Edward and the Ghost

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Some Free Fall Fiction

Hello Reader,

Got abuse?

Writer’s note: I’ve said before that I’m in a weekly Free Fall writing group (Friday, 10 to noon, new writers welcome) We have a “prompt” and then we all create fast, trying not to edit as we go. Then it’s fun to read aloud.

prompt- Magic pumpkin

What Edward liked was his magic pumpkin. A gypsy had given it to him, after he had helped her across the street. And shielded her from mud splash from a passing carriage.  And fought off a pair of dogs who had tried to switch from chasing the carriage to attacking the billowing skirts of the gypsy.

So now he had a magic pumpkin. But not to eat. Gentlemen don’t eat pumpkins. No, to hollow out and carve in two eyes, a nose and a mouth. And then to put in a fragrant gypsy candle. That he paid for, at a booth at the fair.

During rainy October evenings, when action seems to be dampened down, spirits drenched under rains, and falling black shadows under wet slimy black trees, then he was so happy to be inside with his pumpkin, staring into the flame, and making his plans. His dreams. His daydreams.

His hands were cold, and nobody loved him. But in the flame burned hope. He was going to do good deeds. Next season, after the ground firmed up, he would ride a horse to see the Outer Hebrides. He would. He could. Or he could move lots of rocks and gravel into that stupid muddy part of the lane, so old ladies wouldn’t get their skirts dirty. He could. 

Yes, he could stare at that magic flame for a long time, feeling a kinder, better Edward. Or maybe, it truth, he was getting kinder for longer intervals, and feeling a fierce temper for shorter intervals.

One day the Indian from Bombay, not the other one, was delivering his milk and the stupid boy put the milk where it could be kicked over. And Edward, sure enough, kicked it.

(When reading aloud: “I was going to write that he threw his pumpkin in a rage and so he broke his own pumpkin”)

prompt- The witching hour

So there’s this guy. A witch? An abuser in hiding human clothing? With laces up his front?

What you do is send him a card from his secret admirer: “Meet me in the graveyard at 10 p. m.”

And so Edward received a card. And so, after applying his moustache wax just so, he strode off one night to the graveyard. Arriving on time, as befits a gentleman.

He walked through the wrought iron fence, wended his way among the headstones, and there, in the middle of the grave yard, was a ghost. Edward stopped, an appropriate distance away. Far enough to run, far enough that he didn’t have to look too closely at this apparition. Edward had never seen a ghost, but every one knew they looked like a draped bed sheet. And this one did too. With two big dark eyes. Some ghosts talk.

Edward perched across a convenient headstone and regarded the spectre.

“Hello.” Silence.

“Hello,” he said again. Silence. “I am not afraid. Oh I say, can you talk?”

And it spoke. “Eeedwaard. Are you a good man, Edward?”

“I am a gentleman… Dash it, but we gentlemen aren’t all good.”

“Temmmperr…”

“Yes, I can have a temper. But not usually, I try to be good, I do good deeds, I help Miss Marpole across the street.”

“Temmperr” 

“Oh, dash it, but I do lose control… And then I justify it, by trying to look down on the person. And I know it’s beneath me.”

Silence.

“And then I get ashamed.”

prompt- simultaneously

Edward regarded the spirit.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Keeevin. I was Kevin in another life.”

“I knew a Kevin. I never talk to him now.”

Man and ghost looked at each other. The ghost spoke first.

“Youuu won’t talk to aaanyone beyond the grave.”

Edward sighed. Silence.

“That’s true,” he said at last. “I should probably talk to Kevin now. I really should.”

The ghost was silent.

“If I were a good man… I would look for the good in Kevin… And, core blimey, I would try to seem positive. As the reverend says… I would show the light of the lamb…”

Wind rustled the trees.

“I would look for the good and project the light.”

The wind rushed and the ghost spoke a lonely word, “Ohhh.”

“Ghost, is that… easy? To keep projecting, and seeing? To hold that heart in place?

Silence.

“Ghost, I want to try. I dare say, on this side of the grave, I want to hold onto my good heart, and pray for Kevin, pray that he may have a good life like me, and be equal to me, equal to all of God’s children.

Edward looked down at his feet. 

“I have been arrogant. That’s where the temper comes from.” His voice dropped, and he continued “Who am I to judge? Am I afraid of Kevin thinking I am not a gentlemen? Where did I make the connection between good fortune and judging? And does poor Kevin think that a person who yells in a temper is somehow entitled to judge?”

Edward lifted his eyes to where the ghost had been. 

“I am mortal. Just a man.”

But the ghost was gone, and the wind rushed by unheeding of the tableau below.

