I am tawdry, but will try to do better. Promise.
This is a short story I wrote last year for a friend who was feeling sad. I know what that can be like only too well, so I'm republishing it here. I want to import some writings from various other places and have one place to collect all for ease of reference. :-)
A 1000 (or so!) word story, dedicated to a few of my friends who seem to have lost something recently. Hope you find whatever you're looking for soon. x
There was once a jewel, so bright and true that if you held it, if only for a moment, then you forgot who you were. If your life had a purpose, it was now meaningless. If you had a mother or father, sons or daughters, they became strangers. If anyone foolishly tried to take it from you, then more fool them. They would die horribly, your name on their tongue, their blood on your hands. It was special, like a first love, a true friendship, or a random fleeting glance full of longing and promise. It made you indestructible, full of hope and optimism, truly amazingly alive. When you held it, you knew what people were up to when they were being human. It whispered secrets. It was lost.
Carelessness was to blame, as it invariably is. I was distracted by events; head full of scary stuff and wild plans, I had left it on a wide open window sill on a blustery day. I suspected the magpie that lived in the oak tree at the bottom of my ill-kept garden had set its gimlet eye on it. Whenever I stepped outside, jewel in hand, hand deep in pocket, the magpie always eyed me greedily. If I had any sense at all, I would have kept it close. I would have made my jewel into a pendant or ring, and then it would be with me always. Instead, of late, I had taken it for granted, left it in drained glasses or by the side of a plate like a discarded stale biscuit. Once I left it in a public toilet (unsurprisingly in a bar...) and with stomach sinking remembrance, burst in on the astonished cubicle inhabitant. Luckily they had not yet touched the jewel, or infatuated, they would not have relinquished it so easily. I proffered apologies, stole it back and left.
I turned my house upside down. Drawers were turned out and bookcases were tumbled to the floor. I had no time or inclination for order or methodology. Long absent door keys, odd ear-rings, cake recipes hurriedly scribbled down on the back of ripped brown paper envelopes, a dolls head and a selection of feathers were yielded by the cracks down the side of the sofa. I ran my hands over floorboards and scrutinised knot-holes wondering if the jewel were small enough to fall through. No, I could still feel the weight of it in my hand. I could picture, precisely, its size, no bigger than a 20p; remember the patterns of blues and greens that dappled its surface and the tiny lazy imperfections in its interior. I continually thought I could see it from the corner of my eye, silently mocking me. As I whirled around it would become something else – a peach pit, a dust bunny, the forgotten top of a long ago bottle of silver cider. The jewel knew where it kept itself, but it wasn’t telling me. I think it enjoyed its freedom.
I killed the magpie.
I had started to think that it was at the foot of all this. I painstakingly built up the magpies trust by leaving sunflower seeds melted into bacon fat on my window sill. It jabbered away, calling for its two-for-joy magpie friend as I struck. On interrogation, it told me little, confessed nothing other it’s rank, number and location of its nest. I climbed the oak tree with difficulty, a struggling, wriggling, moulting magpie with its beak, wings and feet bound, trapped under one arm. The nest was adorned with tinfoil chocolate wrappers. A fork proudly stuck up straight, pointing to the stars. There were broken chains and shoe buckles and the missing wing mirror from my VW. No jewel. Compassionately (For I am not a monster) I decided to let the magpie go. It was not guilty of the crime I had imagined. I carefully removed the sticky tape from it’s beak. It set it’s head on one side, fixed me with an orange eye and spoke.
‘ I know where it is, what you lost. You’ll never find it’
I don’t negotiate with terrorists. I threw the magpie in the fish pond and watched it bubble to the bottom.
The sun rose a pale primrose yellow over the trees I sat beneath. I thought I had exhausted my possibilities. Rising stiffly to my feet, I stretched and started to amble back to the house, the back door left wide open in the early hours as the magpie and I had climbed the tree. One of the ornamental carp watched me go with an accusatory air. A fish pond is no place for a magpie. I dismissed it curtly. My main priorities were to make some strong coffee, regroup and continue looking for my jewel. The house creaked and settled as they do when they think no one is listening – it was arguably far too early for me to be awake and I apologised for catching it unawares. We stretched simultaneously. A languid, self-absorbed stretch. I made coffee and stared blankly from the kitchen window surrounded by unleashed kitchen detritus.
Something gleamed in the fishpond. A ray of sunshine settled on the knowledgeable carp. I grabbed a knife from hands reach and stumbled into the fishpond, thrashing wildly at the surface of the water; I cut my leg, but felt nothing. Catching the fish deftly in one hand, I slit it’s underside from head to tail. My jewel plopped onto the dew damp grass. Gleaming softly, covered in fish blood and guts I wiped it tenderly on my sleeve and returned it, safe in my hand, I sighed contentedly.
I should have known. If a magpie can talk, then I am in a fairytale, where fish eat rings dropped by thieving birds. I will leave you to decide the moral, as all good stories should have a moral as an end. I suspect it is to search for what you have lost in uncommon places.
End
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