Modern Themes in Antiquity

Modern Themes in Antiquity[1]

 

 

 

Given the choice, I chose to be thrown out of an airplane.

We attained 10,000 feet. My guards had already unbounded me, knowing I was a cheery fellow not given to monkey business. They opened the door for me. I nodded in thanks. "Cheerio, fellows!" I cried as I stepped out into the high empty air.

Getting up to speed was the sickening part. It seemed parts of me wanted to drop faster than other parts of me, subjectively disregarding what Galileo at Pisa thought to be the case. Fifteen seconds passed, and I felt floating and magical. This was a far cry from my unhappy childhood, let me tell you! I rolled about for some time; time stretches when you're falling to your death.

I prepared myself for the final approach. The fields below were spring-grey and summer-green. I said to myself, "This fun is nearly at an end," and positioned myself supinely. The plane seemed not to have moved. I watched the fluffy clouds get further and further away. I spread my arms and legs wide. I felt I had been created just for this occasion. Then it all came to a sudden end. But what an ending!

 

*

 

"What part of childhood do you miss the most?"

"Are you aiming for some kind of innocence and experience thing?"

"Not at all."

"Because usually when people ask that question, it's an innocence and experience question?"

"Say what you want."

"If you're sincere: I miss not having old friends."

"That's something strange to miss."

"Think of it: everyone in your life is more-or-less new to you. There's no-one to remember your past. No-one to remind you how old you are. No one to look old, thereby reminding you of how old you must look and be."

"Is that all you miss?"

"Isn't it enough? Every day there was something new and there were no reminders of how things use to be because there wasn't any used to be. And this is something that's lost so slowly you can't know when you stopped not having old friends. It's a terrible thing to lose, so slowly like that. It's shocking to have known someone for twenty years. I wish I could get amnesia just so I could start again."

"That's a lot to say, you know."

"So tell me, what part of childhood do you miss?"

"Being able to read without glasses."

 

*

 

Three pilgrims have come to my land. Over a light meal of thunderberries and cream, they asked me what places they should seek out. They had limited time, and a limited budget; they referred to both as 'per diems'.

I told them: "There is a hill, an hour away by foot, from which you can see the lands that adjoin mine. I made the trek twelve years ago, and I was mightily delighted."

I told them: "The earth of my land is rich and powerful. Dig wherever you like, and I guarantee that within two hours you will have a marvel suitable as an heirloom or suitable for framing."

I told them: "South of here, down the highway some forty clicks, there is a lovely tree. It is an oak."

I told them: "We have a town here in which the dogs run city hall. Most ordinances concern bones, but some show an advanced appreciation for the fine arts, especially dance."

The pilgrims thanked me for the advice. Next evening, over thunderberries and cream, they told me they had gone to see the oak tree and come away enlightened. Will they come again? For the hill, the earth, the dogs?

 

*

 

I'm slurping up some delicious lake water that tastes like moss and fish and frogs. I catch sight of something and look quick! It's a bird swimming or something. I've never bothered with birds much. I'm more of a squirrel cockapoo. So I ignore this bird and the bird swims or whatever past me and I'm done with the drinking and I know there's things to smell and people to smell.

Time's a-wastin' so I run up the hill over the rocks and boards to my food bowl in which there's nothing but smells of meals past. I catch sight of something and look quick! What the hell it's like a squirrel only really small and brown. I run at it and it disappears! Down a hole! I smell the hole and I can't figure out what it the thing was. What a puzzle!

I hear her voice; she's less than a mile away. Time to jump up and down and run in circles and roll around in dirt. A couple minutes she comes into view and I'm all revved up and I run to her and jump up and down on her and tell her about the squirrel-like things.

 

*

 

Three pilgrims have come to my land. Over a light meal of thunderberries and cream, they asked me: "What is the way? How should we best navigate your strange and marvellous land?" I pulled out our visitors' guide. "This will help you." I gave sections A, B, and C to pilgrims 1, 2, and 3 respectively.

"You each now have access to one or more of three more or less dimensions. I believe one of you has the key to the sites, or perhaps a working version."

They sifted through their sections seriously.

I continued: "You should have no difficulty keying each site onto the co-ordinates. We believe in teamwork in my land. Use the guides in any order, for you can't go wrong. All is equal in my land, and the journey is half or more of the fun."

Eight days later they returned. "We couldn't make head nor tail of these guidebooks. We wound up in the middle of nowhere, wandering, every time. So we tried to get back here, and that took five days to do. We're tired, we're hungry, and on the verge of being insane."

I smiled. "I'm glad you enjoyed it. Please, come again."

 

*

 

Y10K

 

December 31, 9999, ten minutes to midnight.

Harry stirs his Tom Collins with a plastic swizzle stick. The music is up loud; everyone's dancing. He goes to the hi-fi and turns it down. "Okay everyone!" he shouts. "It's almost midnight! Are you all ready to say goodbye to the declennium!"

Joanie laughs and spilled her highball. "Oh, shit, where's the champagne?"

There's a mad rush on Billy's behalf to run down to the cooler to get the two bottles of bubbly. When he returns there's five minutes left. He gives a bottle to Maggie.

"Never thought we'd see the end of it!"

They turn on the Sony Trinitron and tune to 7 to see Times Square. All together: "10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1. Happy new year!"

Everyone gives good kisses or better kisses to everyone.