Late that night, as the bell tower chimed, and one day gave way to the next in the darkness, a different man walked home, with the name of Edward, a gentleman of common humanity.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

September

2017

Footnotes:

~Two of the writers that day laughed at how they were channeling each other: They both wrote about motherhood, as in simultaneously having to multi-task, trying to find pumpkins at the cheaper rates but not sold out yet, with kids too young to be trusted with knives. The “magic pumpkin,” for one mother, after getting desperate near Hallowe’en, was found in her own back yard where she thought she had only planted squash, and then calling her son to come see.

~I read once where someone who had an “abuse people” problem seemingly didn’t know what abuse was, and was told, “Anything that’s not nurturing is abusive.” Simple and true.

I Met a Muslim in London

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Hello Reader,

Got Muslims?

Writer’s note: This was composed on my returning aircraft, the day before the morning of the fourth terror attack of 2017 in Britain. Despite the seriousness of the bomb on a commuter train, I am not going to grim down my essay. If we can’t stay cheerful, then the terrorists have won. I do wish I’d stayed another week, to talk about it.

They say the important part of traveling is meeting the people. 

As a tourist staying in “Central London,” where 90 per cent of the London tourist attractions are located, I could see by their outfit that lots people walking around were Muslims. Not assimilated. Not “European Muslims” from the Muslim areas (The Balkans) of southeast Europe. Now, what I could not discern, based on their dress and speech, was whether in their own minds they felt integrated, not segregated. But I doubted it: For example, a block away from my hotel, near Paddington Station, (Yes, there’s a statue of the bear) was a barbershop: On the sidewalk was a sandwich board, listing features and prices, entirely in some Muslim language. Even the prices. In the heart of London. 

If I wanted to ask any Muslims if they agreed with American Muslims that Islam means peace, well, how was I to meet one? Because of their religion, I wasn’t exactly going to meet a fellow in an authentic British pub.

There was no pub in my cozy hotel. How cozy was it? The only lift was so small, in width, that if I stood with my hands on my waist then my elbows touched the walls. Lengthwise,  between the two sets of doors, I could stand with one hand on my waist, stretch the other arm the length of the cage, and my fingers would be curled touching the other door. And I’m a small guy. Down at the cozy reception counter the night clerk was a pleasant man. I practised my “be friendly and lighten your brother’s load” ethic by always saying hello when I came in for the night and announcing what tourist attraction I had seen that day. 

One evening I followed a moped delivery man—they have a huge box behind their seat—to the sidewalk in front of my hotel.  I entered, and was leaning my elbow on the reception counter when he came in. He had an extra pizza, he said, giving it to the night clerk. It is vegetarian. Good, said the clerk, so I can eat it. He looked at me. 

“Do you want a piece?” I did. 

I piped up, “If it’s vegetarian then you can be safe that it’s halal, (kosher) no pork.” I had just discovered the word “halal” the previous night, after finding a book at an Oxfam used bookstore, by a Muslim girl who joins the British army. (Yes, I will read books when I’m on vacation—but I don’t lie on the beach with Daniel Steele) The clerk knew how to pronounce “halal,” saying, “Halal food means how it was butchered, it’s not just pork.”

I wondered if he had time to talk. He said, “If you want to know anything about Muslims you can ask me, I’m Muslim.”

“Great! You can save me a trip. Because otherwise I was going to hike over to a building near the Edgeware tube station. Up on the third floor is a big sign you can see from the sidewalk, for the Arab Human Rights Office… Now I can just ask you.”

Because we were talking so thick and fast, I must confess I didn’t get around to asking such naive questions as, “Do the European and Arab Muslims think American Muslims are traitors to Islam for believing in peace, and for not wearing Burkas the way they do in London?” Besides, I already knew the answers. 

We got into religion before we talked any politics. We both follow an “Abrahamic religion.” Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet, a major one, and to my hotel friend, “It’s an abomination!” to say that Jesus is the son of God. We shared our strong feelings in our discussion of religion, but I won’t repeat here any confidences that might horrify you. Except—as I put it, we both don’t believe in God having two arms, two legs and a head. And, as my new friend added with distaste, no human bodily functions to our God. Yup.

My hotel friend, who lives in “North London,” father of two girls, whom he is teaching to be able to think for themselves, was emphatic: A believer has to believe in the Koran, (Quran) in every page or none of it. I told him of a public thing I had read about, where leaders of Muslims and Christians had met to discuss things. The Muslims had said they had to go totally by the Koran, so that was that. How sad. If they had met on stage, and if I had been in the audience, and if there had been lineups to ask questions at a microphone, then I would have asked the Muslim leaders whether they knew the concept of “Even the Devil can quote scriptures.” More precisely: If the Bible has a scripture to kill witches, then would Christian leaders have to quote it, and follow it? 

