. . . . . entries for 8.2.09 . . . . .
So: I wrote this today while under the spell of the weather (et al), and I may or may not do something further with it. It is in present tense, which may or may not bear changing; I like it and I don't. It is nothing like complete, and therefore unsuitable for the the litblog. Therefore, normablog: a page or so of fiction!
Mary Catherine Howland lives in a gray-shingled house on a street filled with gray-shingled houses. Fresh shoots of ivy creep up her white arbor and picket fence, and sweet-smelling, scrubby island rosebushes line the walk to her door. She picks rosehips for tea and jam, and embroiders Bible verses onto white cloth to hang in her daughter’s nursery. She invites her cousins and friends and mother’s friends to her house for charades and gossip. She does whatever she can.
It isn’t so long, the older wives assure her. And imagine - first mate at just twenty-two! Soon her James will return rich with whale oil. After a bath and a good meal, he’ll be that same handsome young Howland she married - but not until, not until! Waves of laughter break over the cards and scones.
To Mary Catherine’s right sits Aunt Lizzie, a fine old lady with a straight nose. Her eyes are blue and crinkly behind her brass-rimmed spectacles. “That’s why we stay on the island, love,” she says, leaning close as though she were divulging a great secret. “You wouldn’t want to smell of whale, would you?”
Mary Catherine smiles with her eyes as she sips her tea, then rests her cup on its saucer. “Certainly not!”
Her guests laugh. Laura Smith, her mother, raises her saucer. “Another cup, dear.”
She obliges with a polite smile and nod, but her thoughts are elsewhere. No matter the company, it seems, her thoughts are elsewhere.
Mary Catherine remembers the odor of her father - God rest him - fresh from the docks, dark splotches on his breeches and sleeves. Even after the clothes were thrown away, after he washed and scrubbed, the salty, rotten smell remained in his beard and mustache for months. She can’t imagine her husband gathering that scent in his gold-and-copper hair, but she knows that his life must be like her father’s stories: toiling aboard the Morgan, some days trapped in doldrums, other days tormented by storms, and - on the worst days - in pursuit of enormous sea monsters for hours on end, stabbing their black flesh with harpoons until the spouts of their breath run red. “Fire in the chimney!” was the death knell of foolish whalers. The dying monster thrashed with ten times the power it possessed in life, its frenzy designed to drag its opponents with it into Hell.
“Dearest, it’s your go,” Aunt Lizzie tells Mary Catherine.
“Oh, goodness. I’m sorry.” She glances through her cards and plays, aware of the blush rising to her cheeks.
“It’s all right, love. We were all young once, hm?”
Whaling sounded like an adventure when Mary Catherine was a child. She begged her father to bring her along on his next voyage, but he just laughed, and her mother just shouted “stop those stories, John, you’ll give our daughter nightmares!”
Now, made nervous by the nightmares that her father’s bedtime stories never brought, Mary Catherine hopes that James is not a foolish whaler. He has been out to sea for one year today.
come home?
.:people:.
{ting}
she looks like the real thing
{mari}
out and about
[kelsey]
THIS IS AMERICA
{yianni}
stop being depressed
{alisa}
other
[shannon]
close and far
{frank}
islands where no islands should go
[cassie]
eating knowledge
{colin}
my dm
[emily]
shoulder to the wheel
[brian]
nostalgic for fantasy
[nicole]
industry insider
{elle}
angry enviro
[matt]
never heard of miyazaki
[pirate dan]
are you reading this?
[olga]
distracted
[messiah dan]
messiah/believer
{max}
approach focus
[natalie]
wait a minute
[susan]
solitude
{greg}
manbeargreg
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.:skin:.
turtles! turtles! by araglas
(heavily modified by yours truly)