"Whew!" cries Nance. "I feel drugged!"

"I'm never up this late."

Harry sits down, suddenly sickly. "What was in the mousse?" He vomits blood and June jumps.

Abigail rubs her forehead; blood and flesh comes off. "What the fuck?"

Joanie falls down and pulls at her stomach; her intestines spill out.

The other guests fall, and dissolve into goo.

And everything is suddenly silent, all over the universe.

 

*

 

I say to her: "So, the universe. It's expanding. That's to say, the stars in the sky are tinted a bit red which means they are all travelling away from us, in every direction."

She stirred her coffee.

I continued: "But the principle of universality means that it can't be happening out there and not everywhere. So things must be expanding here, right now, but we're mostly, in most normal cases, see, not aware of it."

She looked out the window.

I continued: So we have to all draw together, get closer, to see where the expansion is happening. Because then we'll have a greater mass being close together. That's to say we can experience, feel, the expansion of the universe."

She stirred her coffee some more.

I continued: "But you ask, so, what will this do for us? The universe is expanding; we'll know it's expanding; then what? Well, the answer is that there's a great deal of pleasure in knowledge. We get together, see the expanding universe, and we'll finally understand really what it's all about. We'll be in communion with all creation."

She smiled and said: "Not until I'm married."[2]

 

*

 

There's always a second chance to begin again. God is merciful. And if that second re-beginning doesn't quite suit you, there'll be a third chance and even a fourth chance. Believe me. You blew it on the weekend, didn't you, when you chose to see Troubles Yesterday instead of Sunny Smiles? You can change that easily. (The 'fourth dimension' isn't a dimension at all; it's not 90° away from the other three, now is it?) You should take that chance, and see Sunny Smiles instead. It's most easily done.

Now that you've seen Sunny Smiles, tell me: Did you like the ending? You didn't? She should have ended up with the other cousin? Then begin again. Go back, go back to your childhood, and do things differently. Eventually you'll find yourself seeing Sunny Smiles wherein she ends up with the other cousin. God is merciful.

Everything is mutable: that's something they don't teach you in school. If you find the right way, turning lead to gold is most easily done. Make your life perfect. Take my advice. Create your own path. Experiment with all the possibilities. Don't be afraid. There is no done that cannot be undone. God is merciful.

 

*

 

I remember growing up. I lived in the suburbs with my parents and my sister and my brother. I fit into this environment nicely. I went to public school and I went to high school. I then left home to go to university for an engineering degree.

I excelled at my studies and I was hired right away. I found myself a girlfriend who became my wife. I rose to the top of my profession. I helped my wife raise a son and then a daughter.

I had plenty of friends and they would come over on weekends, sometimes with their kids and sometimes not. I knew how to handle my liquor.

I watched my kids grow up. I helped them pay for college, a little. I saw them become adults just as I had. I went to their weddings and I was at the hospital when my grandchildren were born.

I knew it was time to relax. I'd worked so hard. I took my wife on five cruises over ten years. I got very old suddenly. I saw my wife and children gather around my deathbed.

I died. I didn't close my eyes. I had never opened them, see?

 

*

 

The open fire's flames caused to dance the stick figures on the walls of the cave.

Okay, enough scene-setting.

The Ephebe said: "Oh Master, teach us the secret of snobbery."

The Neophyte added: "Teach us, and we shall catch fish."

The Master rolled his eyes. He sighed. He checked his fingernails. He sighed again. He checked his fingernails again. Then he spoke.

"What's your big interest in that? Aren't there better things to be interested in?"

The Ephebe and the Neophyte blushed in shame. The Ephebe said: "We are trying to understand things. That's all!"

The Master smiled condescendingly. "I am a teacher by example. Observe. You expressed an interest in something, and I made it plain that you were interested in a thing that was of no interest whatsoever. That is the secret of snobbery."

The Neophyte said: "You are truly the master."

"In summary, anyone can be a snob simply by exhibiting a disinterest in anything anyone else is interested in. You do not have to be of any social class. Simply dismiss another's interests, and you will appear immeasurably superior."

The Ephebe and the Neophyte nodded and looked to the dancing figures.

"Oh, those," said the Master.

 

*

 

Whither Prussianism?

 

We had the perfect organizational chart. At bottom, each team reported to two other teams depending on the day of the week. Meetings were set for early morning, late morning, early afternoon, and late afternoon. With eight teams (and Wednesdays free) every team on that tier was responding to all other teams once a week. There was no team outside the loop, as it were.

Above these teams we had four senior teams. They would meet with the lower teams mid-mornings and mid-afternoons on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, in a set weekly rotation pattern. Progress reports had to be filled out in octoplicate with wide margins for asterisks, arrows, pilcrows, and exclamation marks only.

The asterisks, arrows, pilcrows, and exclamation marks would be quantified and check-summed for the two management teams to peruse in early-mid-morning, mid-late-morning, early-mid-afternoon, and mid-late-afternoon. These analyses would move up and down the chain in simultaneity.

It was a perfect organizational chart. Everyone knew everything across the organization. The chart was the glory of our organization. We had made the chart perfectly, with the human factor entirely eliminated. The organization was entirely amoral, and we set to work then deciding what to do.

 

*

 

"I'd like to get your names and ranks right before we begin." My pen felt awkward.