My fellow monotheist told me his judgment of westerners, and then explained that for Islam you have to understand the dates of the Koran pages, because they contradict each other. He said Arab words can sometimes have ten different meanings. He said, too, that the Koran is written in classical Arabic, which is not modern Arabic, so again a lot of people don’t know. So yes, there’s a passage that says to kill unbelievers, (Maybe he said it’s “kill them all on sight,” I forget) but you don’t have to go by that. The terrorists go by such a passage, but they don’t know anything about it. They don’t know the context, and “they can be easily misled.” By “they” he meant the average Muslim in Eurasia.

Easily misled. Which leads us to politics. “How brainwashed are Muslims?" I asked “I know they don’t totally believe their clerics, because the mullahs say that Europe is bad, and western Europe the most satanic of all, yet the mid-east refugees go to Europe, and then they mostly go to western Europe.” My friend was old enough to remember when the leaders in his country were saying that western education was bad, that girls didn’t even need an education, were saying so “quite passionately”… yet they were sending their own children to high class private Catholic schools! “Leaders are corrupt” he said. By “leaders” he meant politicians too, not just clerics.

I have read all the books of that Muslim Dutch Member of Parliament. So I was not surprised when this intelligent devout Muslim hotel worker was disgusted with how the European nations treated Muslim immigrants, saying to me, “They encouraged them to segregate, saying ‘come to this country and you will have your own… keep your own… etc. etc.’” He was not surprised at all that they would (clasping his hands to illustrate) “clumped together.” We shared our disgust.

I told him when I was a boy the “melting pot” model meant you wanted to be American, and would be ashamed of being unAmerican, but somehow, when I wasn’t looking, that had changed. This I knew from looking at a book sold in a Canadian college bookstore for U.S. “dormitory monitors,” or “residence advisors” a paid position, where older students in the dorms look after the freshmen. This book advised (no doubt for in case the monitor came from a mono-culture small town) that Americans now believe in pluralism… I don’t know when things changed. Presumably, now they prefer to have little pots of pluralism in perpetuity. 

…And so, that was how I met and talked with a real live Muslim in London…

… As for clumping, “30 minutes out from central London” (by the underground train) according to their web site, is the Who Shop, selling Doctor Who official BBC merchandise. I just had to make the pilgrimage. 

So I took the tube to Upton Park station. Before going to the shop, I hiked for about 15 minutes in the opposite direction, along a main road, just to see what I could see. Ever seen one of those ethnic stores at a flea market or something, and of course there’s only one, and it’s empty, and you wonder how they stay in business? Indeed. Empty of customers was a store for South Asian clothing, then another, and another… for fifteen minutes. How did they stay in business, so empty, competing with each other? By people clumping, that’s how. Along the way I passed a green Muslim “community centre.” Not a temple.

My London friend had asked with displeasure why Americans don’t let everybody in, because he thought they should have a wider door policy; I told him the quotas are to aide integration. I could have simply used his words, “So people don’t clump.” I remember, as a young man, walking over and sitting with a group of “Italian” young male classmates, and one said, “But you’re not Italian.” Being quick, I answered “But last night I had pizza!” In other words, we were both joking. North Americans, on the whole, don’t believe in living like the folks in the movie Bend it Like Beckham. (I saw the DVD to prepare for my holiday) But immigrants will believe, if their surrounding society of doesn’t know any better.

… I regret that, while on vacation, I didn’t meet any real live “bleeding heart European liberals.” But I never seem to stumble over them in the bar.

Sean Crawford

Back in Allah’s own country

September

2017

Footnotes of the Doctor Who sort:

(Deleted for some future post)

Footnotes:

~The above mentioned book is by Azi Ahmed called Worlds Apart. (2015) The cover shows her face only one quarter normal, one quarter concealed by a jet black cloth mask, and by half of her face in dark camouflage paint at night. 

The army as scary? Maybe to a civilian. An innocent civilian prairie girl, a neighbour in my condominium, who had been to London, told me the London ladies in big black burkas, with a little flapping triangle over their faces, look scary too.

~People overseas regard North Americans as optimistic, even naive, in their trusting of others and their “can-do” spirit. Hollywood movies, say the Europeans, are more prone to happy endings, and to individuals making a difference. 

Perhaps it was in this spirit a certain American movie was made. It’s a romantic comedy, where an affectionate East Indian mother is fine with her son being friends with all sorts of races, religions and creeds, specifically all sorts of Indians such as Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. And a blond boy too, on whom the mother paints a red spot. Most of the movie takes place where the young men hang around together in college, with the son chasing an “Indian” (American) girl. Once he sticks his foot in his mouth by saying (I forget) to the girl he he is chasing something like, “That’s as boring as pornography dragged out to the length of a Bollywood movie”  His friend later (I forget) says, “You idiot! Now she knows you don’t like Bollywood, and you watch porn!”

So what this movie, so unlike the Beckham one, shows is that Americans don’t always believe in being in a pluralist bubble, with a snobbish dislike and disapproval of their neighbours. Too bad I forget the title. I saw it at the Plaza.