For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn

It's April 16th, more than halfway through the month, and I suddenly realise I've failed myself as a writer. I say this not because I've lost faith in my ability to turn a clever phrase or paint a picture with prose; in fact I still count myself as one of my favorite writers (if only I could publish!); but because somewhere I began to overlook one serious aspect: Brevity.
Allow me to explain. May 1st is the deadline for submissions to the 2007 Commonwealth Short Story Competition. All Commonwealth citizens are eligible to win the sum of £2,000 or a little under US$4000. All you have to do is submit up to three short stories which, based on the trend of past winners, concerns some issue of cultural significance where you live. They also have to be 600 words or less.

And for me, therein lies the snag. When I first read about the competition, I was elated. "Cakewalk" I thought, as I'd had no shortage of stories filed away in a little corner of my computer. I'd simply choose three of my favourites; clean them up a bit, and send them on in. But when I started looking through them, hardly any seemed good enough, and the ones that I did like were all at least two pages long. 600 words, double spaced, is hardly even a one page. It meant, quite simply, that I'd have to write something new.

I decided I'd write a quick one about going through Phillip S.W. Goldson international, specifically the check-in procedures. I should have been able to save space by limiting it to just that space between the counter and the departure lounge. Heck, I wouldn't even have to spend that much time on developing characters. But then strangely enough, my image of that annoying space with the x-ray machine and metal detector became quite sharp. I found myself describing the wood panelling on the walls became so clear, so important, that I found myself travelling down the road where the mahogany tree once stood, and where foresters spent weeks cutting it down, quartering it, transporting it, selling it, shaping, sanding, and varnishing the panels so they'd shine bright for the tourists. Simply based on this one paragraph, you can see how that turned out.

Then I had a vision of feet under a table. Your average Belize restaurant where waiters are rude to the locals and sickeningly condescending to tourists or officials, and it would all have been based on the shoes and clothes they wore and how they positioned their feet, adding to the absurdity of the entire practice. But then my 600- word story became, in my minds eye, a play on a stage with the curtains half drawn, then a screenplay with the camera frame following the waiter's feet from table to table, sometimes with no dialog at all except for what those naughty little feet were doing. This too was getting out of hand.

So now, I'm slowing down. I've got two weeks and if I rush this I'll end up with a ton of half finished short stories, a play that I have no idea how to pull off, and a screenplay that I'd have no idea what to do with. Perhaps with the help of a thesaurus and an editor who aspires to be a butcher, I might have something before the deadline.

Morpheus's Garden

Yesterday I was at work until about six, elbow deep in networking concepts, virtual storage space, and various other banalities.  I could feel the grayness creeping its way into my brain.  It was then that I said screw it, and headed for home.

I stopped at the market.  Picked up some mangoes and bananas, some cauliflower and broccoli, and trudged my way home.  Once there I poured myself a rusty nail and got cooking.  Pork chops in a Mango-Teriyaki marinade and steamed veggies on the side.

The rest of my evening was pretty uneventful.  In fact, the above is pretty damn uneventful, but I've told you about that to tell you about the dream I had that night.

I was walking along the sidewalk down some seemingly random street.  The sunlight was quickly being replaced by streetlights, and the urban exterior was gradually being replaced by something a lot greener.  Grass was creeping into the cracks in the sidewalk and as I hurried along my way I suddenly realized slender vines were simultaneously reaching out for me.  My head followed my gaze, which followed the green, and before I knew it I'd stopped in front of a garden.  On both sides were brownstones, and I could see the very top of a strip of apartment buildings to the back, but tucked in the middle was a garden.  The white brick wall in the front was making a valiant effort at keeping the green contained, but ultimately failing as the tops of trees peered over it, and on those trees were vines and bearded moss that mocked the walls authorities, climbed down its external surface, and reached out for passers-by such as myself.  The Iron Gate had suffered from the garden's rebellion as well.  The hinges had rusted and it lay to one side of the entrance, broken and moss covered.  It had been waiting here, this garden.  It had been waiting for me to pass by, and now it was inviting me in.

The entrance was shaded by a row of trees planted at equal distance apart, as if in an orchard, and over time the canopy had grown together and filtered the streetlight through so it was more like starlight, twinkling.  The smell in the air was sweet and familiar.  Black Berries! I could see them now, hanging heavy from the lowest limbs.  The biggest black berries I'd ever seen!  They would leave my mouth purple for weeks! 

