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Vicissitude

12/16/2014

Prompt:
<psychic lullaby

Participants:

Thanksgiving evening, as we sat around the table sharing what we were thankful for, we descended into wonderful silliness. My daughter and her friend Nate threw out a prompt for the writers in the family.
This is my answer to their challenge. Enjoy.

Mally laid her aching head down on the pillow. Why did no one tell her how tired she would be after having a child? Dear Creator, all she wanted to do was sleep.

The wail started as soon as she began to drift off. No! she wailed herself. Dragging her exhausted body out of bed, she staggered into the nursery. Go to sleep, Bunchy, please. She patted the tiny bundle on the back.

Hush little baby don't say a word.
Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird.
And if that mocking bird don't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.

The wails continued. Mally couldn't wait until Rayle got home from work so he could hold the baby while she stepped outside for fresh air and momentary quiet.

By the time Rayle walked through the front portal, Mally was in tears herself.

No better? Rayle asked, wrapping Mally in a hug. She shook her head miserably.

No! I must be doing something wrong!

Mally, you aren't doing anything wrong. It's our first one. We'll figure it out.

But Shaalis and Berrin are first-time parents, too, and Villy doesn't cry all the time.

Have you sung to him? Rayle asked. My mother sang to my little sister all the time. It always worked.

Of course, I have. My mother and the healer already told me that. Sing. Hah! Rayle picked the crying baby up, rubbing his back and walking the floor.

Rock-a-by baby, in the treetop,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.

Rayle! Mally punched him playfully on the shoulder. Don't sing that. It's horrid!

Sleep, baby, sleep
Your father tends the sheep
Your mother shakes the dreamland tree
And from it fall sweet dreams for thee.

Mally and Rayle spent the rest of the evening walking Bunchy, singing to him, feeding him, and finally putting him in his crib. The poor little thing finally fell asleep, exhausted. The two shell-shocked parents collapsed on their bed.

Mally, I think we need to take him to the healer. Maybe he's really sick.

Oh, Rayle, no. Mally's face scrunched and her own tears flowed. The thought that the tiny little Bunchy might actually be ill frightened her. Illness was so rare. Do you think so?

Rayle nodded. I don't think we're doing anything wrong, but we are missing something.

The next morning the two worried parents sat in the healer's waiting room, flipping through the ancient holographs on the chair screens.

Why do healers never have any new holographs. Good grief, this one is three years old! Look how grainy the image is.

Rayle shrugged. Some things were just incomprehensible.

A tall thin woman entered, nodding to Mally as she approached. Mally. And you must be Rayle. She shook their hands, then took the screaming baby from them.

Sayah, I must be the worst mother in the world, Mally sobbed. He has hardly stopped crying since I was here last. I did everything you suggested. Please, help me. I'm afraid of what I'll do if he keeps crying. I'm just so tired.

Come, the healer said, motioning them back through the hallway into an exam room. Mally and Rayle sat, while Sayah stripped Bunchy down to his absorbent. The healer poked and prodded the baby while he wailed and sobbed.

Sayah reached behind her, into a cabinet, and produced a strange device, which she clamped firmly of Mally's ears. Bunchy's crying shut off and blessed silence reigned. But when Mally looked at her baby, he was still screaming. She just couldn't hear him. Mally jerked the device off and flung it onto the floor. Bunchy's crying came back at full volume.

What evil thing is that? she cried, pointing at the plastic and wire equipment lying next to Sayah's foot.

It is called headphones, Sayah said calmly.

Headphones?

Yes, it shuts all sound off from the ears. Centuries ago it was used for listening to music.

Why would anyone need those for listening to music? Rayle asked, perplexed.

Because centuries ago people spoke.

Spoke?

Sounds came out of their mouths. There is a little-used juncture in the trachea made of muscle and cartilage that contains two folded mucous membranes. Centuries ago, this organ was vibrated by air passing out of the lungs, creating sounds. Until recently, scientists thought it was a vestigial remnant from when man was more fish than mammal. Since the rediscovery of creation as a viable scientific hypothesis for the existence of the universe, this is being rethought. They now believe it was used to communicate. That is what produces laughter.

What...what does this have to do with Bunchy? Rayle finally found his thoughts enough to ask the question.

Bunchy is crying, using his vocal cords. Mally and Rayle sat, stunned.

The healer cuddled the screaming child. I want to try something.

"Lullaby and goodnight,
thy mother's delight,
bright angels beside
my darling abide."

The words, forced through little-used vocal cords, croaked out into the quiet room. Bunchy stopped crying and stared at Sayah's face. Smiling through his tears, he crowed little sounds none of the adults in the room had ever heard.

Bunchy cannot hear your psychic lullabies. He cannot hear your soothing words. He is psychically deaf. When Sayah returned to communicating with her mind, the baby puckered up his little face, ready to launch into another screaming fit.

Mally took him from Sayah, looked fearfully at her husband, opened her mouth, took a huge breath, and did something no mother had done in almost five hundred year. She sang to her baby.

"Hush little baby don't say a word.
Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird.
And if that mocking bird don't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring."

Bunchy smiled, hearing his mother's voice for the first time.

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First Hunt

12/1/2014

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This is based on a true story that happened to my grandfather when I was eleven years old. I don't think he'd mind me crediting it to a new generation of hunters.

Key peeked out of the tent and shivered. More snow had fallen last night although the sky was clear, stars sparkling like cold little fires. Ducking back in, he pulled on his longjohns, his flannel-lined cords, his turtle neck, his flannel shirt, and a sweatshirt. He left the coat, hat, and gloves until after breakfast. Just have to take them off again when he got to the cook tent.