In a clear and serious voice, the man with the beard gave his name.

"Okay, so," I said. "That's R-I-G‑"

"No, not quite." He spelled it out. I had a consonant and a vowel wrong. I tried again, going letter-by-letter.

"Close but no cigar." He spelled again.

The paper and pen looked all blurry. "Okay, got it," I said, even though I didn't. "And what was your rank on D-Day?"

He told me.

"So, Corporal."

"No, I wasn't Corporal." He told me again. I repeated what he'd said and was wrong again.

"Got it," I said. "It was quite a long time ago."

"Not to us," said the one who had no beard.

"Okay, so, you. I have to have your name and rank. The newspaper's quite keen on these things."

He told me his name and I wrote it down letter-by-letter. "V-Y-L‑"

"There's no L." He told me what went there.

"V-E-R‑"

"Listen." We went through it slowly. I pretended.

"Great. So. What was your rank on D-Day?"

He told me.

"Sergeant Major."

"No, that's wrong."

"Right. I'm wrong."

My pen, my paper.

 

*

 

Just Dogs

 

Dogs have trained us very well.

I look online for dog-related businesses in Toronto and I find

Dogfather & Co

Bark 'N' Scratch

Best Paw Forward

Hollywoof

Hot Diggity Dog

Groomingdales

Doggy Style

Happy Tails

Cosmopawlitan

Barkingham Palace

Barkyard

Bone Appetit

Wags to Riches

Woof Pack Adventures

and I could go on and on.

The point(er) is that we must have some specially-bred parts in our hearts for these creatures.

Even though they are all possessed of dog-breath, we let them lick. They make short work of plush toys and furniture. They knock vases to break them on hardwood floors.

And yet they're slowly taking over the world.

They're not capable of tragedy. We don't consider them capable of deep tragic feelings (aside from the tales of dogs at graves forever, but even that's not tragic).

All they want is food. If you provide them with food, you are the superior dog (though a bit funny looking). They'll follow you anywhere.

In James Agee's sharecropper book, dogs are fed but cats are not.

We and our world would be quite different without dogs.

Just think, and you smile.

There's something about dogs that attracts both fleas and puns.

 

*

 

Dear diary,

I stopped the car at the street outside *his* house to calm down. I was very wet. I had some extra panties with me, so I changed them, right there in the car!

*He* met me at the door. I stammered, "Oh, hi, I'm here from the newspaper, to interview you!" I was clenching my thighs!

We settled ourselves down at a table in the backyard. Oh God!

"So!" I kinda shouted. "Ten and a half MILLION dollars!"

*He* smiled dreamily. "That's the amount, I've been told."

"So! Whaddaya gonna go with it?"

*He* pondered. "At the very least, I'm going to buy $5,000,000 worth of I.E.D.s and send them off to my Afghan friends."

"Ooh!"

"Yeah. I feel I should 'give back' to the community."

"That's so.... That's so sweet! Everything Heather Mallick says about you is true!"

He smiled again. Oooooooooooooooh!

A fly had landed on the table. *He* hovered *his* hand over the fly, and, with a quick swipe, *he* caught it!

"Now watch this."

*He* somehow got the fly by its legs, and with *his* other fingers *he* deftly pulled both wings off the nasty thing that so much reminded me of my father!!!

 

*

 

Bala, Ontario

 

The Bala Bay Inn is effectively no more, due to its sale to Marriott in late winter. I'd heard the news from a friend, so I checked their website ... which is dead, with links removed. We had to wait to find out more.

This is not a happy story.

The cab driver told us the Marriotts were going to fix the place up. Unfortunately, he was wrong.

A woman at Bala Falls Pub told us what had really been done.

"It's full of the people who work at the Marriott Rosseau resort. They get bussed over in a big shuttle, bussed back at night. They took out all the beds and put in bunk-beds. There's a hundred people stowed in that flop house."

(She may have said 'frat house'.)

We commiserated with the owners of our rented cottage. The woman who mostly runs the place was tight-lipped; her husband said it's going to ruin the economy, the Cranberry Festival, etc.

The restaurant, independently, is still open. We went for a drink. Neither bartender would say anything; they were professionally 'neutral.' But one said, pointing to the parking lot, "They had a kegger there last night. A kegger."

 

*

 

I'm getting tired of all these deaths. I guess it was about a half-year ago that Rob Gutsell died; now his brother is gone too--his brother David.

David died of cancer. He'd known about it for more than five years. For the last month or two he'd been at home, dying, with lots of drugs for pain.

I remember strongly being at his cottage, with his parents, with his brother Rob and his sister. On at least two occasions we were to the drive-in: me, Rob, Dave driving. We saw Alien there, on first release, at the Muskoka Drive-In.

They lived down the street from us.

He got married some time in the '90s, and his wife died (of cancer) almost immediately.

Back to 1979 etc. Dave was my brother Dave's age and I was Rob's. All four of us were entwined, and now I'm the only one left alive.

He was computer-wise. He worked with an Apple II. (Expensive; he worked at General Motors and live in his parents' basement before it was fashionable.)

He asked me for advice on how to play D&D as both player and dungeon-master. Use hats, I said.

I'm tired of these deaths.

 

*

 

As the train was pulling in, Woman said: "I have to go to the washroom," and it was early summer.

Man annoyed cried: "Well hurry up about it," and the dirt was full of life.

