The Fishwife

Looking at the sun, Stanley decided he would try the western route. It was not necessary that he go west, but parables are often easier to find on paths already blazed. In a more desperate situation, one might enter a parable at any given point in any situation, but that takes some imagination. Mortals are generally entranced by scientific endeavors and are more prone to trust something once they know it's been done. In the case of parables, it is customary to ask where they generally occur, if nothing else, to act as a starting point. Stanley had no intention of being original.

After leaving the sparse trees of Jacob's mother's summer cottage, Stanley crossed a hilly field and a tiny stream, where he came to a small brick house with a short flight of stone steps approaching the front door. Before he stepped up, the door opened and a small, squirrelish woman popped her head through the opening.

"Come, young one, come," she said enthusiastically. "We've been expecting you. The world is a vast place and we all need guidance at times. This is your lucky day. Come in, please." The interior of the house was lined with shelves, some with old, leathery books, others filled with obsessive odds and ends, empty picture frames, giant glass insects, convoluted tea-brewing instruments, but what dominated the room was a large circular chart drawn on seamless vellum in black and emerald-green inks, which hung like a tapestry from the far back wall. The writing was like nothing Stanley had ever seen. Jagged, scrawling letters formed concentric circles that ended in a large red spot in the center of the chart.

"Sit here, young one, sit here," the woman said. She shoved a chair into the backs of Stanley's legs, forcing him to drop to the seat. "Hello, and hello, enough of that chat. We have business to do, and that's my business, so let's get to it." Stanley was excited. This woman had ideas. You could feel it in her voice. She was ready to tell you your future and send you on your way with a swat of productive energy. "Now, young one," she said, "Tell me why you've come to meet with me today." Stanley was so caught up in the energy, this question took him somewhat by surprise. It took him a moment to collect his thoughts.

"Well," he said, "I used to live at a farm on a pile of horse manure. It wasn't a bad life, but there came a point when I wasn't comfortable being there anymore." The woman nodded, her eyes wide. "I now live in a cottage east of here. I suppose I want to know what sort of trade I ought to go into."

"Aha! yes! That's why you come to me, and believe me, I will find you a trade. I know all the trades - builders, binders, fishermen, merchants, scholars, sages, butchers, bakers, and candle-stick makers. I have a knack, well, more of a gift, for showing young men their true potential." She scurried over to a black desk and rummaged through the top drawer. "I once had a young man come in here hoping to make a living telling stories - but as everyone knows, story-telling is a dying field. Too many stories everywhere! Talk all day, but listen to me for one hour and that young man soon had a smithy's hammer in his hand and a head full of soot. Good with fixing things, he was. I showed him the way. I show them, they find the way. That's how it works!" She brought out a gleaming lens with etchings on it and fastened it over her eye with a braid of sinew.

The woman sat herself down in a chair at the desk with a sigh of delight. "So tell me," she said, "what radiance are you?" Stanley stared, expecting her to continue, but she did not. He had not the slightest idea of what a radiance was.

"I'm sorry if this is a dumb question," he said, "but what do you mean by 'radiance'?" The woman laughed and rocked herself in the fatiguing chair.

"Oh, no worries, none at all. Your radiance will tell us how you conduct yourself. You might know it from seeing your reflection in a frozen waterfall, or by the hue a full moon colors your eyes. Do you remember now?"

Stanley hesitated, "I'm sorry, but I don't think I know my radiance. I've never done either of those things."

"Well, if I don't know your radiance, how am I supposed to read for you?" She said, raising an eyebrow. Her eye looked enormous through the lens. She now seemed more like a hawk than a squirrel. "Look, your radiance would be wonderful, but lets not waste time, how about your aura. What are your top five?"

Stanley's anger was steadily rising, and he wondered if his aura might not leap out and smack the lens off the squirrel lady's face. How was he expected to know these things? She was the one with the magic paper on the wall. "I don't know my aura. I don't know my radiance, or anything like that. I thought you'd be able to help me. Isn't there anything you can do?"

