Archive for the ‘Jonathan Wood’ Category
A Time of War
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
Detective Shale sifted through the fragments of the alchemist’s shattered glass heart. “A rare thing,” he said.
“We all have them.” Collomb tapped flesh knuckles against a bronze chest. “Seems this man should have taken better care of his.”
“You think an accident was all this was, Sergeant?”
“Glass heart, sir? This was waiting to happen.”
Shale suddenly winced. A bead of his own blood stood sharp on his thumb. He examined the wound. Then he stood, dropped the glass shard and it split in two. “You’re right Collomb. War is no time for fragility. Even if this was a fight. An accident. A lover’s quarrel-”
Shale paused abruptly, placed his thumb in his mouth and sucked at the injury. For a moment Collomb thought he saw a tear in the man’s eye. Then Shale blinked and it was gone.
“Ask if anyone saw anything,” Shale said, and left
Collomb stood at the market stall surrounded by hands of steel, eyes of malleable clay, jeweled intestines strung like cloth’s lines, rows of hearts: gold, silver, jade, basalt, and bronze.
“Glass hearts,” Collomb asked the old man tending the stall.
“Only one.” The old man nodded, obsequious. “A recent acquisition. A rare thing.”
Curiosity rose in Collomb.
“Acquired from whom?”
“A sad man. Traded it below its value. Bought himself a heart of flint. A man looking for strength. Or hardness. Sometimes so difficult to tell the two apart. Especially in times of war.”
“What sort of heart do you have, sir?”
Shale looked at Collomb. Collomb was patient.
“Stone,” Shale said. “Why’d you think no woman would marry me?” He mounted a smile
“Strong heart,” Collomb said.
Shale shrugged. “Hard,” he said.
“Not easy to shatter. Not like glass.”
Shale paused, bowed his head. “No, not like glass.” He looked away, but kept on talking. “Did you know, Collomb, that glass is a liquid? It flows over time. Warps. Becomes something new. Not stone. There is no beauty in the permanence of stone. No fragility.”
“Easy for accidents to happen. Easily broken. A lover’s wrong word. Better perhaps to protect yourself.”
Shale looked long and hard at Collomb. “For now, yes, perhaps. While the war lasts.”
Collomb weighed the words.
“Until then, then, sir.”
“Until then.” Again, there was a tear in Shale’s eye.
Collomb nodded, turned, and for a while left the man standing alone.
Lulu at the Blue Note
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
The same guy comes to see Lulu sing every night. She never looks at him. He never looks at anyone else.
She’s been singing here a month when I get stupid. She’d walked in one Wednesday, sung one song and been hired. I’d been playing horn twenty years and I’d never heard anyone sing like that before. Sang like she was scared to stop.
After a week, I asked her, “What are you doing here? I know I’ve missed my break, but you…?”
She didn’t speak. Never did. Only sang. But the next night she looked at me as she crooned, “Some dreams are nightmares, some dreams are for fools. We’re never careful what we wish for, and sometimes dreams come true.”
Never speaks a word to me, but I still I get stupid. Normally I only get stupid over blonds. But that voice and that guy. So I hire a PI and a month later I’ve got an envelope full of photos—Lulu at different bars. And every time the audience is in a photo, I see that guy.
Next night, I catch him at the back door and we go at it, shouting back and forth ’til Lulu appears.
“What’s he got you scared for?” I say. I’ve got my hand on the guy’s throat.
She looks at me, and then she starts singing, and it’s more beautiful that I’ve ever heard her sing before, and my heart breaks at the sound.
“Some dreams are nightmares, some dreams are for fools. We’re never careful what we wish for, and sometimes dreams come true.”
And suddenly, I don’t know why, but part of me gets scared. I’m scared I’ve got the devil himself by the neck, and I’m scared right down to my soul. The man stares at me, then at Lulu, and I’m trembling like a child.
Then she speaks to me for the first time. “No Steve-o, it’s not that,” she says “You got it backwards. All backwards. He’s keeping me…” she pauses, “away from temptation.”
The guy shakes me off, puts an arm around Lulu and they walk off. And for a moment, just an instant, I could swear he has wings.
Lulu doesn’t come back to the Blue Note after that. But I keep on playing, and my break keeps on not coming. And part of me is glad.