tea.”
“Is he sleeping now?”
“I think,” she says, as if it doesn’t matter and pours another cup of tea.
“I will go for my break,” she announces. “You won’t have to do anything, just keep watch. I will be back in thirty minutes.” She goes upstairs.
I sit in the kitchen, in the eerie silence watching the light creep away. The house is surrounded by tall thick trees with bare tangles of branches that fling their shadows through the window and onto the table in front of me. A cuckoo clock hangs on the wall at one end of the kitchen but at five o’clock no cuckoo appears. Perhaps it’s dead. At the other end there is a door leading to a small atrium and through its clouded glass I can make out the outline of what look to be mops, brooms, dusters and the like. My mood sinks at the thought of having to use them.
I hear a bell ring, followed by a voice “Jehhhnnny.”
I walk quickly into the dark hallway and towards the door near the stairs. I listen for a moment. The bell rings again.
No sign of Maria.
I open the door slowly and walk into the room. It’s small and smells of damp and antiseptic. There’s a window at the far end over a mechanical bed that stands against the wall.
I can make out the silhouette of a figure on the bed, one arm is raised and splits the dull light coming through the window. The hand clasps a string attached to a bell.
“Captain,” I say.
“Jenny.” He says breathlessly.
“No…Jason,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“I’m Jason”, I say loudly, approaching him.
“Good-oh. Move this sack for me will you.”
I turn on the light and see The Captain for the first time. His face stares upwards and his hand still clasps the bell-string. His prominent nose makes him look like an old tortoise knocked on his back. His skin is stretched and damp; deep purple veins run through it and the light lends it a curious incandescence. His thin dull lips open and close slowly with each breath.
“What sack, Captain?”
“Bloody sack!” He says loudly.
I step back instinctively, and then almost drop as I feel the tap of a stick on my shoulder.
I swivel around to see Mrs Bambridge standing there grasping the edge of the door frame with one hand and her walking stick with the other. She replaces the stick on the floor, and, with a quick intake of breath shifts her weight onto it and steadies herself.
“Will you help him then?” she says.
“What sack does he mean?”
“Ohhh,” The Captain groans again.
Mrs Bambridge gives me a tired look and then says, not unsympathetically, “He wants you to move his testicles dear.”
“Ah.”
She gestures to me encouragingly. I walk to the bed and pull the covers back to reveal a white vest, and Y-fronts covering his thin frame. His legs poke out of the underwear like sticks, and a catheter tube runs from his lower belly to a half-full bag on the floor. His face is straining like a newly hatched bird’s. I reach for his underwear and pull it back a bit, and then realize I have no gloves. I hold my hand suspended in the air, and look to Mrs. Bambridge.
“Go on then,” she says.
I pause and then decide to go ahead, glove or no. I pull the underwear back and see his testicles are caught between his legs, half a ball bulges through the crack between them, the skin glistening with moisture. I feel myself breathing in sharply as I reach for him.
“You should use these.” A voice says.
It’s Maria, striding into the room, she reaches under the bed, pulls out a box of disposable medical gloves, removes one and gives it to me.
I take it and put it on my right hand, and using the left to lever open his legs, I extricate his squashed balls..
“Ahhhh, goooood-oh,” he says exhaling gratefully.
“Good-oh,” echoes Mrs Bambridge and ambles off.
I cover up The Captain again as Maria stands watching me.
She looks at her watch.
“You can take your break now. Then we will prepare tea.”
Later, after Maria has taken me through the routine we sit together in the kitchen and she begins to tell me a little about herself. Her family still lives in Romania; she’s thirty-one and came here about seven years ago and has been working as a care-worker since then. She is pleasant enough to talk to and she brightens further when she begins to talk about her faith. In fact, religion seems to set off a whole pinball machine’s worth of emotions in her - with the word ‘Jesus’ being the Super-Bonus. When she says that, the pleasure in her face is almost sexual, and her eyes move upwards as if He himself were floating over her approvingly. I have a weird vision of the two of them floating in the air, making celestial love to each other, and her screaming “Jesus, Jesus” at the moment of heavenly climax.
Amidst this fantasy, my end of the conversation falters and I merely sit and absorb her rapture.
Later, we work together to get Mrs Bambridge upstairs to bed and The Captain settled. Maria’s primary responsibility is Mrs. B., and mine is The Captain, but The Captain is more work and sometimes requires both of us.
I sleep pleasantly enough in the old bed in my room. Maria said The Captain might call but she would take care of it tonight. Tomorrow night will be my turn. I’m thankful for the small mercy. The next morning I awake and shower in the bathroom reserved for me. Maria has risen already to help Mrs. B. and I hear them chatter in the latter’s boudoir.
