Of Words and Water: 2013

Of Words and Water – 2013

an anthology published in support of WaterAid

published on Smashwords by

Words and Water

Cover design by humblenations.com

Copyright 2013

Each contributor retains full copyright

Thank you for downloading this eBook. Each story, poem and song remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed. If you enjoyed this book, then encourage your friends to download their own copy.

Your support and respect for the property of these authors is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

The River

copyright Peggy Seeger

"The river

It began between the asphodel and the bog cotton.

I saw it.

Between the deer grass and the heather,

Below rocks and peat

A tiny capillary.

It sang down rivulets,

Liquid flute and fiddle

Into larger bed and path,

Over, between, around,

Singing down glass runways,

Waterfallen and sandy bottom.

When you walk beside it now you cannot converse

For its passion drowns words.

There is no way to leap over it.

It cannot but come to rest in the valley

Among the monkey flowers and watercress,

Where the waters are calm and deep

And occasionally treacherous.

Like love."

http://www.peggyseeger.com/about

We’d like to thank Peggy for her support of Words and Water. She has generously allowed us to include this lovely poem and her song, Love Call Me Home. It means a great deal to us to have on board a folk music legend and activist of her stature.

A message from the Editor

The seed that grew and finally matured into this book was sown when I joined Goodreads. Somehow I was persuaded to co-found the Review Group for indie/SP authors and gathered a rather amazing group of members. I suggested a group anthology for charity, an idea that was taken up with great enthusiasm, and this is the result. We chose WaterAid as we want to help them achieve their 2009 global strategy – getting clean water and sanitation to 25 million more people across 30 countries by 2015. With your help it can be achieved. At the end of the book are more details about the incredible work done by WaterAid.

Each author has donated their work for your enjoyment: all we ask is a donation to support WaterAid’s efforts to help communities help themselves to a better life. Please give whatever you can, or visit their website and consider how you can help in other ways. Just telling the people you know and asking them to spread the word will make a difference.

As you read this book you may think we have failed with the proof reading, for instance you’ll see ‘favourite’ and ‘favorite’, but rest assured this is deliberate. We are an international group and the spelling is correct for the country of origin. We could have unified it, but it’s our differences that make the world interesting. It would be a much kinder world if we all accepted each other for who and what we are, if we cherished those differences rather than use them as excuses for applying ‘us’ and ‘them’ labels.

Right now, though, I’d like to share with you a story that has done the rounds on the interweb in many forms.

§§§

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, hung from each end of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. One of the pots had a crack in it. At the end of her long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. The poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, one day by the stream it spoke to the woman. I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.

The old woman smiled. Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house. Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.

§§§

So, to all of my cracked pot friends, who have given so generously of their time and their talent to make my idea a reality, have a great day and I hope you will always be able to smell the flowers on your side of the path.

Jay Howard

June 2013

Table of Contents

The River by Peggy Seeger

Message from the Editor

Oreille by Marie-Anne Mancio

Formless Like Water by Dax Christopher

Battling Waves by Jason Parent

A Nice Cup Of Tea by Jay Howard

By The Mill by Ali Isaac

Boo – Part 1 – Appalachian Spring by Mark Bell

Le-ina's Sorrow by Jaq D Hawkins

Fortunes by Neel Kay

my brother, Her husband by Mike Duron

Sea Bright by Ali Isaac

Prime Directive by Mona Karel

Boo – Part 2 – Hell Hath Fury by Mark Bell

Love Call Me Home by Peggy Seeger

Treading Water by Sylvie Nickels

Dreams by Kathryn O'Halloran

FWISH by Mike Duron

The Day It Snowed In The Body Of Christ by Kerry Dwyer

The Other Jamie by Annie Harmon

River Girl by Dax Christopher

House Under Water by Anthea Carson

The Natural Seize by K.A. Krisko

Old Waves, New by Patrick de Moss

Boo – Part 3 – Rock Requiem by Mark Bell

WaterAid – their vision and mine

Special Thanks

Oreille

copyright Marie-Anne Mancio

Inspiration for the story:

Oreille is an extract from Marie-Anne Mancio’s forthcoming novel, Bouche, which is about the eighteenth century French rococo painter Francois Boucher. The inspiration to write Bouche was the Wallace Collection in London.

