Archive for the ‘Kat Beyer’ Category
Unexpected Results from Swedish Furniture
Friday, May 9th, 2008
Mason wanted to get the kids’ room finished, so, determined that the best thing to do was get some cute furniture, he carried me off to IKEA, hoping that that chair with the leaf hanging over it would be there, as well as a free table at the cafeteria so we could have meatballs and lingonberry juice.
We didn’t bring the kids, because we knew that then we would go way over budget on pillows shaped like hedgehogs, tiny lamps that changed colors, etc.—not because we can’t say no to our children, or because they might throw tantrums, because they don’t much—really!—but because Teresa, in particular, has a way of sitting down on a pillow shaped like a hedgehog that makes it impossible not to want to repeat such an experience of total adorabilosity in our own home.
It’s horrible, I know, but it could be so much worse.
Instead, I sat down on the pillow shaped like a hedgehog, Mason laughed (I love having a husband who laughs when I mean to be funny), and everything went dark.
I woke up in the manager’s office with Mason trying to revive me with lingonberry juice, the lights in his spiky hair flickering into focus. I said, “I’ve always thought that haircut was too metrosexual,” and almost went out again. He squeezed my hand.
“Thank goodness you’re all right,” said the manager. “We could give you the pillow,” she added to Mason. “I’m sorry. It’s just that it would be so bad for business if you came back.”
“Well excuse me, aren’t adults allowed to sit on hedgehog pillows?” I said, trying to sit up.
Mason squeezed my hand tighter and said, “Of course they are, monkey. The trouble is that they don’t usually start rolling their head and prophesying when they do it.”
“What?”
“You don’t remember anything?”
“Nothing.”
“I must have arrived while you were in full swing,” said the manager kindly.
“Yes,” Mason told me, “you pretty much gave a full synopsis of the next decade.”
“It was the bit about our stocks that got to me, I admit,” said the manager. “Although it was nice to know who’s going to win the election.”
They gave us the pillow. I’m looking at it right now, trying to decide what to do next (we’ve already agreed not to let Teresa sit on it).
Typecast
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
The younger typesetters told stories about Samuel: how he had once set the Canon of the Witches in one night, and how when the oil in the lamps had run out, he had gone on in the dark, with only his sure fingers to guide him. Or how when Gundrid of Maesbury lost her temper and turned the mayor into a field vole, then ordered tiny books to be printed for the poor woman by way of apology, Samuel had hired dormice to cast the type, but had composited every page himself, with tweezers and an immense magnifying glass.
Even so, Bridget warned him before she shut up shop. “Sir,” she said, “hadn’t it better wait till tomorrow? I mean… when we are all here? So it’s a bit—safer?”
The others thought she was brave to say that. He shook his head.
“It’s wanted Frida’s Day,” he said.
So he opened the book when all the locks were locked, and turned from page to page, both hands working on their own, pulling vowels and consonants, ligatures and punctuation from the case. Under his hands the words of the spell formed themselves in the formes. This job they would have to print blindfolded. But even if he set it in the dark, he still had to shape the words, taking care that they did not shape him. He recited verses from the Canon, interleaving them with the lines he set, like protective leading.
He’d left one window open to let the spring air in, the air of a perfect evening, just free of a soft rain, the cherry tree outside the window covered in blossoms so sweet they seemed to scent the moonlight.
I, H, A, V, E, B, E…
When the words took him he knew. They felt like the touch of his master on his shoulder. He almost expected to hear Old Jack’s voice, saying, “Well done, Samuel.” Then he knew it was too late. Fear bit him.
It will feel heavy as lead, he thought. Binding as a forme, oily as ink.
But it didn’t. It felt light as the words in his mind, soft as the lead between his fingers. It felt fine and funny, like setting text for field voles.
I have become. Let my wings open. Let it always be spring, and I in it, he thought. I did my best.