I get changed and go downstairs for some breakfast then I walk back towards my room to wait until Maria’s ready to help me bathe the Captain. I hear the sound of a door opening upstairs and I look up to see what appears to be a bald man exit Mrs. B.’s bedroom. My mind does a back-flip before I realize who it is. It’s Mrs. B. sans wig and sans even the remotest patch of hair, her head as bald and round as a football. She sees me and coos wickedly, “Good MORNing.” I forget to speak but manage to return the smile.
Maria appears behind her fussing around and doesn’t even look at me.
I almost bear her until the end, almost. In the evening, I am changing The Captain’s catheter bag and she is watching me, having applied some cream to the dry skin of his face, and combed his hair. I am wishing she would just leave and let me do my job, and in my distraction I forget to check that there is no urine trapped in the tube above the bag before I separate the two parts so when I pull the tube off, the release of pressure causes a few drops to rush out and spill on the floor.
Maria sees my mistake immediately.
“Oh, give me that,” she says irritably, reaching for the bag as if she thought I would spill the rest of it.
“No, I won’t give you that,” I say loudly.
She stands there with that horrible patronizing smirk on her face.
A hot pumping anger rises through my chest and my mouth goes dry.
“Just get out Maria. Go on, fuck off.”
“What was that?” The Captain murmurs.
Now her smile fades and the contempt concentrates in her eyes.
“Jason is having a tantrum,” she says slowly.
Before I know what I’ve done, my arm has swung back, catheter bag in hand, and with a violent jerk slung it forward at her; it tumbles through the air and with a wet slap hits her breast; urine gushes out over her chest and face.
She jerks her torso and head violently backwards and I watch her, strangely stunned, as she raises her arms outwards, and slowly, very slowly, begins to cry.
“Welcome, welcome,” she says, walking ahead with an accent that vaguely reminds me of old horror movies, “busy day, busy day” she continues, “let me take you to meet Mrs. Bambridge.”
I drop my bags in the hall and follow her into a large room at the back of the house where an old lady is sitting in an armchair, her wide square face, framed with a mop of curly white hair, is half-illuminated by the pale winter sun that has snuck through the window.
She looks at me flatly as I enter but remains silent until I speak.
“Nice to meet you Mrs. Bambridge.”
“Yes, yes. I hope you had a good journey.”
“It was…”
“And I hope you’re a hard worker. The last one was a lazy little good-for-nothing.”
She pauses.
“Wasn’t he Maria?”
Maria smiles unconvincingly and turns to me.
“Wonderful lady. She is…full of life.”
“Yes I am,” Mrs. Bambridge says dryly, “full of it. Unlike The Captain.”
“Mr. Bambridge?” I venture.
“Captain Bambridge. Where are you from, young man?”
“Birmingham.”
“Yes, that’s right, the office told me.”
I stand there for a moment.
She looks at me. Maria is rubbing her hands together, her face fixed in a smile.
“Well?” Mrs. Bambridge says.
“Well?” I say.
“Well - get on with it.”
Maria quickly unclasps her hands and turns to me, ushering me out.
“I’ll show you your room,” she says.
“What about Captain Bambridge?” I say.
A moment of silence.
“He’s sleeping.”
I take my bags from the hall and return to the foot of the stairs where I hear a groan, at first faint and then crescendoing. It seems to be coming from behind the door to the right of the staircase.
“The Captain?”
“Don’t worry,” she says, pushing me up the stairs.
A bell rings and then a scratchy voice cries.
“Jenny, Jehhnnny” .
“Here’s your room”, Maria says quickly as we reach a door, and turns to hurry down the stairs
“I’ll take care of this.”
“Who’s Jenny?” I say to her back.
“Me.”
“But you’re…”
“His memory is…” Maria gives me the briefest of smiles, “I’ll take you to see him in about an hour when we are due to get him ready for tea.”
“Is he sleeping now?”
“I think,” she says, as if it doesn’t matter and pours another cup of tea.
“I will go for my break,” she announces. “You won’t have to do anything, just keep watch. I will be back in thirty minutes.” She goes upstairs.
I sit in the kitchen, in the eerie silence watching the light creep away. The house is surrounded by tall thick trees with bare tangles of branches that fling their shadows through the window and onto the table in front of me. A cuckoo clock hangs on the wall at one end of the kitchen but at five o’clock no cuckoo appears. Perhaps it’s dead. At the other end there is a door leading to a small atrium and through its clouded glass I can make out the outline of what look to be mops, brooms, dusters and the like. My mood sinks at the thought of having to use them.
I hear a bell ring, followed by a voice “Jehhhnnny.”
I walk quickly into the dark hallway and towards the door near the stairs. I listen for a moment. The bell rings again.
No sign of Maria.
I open the door slowly and walk into the room. It’s small and smells of damp and antiseptic. There’s a window at the far end over a mechanical bed that stands against the wall.
I can make out the silhouette of a figure on the bed, one arm is raised and splits the dull light coming through the window. The hand clasps a string attached to a bell.
“Captain,” I say.
“Jenny.” He says breathlessly.
“No…Jason,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“I’m Jason”, I say loudly, approaching him.
