"The Adventures of Horatio and Clown Boy" by Grace

PART ONE

Horatio sat back in his wicker chair and puffed on his pipe, surveying the landscape around him. It was the spring of his third year in the mountains of Alaska and he knew it was time to return to the south. He missed his wives, as he realized that his clothing was disintegrating and he hadn’t had a decent meal since he left home. In the first two years his assistant had done most of the cooking and foraging but a run-in with some of the many grizzly bears in the area had rendered him legless. Horatio turned his thoughts to his companion, who he had dubbed “Clown Boy” due to the hobbling around he had to do after the incident. The bears had eaten most of his legs but the left one was a few inches longer than the right, causing Clown Boy to stagger about the camp with a comedic limp. At the moment of Horatio’s contemplation Clown Boy was readying the caravan and horses for the journey south. They had built quite a neat little camp on the banks of a river. Horatio had initially undergone the epic journey from the frontier of southern California in an attempt to find peace from his wives and have the chance to kill the infamous Sasquatch of those parts. After he left however, his attempt at solitude had been ruined by the stowaway, Clown Boy, who had escaped from jail in their small town the moment before Horatio’s caravan passed him and he had lashed himself to the back of the caravan. Horatio did not discover him for several miles and was annoyed to have his solitude spoiled. Clown Boy had proved useful over the years and they became inseparable companions. Horatio finished his pipe and stood up, stretching from hours of inactivity.

“Clown Boy,” he began, “you’ll have to pick yourself up some new legs from JJ General Store when we get home, I’m sure they can fix something for you.” Clown Boy nodded appreciatively, although Horatio knew that he had been sent to jail in the first place from stealing a sheep from the owner. “I suppose I could pick something up for you,” Horatio suggested benevolently, “seeing as how you’ve been such a help around the camp.” Indeed he had. Clown boy had packed the entire caravan and hitched the horses to it, ready to go. He and Horatio did a final sweep of the ground to see if they missed anything and while Clown Boy was occupied, Horatio took a small embroidered purse from the hollow of a nearby tree. He fingered the beadwork on the outside. The purse had been his mothers when she came to America from Romania before he was born. She had purchased the purse on her honeymoon in the small village of Řęćtăł, which was renowned across the country for its exquisite purses. Inside Horatio’s purse was the most valuable thing he had found on his voyage, an herb, that when smoked in small quantities caused the smoker to become invisible for a short period of time. Horatio had used it to escape harm when Clown Boy had been attacked by the grizzly bears.

“I’ll be glad to get home to my fiancé you know,” Clown Boy said to Horatio as they bounced down the uneven trail to the south.

“Right, right, I suppose Grendel will be missing you sorely,” Horatio said disinterestedly. He had heard many stories of Clown Boy’s Grendel and didn’t believe a word of any of them. Grendel, he assumed, was a figment of Clown Boy’s imagination. Even if she was real, Horatio thought, she sounded far too pure and magnificent to bind herself to a man with no legs.

“I suppose you’re missing your wives too, sir.”

“Yes, yes, I hope they haven’t let the old place go to the dogs,” Horatio said, steering the horse through a small stream. Horatio and Clown Boy’s trip back to the desert was blessed with good weather and sturdy equipment, mostly due to Clown Boy’s careful maintenance of the caravan. They arrived in their frontier town in the fall of that year and Horatio used his clout with the sheriff to have Clown Boy’s sentence repealed, and even invited the lad to live with him and his many wives. Grendel, Clown Boy explained through a mask of tears, had married a Dutch tulip magnate and moved to Holland, where she was killed in a tragic windmill accident shortly after.


PART TWO

“What century is it?” Horatio bellowed at six of his wives who sat at the table in the kitchen chatting about sewing patterns. They recoiled from his voice, which was angry.

“Th-the 19th?” one of them said submissively.

