Settled

The following is the beginning of a short story I have been working on. This morning, though, I realized my plan for it was not realistic, so now I have to rethink things. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the beginning.

Jeff was that guy at the office whose chair had an odd habit of sinking now and then, seemingly at random but somehow always while he was having a conversation with someone. For the first month after he started using that particular chair, he had profusely apologized to whomever he happened to be speaking to at the time of each gravitatious incident. The following month, Jeff had had enough and snooped around the building for a replacement chair. Finding one in a spare conference room filled with marvelous, non-sinking chairs (he tested each), he made the swap and had approximately two days of seated bliss before a conversation was once again intruded upon by his chair sinking toward the ground. It appeared that his chair had been returned to his desk. Jeff spent a couple weeks swapping his chair and having it disgracefully return before he finally gave up. He stopped bothering to apologize when he sank a foot during any sort of parley, and instead would staunchly refuse to readjust the chair until the conversation had reached a clear end. If someone so much as crinkled the corner of their eye at his chair’s antics, Jeff would give them his best So? look.

His wife had suggested he prop the chair up on boxes, or perhaps a short filing cabinet or fridge. Mel always had ill-conceived ideas like that; unfortunately, what he had once considered endearing was by now, after 15 years of marriage, grating on his patience as he found himself telling her to please refrain from spray painting the front door with a skull and crossbones in honor of Halloween, to please put the dead leaves in trash bags instead of lighting them on fire in the middle of their suburban front yard, or even that she shouldn’t give the Girl Scouts cookies every time they knocked on the door, no matter how delicious they were or how fresh from the oven. In the instance particular to his office chair, Jeff explained to Mel, in the kindest way possible, that the chair’s single swivel leg would get in the way of an attempt to wedge a refrigerator down there.

“Can’t you just remove the leg?” she had asked.

“How am I supposed to slide my chair in and out from beneath my desk if it’s on a refrigerator?”

“By attaching wheels to the bottom of the refrigerator. Look, it would save you space—”

“That’s too much work, Mel.”

“Fine, have it your way. Let your chair sink. Heaven only knows what sort of impression that gives to whoever it is you talk to all day,” she said.

“The people I talk to all day already know my chair sinks,” Jeff said, massaging his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He didn’t bother asking about what people would think if they came into his small office to find him sitting on a filing cabinet or refrigerator, never mind the fact that the nearest outlet for the refrigerator was across the room—the one near his desk was already taken up with computer plugs and a plug for a machine so foreign to him that he kept it more for the bland mystery of it than for its potential usefulness—and he would have to rearrange his entire office for that extra two feet-by-two feet space his wife was promising he would gain by the chair-base exchange.

“The people you talk to all day,” Mel was saying, “gave you the chair you have as a joke, a welcome-to-the-office hazing, and you should do them one better by economizing space. Who knows, you could get promoted for your ingenuity.”

Mel had enough ingenuity for the both of them, and that’s why Jeff rarely bothered to think anymore beyond whatever was necessary for his position as an assistant to the county clerk. Which, frankly, wasn’t much.

Jeff had settled into his life, settled for his life, and settled on continuing onward in much the same way, if he could help it. Whatever craving he had for excitement was met on at least a weekly basis by Mel.

On a week when Mel had figured it was a good idea to embroider a detailed, silver map of the United States onto their American flag in preparation for the patriotic summer holidays, Jeff decided to walk to work, promising Mel he would pick up some muffins on his way home. It was a promise he fully intended to keep, for although he was perpetually short on patience with his wife, he did love her and didn’t want her to have to go even one Sunday morning without her customary blueberry muffin with streusel on top.

It was raining that day, but since Jeff had never owned an umbrella, and since he had already decided upon walking, there was little he could do about it. He tossed his neighbor’s newspaper on top of his head to protect his hair from the rain, but then remembered how the ink tended to smear and thought better of it, stopping at the corner of the block to deliver the paper to the small beagle the family who lived there had recently adopted. The pup wagged his tail in overdone gratitude and began tearing the paper to pieces so that it would resemble the one already eroding on the front steps of the house.

At the corner, Jeff checked the street sign to make sure he had walked in the right direction. He had to look down a moment to blink the rain from his eyes before he could continue on, which of course made him look at his shoes and try to remember whether he had ever gotten around to waterproofing them. It was possible he had not, and it was equally possible that Mel had used the shoes to experiment with an alternative waterproofing method she had seen on Pinterest. He would have to find a way to tactfully ask her about it later.

There were few people out that morning, and of those that were, only Jeff seemed to not have an umbrella in working condition. He walked beneath every tree he saw in an effort to make up for it, but there simply weren’t enough full trees along the way to protect his now-sopping clothes from the rain. So Jeff was soon forced to give up any effort to avoid the drizzle and instead focused on avoiding the deepest of the puddles. It was hard to tell if his socks were wet because of his shoes or his dripping pant legs.