“Good-oh. Move this sack for me will you.”
I turn on the light and see The Captain for the first time. His face stares upwards and his hand still clasps the bell-string. His prominent nose makes him look like an old tortoise knocked on his back. His skin is stretched and damp; deep purple veins run through it and the light lends it a curious incandescence. His thin dull lips open and close slowly with each breath.
“What sack, Captain?”
“Bloody sack!” He says loudly.
I step back instinctively, and then almost drop as I feel the tap of a stick on my shoulder.
I swivel around to see Mrs Bambridge standing there grasping the edge of the door frame with one hand and her walking stick with the other. She replaces the stick on the floor, and, with a quick intake of breath shifts her weight onto it and steadies herself.
“Will you help him then?” she says.
“What sack does he mean?”
“Ohhh,” The Captain groans again.
Mrs Bambridge gives me a tired look and then says, not unsympathetically, “He wants you to move his testicles dear.”
“Ah.”
She gestures to me encouragingly. I walk to the bed and pull the covers back to reveal a white vest, and Y-fronts covering his thin frame. His legs poke out of the underwear like sticks, and a catheter tube runs from his lower belly to a half-full bag on the floor. His face is straining like a newly hatched bird’s. I reach for his underwear and pull it back a bit, and then realize I have no gloves. I hold my hand suspended in the air, and look to Mrs. Bambridge.
“Go on then,” she says.
I pause and then decide to go ahead, glove or no. I pull the underwear back and see his testicles are caught between his legs, half a ball bulges through the crack between them, the skin glistening with moisture. I feel myself breathing in sharply as I reach for him.
“You should use these.” A voice says.
It’s Maria, striding into the room, she reaches under the bed, pulls out a box of disposable medical gloves, removes one and gives it to me.
I take it and put it on my right hand, and using the left to lever open his legs, I extricate his squashed balls..
“Ahhhh, goooood-oh,” he says exhaling gratefully.
“Good-oh,” echoes Mrs Bambridge and ambles off.
I cover up The Captain again as Maria stands watching me.
She looks at her watch.
“You can take your break now. Then we will prepare tea.”
Later, after Maria has taken me through the routine we sit together in the kitchen and she begins to tell me a little about herself. Her family still lives in Romania; she’s thirty-one and came here about seven years ago and has been working as a care-worker since then. She is pleasant enough to talk to and she brightens further when she begins to talk about her faith. In fact, religion seems to set off a whole pinball machine’s worth of emotions in her - with the word ‘Jesus’ being the Super-Bonus. When she says that, the pleasure in her face is almost sexual, and her eyes move upwards as if He himself were floating over her approvingly. I have a weird vision of the two of them floating in the air, making celestial love to each other, and her screaming “Jesus, Jesus” at the moment of heavenly climax.
Amidst this fantasy, my end of the conversation falters and I merely sit and absorb her rapture.
Later, we work together to get Mrs Bambridge upstairs to bed and The Captain settled. Maria’s primary responsibility is Mrs. B., and mine is The Captain, but The Captain is more work and sometimes requires both of us.
I sleep pleasantly enough in the old bed in my room. Maria said The Captain might call but she would take care of it tonight. Tomorrow night will be my turn. I’m thankful for the small mercy. The next morning I awake and shower in the bathroom reserved for me. Maria has risen already to help Mrs. B. and I hear them chatter in the latter’s boudoir.
I get changed and go downstairs for some breakfast then I walk back towards my room to wait until Maria’s ready to help me bathe the Captain. I hear the sound of a door opening upstairs and I look up to see what appears to be a bald man exit Mrs. B.’s bedroom. My mind does a back-flip before I realize who it is. It’s Mrs. B. sans wig and sans even the remotest patch of hair, her head as bald and round as a football. She sees me and coos wickedly, “Good MORNing.” I forget to speak but manage to return the smile.
Maria appears behind her fussing around and doesn’t even look at me.
I almost bear her until the end, almost. In the evening, I am changing The Captain’s catheter bag and she is watching me, having applied some cream to the dry skin of his face, and combed his hair. I am wishing she would just leave and let me do my job, and in my distraction I forget to check that there is no urine trapped in the tube above the bag before I separate the two parts so when I pull the tube off, the release of pressure causes a few drops to rush out and spill on the floor.
Maria sees my mistake immediately.
“Oh, give me that,” she says irritably, reaching for the bag as if she thought I would spill the rest of it.
“No, I won’t give you that,” I say loudly.
She stands there with that horrible patronizing smirk on her face.
A hot pumping anger rises through my chest and my mouth goes dry.
“Just get out Maria. Go on, fuck off.”
“What was that?” The Captain murmurs.
Now her smile fades and the contempt concentrates in her eyes.
“Jason is having a tantrum,” she says slowly.
Before I know what I’ve done, my arm has swung back, catheter bag in hand, and with a violent jerk slung it forward at her; it tumbles through the air and with a wet slap hits her breast; urine gushes out over her chest and face.