“THAT’S RIGHT!” Horatio paused, “So why are the women not making dinner and doing the dishes?” the six at the table snapped to attention and began to prepare dinner, even though it was only shortly after lunch. Horatio had been home for several months and had spent much of that time re-training his wives, who he felt had grown lazy in his absence. The women, in actuality, had grown much more efficient in their child care and running of the household and even had time to engage in leisure activities. Many of them had become quite adept at horseback riding, which Horatio forbade. They had also had free time in which to get to know each other and had developed many romantic bonds with one another. Horatio frowned upon his wives camaraderie and only allowed two in his bed at once, as long as they didn’t interact with one another and only focussed on his satisfaction. As the six wives cooked and did the dishes, four others entered the kitchen, and Horatio sent them to go milk the four milking cows: Jupiter, Venus, Mercury and Mars. After most of the work had been delegated, Horatio sat in the kitchen and began smoking the pipe that Clown Boy had packed for him. Clown Boy had remained unmarried, not so much for mourning of Grendel but for the fact that most of the few women who actually lived in the town were married to Horatio. One night, after Horatio had gone to sleep, his wives met secretly outside of the children’s wing of the house. There were 21 in total. They decided that that night was the night that they would make their escape. Horatio was deep in an opium induced sleep and Clown Boy was holed up at the bordello above JJ General Store. They donned their rainbow of coloured cloaks that they had sewn in their spare time during Horatio’s absence. Silently, they crept out of the house and towards the stable. The horses, relieved to see the wives instead of Horatio were coming to ride them, cooperated in their saddling and clopped away from the ranch and into the night.




PART 3

The wives of Horatio rode that night into the mountains surrounding the village and camped for several weeks near a mountain stream. They grew strong and their bonds cemented in that time. The worked together to feed themselves and their camp became quite efficient. Every night they built a fire and plotted their revenge against their captor. It was decided that they would attack early in the morning, while Horatio was bound to still be asleep from his opium induced hangovers. The ranch was still the morning they struck; some of them were armed with guns, others with knives and some yet with sticks and threatening rocks. All of them had on their colourful cloaks, creating a spectrum of female power streaking across the desert on Horatio’s prize horses. They arrived at the ranch, prepared to engage with the unarmed and asleep Horatio, but he was warned by his dog, Gump of a disturbance before they arrived at the ranch and raced for his Řęćtăł purse and shortly after was completely invisible to everyone but Clown Boy, who had incredible eyesight. Clown Boy stood on the porch, prepared to trick the women, telling them that their husband was gone to look for them and pretending to aid them in stealing supplies. When the wives arrived, they found Clown Boy, who they had always had a soft spot for, and believed his tricks. Several of the wives went to check on the children and the rest raided the pantry and the preserves, all of which they had baked and preserved themselves. As they were filling their sacks and preparing to depart once again, Horatio, who had been standing the middle of the kitchen unnoticed to all but Clown Boy, began to lose his invisibility and materialize in the kitchen for all to see. The wives who were in the kitchen looked with bewilderment and horror at the inexplicable appearance of the one person they didn’t want to see. He and Clown Boy each grabbed two of the wives in the kitchen, who told the others to run ahead and warn those with the children and escape. The two wives restrained by Clown Boy simply knocked him over and he floundered on the floor of the kitchen. They all ran out towards where the horses were tied up only to find that they had come loose from their posts and become entangled in some gorse bushes. They were ruined. Horatio led them all into the barn and locked the doors behind them. That was their punishment. They were left a week in the barn to think about their crimes against him.

“I’d rather die than go back to that monster,” one exclaimed.

“Can’t we make it on foot?” asked another.

“How did he go invisible?” one wondered. That was their wonderment, what existed that could make their husband invisible to the eye and yet, still physically there?

“I think maybe it has something to do with whatever’s in that sack thing he has with all the beads on it.” One wife said, “He smelled like that bag today and he’s never let any of us touch it.”

“Maybe you’re right” said another, “I only saw it by accident, and he seemed really angry after.” Many of the wives had never seen the purse but it was decided that whatever it held was the key to Horatio’s invisibility. When their week of confinement in the barn had ended, they all hung their heads and returned to the house to labour for their tyrannical husband. They stayed positive, realizing how lucky they were that there were so many of them to split the hard work.


PART FOUR

In the days following the women’s return and release from the barn, Horatio remained vigilant and watched them constantly, until one day when he needed to go to the next town over. The next town was a half day’s ride away so it was assumed he would be back by dinnertime, possibly with wife number 22. He always preferred to have an even number of wives. Clown Boy was under strict orders of course to maintain a careful watch over the wives and quash any potential coup. The wives however were tricky and numerous. They had planned, through their week of confinement in the dark, foodless barn their means for salvation. So as they were preparing the cake for Horatio’s return (his favourite, Romanian Chocolate) ten of the wives stole off into the hills, while ten remained in the kitchen preparing dinner.