He got on the train alone and stared out, wondering how to get his revenge, and wildflowers lined the track.

He was carrying his bags and he guessed the baggage train was to the rear, and crows were shouting in a nearby field.

He proceeded to the rear, past coach passengers settling themselves in, and a cloud shadowed the car.

He went through a door and found himself in the baggage car, with all kinds of bags and portmanteaus, and out to sea a ninth wave broke.

He noticed it was cold in there, and windowless and smelly, and somewhere a cat stalked a bird.

He sat down on a Winship steamer trunk and imagined Woman not finding him, and the moon travelled at one kilometre per second.

He shivered, wondered how long it would take for him to be discovered, and a distant dog barked.

The train began to move as it shunted onto the main line, and Woman was still in the washroom.

 

*

 

One of the guys, seeing we were about to carry two pounds of mussels in a plastic bags and six lobsters in a Styrofoam cooler on foot to the Lighthouse Cottages, offered us a ride. As it turned out, the guy was one of Mary's first cousins. They talked about relatives all the way.

At my parents' cottage we put the lobsters in the sink. Mary's parents arrived to sit on the porch with my parents and discuss the things septuagenarians like to discuss while Mary and I did potato-cooking, salad-cutting, water-boiling, bottle-opening.

Mary's mother came in to the kitchen and was alarmed by the stillness of the lobsters. "They're drowning," she said. We aerated the water and they lived to meet their fate, in hotter water.

The six of us sat down for dinner. This was the last time we would be together. We mangled our way through the crustaceans, drank a little more, and then Mary's parents drove away and Mary and I went to our own cottage.

In the morning, the shuttle van came to take my parents to the Halifax airport. We said our goodbyes. The van drove away, and we had three nights to ourselves.

 

*

 

The tram got me home. I got into the apartment and I took off my swastika armband. Mary was in the kitchen cooking up something German. I kissed her and we sat down to eat. I had to talk. I said: "I really don't like working at the Ministry of Propaganda any more."

Mary asked: "Because of Goebbels?"

"AH geez no I don't see him at all. It's just.... I remember years ago, some bourgeois teacher tried to show us we'd become Nazis given the choice, and I denied it. I didn't believe it."

Amelioratingly Mary said: "That was a long time ago."

"Yes but here I am, a Nazi, with a membership card and everything. A National Socialist."

"But you don't believe in it."

"I know that, but I still run the wheels of it. Jeez, the crap we put out, all that Mussolini crap about the state this and the state that. But I'm stuck."

"You're free to go elsewhere."

I laughed. "I'm too weak for that.... That bourgeois teacher was right."

"You're still free to go elsewhere."

I had to say, after some time: "But I'd be blowing my pension, wouldn't I?... So, how was your day?"

 

*

 

I've always considered myself to be useful. Today is an exciting day. We know so much, and we're getting better.

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*

 

Kids Days

 

Not all of the noise is coming from me, but some certain amount of it is. Remember, I always remember: if I'd been born in my low class in the 17th century, the loudest noise I could ever have heard would have been a dog barking. But I contradict myself because one of the most annoying sounds in my average day are the sounds of that guy coughing all the time and that gal sneezing eighteen times a day, all being of a lower volume than my hypothetical dog-bark.

I don't mind the machines except inasmuch as I can hear the malicious human consciousness that's behind it. Who decided that trucks had to blast bleeps whenever they back up? Who decided that the TTC had to blare out a falling triad to let people know subway doors are opening or closing?

The useful sounds I do not mind. The engines of industry are but the sweet music of trade. It's but my opinion, and I could be wrong. Nevertheless, my most pressing concern today is only this one:

Who decided to assemble a large group of six year olds and incite them to stupidly yell and selfishly scream?

 

*

 

Evelyn Waugh

 

There's twenty-four books in the series, and now I've read them all. It's a good-looking shelf, with only the 12th (Brideshead Revisited) and the 24th (Sword of Honour) non-uniform.

I like reading something in approaching a 'nearly complete works' style. I think I first did it with Freud many years ago; then there was Tolstoy, and Zola's Rougon-Macquart series.

In the last little while I also read a certain amount of George Orwell; interesting to see how these two agreed on certain things, such as the reality of Communist Russia and Spanish partisans, and disagreed on others (for Orwell criticized Catholic writers, probably meaning Waugh), and Waugh mocked the wartime BBC broadcasts.

In Africa (in one of his later books) he is asked to briefly talk about English to a bunch of African children. He tells the kids it's a magnificent language, infinitely complex, more difficult than any other to get right; that not a day passes during which he did not look up one word or another in a dictionary.

This was exactly what the teacher didn't want him to say, of course.

He never strayed far from his own experiences. I like that method a lot.

 

*

 

Thinking in an airport about the dictionary definition of honorificabilitudinitatibus, I went to the airport bookstore. (I was in need of a fresh dictionary anyway.)

I asked the woman as the cash register if they had a good dictionary.

"Let me check." She consulted her database. "Nope, nothing called 'A Good Dictionary' here. We could order it for you. Who's the writer?"

"No, it's not a book called 'A Good Dictionary.' It's just a dictionary I want."

A red button was pressed.

"So ... what is it then?"

"It's a book about words."

"Oh, we have plenty of those. I'd guess we have thousands of words in these books, maybe even ... bazillions."

