Archive for the ‘Rudi Dornemann’ Category
Marley’s Holiday
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
The darkness was a balm to Marley, hiding from him the life in which he could not participate, either to join in the happiness of the living or to ease their misery. The cold, the wind, the frost — all of these were the most congenial companions in his wanderings.
As the days turned darker, the mass of humanity, in whose company Marley was doomed to move, all those people who could not see him and whom he could not touch, they turned their attention to one over-illuminated spectacle after another. The light burned, it pierced him like knives. First Diwali, with its colors and lights, as strange to him as Guy Fawkes, which followed soon after with its searing bonfires, was familiar. A respite then, as winter gathered, but too soon came Hannukah, with each night more piercing than the one before, and the solstice, with more fire and light. And finally Christmas, the holiday he knew from his time alive, with its lighted trees, its parades and blazing storefronts tormenting him in the waning days of December, when he wanted nothing more than to be only another aspect of winter, another sign of year’s deathlike ebb.
The clink of commerce did less to assuage him that one might have thought — even the most mercenary of exchanges held undercurrents of fellow-feeling that stabbed at him like remorse, he, who could only watch and pass on through. There was one moment, however, toward which he looked forward expectantly.
He never knew exactly when the apparition would appear, a ghost as insubstantial as himself but with the warm glow of sunrise: Scrooge. Bearing the same gift he’d carried on this night for nearly one-hundred and fifty years: a bit of potato, still half raw.
“Happy Christmas, you old figment,” said Scrooge.
For the space of a thought, the powers that would not permit any gift that might dispel Jacob Marley’s allotted suffering did relent, just enough that the old spirit knew his existence had not been entirely without consequence — he was remembered, he had changed a life, if not his own.
The Siege
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
By the time the first snow fell, none of us remembered if we’d been the ones to burn the bridges and mine the streets just inside the gates, or if that had been the enemy. Big flakes fell out of the dark like the ashes of the stars we couldn’t see and the city got even quieter under all the white. Out on the plain, the wind blew rolling drifts like slow waves and we saw the distant figures of the enemy scrambling to secure their tents.
My sister Rose and I laughed and watched until the cold metal of the telescope stung our eyes, then we went downstairs and had some of the soup that Mama Anna had made. It wasn’t much — just water in which a shriveled potato had simmered all day. Sister Zell called it “potato tea,” but she wouldn’t help when we tried to talk Mama Anna into having a slice of the potato in our soup.
“If you eat it now,” said Mama Anna, “it won’t be there for breakfast.”
“Let them have it,” said Sister Zell. She stared out the window where the snow was falling heavier than ever.
Mama Anna put the pot back in the hearth and told us a story about the old days, when the Engineer and the Poet and the other founders built the city. Rose and I tried not to slurp our soup.
Mama Anna was just getting to the part where the Prophet went sleepwalking every night and the Engineer followed him so that he could see where the city walls should be, when Sister Zell interrupted.
“They flogged the Engineer the other day,” she said. “On the city hall steps.”
“It”s time for bed,” said Mama Anna. “For all of us.”
There was a huge sound, even louder than then cannons.
“The river-moat froze over,” said Sister Zell.
There were three more sounds, like wood cracking, only much louder, and I thought I heard a faraway shout.
“What do we do?” said Mama Anna.
“We wait,” said Sister Zell. “They should be waking the dragon soon.”
The whole house shook like it did when the calvalry used to ride down the street, back when we still had horses.
“Isn’t it too cold?” said Rose.
“We’ll find out,” said Sister Zell.
Mama Anna started to cry. Sister Zell held her hand, and we all looked out at the snow.