So write every day huh? Probably won't get close, but if I don't start, that would be worse:
Three random, non magical items in a fantasy story exercise (items found in my office starting from the edge of my desk . . . ):
- glasses,
- a red robe,
- a guitar.
The First Chord
Sam had wanted to learn to play the guitar since he was little, but being in sales for most of his life, he had little energy.
This Christmas he got a Guitar. Aunt Sabby sent one to him UPS which arrived Jan 3, but that was Aunt Sabby. Sable Grace Munson was one of those people that did very little harm to a family, but she was somebody Nobody wanted to talk about either. She had a turtle collection that covered the shelves on the walls of her living room, dining room and part of the bathroom (where she kept her most precious turtles). Anything that was in a turtle shape or had a unique turtle on its surface had been fair game.
She didn't mow the back yard because her two prize tortoises (live ones) lived there. She didn't see them often, but she talked to them for hours every afternoon as she walked the perimeter of her back yard between the four foot grass and brambles in the bulk of the yard where they lived and the 6 foot fence and bushes on the three closed-in sides of the back yard.
Sabby was quirky, and blunt and told family exactly what she thought of anyone and anything, which was always unerringly accurate, and equally without tact. But if she liked you, if you would sit a talk with her for hours and not forget to call on her when you were in town, she would give her life to you.
Sam had fallen on Aunt Sabby's good graces by accident. He came to spend a summer with her when he was 8 the summer vacation his folks finally went through with the divorce. Even so, he had never seen the guitar before he opened the package. His mind jumped back to that summer and shorter trips in other years and could not bring up a single recollection of any instrument of any sort in Aunt Sabby's single room 1950's style one bedroom ranch. Yet, he knew this gift had a purpose and was given out of sacrificial love shrouded in mystery. Aunt Sabby lived in a world that was vigilantly detached from reality at every turning.
The instrument was wrapped in plain brown wax paper that smelled of history and mystery and revealed its contents through its semi translucent surface. The finish of the instrument was cloudy shellac which whispered quality. He was surprised that the strings were all intact, but they were quite old and brown. When he strummed the strings he was frustrated.
Oh, they didn't sound bad; they made no sound at all, other than thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. Trying the tuning adjusters didn't work either, so he wrapped it up again in the waxy paper, placing it gingerly onto the top empty bookshelf in his study.
"Always something," he exhaled. Walking back to his bedroom he removed an elegant, but faded old robe out of his closet. Draping it over his arm he pulled open the bottom drawer on his night stand and from the very back lifted up a dainty case for reading glasses. Returning to the study he laid the two objects on his desk and placed the guitar next to them.
"I don't have a clue why you've been sent to join us.", he muttered half to the guitar, sitting down into his desk chair with a long sigh.
A Guitar, a robe, a pair of ancient bi-focals. Nothing to tie them together but Aunt Sabby.
All at once the room went dark. "Stupid squirrels. Bet that one was vaporized." muttered Sam.
He lit a candle he had kept on the far corner of his desk and picked up the glasses. Something different every Christmas, he thought in the candle lit room. Sabby must be slowly cleaning out her garage. In the dark his memories became vivid.
Such a process meant nothing to the garage, Sam mused. No one could ever set foot onto the floor of Aunt Sabby’s garage, door open or unopened. She had one of those California style one piece garage doors, without the opener. Sam had seen her often in the middle of a conversation, walk over to the garage, and open it. The junk was packed in so tight you couldn’t see the floor inside. Sam had seen Aunt Sabby many times reach into the garage, grab a piece of junk and hand it to whomever she was talking to, never missing a word or a beat in her monologue to the individual.
More surprising than her randomness was each and every guest’s response to the gift. Sam never figured it out and Aunt Sabby would never answer him when he asked, but each and every receiver instantly changed expression from boredom, or pained expression to one of wonderment and thankfulness. Thus thimbles, tin cups, ratty dolls, (never a ceramic turtle though) were all changed instantly into a thing of value in the eyes of the beholders.