He pulled his waterproof boots on, not bothering to tie them. Just have to take them off again in the cook tent. Ma was real picky about her floor. Giving his brother Tye a shove to wake him up, he stepped out into his family's usual Thanksgiving wonderland. Shivering his way across the clearing, avoiding by memory the campfire ring, invisible in the predawn darkness, he ducked under the cook tent flap just in time to hear the end of an argument.

"I still say he's too young," Ma groused, "but you'll do like you want. Always do." She was piling pancakes onto plates set on the board table.

"Sara," Pa answered patiently, "he's ten. He should have gone out last year, but I caved. Not doing it this year. The boy has to learn to hunt. How else is he going to feed his family?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe go to college and get a good job in the city?"

"I don't want to live in the city," Key protested. "I want to live here." His mother turned, frustration on her face.

"Key, you need to look to your future."

"I am," Key asserted. "Besides, you and Pa both have college degrees, but we still need this elk for meat this winter. Don't see what a degree did for you." Ma threw Pa a really dirty look and turned back to the stove.

"Key, apologize. That's no tone to take with your mother."

"Sorry, Ma," the boy said miserably, "but I don't want to live in a box surrounded by a jillion other boxes. I want to live here."

"I know, Sweetie. I just worry about you. This kind of living isn't going to last forever."

Tye stumbled into the tent, bleary-eyed and needing a shave. "You guys arguing about the squirt again?" he asked, fumbling an enamel cup off the shelf and pouring himself some coffee.

"Ma doesn't want me to go," Key mumbled, thoroughly discouraged. He'd looked forward to his first elk hunt since he was too short to see the top of the camp table. Now Ma was pulling rank, trying to keep him a baby.

"Ma, come on. He's plenty old enough. I was nine when I first went."

"Fine! Whatever!" Ma snapped. "You three are going to gang up on me. I might as well give up now."

Breakfast was quiet at first, everyone uncomfortable with the argument. But then Pa started outlining strategies, and the three males started making plans for the day. The first day of elk season was important. The sooner they got their meat, the sooner they could pack up and go home, leaving the woods to the amateurs, the rich guys from Portland, who came up more to drink and act stupid than get an elk. It was all a holiday to them.

To the four people sitting in the canvas tent that smelled of creosote and cooking grease, this was deadly serious business. No elk meant very little meat over the winter. Lots of beans, mac 'n cheese, and peanut butter. Ma and Pa were teachers and darn good ones, but a teacher's salary didn't stretch very far. They'd gotten two bucks last month during deer season. One was turned into sausages and jerky, and was sitting in their freezer at home. They gave the other to Pa's folks. Gramps had broken his leg falling off a hay wagon in August and couldn't go out with them. They needed the meat as much as Key and his family.

By the time dawn broke over the mountains to the east, Key was sitting on a stand, waiting. Tye and Pa were walking the ridge and the gully, hoping to flush something toward him. He was a good shot. Been shooting since he was too small for the 32 Special he cradled in his arms. If they flushed a bull elk to him, he'd hit it.

The first drive was a bust, so they all moved downhill, toward the Chinaman, a valley north and west of the camp. Pa plunked Key on top of a big stump. Surrounded by thin leafless bushes, he'd be hard to see but could see out fine. Then Pa and Tye slipped over the edge of the hill, down into the Chinaman. They'd drive up this time, hoping to spook any elk hiding in the pucker brush lower down the ravine.

Key sat with his hands between his legs, trying to keep them warm. He didn't blow on them. Elk would hear. He'd been sitting maybe ten minutes when he heard movement down the hill, but south of where Pa and Tye had gone over. He listened hard. The sound was a soft scrape, a sigh, then nothing. Key reminded himself to keep breathing, slow and shallow like Gramps had taught him. No more sounds. The sounds had been downwind, so he decided to look. It was too soon for Pa and Tye to begin the drive up the hill.

Carefully, as quietly as he could, he slipped the bolt on the rifle and chambered a round, then he moved quietly and slowly. Standing at sloth speed, he worked his way carefully out of the brush. Placing each boot precisely, avoiding lumps that might be rocks promising sprained ankles, he ghosted silently toward where the sounds had been. Another patch of brush, a big patch, showed some activity. Broken branches, some hair caught in the breaks, told him some kind of animal had been here.

He plucked one dark brown tuft from a branch and sniffed. Elk. Looked like mane hair, not body hair, which meant a bull. Holding the 32 Special at the ready, he worked his way through the bushes. He was small and thin, which made it easier, but his clothes were bulky, which meant he still had to move with care. Ten glacial minutes later, he could see a small clearing in the middle of the brush. Maybe ten feet across, it had been made by stomping the bushes flat.

Key moved closer, trying to see the ground. He froze, forgetting to breathe. That's not possible, his brain said. He shook his head once to clear it. The light was still pretty weak, so he had to have misunderstood what he saw. He peeked again. It was still there.

Avoiding the grasping branches, he brought the rifle to his shoulder, took a bead, and fired.

Ma met them coming back into camp. She looked at her watch then the sky.

"What are you doing back? Is someone hurt? Are you all OK?" Pa opened the back of the green pickup, showing Ma the head of a five-point bull.

"You got one already?" she asked, disbelief warring with surprise.

"Actually," Pa said, pulling Key forward, "this young man snuck up on it while it slept. Pop couldn't have done any better." Key blushed, pleased. Gramps was the best hunter in the world.

"How in the world did you do that?" Ma asked, pride beaming from her eyes.

"Oh, you know, just snuck along quiet-like." Key smiled modestly. He could see some good roasts and stews in their future, and he had done it.

Him alone.

On his first hunt.

Best day ever!

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