Prosey continuations: read yesterday FIRST!

The Troubadour
**(readers background note)

Life is good. It had only been a year since his aunt had died, but Sam lay there watching the end of the Fellowship where Sam and Frodo climbed out of their elven boat on the other side of the lake and the rest of the Fellowship took off after Merry and Pippin.

Quite a year, indeed. There weren't a lot of things that had changed, but they were important changes.

Single most of his life, he met Fran at a church Super Bowl party. After five minutes it seemed they had known each other forever and in early November they had a small wedding. For Sam it seemed he had gone back to the feelings of childhood when everything was fun and the future had no end.

Then the situation at work changed. No, not a raise. That would have been nice, but he was transferred to Customer Service from Training and his new supervisor was different. The only way Sam could describe it was, "Oh it's just he believes in me. I don't have to prove nothing to Jake. He just kinda smiles and says something like, ‘Hey Sammy, just do what you think’s best. You're doing great!’”

Oh and the guitar, well that was the strangest thing. It still didn't work, except when he put his Aunts bifocals on and that red ancient robe. Well, you sure can't play something like that in public dressed in a fancy bath robe and ancient bifocals, but it seemed to just come natural and the sound was so pure. It was like the guitar became part of him and any melody he could remember after a few strums seemed just to work its self out. He just seemed to feel how to do the chords and the joy just did the rest.

Yes, as he lay with his head on Fran's lap watching the credits, he realized he was a truly happy man. Oh, he had his problems and pressures like anyone, but the ache in his heart was gone and he felt a peace about who he was.

As the FBI warning flashed on and he began to sit up to slip in Two Towers, Fran grabbed something out of the pocket of the robe he was wearing. (Yeah, you know, the nice warm red one that was a Christmas present from his aunt). A back-up-singer*** fell to the floor.

"Hey, what's this? A shopping list?" as she unfolded it to reveal a yellowed paper that seemed to be mostly empty.

"I dunno, what does it say?"

"Well, that's the thing. It says:
"’Upside down’
"’Inside out’ and
"’Backwards’"

"Let me see. Yeah that's my aunt's handwriting for sure. Sounds like her too. Funny I never noticed it before.”

“Well I have,” whispered Fran and when Sam looked up at her, her eyes were round.

“What” he asked because she was looking at the back of the collar of the robe.

“Haven’t you ever looked at the tag on the back of this thing?”

“Sure! It’s just a clothing tag, like my shirts.”

“No. Have you ever read the tag?”

“Well, I think so.” Sam took the robe off. (That tie just never stayed tied, except when he was playing the guitar.)

“Well the company is Insi Deout. Must be French. That’s too bad. Oh my, you’re right Insi Deout is also “INSIDE out” with a different word break. And the washing instructions are ‘warm water and wash’ . . . Hey! ‘wash Upside Down’? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t think so either, but I thought it was French or Belgian or something, but look at the “Made in” part in the small stitching on the bottom.”

“Made in USA Backwards”

“Yeah and now that paper. That just doesn’t make sense.”

“No, not for most people. But a lot of things around Aunt Sabby’s place didn’t make a lot of sense. See, the tag must have ripped out, cause it looks like Sabby stapled it back to the inner facing lining.”

Fran just laughed. “Your family is weird for sure. But at least Sabby meant a lot to you.”

“Yeah, and she never did anything for no reason, even if it seemed she was pulling ideas out of thin air all of the time, she was always thinking; always watching. But she never could fit in with the rest of us. She was too honest, I guess.”

“Kinda like you, Sammy” Fran snuggled.

Hey! They were newlyweds after all, even if Sam was 57 and Fran in the same neighborhood. Give ‘em a break. Gee wiz.


A week later Sam came down to the kitchen. “What do you have going today?”

“Nothing, just some sewing on that doll for Julie next door.”

“You want to finish the Two Towers today?”

“Well, I really need to clean my office. I’ve got all those boxes that I haven’t gone through since the wedding that we moved over here from my place.”

“Oh yeah. Well I’ll just check my e-mail. Maybe we can go somewhere for lunch.”

“OK. Maybe we can go see a movie this afternoon.”

“Yeah. I’ve got a couple I’ve been wanting to see in the theatre.”


About an hour later Fran yelled from the other room, “Hey Sammy come here. You’ve got to see this. NOW!”

“What?” Sam started to say as he came into her office. Fran was holding a man’s wrist watch and staring at the back. “What do you have there? Your dad’s watch?”

“No, just something my mom found at a garage sale that was unusual and when she and dad died, my siblings let me have. She used it for an alarm clock because she could hear it, but it wouldn’t wake dad. And it was fancy and would glow in the dark.

“But, Sam, look at this.” Sam knew it was serious if she shortened his name to three letters.

Oh my. On the back etched in a circle instead of “waterproof” or “shock resistant” were words in all caps, "UPSIDE DOWN INSIDE OUT BACKWARDS” and in the center in a cursive etching “LOVE,
SABBY”

“That’s impossible. Aunt Sabby never was married. She never dated. How did you get this? Is this a joke? Your mom wasn’t named Sable or Sabrina or anything was she. How about her family? What is this?” He felt disoriented and helpless.

Fran took the watch back and gave him a sharp look to tell him she wasn’t joking. Then he turned white.

“What?” it was Fran’s turn.

“Look at the face of this watch.” Sam whispered.

“Yeah, so what? Turtles in the sea there on the background and a turtle at the hub of the hands. That’s part of the reason my mom never got rid of it. The workmanship was amazing, even for a garage sale watch.”

“No, you don’t understand. My aunt collected turtle things. I mean REALLY collected them. You couldn’t see the base boards in most of the rooms in her house for the shelves of turtle things she collected. This IS her watch. But it’s a man’s watch and it’s way too big for her. This is so weird.”

They both sat there on the floor with the opened and unopened boxes all around. They sat and stared at the watch and looked at it again and again.

“So what are you thinking?” Fran finally asked.

Sam turned and gave her a long glance. Without a word he went out of the office and came back in carrying the red robe, the old guitar, and a glasses case.

“I dunno.” He said as he pulled the sleeves outside in and put the robe on with the lining out. Then he hung the guitar over his back, like one of those old time troubadours. And then with his eyes locked onto Fran’s he slowly put the glasses on upside down.

And he vanished.




**for those of you aware of the anal, three non-magical everyday object drill, today the three objects are:
1 8.5x11 piece of copy paper
A wrist watch (well it's right there hovering over the keyboard, support only by my wrist)
A stapler (oh this will be hard)


***back-up-singer=A small linen pillow case sewn shut with special corn in it that can be heated in a microwave and makes winter not so heartless