"Well, I could spend the next couple years getting to know you - or you can tell me your aura and your radiance. You think I can just read the chart with nothing to read? What if I gave you a book with no words and told you to read it? Not very helpful, huh?" It was clear she was becoming just as impatient with Stanley as he was with her. "You want me to just look in your eyes and pull out a deer with 'destiny' caught in its antlers?"

Stanley decided it would be better not to argue with this woman. Insanity can sometimes misrepresent the fragility of its owner's temper. "Ok, so you can't help me," he said, "at least tell me where I can find out my radiance."

"Told you already. You've already been told, foolish one. A waterfall of ice or full moon-ed eyes," she said.

"Yes, well, where is the nearest frozen waterfall?"

"The only waterfall is the Stony Falls. You go west."

"and they will be frozen?"

"They're the only falls," she said. She tossed her eye-piece back into the drawer and slammed it shut. "It's not my problem if they're frozen or not." Her jaw began to quiver, and Stanley decided it was time to leave.

"Thank you for your time," he said.

"A waste of my time, young one, a waste." He walked out of the house and down the stairs. Hopefully his search would yield some better advice.

Going Outside

He looked at his watch, shocked to find it was already 1:30 in the morning. Of course, a good percentage of that shock came from the coffee he grabbed that afternoon. Ever since the Four Men Feast and the tasting of many beers, he came to embrace the fact that he couldn't handle substances. He didn't even get drunk, he just felt terrible - a surging headache and a stomach that wouldn't shut up. What a nauseating night that was. Coffee was no exception. A couple cups at a late breakfast was enough to keep him wide awake the proceeding night, which meant his afternoon espresso still had at least two hours before releasing its grip.

After an exhausting day, he once again pulled out his laptop and began to think, "ok, three voices. Three big voices that won't leave me alone. Do I really want to become a college professor? Man, that sounds sexy. Who wouldn't want to be a professor? The job market is like an overly-damp sponge and I've just been told writing and editing is a dying field, so why wait?" The bait had been set. "But is bait really that bad? It's food, after all. Perhaps all food is bait." These circles got him nowhere, so he began part two of the sleep-deprived blog:

Stanley woke up shivering to a thin, pale spider hanging between his eyes. During the night it has spun a web within the dream-catcher as if trying to patch the shoddy work. It was an early day and Stanley had high hopes. With a yawn and a stretch, he grabbed some matches from beneath the bed and soon had a kettle boiling and eggs frying. Today he would be going on a parable into the woods. He was not entirely sure if they had parables here, but he figured they must. How else were people expected to find wisdom and direction?

Just then there was a knock at the door, the force of which caused it to swing open awkwardly, revealing a short old man with stumpy legs and no neck. He appeared to be caught off guard by the faulty door and nervously readjusted his cap. "I saw your fire and thought I might offer my services," he said. He grabbed the brim of his hat, jerked it from side to side and touched his nose as he brought his hand down. "I am a tailor by trade, but a woodcutter by nature. Today is my day off." He stuck out a gnarled hand. "My name is Trent."

"If it's your day off, why are you looking for woodcutting work?" asked Stanley.

"Work? This isn't work. This is my passion. I told you, I'm a woodcutter by nature. You think I do this for money?" said Trent, his hand returning to his cap, then to his nose and down again. "I do what I love, which is cutting wood, and I work doing tailoring, which is not my favorite thing."

Stanley remembered his pathetic blanket from the night before. "Tailor, eh? Any chance you can patch up an old wool blanket?"

"It's my day off." Trent said coldly.