§§§

It is early still. Later, Marie-Jeanne will scold me, just as a wife should scold a husband after so many years, for being up before dawn. You are never still, she says, and this I cannot argue with. In one hour, less probably, the studio will be chattering with painters and assistants. Today we must paint water and lots of it. Sea nymphs emerging from teal waves. A fountain of love. Diana bathing.

I say to my pupils: I have no time for theory; I do not know how to teach unless it is with a brush in my hand. Yet they come, as they should, to the atelier Boucher. And then there will be hot chocolate to sip from the porcelain cup with the harebell pattern; and sketches in red and white chalk to peruse; and conversations to be had about whether the angle of the drapery is too severe or the fleece of a goat is sufficiently thick, and then, after those conversations, drawings to be altered. Mannlich will ask for the hundredth time how a woman’s body should look and I answer it should be so soft one struggles to believe it has bones.

After that, the assistants will begin mixing colours, laying them out on palettes, for always we require a good quantity of rose. My favourite model, the little goldsmith’s daughter, will arrive – can she really be married now? – and arrange herself, as directed, on the sofa amongst once-white pillows. And I will remember that of all the thousands who have undressed for me, she is the ideal.

From eleven, there will be visitors to be welcomed and, if one admires a drawing, then what can be done? I may give it to him for nothing because we have drawings here aplenty. If I tell Marie-Jeanne, she will say, with a smile, that I am too generous, but what is a man if he cannot bring pleasure to his friends? And sometime soon, tradesmen will deliver water and flowers and there will be no time for perusing what the young man has promised to bring.

The ormolu clock on the mantelpiece strikes six. Where is he? He swore he’d be here at dawn. I picture him in the Louvre, making his way to the northwest corner of the Cour carrée, and following, as directed, the aile de l’Oratoire. Coming up the staircase to the first floor.

No, still no one. I shall distract myself with my composition. With imaginings of rounded Syrinx, fending off Pan at the river’s edge. Let water tumble from a vessel and reeds fold into flesh... Where would I be without an imagination? For left to its own devices nature is too green and too badly lit.

A bell rings. At last! He is here, a drawer in his arms, cheeks as flushed as one of my putti. So youthful. Is there anything more appealing than youth? With his clear eyes (how I hate that age makes mine bleary) and pointed nose. Not a bad model: a shepherd, perhaps. In paint, I could wipe the grime from his fingernails. In paint, I can do anything.

Monsieur Boucher… he says.

Come, come.

He must sense my impatience as I usher him through spacious rooms, past marble mantles and mirrors I installed. Light, light, and more light! How else to work ten, twelve hour days if there is not light?

Usually, I savour the first-time visitor to my studio. How a lady squeals at my stuffed eagle, poised to devour prey in its talons. Or sighs at polished solitaires. Or at butterflies pinned to yellow silk boards. How a gentleman presses his face to a jar all the better to see my serpent from the Indies.

Not this boy though. He barely notices my silver candelabra or my Chinese fireworks or my framed displays of seaweed. He wrinkles his nose at the whiff of lavender from the mounted, porcelain pot pourri. I want to laugh. To tell him I lose count of the gentlemen who covet my miniature pagoda, who applaud my black lacquer shield with the gold dragons. I hear their whispers whenever I am in the auction house: François Boucher: un homme de goût. But what does he care for my kind of beauty? He hasn’t a painter’s eye. Does not know what it is to sit and study a plaster figurine beneath the scrutiny of the north-west light and to make it gambol and smile.

I motion to the mirrored table by the window. This too I had made specially for just such occasions. Set them down here, please.

He begins to unwind the cloth from around the drawer. Beneath are layers of padding and, as he picks through them, I can smell damp straw. He dips into it, oblivious to the mess he is making, and then we catch a glimpse of them: the shells.