She jerks her torso and head violently backwards and I watch her, strangely stunned, as she raises her arms outwards, and slowly, very slowly, begins to cry.
Comments (55)
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A new door opens to what...a hint of horror to come...for whom...Jason?
Atmospheric descriptions follow; you can see it all as in B&W, slo-mo.
Fixed smiles, awkward moments, increasing tension.
The apparently not-so-caring carers - Maria and Jason - hear the patient Captain cry out and move on. Until later. Even the cuckoo is reluctant to show face. 'Perhaps its dead'...yikes :scream:
Another door opens to a dismal disinfected cell; an old tortoise caged.
Hard to imagine how a prominent nose turns into an upturned tortoise but there you have it.
Well thought of... :up:
Web images show it plainly. A fatal position to be in :death:
Move the Sack ! What sack ?
Ooooh, trapped testicles. Feel it. And release. Blessed be :pray:
We rise up to the religious.
Quoting Baden
Pinball Wizardry :love:
''Jesus, Jesus'' - Maria and Jesus climax - :lol: :cry: :halo:
So, then I wonder more about the title 'A Cross for Maria'... :chin:
Mary, mother of the crucified Christ.
What kind of a cross for Maria to bear ?
A slap a-cross her breast - holy water sprinkled over chest and face - the sign.
Arms stretched out, Maria weeps.
What is the meaning of 'Jason' ? Mrs Bambridge...
And the Captain, who, what, why. Sailors at sea. Syph, syphi -sisyphus ?
Ave Maria.
Fantastic :heart:
Jason doesn’t show any intolerance for Maria up to this point so the following urinal outburst is rather disjointed and anticlimactic to an otherwise intriguing storyline. Is he jealous of Jesus?
Simmering sexual tension. Heightened awareness of being watched when working makes him clumsy.
Never been there ? :blush:
That's why they have separate washrooms for men and women at work. For times when the tension is no longer just simmering, but raising the lid on the pot.
Felt like the beginning of upperclass British drama about the help (Downton Abby) suddenly dropping into lite grodie slapstick (Monty Python).
Going to assume this is non-fiction for the hell of it.
Guess it could be about the humiliation some types of work can entail and being seen. Jason is acting out because Maria saw him submit to the flipping of the sack. The Captain, being a captain, needs to exercise his authority otherwise he might lose his vitality and purpose and pass on too soon. This is why more unnecessary help is needed, more bullshit jobs. More help means more hands on deck, more opportunities to enact a provocative unnecessary will to power, by forcing the help to flip the Captain's sack.
Gotta flip the boss' sack or else look for a new job. Flip your own damn sack, Captain!
The author knew his/her way around catheters, urine bags, and old man nads, which revealed itself in the detail of the story.
Is this your round about way of telling us you wrote it? :eyes:
Yes. And a Special Suprapubic too :mask:
Please. Had I written it, the final line would have read, "and she licked her lips and said, 'now I know who stole my asparagus!'"
But what if... I edited that bit out. :monkey:
Neat plot. Urine does definitely make for an excellent counterattack.
Worse, performance anxiety has led to devastating embarrassment in the past.
Ah, ye big softie. Hope no urine involved. Messy business.
This is great.
But it's a real story of human emotion, life, and the end of it. Better than "I woke up, got shot, and then died" like some of these satirical "macabre" stories essentially are.
It got weird after the testicle part, as I'm sure was intended but at the same time it invokes a sense of mortality and offers a reminder of the inevitable (hopefully?) vulnerability even the strongest of men will face at some point, and perhaps the hope that we will have people like Maria, and Mrs. Bambridge, and yes even our urine-slinging protagonist by our side when we need them most.
How did she know to come in with a box of disposable gloves, at that very moment? Why had she done so?
Quoting Baden
Starts to cry? She's dealt with pee for seven years! Don't make me laugh. There's something uncanny about Maria...Maybe that's the real mystery.
Time for a closer read ? See bolds.
[quote="Baden;d12323" ]It’s Maria, striding into the room, she reaches under the bed, pulls out a box of disposable medical gloves, removes one and gives it to me.
[ ...]
“I will go for my break,” she announces. “You won’t have to do anything, just keep watch. I will be back in thirty minutes.” She goes upstairs.[/quote]
Interesting take. But quite wrong, methinks...
The Captain was lying in agony and helpless.
You don't think he woulda flipped his own sack if he coulda ? :chin:
You got it ! :up:
Quoting Tobias
Mystical, mythical Maria. Can't wait until the author reveals all :pray:
Then he needs a little silk baggie for his testicles to stay comfy. A functional codpiece for the captain! A ball and banana hammock!
Thanks, Paul. As mentioned above, I agree that the story seems truncated, This was a feature of a lot of my early writing. I was in a hurry to have something complete rather than developing the characters and plot. A focus on outcome rather than process. I appreciate that you found the setup captivating. If I were writing this now, I'd do it much differently, more in-depth, more slowly and more carefully. In fact, talking about this now, I am tempted to redo it.