"I'm looking for a book that's about the meanings of words."

The red button was pressed again.

"I'm sorry, I don't think there is such a thing. It sounds ... reactionary. They're probably banned or something."

"There're dictionaries everywhere. They're probably more common than Bibles."

The red button was pressed rapidly then.

"Would you like a bookmark instead?"

"Fine, fine. How much for a bookmark?"

"Oh, they're one or two dollars or so."

"You don't know?"

"No. I use fuzzy math."

 

I think my phone's been tapped.

 

*

 

The big brains telephoned to ask me if I'd like to see my replacement while it did my job. I said: okay.

They took me into a room. There were lots of cds in there, most of which I recognized intimately. A bookshelf stuffed to horizontals was in there too. And finally a desk with papers and junk and cigarette ashes, with a computer on it, and the computer was on, and running.

They told me: "See? It's coming up with little stories and big stories every day, every hour. It analysed your styles and subjects, and it's pumping out stuff that's indistinguishable from yours."

"That's quite a marvel," I said.

"Look. Skaife², come up with something funny, in a bitter way."

Four seconds later, there is was on the screen. It was funny, yes, and in a bitter way. It was the right length too.

I said again: "It's quite a marvel."

The big brains beamed. "Of course we have you to thank for it."

"I suppose."

I stared.

"There's only one question I've got for you all. Does Skaife² have any use for a secretary?"

The big brains laughed.

"That sounds so much like something Skaife² would write!"

---

[1] by a secretary

[2] punchline stolen from National Lampoon ca. 1973

The Table of the Quadruplets

In early June 1995, a thirty-year-old man accompanied his equally aged fiancée to a birthday party for her father, two of his sisters, and their elder brother. The fiancée's name was Heather, and her fiancé was named Michael. The event was held at the condominium of the elder brother thirty-four floors up, and Michael and Heather got onto the elevator alone and it travelled up without a single stop, which made Michael dizzy as an unwanted accompaniment to both the knot in his belly and the sense of being held captive by this shiny steel Otis. He was focussing on the number buttons in their four columns and nine rows when she said: "You're nervous."

"I am very nervous."

"He'll like you."

"Should I be the one to tell him? Should I ask him for your hand in marriage?"

She flushed prettily and touched his shoulder in its light blue blazer. "He already knows; but prepare yourself to forget that for a while."

They weren't the only guests expected. Heather had twenty cousins in all, though only eight or nine had been invited to the birthday party. Also expected was the grandfather himself who was also great-grandfather to thirty-seven, though only ten or eleven were expected to be there. The condominium, as Heather had explained, was vast, with four bedrooms, two living rooms, a dining room, four baths, and other rooms she didn't know the proper terminology for. Her father's older brother--Air Force Jackson by given name--was a wealthy man who had turned a training in economics into a lucrative career fortune on the international currency markets. The condominium was but one of three homes he owned.

Together they stepped off the elevator and she took his hand in both of hers. "Now you're going to find out I haven't been lying all along, now aren't you?"

He didn't know how much staring was allowed.

"Everybody stares, even strangers who don't know them. Bondi and Celeste are identical, so they usually get the ideas rolling. Don't worry about it."

He himself was the opposite of this fecund family tree; he was the only child of only children who were themselves children of only children; which made him the sole descendant of fourteen individuals.

"Opposites attack," she said, knocking on a white door which drifted open from the force. Mellow voices both male and female easily flowed forth. Heather looked at Michael and smiled and said: "Seems no-one's drunk yet." She pushed the door, stepping in and calling: "Hello! Hello! Where's the birthday kids?"

Michael saw a middle-aged woman with black hair streaked from the temples with grey, in a green dress of a type he liked. She said, "Heather, so happy to see you!" She had good teeth. She took Heather by her hands and they kissed cheeks. The woman said: "And you are Michael?"

Heather said: "Yes. Michael, this is my aunt Bondi."

Bondi stuck out her hand and Michael stuck out his and they shook. Her hand was strong. "Bondi Nash, at your service. You look like you need a drink."

Michael couldn't but say: "Yeah, sure."

She pulled him into the condo. She loved him already. Niece Heather deserved it, such a sweet girl and thirty-something already.

As Michael was being pulled into the kitchen he looked into a living room and met the eyes of ... aunt Celeste must have been, who had black hair streaked from the temples with grey, and good teeth (she was smiling over a baby, her first grandchild as it turned out); Michael could only think of jealousy; then in the bright kitchen Bondi said: "What would you like?"

"Is there any beer?"

Bondi yanked open the almond refrigerator and pulled forth a bottle of Eidel and shoved it into his hand. "Have you met Denim before?"

No, never.

Bondi nudged him. "Don't make any jokes to begin with. He likes jokes but not to begin with."

"Okay then." He turned, looking for Heather who was back in the hall talking to an older man, her uncle Air Force by the looks of him, looking so freshly washed and dressed he could only have done it in his own home. Heather saw him looking and she pulled the gent into the kitchen and she said: "Air Force, this is my belovéd Michael."

Air Force stuck out his hand with a big smile. "Pleased to meet you. Welcome to my 'pad'."

Though Air Force was, he'd been told, only seven minutes older than Bondi, he looked significantly older. His hair was entirely grey, and he was a couple inches taller. He had a gym membership and a sailboat he sailed solo himself. "Let me show you around. You should get a feel for the place."