“Woe is me!” Clown Boy pined, “What am I supposed to do now? Horatio will throttle me if he is ten wives short upon his return!”

One of the wives, who Clown Boy had always been rather fond of (he thought she looked a bit like his beloved Grendel), assured him that they would not stray from the kitchen and unlike the rebellious ten they had learned their lesson. Clown Boy didn’t account for, before leaving to bring back the ten and save his own neck, the remaining wife. She had slipped through the hallways of the house unnoticed and picked the lock to Horatio’s bedroom door with a pin from her hair. As one of the few wives who had seen the bag she knew exactly where to find it, in the hollow bottom of a drawer in Horatio’s bureau. She took the contents and hid it within her apron pocket, replaced the bottom of the drawer and dashed back to the kitchen. Silently the wives who were preparing the batter of the cake exchanged a look of knowing as she tossed the lot of the herbs into the mix. The wives who had taken off, as per the plan eluded Clown Boy for less than an hour. He brought them back on the agreement that neither party would reveal their indiscretion. It was the perfect evening in the desert, the sun set a deep red over the mountains as Horatio returned, surprisingly alone.

“Where’s number 22?” Clown boy asked as Horatio dismounted and entered the house.

“Didn’t look like she could work, and wasn’t very pretty.” He said, disappointed from his long fruitless day. He sat down at the table and the wives began to serve him dinner. Seven courses in all but they made sure to make the first six small. Horatio was thrilled to see his favourite Romanian chocolate cake was for dessert and even went as far as to offer praise to his wives for their creation. He gorged himself on the cake, ingesting much more of the herb than he had ever been exposed to before. He began to change colours and flick from visible to invisible every few seconds. He stood up, too confused and ill to rage, and staggered about the kitchen. Clown Boy stood up too, trying to calm Horatio. Clown Boy tried to get Horatio to vomit up the cake which had poisoned him but in the process caused him to soil himself and the floor around him. With a loud popping noise, Horatio disappeared completely.

“He’s gone!” Clown Boy exclaimed, “I could see him even when you couldn’t but now he’s gone!” He was shocked, but felt strangely liberated.

“He’s really gone?” many of the wives asked.

“Yes,” Clown Boy answered.

“We’re free.” The women sighed.

“You better get cleaning up the mess” Clown Boy said, in his torment, Horatio shat all over the place. The women, feeling their liberation looked at each other, then at Clown Boy. One of them handed him a rag and another handed him a bucket. He sighed knowing he would always be the submissive one in a relationship and began scrubbing the floor.

....
This story is dedicated to the lovely James. When this topic was assigned she sent me a list of extra requirements…

It is to be about a gipsy cowboy taking drugs to make him invisible. In those moments, only his trusty side-kick clown-boy can see him. He has to defeat his arch-nemesis, that team of motorcycle riders from the Peel Carnival.
at least one obscured reference to each of the following:
gorse
mars milk
Jurby junk
grizzly man
lesbians
rainbow bicycle contraption
Gump
Grendel
special chocolate cake
shat all over the floor
Other than these references and whatever quotes you'd like to reminisce, it should not be clear that this has anything to do with this summer. Neither "the Isle of Man", nor the name of any person from there, shall be used.

"Pay Attention" by Emily Nudge

there around me - holding life in its hand
i see it only if i pay attention
it spends 90 percent of its life invisible
it sure doesn't cost me to pay attention
what kind of attention is needed for me to pull the wool from my eyes?

there around me - "my" life is in its hand - why don't I pay attention?
i see it only if i paid attention
is there a class I can take in "pay attention"
would i get an A?
what would the syllabus read like? a long list of anti-excuses?

nature, you are invisible but always there - around me
do you pay attention to me?
do we need to pay attention to each other in order to keep life in your hand?
how long will the hand stay there holding life if no one pays attention?

holding life in its hand - invisible to the naked eye - PAY ATTENTION

"From the Train Window" by James

Most people prefer to sit facing forward on a train. The seats are often arranged in clusters of four: two facing forward and two facing back. When an average person boards the train and walks the aisle to select his seat, he will give priority to selecting a seat that faces in the direction that the train is travelling.