I for one would like to see the result. It would be like a writing masterclass.
Eh, no pressure, like.
:pray:
Quoting Amity
Yes, there is definitely that knock-on-the-door-to-the-old-mansion B&W horror movie vibe there. I'm not 100% sure I had that consciously in mind at the time, but it does come through.
Quoting Amity
Yes, a little bit of foreshadowing there, mixed with some morbid humour. :death:
Quoting Amity
Based on a real character. I had him physically in mind when writing that. I really liked this image myself and, later, I actually excised this description for use in a completely different story.
Quoting Amity
Exactly, that was the aim here. Something that I appreciate in others' writings is the ability to evoke different senses. That can be overdone and maybe things got a little too visceral at the end. But again, it's more about how things hang together than any one particular device being employed. And I'll talk more about the ending later.
Quoting Amity
It's actually fairly difficult for me to disentangle all this. I entered the story with hardly a reread. I had intended to stay out of this one because I didn't have something recent that wasn't (self) published. Then after a message from @180 Proof telling me he was looking forward to reading my story, I couldn't resist being involved.
That said, I reckon I can shed some light on the motivations for writing and my mindset at the time. First of all, there is an autobiographical element. I was a care-worker for a while around the same time I wrote this, so I was immersed in a world of urine, catheters, plastic gloves, medicines and so on (@Hanover picked up on this immediately). And while Jason isn't me, he does reflect some of my experience/feelings, and the other characters reflect people I met during my care-work experiences. Some of the events, too, (though not the penultimate action) reflect real events.
On to Maria, because the story largely centers around her and Jason's relationship (undeveloped as it is): Probably the defining aspect of Maria's personality is her strong religious belief, with which Jason is clearly unimpressed. I was fairly anti-theist at the time (far as I remember) and while Jason seems little more than amused/bemused by the level that religion enraptures Maria, I was likely ready to stick the boot into religious ideology any opportunity I got.
So, I think the story operates on two levels here. On one level, it's about being in a job you don't like much, surrounded by people you don't like much, doing stuff you don't like much, and letting that frustration build up until it releases itself in a way that surprises and shocks even yourself. On another, it looks like an expression of contempt for religion: "A Cross for Maria" is the title, but then, what is the cross? The urine? Her martyrdom by being attacked in this way? The problem is the levels don't mesh very well ( and oddly I think I decided on the title before any of the urine flinging stuff got involved, though it's possible I wrote the story after reading about the Piss Christ controversy.)
What I'm trying to say here is that for me the emotional level of the story as reflected in Jason and Maria's reaction to the penultimate action doesn't jive much with a critique or mockery of religion. And if there is a critique of religion or the religious, I'm not really sure what it is. You could say, I suppose, that Maria expressed her longing for a union with Christ (in the "pinball" paragaraph) and by being attacked by Jason she becomes somehow unified with him, she gets her cross. But it's exactly that kind of reading that's short-circuited by the utterly natural and human ending. It's in the very last sentence that Maria distances the reader from Jason's contemptuous "supernatural Jesus pinball" view of her and betrays his caricature. And I thnk it's fair to read Jason as coming to the realization that his violent and involuntary reaction was to a caricature that no longer stands before him.
If I'm to dig a little deeper then, maybe the fact that the surface level emotional and political messages of the story don't mesh is the "meta" message of the story. This can be extended to the clash of moods, resonances, genres: classical horror, satire, work drama etc. Maybe it's a story that only finds itself, as the narrator does, in a reflexive conflict that's played out through third parties, the reader and Maria respectively.
I could probably go on and on, increasing the danger of reading into the text rather than from it and risk descending into a morass of fanciful BS and I may do so :party: , but those are just a few thoughts for now.
Quoting Baden
But I had a thought about this. I've noticed that I really like writing or talking about my own story, but I'm suspicious of the impulse, and not only because it might be vain and pretentious. It occurred to me that it's no better to listen to a writer on his or her own work than it is to listen to a musician or painter. Famously, musicians and visual artists are often really bad at talking about what they've made, and it can come out in the form of platitudes and misleading rationalizations. But because writers have the language and know how to wield the conceptual tools, it sounds like they know what they're talking about, so we listen. But it could be that what they say is just as misleading.
Well, just a thought. Carry on!
Clearly made a strong and lasting impression on you, still carrying the image around.
A different story - for next time ? Or the Symposium ?
Quoting Baden
Well, I felt it and I'm not even a male. Hmmm. No, I don't have that kind of fantasy. Nope.
Not at all overdone. :clap:
Quoting Baden
Glad you were persuaded by 180.
Quoting Baden
Fascinating. All of it. And yes, it took insider experience as a carer to bring life to this story. You had a real sympathetic/empathic connection to this patient ?
