what?
Yer story.
My story? He squinted at me and sniffed, took off his bunnet and pulled out another two manuscripts from inside the lining. These two had that same tiny blue-ink scrawl, handwritten on the kids’ lined exercise pages. That made four this evening. I wasnay goni give ye these till next week, he said.
Next week? Am I here next week?
Take them now son in case ye arent.
Ye keep calling me son. I’m sixty-four years of age.
Dan blinked, pushing the specs back over the bridge of his nose. The woman who sat opposite smiled. Dan smiled back. Edith, he said, did I ever tell ye how come my nose got broke?
No, said Edith and leaned forwards a little to hear the yarn.
My attention was diverted by the extra two stories Dan had passed me. I held them up to the light to examine them.
Is that a trick? he said.
It is Dan aye. I can tell a lot from the paper a writer uses.
He fixed the bunnet back on his head and straightened it. I folded the pages carefully and put them in my folder. Thanks, I said.
Nay bother son. I’m one of these people who are aye on the spot when momentous occasions are unfolding. That’s why I write so many stories.
Aw. I grinned.
I wouldnt scoff, said a young fellow.
I’m not scoffing, I said.
Edith was smiling. Dan nudged the glasses up his nose a little. His eyes seemed particularly large whenever she was speaking. She addressed me directly: The genesis of this goes back centuries, she said, and is referred to by an early Roman chronicler; Heraclitus I believe. It may have been Oxon. In those days soothsayers were commonplace. They not only perceived but derived patterns from major human tragedies, horrific calamities; earthquakes, tsunamis, erupting volcanoes. They had noted that among the multitudinous crowds of people who chanced upon these scenes of devastation, were clusters of individuals whose faces were familiar. These people appeared at the scene of these tragic events. Edith continued: There was the girl and the boy; the elderly lady and the middle-aged bearded fellow; there were the two women, the young father with the baby in swaddling clothes, his wife and her lover. The same faces, always the same, spectators, passively there, registering no emotion.
The rest were enthralled. Me too. I was not so sure about Dan. I couldnay see behind the glasses. When she finished talking I said, Edith, have you handed in a story yet?
No.
No?
I cant write stories to save me. I write poetry, she said.
I chuckled.
Sorry, I didnt think to amuse you.
God sake Edith that was a story! What ye talking about ye dont write stories!
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