Except Sam: She never gave him anything any of the times he stayed there, although she would talk at him for hours and hours. And he never solved his curiosity about the gifts, but resigned himself to simply, “That’s just Aunt Sabby.” And go about his business.
But the each Christmas (early January) for the last two years a package had come. Two years ago the red robe, last year the glasses and case. Old, worn, but distinct and with a mystical quality about them. Quality, a strange quality of substance and mystery.
The robe had embroidery, not too flowery, tightly woven, but faded. He could never get the tie to stay tied, even in a square knot he would take two steps and the sash would fall to the floor. The glasses looked OK too. You could see the gold alloy had been crafted with precision and strength, but when you put them on, even though they obviously had two different crystals in each eye, the effect was the same: nothing. They didn’t even make your eyes water or magnify or distort anything. Top lens, bottom lens were the same, you could see no better or worse out of either of them: the same as you could see without.
And now the Guitar. Also old and faded, but with a similar quality that only focused the mystery. Sam laid the Guitar and the glasses and the case softly on the neatly folded robe. “What to do?” The lights came back on.
Obviously, any practical person would have sold them to a flea market or at least thrown them away, but Sam could only feel a wonder and curiosity that belied his age, station and community of life. “I suppose she thinks of me as one of these possessions of hers, faded, old, and broken,” was his first thought.
“But no. She loves me. In her weird and strange way, I still know she loves me. I just wish I knew what these were for.” Sam jumped. The phone rang again. It was Jamie, Sabby’s daughter. “Sam, it don’t look none too good from what I can tell. The Doc’s say there nuttin’ day can do fer her. I wouldn’t be bothern you but she asked for you, but she won’t talk to you on da fone. You’uns know her. There’s no talkin to her. But I thought you’d wont to knew.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow evening,” Sam said. Why was his voice breaking? That’s not being strong for nobody. “I’m sure I can get a reasonable flight now that the holidays are over.”
The place hadn’t changed much. Two half sized palm trees barely showing over the roof from the street. “I figure Clyde and Sneed are back there somewhere,” thought Sam. He rang the door bell. “Still busted. I wonder if there’s any wire there at all.” Jamie opened the door and the puffy wet cheeks told him he wasn’t too late by much.
She was tiny among the 12 pillows piled about her head and shoulders (a number of turtle shaped ones and embroidered square ones) and she was shivering. Someone had brought in half her shelves and turtles, so there wasn't much room to walk in theroom except to slid along the side of the bed.
When she saw his outline, her whole face relaxed into a smile and he fell to the side of her bed. “How you feeling, Aunt Sabby?” “Reckon I’ve got a couple miles left in me, Sammy boy,” She whispered.
“I reckon you’d be getting curious about my mailings to you, boy. Huh?” Sam nodded.
“Well sir, I don’t suppose you put them all on at onced did yer?” Sam shook his head. She didn’t give time for any other response.
“Well…” She closed her eyes and took a couple slow breaths and then opened them and looked right at him, but her lips were pale and tight. “Well, boy, yer just put ‘em on. That’s it, yer just put ‘em on and that’s it. Yer’ll be OK boy. Yer always were. I knevered knew hardly a soul that would treat me so kind as yer did boy. I knows you’ll be alright. Just put ‘em all on and that’s it. Don’t worry about a thing, now, yer hear? Yer’ll do as yer told won’t ya.” Another nod.
“That’s right, you take care of yerself now.” And she closed her eyes and fell asleep. He stayed there for a long time. Finally she smiled, took a long slow deep sigh and she went limp. That was her last breath.
Sam felt a little sheepish, but there was a thrill in his fingers as he gently placed the glasses on his face. He found the robe to be very comfortable and not in the least clingy. “Like it was fit to me like a glove,” he would often say later to no one in particular. And then the guitar. The strap looked like a 70’s psychedelic acid painting, but he slung it over his shoulder.
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