Air Force put his hand on Michael's shoulder and guided him through the other end of the kitchen and into a large room papered in blue with a massive white leather couch and a giant television suspended on the wall. Sitting on the couch slouching was a man who looked up and smiled; Heather pushed past Air Force and Michael and danced up to him; he stood and she said: "Daddy!" They embraced. Michael waited with his fingers meshed at belt level. Heather pulled her father, Denim by name, over and said: "This is Michael."

Denim, the youngest of the quadruplets, looked Michael up and down and said: "You're the third boyfriend I've ever met."

Michael smiled as pleasantly as possible. So many people! "Happy birthday."

Bondi cried: "Birthdays!"

Denim glared at his older sister. "Now Bondi, it's a bit early for that."

She looked abashed. "Well, it is my birthday too after all."

"Where's PawPaw?" Heather asked.

Demin said: "Sorry dear, he just couldn't make it. He was too tired." PawPaw was Heather's grandfather. He'd been born in 1900 exactly. Wasn't his birthday.

"Who's this?" Michael turned and saw the woman who was probably Celeste standing behind him to his left.

Heather kept it up bravely. "This is my fiancé Michael, auntie Celeste."

Celeste stepped forward. She seemed much more worldly than her genetically identical sister. He looked at Bondi again and he could see that Celeste had a wrinkle at the corner of her mouth that Bondi didn't. He had cracked the code. He had met everyone who mattered, for Heather was Denim's only daughter and there were no siblings to worry about trying to charm.

Air Force brought out three bottles of wine and the six of them sat in something of a circle in the living room. Bondi did the generous pouring. Denim was sometimes glancing at Michael without saying anything. Celeste was looking good with that wrinkle of hers.

The talk turned to (certain) family matters, mostly of those that had taken place with themselves in the adult situation: they talked about their marriages and their children. Michael sat, quietly listening, trying to remember whose spouse was whose and whose children were whose, but then the conversation turned slightly to reveal something of the past. Celeste said: "I got a phone call from Benedict yesterday."

Denim said: "What did he have to say?"

"He was wondering what was up with us all. He remembered our birthdays."

Bondi smiled. "I have a soft spot for Benedict."

Michael ventured to Heather: "Who's Benedict?"

Heather said: "Another uncle of mine. An older generation."

Denim said to Bondi: "I've got nothing against them. If it wasn't for the table, everything would be fine."

Michael asked Heather: "What about a table?"

Heather: "It's a massive oak table PawPaw has. They all ate at it. It's huge. Ten people can sit at it."

Celeste invaded the conversation: "We've been fighting about it for years, darling. We think it should wind up with one of us. We were the last to use it as a family, so it should come here."

Air Force said: "It's the great battle royal for us and them."

The party broke up around five p.m. Michael and Heather went home, talking about how to have their little wedding.

The newlyweds planned a trip to the country, a honeymoon, that would end at another party, this time in August, to meet with Heather's three other paternal relations. They rolled up to an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. The house had formerly belonged to PawPaw and his first wife; before that, it had been PawPaw's parent's house. No-one was certain whose it was before that. The house had a sloped gable over its only floor, with a summer kitchen running off away from the perpendicular driveway. Set out on the lawn Michael saw two picnic tables in the long grass, and there were three 'vintage' cars parked.

They both noticed the elderly woman with the tray, and Heather said: "That's my aunt Agnes. She's the oldest of the lot."

He parked the car and they got out. Many eyes were upon them. Heather called out: "Hello!" thought Michael nervously. He came out around the car where he was met with Heather's outstretched hand.

Three signs were up, modest banners of blue and white crepe suspended from poles, two poles per sign. All three read: "HAPPY 70TH!"

Heather had told him: "There's Agnes, Benedict, and Dymphna."

"Dymphna?"

"A saint starting with D, and a girl. Irish saint, murdered by her pagan father."

"Fair enough."

Heather introduced her new husband first to Agnes a birthday girl. Agnes smiled at Michael. Agnes was a lean grey-hair with gold glasses and a worn pink dress. She was sitting between her daughter and her daughter's daughter. Then the introduction went to Benedict, also lean but wholly bald, who had a little glass of beer in hand. He was the one who had invited them. Then there was the youngest of the three, Dymphna, who naturally seemed the youngest one. She jumped up and hugged Michael strongly. She was stout, and her grey hair was in a bun.

Heather said: "Is PawPaw here yet?"

Dymphna, still with a hand on Michael, said: "Sorry, hon, he couldn't make it."

"Dang!" She turned to Michael and said, "There's still time. His birthday's coming up in a couple months."

Michael said: "A lot of birthdays go on in this family."

Dymphna said: "He couldn't make it in from his suburb."

Heather said: "I understand. So, any drinks going?"

"Kitchen, kitchen, fully loaded."

Benedict raised his little glass. "Join the club!"

Heather took Michael inside. The kitchen was old and run-down. A formica table looked like the most recent addition. Heather opened a cupboard and there were at least five dozen glasses within, with no two matching. She poured wine into two glasses and said: "Oh, come here, look, check this out. They got it framed, from 1948."

She pulled him into the hallway and pointed at a small frame on the orange striped wallpaper. Inside the frame, under glass, was a panel of Ripley's Believe It or Not!