Quoting Baden
A potent mix of emotions. And you use all of that in your stories ?
I'm thinking back to the Dada and the Reindeer story...
Quoting Baden
Yes, that's kinda how I viewed it. The golden urine. Wow.
Quoting Baden
I missed that controversy. Strange how people read or misread creative acts. It's good when the creator gets a chance to explain...well, as much as they can.
Quoting Baden
Ah, that makes sense.
Quoting Baden
Deep and thought-provoking. A 'meta' message. Never thought of that but then I thought the levels meshed well...didn't have a problem with that...at the time...
Quoting Baden
Yeah, I could probably do the same. Too much analysis.
But I love it :sparkle:
Thanks for both the story and feedback. God, I'm tired now.
Nothing compared to the energy you've expended on all of this. From start to finish :cool:
Wow, much appreciate that!
The way you go through these stories line by line outlining your thoughts and impressions is phenomenal and has set a high bar for all of us as authors and critics alike. Thanks, again. :sparkle:
I've never done this kind of thing before, so totally inspired by the short story competition.
Thanks :sparkle:
Quoting Amity
Quoting god must be atheist
Maybe, but can't remember this being on my writer's radar and the narrator describes Maria in fairly neutral terms:
Quoting Baden
Quoting Baden
Of course, we could pschoanalyze this into him based on his vision of her making love to Jesus, but their relationship isn't developed enough to say anything beyond that imo.
Cheers!
Quoting Nils Loc
Nice summary. :cool:
Quoting Nils Loc
My lawyer says I should respond in the negative to this. :grin: But, really, I've taken elements from reality and mixed them up for narrative purposes.
Quoting Nils Loc
This is quite perceptive. I had dozens of jobs in my twenties, many of them ending with me effectively telling my boss to "flip his own sack" in one way or the other. I resented being told what to do and the easy availibility of more bullshit jobs meant I at least had the luxury of never being tied to any of them. Some of this comes through in the narrator's frustrations, but, of course, unlike my own self-perceived triumphant rebellions, the narrator's ends on a rather sour note.
I like this interpretation. A story of human emotion even if a bit awkwardly done. I think that was mostly my intention when writing it. I was processing an experience, experimenting, amusing myself, but primarily imagining and describing an emotional crescendo that overshadows everything that preceded it.
I actually remember being very satisfied on writing that paragraph after rewriting it several times. It seemed, and still does, neat. Thanks for noticing. :up:
This is part of her superior positioning, as described through the perspective of our relatively hapless narrator. She knows what she's doing and he doesn't and it frustrates him. Partly, I think, he's really angry at himself but projects it onto her as an inauthentic means of denying resposibility for his current position/place in life. And the act of doing that in general is autobiographical. I think I did that a lot when I was younger.
Quoting john27
This is the thing; she's painted as uncanny but in the end she's not really, she's just someone who was unfortunate enough to deal with a guy who lost control while happening to have a bag of urine to hand. At least it wasn't an assault rifle or something. Oh, there's an idea for an American version of the story. Wanna co-write @Hanover ? We can have guns and pee if you like. :party:
Tell me more....
Why didn't I think of that... ? :up:
It's certainly not supposed to be a mystery story, though it starts as if it might be, which is kind of misleading, albeit not in an intentional way.
Actually the story did bring back a memory from childhood. I was always a good kid, never naughty, but once upon a time in school I was. No idea what I did anymore but I did it together with my best friend at the time, Stephan. So we had been naughty and we had clean up duty, we had to clean the court yard where all the children played.
Well, us two were there all by ourselves, so what do little boys do, they make an even bigger mess of things. Soon we were chasing each other with the buckets and toy shovels laying around. I ran after him weaving the small plastic shovel laughing and he ran back into the school. I chased him down the hallway until he reached the toilet cubicles for boys. I almost caught him, but he fled into a stall and locked the door. We both cheered and laughed and he started shouting, "I am going to throw it, better cover, I am going to throw!" I knew he meant the toilet brush...
At that moment the door flung open and there was my teacher, a rather beautiful young teacher, but stern, you better not mess with her. "I am going to throw, cover!" Stephan, who did not hear her come in, yelled. and I screamed back "No don't, don't throw, really no, listen, no!" Him, thinking it was part of the game, crowed and cackled with laughter and with an elegant arch threw the toilet brush over the door of the stall....
It did not land in the teachers face. that is the upside. It did land in her neck and cleavage. She was transfixed, gasped and led out this unearthly wail... I took advantage of the situation and crashed through the door, back into the corridor and dashed as fast as my little legs could carry me. Yes... I did leave my friend inside the cubicle with the door locked. He would eventually have to come out and face the music.... But you have to understand, it was every little boy for himself in that situation! We did get a formal reprimand but the teacher who gave it could not hide his laughter... we had another round of cleaning to do and behaved this time...
Ahh I see. That's a pretty interesting dynamic.