"Oh, right," said Stanly, "my mistake." Stanley told the old man about his plan to go on a parable and asked if it was common in the area. At this, the old man laughed, saying he didn't believe in that romantic rubbish; if he needed a spark of inspiration, he'd much rather find it with a good glass of whiskey in front of a hot kitchen stove. On this he ranted for a solid five minutes, but he eventually got around to mentioning that it was not unknown for some young men (fools, in his opinion) to journey out west for a day or two, see the Stony Falls, and return with a head-full of naive ideas about purpose and joy and daisies, and any slew of ridiculous notions. He had a nephew who traveled out that way, then came back to start a man-powered carting business - a man acting like a mule, the saddest thing you've ever seen. He actually made himself a harness and would race around town doing-

"That's all very interesting," said Stanly, plucking a walking stick from the corner, "but I really must get on my way. Thank you very much for the directions. I may yet be in need of your woodcutting nature. Farewell." And with that he rudely left the old man, not bothering to close the door.

A Place to Stay

There once was a man who stayed up late at night in his blood-red bedroom. He rolled in his quilt like a gagging rock tumbler about to burn out its motor. After hours of aggravating, unceasing brain activity he was suddenly hit with a thought, "What am I doing wasting my time trying to sleep? If I can't sleep, then I won't sleep. Who am I to tell my whole being otherwise? What sick ethic is this that tells me to put blankets over my face and "rest up" for the night?"

With that he reached down and snatched up his laptop, his houseplants watched from the top of the bookshelf as if waiting for a punchline. "I know," said he, "I shall spend my waking hours of the night and do what all twenty-something college graduates are expected to do (especially those trained in the craft of philosophy), and start blogging." Within minutes he had before him a clear starting point with the most blunt and straightforward title his annoying mind could come up with. "If I can't shut it off, I might as well put it to work," he said. And thus began a blog unlike any other, one that danced merrily and daringly upon the line between creative non-fiction and fiction. "Now for my first entry..."

There once was a man who lived in a village. Well, 'lived' is probably the most technically appropriate word, but more in the way scientists mean than poets. He was in fact 'living' in a small shack, charitably opened to him by an old schoolmate whose mother was dying and had recently instilled in him some good morals.

"It's no homely house," he said, "but you're free to stay here until the council gives you your first assignment." The 'living' man, his name was Stanly, was grateful for the accommodation. It most certainly sheltered him from the cold and snow and was a welcomed alternative to staying at his uncle's stable, sleeping on top of a tarp-covered pile of manure, which was surprisingly soft and warm, but was in no way fit for a man of any stature. At night all that could be heard were the breaths of uneasy horses steaming through their nostrils like kettles trying not to boil. It was an eerie experience, to say the least. Animals are different in the moonlight. We can drive them and turn them with a bit during the day, then put them away like any other farm tool, but at night something more ancient and primitive returns to them, and, for one sleeping on a bed of their own filth, doubts begin to rise if whether they do in fact honor man's right to subdue the earth. Stanly never felt entirely safe in the stable, and, one night, after waking up and catching the horses and pigs surrounding him with silent wild eyes in what he suspected was some kind of animal seance ritual, he decided it was time to abandon the decomposing manure and seek out more wholesome housing.

The shack was offered to Stanly out of friendship and pity, but mostly out of pity. It was made primarily out of wood of the sun-bleached variety but was held together at the joints by bright tufts of moss. The front door opened to a single room with a dirt floor and exposed rafters comprised a ceiling. A dream catcher with red beads hung from one of the rafters, and beneath it was a narrow bed laid with a plaid wool blanket catching the dust. He put his bag down on a wooden chair, the only other piece of furniture in the place, and turned to examine the door.

"Mama used to use this place as her summer cottage before she turned ill," said the friend, whose name was Jacob, "if it weren't for this, I don't know that she'd still have her sanity."

"Jacob, does this door lock?" asked Stanly. Jacob examined the doorknob carefully.

"Mama never worried much about the crime in these parts. We're five miles from town easy and at least another half from the road. You don't need to worry about no burglaries." Jacob threw his hand as if swatting a fly.

It wasn't burglaries that worried Stanly, but the evil eyes of demon horses. "You're right," he said, "it's fine."