"Michael Delaney's first wife gave birth to QUADRUPLETS in 1925 and his SECOND wife gave birth to ANOTHER set of quadruplets in 1940!"

alongside a drawing of a man with four sketchy children to his left and four sketchy young adults to his right.

"Does your PawPaw really look like that?"

"It's a good likeness, yes."

"Very impressive. I've never know a Ripley's family before."

They went outside with their wines. Off in the yard they'd passed in their car four children played. They belonged to Benedict and Dymphna two by two. Agnes lived in the house and her brother and sister lived not too far away.

Heather hopped into a seat at a picnic table and Michael easily eased his way onto the spot beside her. The wood bounced but he got his glass down safely.

Agnes was a big toothy smile saying: "So you got married!"

Benedict observed: "You got no rings."

Michael said: "Ah...." and Heather said: "Michael's not big on jewellery."

"That I can understand." He turned the ring on his own finger and looked at the woman beside him. Benedict's wife. "The thing catches on stuff all the time."

Benedict's wife said: "You once said you wanted to be caught."

Benedict sighed. "That I did." He smiled and kissed him wife frankly.

Michael said: "So you all got kids?" He'd slipped somehow into country speech.

Dymphna spoke. "We got plenty kids, and plenty kids' kids."

Agnes said: "And got some kid's kid's kids to boot. Me more than anyone. We're old folk."

Michael decided to be witty. "I suppose that's natural. You're the eldest, I hear."

His comment was appreciated. He was fitting in all right.

Agnes said: "We're the first ones. You met the second ones, I understand. But we were the first. All saints. Agnes, Benedict, Charles, Dymphna. Charles is gone. He died some eight years ago. He got a wife, kids, grandkids. She doesn't like to come to these things. It's her deceased husband's birthday after all. She goes and prays at Saint Mary's chapel I think. No time for us, at least on this day. But we're the first quartet." She drank some. "So tell me, Michael, you met the younger quads, right?"

Michael managed to not choke on the cheap wine. "Yeah, I met them in town. Couple months ago. They were real nice to me, up in that rich condominium."

"Did they mention anything about a table?"

Heather interrupted: "Now let's not get onto that."

Benedict snorted up. "Yeah, don't wanna get anyone up on any table!"

"Now shut up you." That was Agnes speaking. She was upset. Dymphna took over. She said: "Sorry, son. Do you know about the table?"

Michael said, "There's a fight going on about it. About which, ah, 'quads' deserve to get it."

"It's a pitched battle."

"I, I'm sorry I didn't know it was so serious."

Benedict leaned to say, "Don't you have siblings that fight about stuff?"

"Actually I don't. My parents are singles too. I don't have anyone really."

Heather stopped it by saying: "He doesn't know anything about what you're all passionate about, really! Don't take it out on him." She kissed Michael then.

"What could be so life and death about a table?"

Benedict said: "It's a very big table. Seats nine or ten. It was built in France in 1804."

"How did your family get it?"

"Not sure about that. PawPaw picked it up somehow. He won't tell anyone."

Heather said: "Top secret classified stuff."

"It's got a metal plate at the head. Copper. Says: 'Lyons, 1804.'"

Dymphna said: "So we think it should go to one of us. When PawPaw passes."

"Because we used it first."

"And even though we're only three now."

"I hope you see it some day. It's really beautiful."

Heather concurred. "It's the most beautiful table I've ever seen."

Michael asked: "So where is it now?"

Dymphna answered: "It's in storage. PawPaw put it there."

"All wrapped in bubble wrap." That was Benedict talking.

"It got to go somewhere."

"We just don't know what the old man has in mind."

The conversation, having been exhausted for a time, moved on to Heather's marriage to Michael. What were their plans? They didn't know for sure. They were going to roll with it for a while. No, no family was invited. You guys fight too much. Can barely have you seven in the same room. It was with friends and friends alone. As they'd already said, they were going to roll with it. Yes, perhaps that. They certainly weren't trying to prevent it from happening. Only time would tell.

Three months later, in October, Heather and Michael drove into the deepest suburbs. They came to the newest section of the reach; houses were to the left of them and farm fields were to the right. And there they came to a tiny house standing sole on the farming side.

"Wow," said Michel. "Did he design it himself?"

Heather said: "It's all his own design. He's been living there for ten years."

"All alone?"

"He's got a nurse living with him these days. For about five years."

Though there was only one car in the driveway, they parked on the dirt roadside. On the other side of the road ran a line of nearly identical houses complete with gigantic two-car garages behind a sidewalk. Michael would have been hard-pressed to tell one from another. The old man had purchased ten acres and he swore he wasn't going to ever sell. He really enjoyed laughing at the developers who showed up almost every other day.

They walked up to the house. Heather knocked on the door. The door rattled loosely.

"Where will everyone sit?"

On the grass out back. Bondi was bringing a huge number of sandwiches and Air Force was bringing a couple cases of wine.

The door creaked open. The nurse was middle-aged. She smiled. Heather said: "Hi, Deb. This is my husband Michael."

Deb stuck out her hand. "Hello, Michael."

"Hello, Nurse Deb."

"So how's PawPaw today?" That was Heather speaking.

Deb nodded. "He's doing okay today. He's pretty happy about turning ninety-five though he hates showing it."

