Snippet #5 2021
The small man peered up at her, a cheerful smile spreading across his black wrinkled face. He was of a height with Karma, shoulders bowed with age, dressed in a worn if impeccably clean suit that was dark and shiny in the dim light of the cellar. He reached out gnarled finger and tapped her notebook.
“I been writin’ my own book, yes, yes, I have.” he rummaged in his pockets pulling out a stained and wrinkled notebook no bigger than his palm. He licked his finger and started thumbing through the pages. Karma could see it was filled with cramped, illegible scrawls that sometimes scampered down the margins and into the more ordered and sedate text in the middle. His teeth flashed as he triumphantly pointed at a passage. Karma leaned forward to try to read the text, but couldn’t make out a single word.
“I’m sorry, is it in English?” she asked timidly.
The little old man laughed. “Course it’s in English! Maybe you need some new glasses, eh? Dat’s jus’ fine, I’ll read it for you, yes, yes, I will.” He cleared his throat and straightened up, adding another quarter inch to his height. Then he leaned forward and peered at the text, scowling.
“Well, it seems them words is jus’ gonna be trouble, all dancin’ around and makin’ it hard ta read! But that’s ok – I know the story jus’ fine and can tell it without them pesky words. I jus’ use some other ones, yes, yes, I will.” He looked straight at Karma then and smiled the brightest most joyous smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back as he began to tell his story.”
It all started when I was married to the love of my life. We were poor, not like I am now with all this beautiful catacombs to wander and take care of. And we had a tiny house, more a shack really, out in woods at the edge of a field where we kept our goats. My Ida, she had such a touch with plants and we had the most beautiful garden you could ever want with flowers and all types of veggies and fruits and we never had to worry about food because Ida, she was a whiz with those plants. But sometimes it would rain and in that country the rain would come fierce and heavy with lightening and thunder so loud it shook our windows and sent the goats to hiding in the shed. It was so beautiful and wonderful that I could never stay in and would go out and dance in the rain, though Ida would scold me and tell me to get my skinny self inside afore I was struck by lightening. But I told her to hush because lightening and thunder is jus’ the angels dancing in the heavens and I was dancing with them. And I never did get struck so I know it must be true. And I would come in, soaking wet and kiss Ida and swing her round and dance with her. She always fussed at me saying how I was getting her all wet, but she smiled so I know it was just our game. And now whenever I dance I think of her smiling face and the joy that would light her from the inside and how that makes everything alright whether you’re sad or lonely or lost.
He paused then, looking at Karma, a serious cast to his face but with laughing eyes. “So, are you lost?”