I took a few steps toward one bunch and suddenly realized I wasn't alone.  There was a woman there, standing under the canopy.  She had light brown skin and bright white teeth, almond eyes and chestnut hair that was braided and wrapped high atop her head, so high that it was almost touching the cluster of berries she was standing underneath.  And that's all she was doing.  Standing there and being beautiful.  And in the way.

"Hello."  I said as I approached.  She hadn't seen me until I spoke, and when she did she smiled at me with the sweetest smile a face like that could possible hold.  "Do you mind if I..." I indicated the berries just above her head.
"Sorry," She replied.  "I have a boyfriend."
"Actually I just wanted too...."  And again I pointed at the berries.  She just stood there, looking cute.

So what was I to do?  I readied the plastic bag (which I just happened to be carrying) and gingerly held it open with one hand while the other hand reached above the girl and toward the berries.  I didn't pick them, but caressed the firmly.  The ones that were ready tumbled happily into the bag, which was halfway full when the girl bellow began giggling.

"I really don't think my boyfriend would approve of this." She said, and I suddenly realized that in my eagerness to get to the berries I'd been leaning against her quite a bit.  I found it odd that she hadn't moved.  I found it downright disturbing that she seemed to be enjoying this.  I left her and found another cluster of berries, but there was another woman beneath it, even more beautiful than the last.  She was dark, so dark that her smooth skin shone over her long legs and arms and face.  The street-light-star-light twinkled against her cheekbones and the curve of her hips, and there was a permanent smile in her eyes.  She saw me.  She most definitely saw me.  And I had a feeling that she didn't have a boyfriend.  I decided I'd had enough berries for one evening, and moved on.

There were little rows of bushes just beyond that.  Pepper trees and Okra trees trimmed and trained to grow low and wide, just like the ones that lined the house at my grandparents' farm.  I grazed from them, pressing the tips of the slender okra with my thumb, the way my father taught me.  The ones that snapped I pulled off and dropped them into the bag with the berries.  The peppers I didn't touch, but I marveled in their colors.  Reds and oranges like fresh embers.  Greens and purples that promised something toxic.  Even in the fake light they were dazzling.

The real prize lay further ahead, though I wouldn't have guessed it.  It was, perhaps, the strangest tree I'd ever seen.  If I had to give it a name I'd call it a book tree.  It did grow out of the ground, but more as if it had been dropped there and forgotten, and time and entropy had tried to conquer it, leading an invasion up its base, but ultimately failing there.  Before me stood a bookshelf made of yellowish wood, sanded and polished to perfection.  The grain still shone through on the back and the sides.  There was no moss.  There were no vines.  The garden accepted this as part of itself.  The books were packed in tight beside one another, but they didn't jostle for space or complain.  They were books, much too noble for that sort of behavior.  I ran my fingers over the countless spines, scanning the titles as I went by.  The sweetness of the berries couldn't compare to the prize held here.  I managed to get a grip on one of them and pull it from the shelf.  A biography of Malcolm X.

It wasn't until I had the book in my hands...

No, it wasn't until I was walking away with it, making my way past the humble shrubs and past the beautiful trees with their beautiful fruit and the beautiful women.  Not until I stepped past the broken gate and began trudging down the sidewalk laden with a bag of fruit and holding a book possessively to my chest that I suddenly realized what I'd done.  The garden may have been trying to find me, it may have invited me in, it may have presented me with a dozen pleasures for me to accept, decline, or not notice all together, but what had I done to deserve it?  All I'd done was take.  I took its fruit, I took a book, I enjoyed being there and I hadn't even said thank you.  Surely there had been others before me who had been invited in, but if everyone just took as they pleased and gave nothing back there's no way that splendor could have lasted this long. 

I was consumed with guilt.  I turned back hoping to find it again and somehow replenish what I'd taken.  I didn't make it back, though.  I stopped before I got to the broken gate when I realized that, in truth, I had nothing to give.  Not right now.  But there would be a time when I did, and I would stalk my own dreams in search of the garden.  I'd bring a book with me, something beautiful that others need to read, and I'd slide it in the space where the book I'd taken had been.

I don't know how it works for you, but it's usually then, when I realize that I actually am dreaming that I'm closest to waking.  I'd like to find that garden again.  As far as recurring dreams go, it's got to be better than that stupid one where there are strangers in my back yard.

I'll tell you about that some other time.