Wish I'd known that before, would have been a nice bit of research, hehe. "Crying" (despite my having reasons to use it in the story) is a bit of a mild response to a urine-centred assault, an "unearthly wail" much more realistic. :up:
Well I do not know if crying was the eventual result.... I did not stop to look or listen... :joke:
Here's a draft anyhow. Not sure how it comes across (a lot of abrupt jumping around characters and perspectives and maybe it needs more filling out) but it's definitely more reflective of the way I write now (though I couldn't format it here exactly the way I wanted). Some feedback might be helpful. But no rush! :grin:
A Cross
Something breaks in him…
Maria in the mirror, those grey eyes, can’t help admire, smiles shyly at her own shy smile. Something on the glass. A quick wipe, and the window behind comes into view, autumn light spilling over the wooden floorboards, sheen on the bedposts, quilt’s softness consuming the glare, a coziness and a strangeness. It’s not her room and never will be, but neat and comfortable. Enough.
Fingers on the crucifix, her neck, joint caress of dark hair. She’ll make the journey to church today. Again, the mirror, her purity of purpose, almost the shy smile but no, not now. That last time, the man who stared at her, whose stare she felt, and she wondered if she invited. A glance and she knew what they both knew: same stock, journeyed, transposed. She shuddered, pitied, but didn’t know why. Couldn’t be the same, not how it mattered. But he her and she them.The first time. Better not to think... A tumult. Confusing, irritating, to be watched, as if her own eyes float above and won’t let her be. All adds a tinge, dust on the journey, a speck between her and purity. Something in the way.
Tumbling, rolling, flying…
“The Captain was such a strong man…"
Can’t escape my own head. Reminds me, singing Leonard Cohen songs and not being able. Too busy scratching my skin to let him in. Did you ever go clear? I never have; we never go clear. There are a million little Leonards, frauds every one; they jump through my every musical loop… but only parody. I sing for the angels, but the angels don’t sing for me. Must be the wrong angels. She is. Probably. You say I can’t forgive myself. No. Really. I don’t go in for self-immolation. I fancied myself an actor once, and this is just that. All comes back to a self-divorce. Slip out the back, Jack. Get yourself a fancy new raincoat and be that thing. Whatever it is, unencumbered. I’m too cumbered is all. All cumbered up. I can’t be the only one… I’m taking this too seriously.
Maria is attentive. Suitably so. Because Mrs Bambridge… the thing is there’s nothing to point to. There’s a pudgy face, porridge coloured, flecked with age, could be the face of a maid. Or a homeless woman. Maybe the one who told you when you gave her a pound that she was going to spend it on drink and was proud of her honesty. Why not that face? But it doesn’t work. Status, authority, what surrounds imprints its demands. What is appropriate to give. Attention. Respectful attention. The hair is a wig. Mrs Bambridge is completely bald. The homeless woman at least had live follicles. But she demanded nothing. Except a pound. “Follicles” …funny, Maria learned that word here. Speaks better.
A white flash, a wicked dove…
“He commanded…."
The doorbell ringing is a rude interruption but we can’t upbraid a thing can we? We acknowledge. Mrs Bambridge let’s pause before redeploying her lips in soft command:
“You may answer that, Maria”
Maria in semi-spring, slow her down, like a cheetah at 5 frames per second, the rhythm of service, her harmonies impeccable. Has she lived there all her life? The economy of movement… This is no savannah, the room is cluttered, but motion and matter flow in her favour as she makes the hallway and heads for the door. Let us not go on but admire and simply call it “grace”.
But she can’t move; there is no time…
So, the first time. Her hair, her eyes, and the whole house a frame, majestic and eery, autumn dusk. Backlit Maria, a shadow but the eyes shone. Is this the sticking point, an overdose of atmosphere, cliché? Like you’re in a movie. I said, “eery”, I meant it. In films everything is condensed. Isn’t this how they get you? We’re not made for that. So, she got me, or I lost her in some resonance of image, motion, and sound. Not that any of that explains what happened. But it goes on, the dislocation, smell of candles, pictures on the walls, high ceilings, Mrs Bambridge in the ‘conservatory’, posh old bat, eyeing me up and down, like something out of, what’s that flick? Never mind. Then the Captain, stranger still, lying on his back, panting. They won’t turn on the lights because it hurts his eyes. We’re introduced, stretches towards me, straining. Has a face like a bird’s and hardly more awareness. Bird’s are stupid, but it’s not stupidity, just absence. There is no fucking captain. The ‘Captain’ is Mrs Bambridge’s memory. Can you hear her? He commanded this ship, fought that battle, was awarded this medal, dined with that member of the royal family. And his ghost enshrouds the helpless bird-man before us, enshrouds us all, all hail the birdman! Maria in the doorway, unreadable, inscrutable. If she’s human, she’s as lost as I am, but she looks born for this.