What is it about a shell that can drive a man to the brink of bankruptcy, to ruin himself for something a child could harvest from a beach? It is not even coral (I have branches of those on display; how beautifully they complement my jade). Is it because the shell holds the sea in your ear? Could that have been me, I wonder, ruined, if it were not for the constant flow of demands for engravings, and overmantels, and pastels and pastorals that keep me and my painters employed? I know what some say: that, producing in such quantities, I devalue my art. There is always something else to be acquired though. Another ivory-handled fan. Another case of minerals.

This belonged to Monsieur de Jullienne once, he says.

A good man. Show me.

I turn the twisted shell in my spotted hands. Ah, the auger. Borromini the architect collected these. He conjured them into the lantern of St. Ivo’s.

St. Ivo’s?

In Rome.

But the boy has not been to Rome. May never go there. I was not much older than him. Such an adventure. And those long years to pay for it. Those disappointments. And after all that, how sick I was in that city, in that small room. Good days too when we took pencil and board into the Roman countryside and drank wine in roadside inns. And there were other pleasures.

There are many more here, he says, tipping the drawer so fast shells hammer the parquet like hailstones. How is it none shatter?

Gently. It is not a question of more.

He frowns again, bending to pick the shells from the floor. He cannot know how to sift and select, he is only the messenger. I finger a cockle. It has a chipped edge. Pity, then: not the cockle. The conch, though... I lay it down in the centre of the table where the mirror gives up its glossy pink interior.

He holds up yet another. This is the better one, Monsieur.

And how do you know that?

It is the most expensive for one thing.

I could tell him I have shells which, without being rare, cost me more than 600 livres and that I bartered them over and over for better specimens, giving each time one or two louis in addition.

It may be that it is of a better quality but one does not always choose by quality. I laugh. That surprises you? You have listened to gossip about Monsieur Boucher. Come, who has been telling tales?

He forgets himself. How would you choose then? he says, annoyed as a child denied a dessert.

I have made him look foolish and it was not my intention. Where to begin? One must be organised. Class. Species. This type of ordering is commonplace. It can be found in the frontispiece of any natural history book. My sixty odd years have seen their share of it. But there is something else. Another way of seeing the world.

I upturn the conch, expose its pink lip. It is all about placement. Line up an unfurled shell like so next to a shard of slate. A rhythm builds. Shapes accumulate. Then beneath the shell and the slate, a stone sliced pink and amber, and then a speckled pebble picked up on the street. I like the hint of grey, a blue-grey that seems bluer still when placed next to a moss.

Do you see? Now do you see? It is like a painting. The more natural it appears, the more orchestrated it is...

He does not see. Still the incomprehension. It saddens me a little but I do not dwell on it. Not when there are so many more shells to inspect.

And what is the finest object in your collection, Monsieur Boucher?

His question interrupts my concentration. I could speak of what was almost mine – the white Pourpre and the Scalata sold at the marquis de Bonnac’s sale in ’57 (they lie wrapped in fabric, arranged on the satin beds of someone else’s coquillier – a regret) but the names would mean nothing to him. Instead I gesture around the room.

You will never surpass my most prized possession. If you guess what it is, I shall give you an engraving. What do you say to that?

He is no fool. I see from his expression he knows precisely how much one of my works will fetch. He looks about him. Shrugs. A glimmer of interest, and then he points at a small Dutch landscape in an ebony frame.

It is a fine painting, I say. But not the answer.

This then. He indicates my silver samovar, a rarity in Paris.

Again, you are correct that it is of value. But still not the answer. He looks bored. Even with the promise of payment, this game will not hold his attention for long. Try again. One more guess.

I don’t know. Nothing’s perfect.

You think perfection is impossible? I smile. He is staring beyond me. What, no reply?

When I follow his gaze, he turns away. In our haste we left the door open and from this room there is a view up the gilded bannister to the stair landing. Marie-Jeanne is in her morning negligee. I know her body so well I could trace its contours blind onto canvas. She is as attractive now in her forties as she