Deb and Heather and Michael went inside, into a small living room. An old man sat in an orange recliner, staring. Heather went up to him and kissed his cheek. "Happy Birthday, PawPaw."

He grunted then said: "Thank you, my dear. And who's this guy?"

"This is my new husband Michael."

"What happened to the old one?"

"I..."

"I'm just goin' on. I knew you'd gotten married but I didn't know the name. So hello Michael. You a mute?"

"A mute?"

"You a parrot?"

"It's your birthday."

"Thanks. Heather's the peach of my orchard. If you bruise her, I'll kill you."

In the end, Michael took this advisory to heart.

Then came the arrivals. Bondi came first, with her carload of sandwiches, her husband, her son with wife and infant daughter, and her second (unmarried) son; then Benedict with two of his children and two of his grandchildren; followed by father Denim; and Dymphna came, with her son Patrick and Patrick's wife and two children; then there was Air Force with three cases of wine and his first wife Angela for some unknown reason along with his son and his son's wife (who appeared to be related somehow to Angela); then dear Agnes, the oldest of the bunch by three minutes or more, with her two sons and their wives and three or four children; and finally the seventh of eight, Celeste who'd come alone because her husband didn't like going out.

This dynamo sorted itself out over the next hour as the various horizontals of the family tree made common cause, with children playing farthest off, young adults slightly closer to the house, the middle aged closer still, the senior citizens in the shades of decorative yard trees, and the eldest of the lot, ninety-five that day, in his orange recliner which had been moved to the yard by two of the young adults. The wine was flowing most freely nearest the house, but some including Heather weren't drinking; Heather had to drive.

So loosely grouped were PawPaw, Agnes, Benedict, Dymphna, Air Force, Bondi, Celeste, Denim, Heather, and Michael, along with three or four supernumeraries.

The pleasantries were plentiful until PawPaw said: "I haven't decided anything yet."

Everyone except Michael was certain what he was talking about, and because of the looks on the faces Michael could see, he guessed, accurately.

Air Force said: "It's on our minds because I guess it's important to each and every one of us."

PawPaw laughed and said: "I'm no jackass like that Lear fellow. I ain't showing my hand till I cash out; or maybe I will; or maybe I'll never."

They went into the arguments, back and forth, everyone participating, while PawPaw sat and watched the game, thoroughly entertained. It should go to the older ones because they were the first to eat at it; it should go to the younger ones because they were the last to eat at it. Since there were only three of the former, it could find its home more easily because the choice was but three; since there were four of the latter, they had thirty-three percent more potential utilization of it. The latter, being younger, would get it eventually after a couple years, so the older ones should get it first.

PawPaw put a stop to all this dialectic, saying: "It's not a matter for the arguments you're all making. This table is a very special table. You've got to understand, I don't consider a table to be something that's dead. It's not dead; it's very much alive. It's been stuck in storage for I don't know how long. In all that time, it's changed. It's chemistry, kids! There's all sorts of life going on in it. So I respect it, maybe crazily, like it's a family member--my family member. It's what I got left, and so, see, there's got to be a right place for it. I haven't decided the place--I'm expecting to see the place it should go before I kick off. And when that happens, that's where it'll go. So you all might as well give up on the arguments. This isn't going to be decided here. So: case closed."

Everyone was quiet for a moment. There was no match for this cranky old bastard. Michael, being an outsider, wasn't feeling the same inhibitions borne of blood the others were, so he said to PawPaw: "I never thought of a table being alive."

PawPaw nodded. "It's very much alive, and changing as we speak."

Feeling very brave, Michael drank to all: "That's mutability. What do you think? You're mostly mutants here, so I can't think of a better bunch to ask. Do things change, do they stay the same, do we change in observing, or do we observe differently every minute?"

The issue of table-ness took centre stage like they were having a Platonic dialogue. For an hour everyone offered opinions. Michael somehow moderated the whole thing. Air Force figured it was the observer that changed. "We get older, we find teachers aren't gods. Big people aren't gods. But they didn't change; we did. Mutability is in the heart."

Agnes said: "Love fades. People change. Too many vectors are involved to call immutability."

Denim offered: "There's time's arrow. You can't un-break a rack."

Dymphna had an opinion. "Everything stays the same, and it's just all circles in circles. Karma. What goes around, comes around. Bhagavad-Gita."

Celeste: "It's all just chaos. Nothing stays the same, observer or observed, for a single second."

Benedict had an opinion. "We're always the same. We're souls. Whole lives are like witnesses to a parade."

Bondi. "It used to be chaos, way long ago. But history changed--in year zero. Then it got ordered."

PawPaw laughed. "The way I see it, you're all off, by just a little. Get to your 95th, and you'll understand more."

The birthday party somehow came to a close. Kisses were general, and good wishes sincerely meant were exchanged.

Walking to the car, Michael said to Heather: "You're totally sober. You could have had one-and-a-half, I understand."

She said: "I haven't been drinking for a while. Haven't you noticed? Can't you read between the lines?"

Michael read between the lines. "That was quick," was what he said.

 

 

EPILOGUE

 

Next day, Heather came home after seeing her obstetrician-gynaecologist. Michael jumped up from the couch. "So, what's the word? Healthy?"

Heather pulled from an envelope a translucent thing like an x-ray. It was a sonogram. She said: "We're getting the table." She handed him the plastic sheet.

Michael looked at it.

One, two, three, four.