[u]Universal Care: Carers Handbook, p.3
“The general duty of care has been defined through common law and is therefore a legal obligation. It is the responsibility of every individual who has the capacity to carry it out. It applies in our society and in any situation regardless of whether we are working in the caring profession or not. And it is reciprocal, others with the maturity and mental capacity to understand a given situation, and the physical capacity to take appropriate action have also a duty of care towards us. This implies that the duty of care is the responsibility of any reasonable person to another to protect them from danger, significant risk and harm.”[/u]
Now two children, the Captain and Jason. Maria, on meeting her coworker, had observed the lack of poise, togetherness, the… hard to say, but obvious. The one before had been serious, training to be a nurse, as was she. This was a drifter. A pup. Plopped next to the Captain in the pooled light, bemused. She and Mrs Bambridge in the doorway, their shadows striping the awkward forms before them. It’s all giving, giving through. But not away. There’s the difference. Two now. Not her children but she doesn’t resent it.
You feel consumed; you are in the wrong place or the wrong place is in you. The key is wrong. Leonard changes key in mid verse. You can’t do it unless you’re listening to him do it. You get lost. It’s regular weather for November. A bit gray, a bit cool. The table is wooden and cool. No one comes in here except the carers.
Tumbling, flowing through the air, no time….
It’s not about guilt. I’m not into confessions, fuck that shit. I just want to understand the whole thing better. When something happens, uh, when I do something “wrong” I take a step back. I’m objective about it. Punish yourself all you want. You’re an idiot. I used to do that. Made things worse. You beat yourself into the ground and before you know it, you’re making the same mistakes all over again. I want to understand her perspective, you know, that way I combine it with mine and there’s some coherence there. You’re not going to get anywhere stuck in your own fucking subjectivity. And what’s the best way to get into someone else’s head. You tell me? I’ll tell you what she said in the kitchen anyway, I’ll tell you that much, that was a fucking eye-opener.
“Have you heard the phrase ‘walking with Jesus’, do you know what it means? Until you’ve experienced it…” “Jesus’s love” “The radiance from the cross” “It’s almost impossible to explain” “I was overcome” “Looking at me, me, from the cross” “It was, I would call it a vision, yes.” “He is by my side.” “The radiance.” “It was not a dream, a dream is different.” “By my side.”
Frozen in the air in the final split second before….
Maria will sort him out. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, so she’ll have to. Amusing in a way. You get some good ones and some stinkers. Jason is a bit of a stinker. But he’s not the worst. Sullen, keeps himself to himself. Maria will sort him out. Odd in her own way. But useful. And listens. She knows, doesn’t she, Captain?
Catheter, urine, gloves, hoist, apron, mask, medicine, stick, underwear, testicles, toilet, screams, alarm, night duty, schedule, bath, soap, underwear, sleep, scrub, brush, sheets, wash, rinse. Material, bits, putting them together, never claimed to be good at that. Even with stuff I liked. You’re doing it for the money. Of course. You don’t care. Everyone cares. You have to. Fucking schedule. Fucking bits. Fucking Captain. I can’t sleep.
Catheter, urine, gloves, hoist, apron, mask, medicine, stick, underwear, testicles, toilet, screams, alarm, night duty, schedule, bath, soap, underwear, sleep, scrub, brush, sheets. Not my thing, not my thing at all. Doing it for the money? Who isn’t? Shut up.
…the unmerciful impact.
Well, I might as well just come right out…
The speck on the mirror. She’s tried to be charitable. But look at him. A child doing a man’s work. Look at him, look! Jason, I don’t want to have to speak, I don’t want to have to tell you, I want you to be able to do it yourself but… Jason fumbles with the catheter bag forgetting to check there’s no urine trapped in the tube before separating the two parts. It’ll spill… It spills. That’s enough! Maria advances. "Give me that". Jason just stares at her. The child, look at his face, spoilt little child, spoilt little helpless… The motion of his arm, a jerk, a flash of white.
…and tell you what happened.
A literary knock out. I'll come back to digest it more thoroughly when I'm sober, but jeez man. What a piece. What a work.
Hey thanks, man! Hope it stands up to a sober assessment. :grin:
Likewise.
The 'new' version is perhaps more mature but, I don't know.... 'contrived' is the word that springs to mind.
I enjoyed the original which was fresh at time of writing; closer to the experience.
More natural.
@Baden - your thoughts appreciated.
I wonder if it's a good idea to revisit old stories like this? Did it feel authentic? Was it simply a technical exercise?
I think you two need a few more drinks in you. :razz:
Quoting jamalrob
Quoting Amity
Really good feedback anyhow because you both hit the issues I was wondering about. Am I confusingly hammerimg the reader which a bunch of perspective changes and, even more, is this just an exercise in style? Also, is it a good idea to try to revive a story that doesn't really represent the way I write now and that I see so many problems with now. I think being contrived and inauthentic is a real danger. I don't know how I feel about it myself yet. It often takes me a week or two to work out whether I like something I've written. In the moment, I'm too close to it.