He opened the door to city hall thinking about how he hadn’t realized it was so far from his home, then crossed the stone floor of the lobby toward the elevators.

His elevator-mate was an aging black fellow wearing a fedora, and he stood beside some luggage and an umbrella. The umbrella, which was lying on top of the man's luggage, was blue and opened slightly to air out.

They exchanged good mornings and stared together at the elevator doors.

The Dark Side of Historical Fiction

I'd like to draw your attention to Moses. We all know that he was shipped down the Nile in a basket, then picked up by a royal Egyptian woman. Common knowledge, right? ... I think common knowledge has got it wrong. I mean, look at this.

The verse clearly says the following: "And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it."

Perhaps the placement was strategic?

Now look back at that picture of the Nile and tell me this: Was Moses doing any floating, anywhere? I think not. I mean, look at those "flags" (it's papyrus in this picture, actually, according to where I stole it from). Think about any reeds on the edge of rivers you have seen. Was he taken to the middle of the river? No. He was placed in a place where the water pretty much doesn't move, surrounded by plants that also kept him from going much of anywhere (did the pitch make the basket stick to the plants, too? Something to ponder if you feel like).

So there goes every retelling of the story of Moses I am familiar with.

I have no idea where everyone got the idea that Moses went floating downriver, but it seems to be an accepted fact now. I blame it on historical fiction.

It's hard to draw the line between retellings and historical fiction sometimes. I'm sure people don't consciously think of The Ten Commandments as historical fiction, even though it adds a mess load of stuff that isn't in the Bible. Whole characters and storylines are added. So I'm going to call it historical fiction and we'll all know what I'm talking about.

The dark side of historical fiction: We sometimes let it come to define history.

This is definitely what the Middle Ages looked like. I'm sure of it.

The best of historical fiction does this, actually. Characters that seem too real to be made up come to mind whenever we think about a period of history, tainting it with their presence. They make that period come alive, but they also make it their own, muddying the waters. Props, places, whole ideas go through the same process. King Arthur may be seen as a myth, but his court still helps define how everyone sees the Middle Ages. I imagine lancing tournaments happening with regularity, a lot of dirty people farming, royal women spending all their time sewing, and who knows what the men were doing if they weren't knights. I've got a mixture of King Arthur stories, A Knight's Tale, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and a lot of fantasy books going through my head when I think of the Middle Ages. You try imagining the Middle Ages without using fiction as a reference.

I read The Help a bit ago, and guess what? When I think of the South in the 60s, that's the main thing I have to draw on. That and a lot of photos I've mostly forgotten from the Civil Rights Movement, and the voice of Martin Luther King Jr. in my head saying, "I have a dream!" (and no, not just the words, but his voice, courtesy of listening to a recording of it).

Think about it. Historical fiction, if done well enough, can define history for the world.

No pressure, historical fiction writers.

What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Joe Abercrombie

I finished editing that manuscript for my friend, so I can finally start reading for myself again. Joe Abercrombie's Half a King, though, was a commuter book. It originally caught my eye in the library because I recognized the title and cover art from somewhere...I later realized it was from a post on my friend Madison's blog. It's a wonderful blog, by the way, pretty insightful for a blog and she goes into a variety of topics, from making me feel sad for how women treat Marilyn Monroe these days to making me feel like my cooking really isn't adventurous enough.
Shameless plug, but hey, it's the only blog I really follow, and there's a reason for that. I have other friends who have blogs, but this one is really something else.

Anyway ... Half a King. The concept is this prince who has only one finger on one hand (other hand is fine) becomes king when his father and brother are both killed. Swearing vengeance (this is a violent culture, where kings are more war kings than anything else), he soon finds himself betrayed and set adrift in the world. He has to fight his way back to regain the kingdom and avenge his father and brother.

I did get caught up in this story at times, but overall, it wasn't my favorite. For one, the troupe of supporting characters Yarvi builds has two characters who I could barely tell apart. There were five of them, and three were pretty unique, but the last two were so similar that when one of them died, I didn't really care. I was more like, "And who was that again?" Perhaps if I had read it instead of listening in spurts, it would have gone across better, but I still think these characters should have been more unique from each other.

I was also let down by Yarvi himself. His character was fine--and the story arc is well done, by the way, no complaints there--but in my point of view, he doesn't become as cunning as the story and author keep saying he becomes. He just becomes average, in my opinion, except for at the very last. That bit was cunning and kind of came from left field. It was something I, as a reader, was not expecting at all, but made sense once it was explained.

I also enjoyed the plot twist the climax hinges on. I'm sorry I can't be more explicit with all this, I don't want to give anything away if you decide to read it.

Madison praised the characters and said she loved the book, so there you go. You may as well read it to see what you think for yourself. And if you do it quickly, you'll be ready for the sequel's release in February.

P.S. - This book mentions elves from time to time, but there are no elves to speak of. There are things that are "elven made"...but no elves. So weird.