The girl in the brown skirt preferred to sit facing backwards. She liked the dreamy feeing that it gave her to watch the scenery slowly disappear in front of her rather than the queasy, blurry feeling it gave her to watch it speed towards her. She felt she could make better sense of her environment in this way.

Even so, today she was sitting facing forward. The backward-facing seats across from her were vacant; she had chosen to sit in this direction. This girl with brown hair and brown shoes was usually slightly shy, but today she felt particularly closed to the world. She didn’t feel sufficient energy to interact with anyone, and especially not to struggle with this foreign language. Today she just wanted to be invisible. So she had chosen a brown skirt and a grey sweater that would allow her to fade into a crowd. And she sat in a forward-facing seat with her bag placed on the forward-facing seat beside her so that her cluster of seats would be uninviting to a chatty stranger. She careened her neck around so that she could still watch the scenery as it disappeared behind her, which had the added advantage of allowing her to avoid eye-contact with any of the other passengers.

About forty minutes after she boarded the train, a couple boarded her car and sat a few seats away from her. They were speaking in loud voices, which made it sound like they were arguing. Nearly every conversation in Italian sounded like an argument to this quiet girl. She didn’t turn her head from the window, though it was an effort to keep from looking. Some of the other passengers were glancing up from their newspapers or poking their heads out into the aisle. She smiled slightly as she realized that the couple’s loud voices allowed her to fade to almost complete invisibility.

The train pulled out of the station and the scenery quickened its pace past the window. The brown-shoed girl kept her neck turned tightly and watched the countryside recede into the past. The couple continued to speak loudly, but the girl had nearly managed tuned them out. Just then the woman’s passionate voice broke into a sob and she uttered words common enough that the girl could understand them: “Ma ti amo…” But I love you.

The girl felt a pang of empathy for this crying woman: her pride at her feet, her heart on display for strangers on a train. Clearly she was suffering. The girl regretted feeling grateful for the couple’s argument. She thought for a moment about the way the woman pleaded her words. But I love you. It had been a while since she told anyone that she loved them, and she could hardly imagine saying it in such a desperate way. She spent a few minutes thinking about the words, what they should mean and what they often actually mean, now and at various other moments when a person might say them. She finally abandoned her contorted window-viewing position and pulled a green journal from the bag at her side. She found a blank page and began to make a list of the meanings of I love you that she had come up with so far.

I want to own you
I want you to be happy
You are special
You make me feel special
I can talk to you
You make me feel good
I want to have sex with you
I like to open myself with you
Stay with me forever
I am comfortable with you
I am accustomed to you
You are adorable
I want you to love me
Tell me you love me too
I am addicted to you
With you I forget my problems
I enjoy you
I respect you
Give me your attention
I think of you when I hear sweet songs on the radio
You are important to me
You are like family to me
I feel completed by you
I think you are wonderful

She turned the page to continue her list, and a folded letter slid out from between the pages and tumbled into her lap. It was from her closest friend; she had received it several months back. She opened it now to reread it.

…Even though you are so far away I can feel you with me, and me with you. The other day I was working in the garden with William and we found a patch of forget-me-nots growing there among the weeds. Neither one of us said anything – we just smiled at each other. I love you more than I’ve ever known how I could love a friend. I know I am going to be yours forever as you will be mine forever…

She felt tears welling up in her eyes as she read, so she folded the letter back into the journal. She knew she could not remain invisible if she were to cry publicly; the arguing couple had demonstrated this a moment ago. Even silent crying – the type she felt building up inside of her as she thought of her friend so far away – draws attention.

The arguing couple had since lowered their voices and were leaning their heads together as they continued speaking. Now the train was approaching a station and they began to get up from their seats and walk toward the doors. They walked very close together and slowly, and his arm cradled her back tenderly. When the train stopped and they stepped onto the platform they did not rush into the chaos of the train station; instead they stood still just outside the train, holding one another silently.

The girl with brown eyes shining with emotion went back to looking out the window. The train whistled and pulled away, and the embracing couple grew smaller and fainter. She suddenly realized she was uncomfortable twisting her neck around like that, so she switched to the backward-facing seat and from there watched the receeding couple until they disappeared compltely.