Day two: letters
Advent Calendar: Day Two: Letters
slashfairy
G
~~
Viggo seals the envelope, noticing the faint taste of mint in the glue which reminds him of lamb in Morocco during Hidalgo, during Kingdom of Heaven. He carefully affixes the stamp, this one a bird in flight, and carries the letter to the little post office on Ocean Boulevard in Venice Beach. The one-story white structure's unchanged since he first came here, years ago, he and Chris and baby Henry, looking for someplace to work and have fun, not realizing that just like the little post office, Venice was being surrounded, besieged, by twenty-storey condos and chain stores. He stands in line, shy, diffident, not really noticing that people do double takes; the clerks know him, remember a parcel too large for the box is sitting in the back, take his letter and cancel the stamp, put it in the cart for International and hand him the box, a little battered but still intact, addressed in a looping hand to the grey house tucked away in an alley between the traffic and the beach, the one they hide in when they have to be in town for business, for work.
He thanks the clerks, earns smiles and bestows them, kingly, though he'd deny if if anyone said it, and, arriving at the old green truck, carefully puts the parcel in the passenger seat, locks that door, and goes round to the driver's side where he hitches up into the seat, long legs under the wheel, and makes his escape from the concrete and noise up the Coast Highway until the welcome sandy end of Bluff Drive fills his heart with peace.
The parcel sits unopened on the counter between kitchen and living room for an entire day while he works, getting everything out of the way so that he can put his full attention to its contents. It keeps him company as he finishes a proof for the next book, writes a note to Henry about sleeping arrangements over break (Henry wants to bring friends, Orli's made his house available, sleeps 6 if they're friendly and don't mind the floor with futons- they are, and they won't), makes maté and sips it while the dogs mill about his feet on the way to the foot of the bluff where he leaves his maté cup and puts their leashes (kept in the wooden crate there so they're always handy, except when they forget and bring dogs and leashes all the way to the house- no matter, the dogs don't mind going down and up and down again. To them it's a great game) on and walks them down the beach and back again up the bluff to the present-filled counter, where he makes a fresh cup of maté, sits on one of the stools Karl made, and pulls the parcel to him.
Taped to a fare-thee-well, brown paper covers the whole perfect cube, keeping it safe, private. He dispenses with ceremony, cutting tape and paper both, but not before he traces the handwriting of the address with a gentle finger. Smiling to himself he peels back the brown outer covering to reveal a plain white box, nothing special, which opens to reveal newspaper in a foreign language (which, later, he will try to read, sitting by the fire, surrounded by the dogs) crumpled into a rough nest. He lifts nest and contents out carefully, unwraps the precious contents, revealing a glass jar of sand. This sand is white, not reddish Moroccan sand coloured by Africa blowing up toward the Mediterranean, but white, bleached by Caribbean suns and made of the bones of coral, of sailors, of dreams.
He lifts the jar to his forehead, holds it there for one breath, two, three, until his own breathing has slowed, deepened, and he can imagine the sender's having done likewise. The lid is taped too, so he undoes the tape and unscrews the jar and salt-sea scent rises to tell him just what time of day this sand was gathered up in square brown hands, progressively less pale and un-scarred with every film, and poured into glass to carry just this note, just this colour and scent and sensation of sun to the slightly freckled fine-fingered hands that it pours through now, making a little hill, a dune in miniature, on the counter in front of him.
"Orli," he whispers, "Oh, Orli. I miss you, love." He trails off, lifts a finger-full of the sand to his tongue, tastes it, chews a little, wincing at the grit on his mended tooth, then swallows it as he has so much of what Orlando's graced him with over the years, and sweeps the dune back up into his hand, pouring it back into the jar and covering its richness with the lid screwed slowly on again. He gets up, carries the little container, not even a hand's-filling size, to the shelf in the studio where the others are: Troy, Ibelin, the Caribbean... Kentucky rivers, Tokyo inlets, Aotearoa. He sets it down where it will catch the light in the morning, and feeling a little silly at his own sentimentality, puts one finger's kiss on it, then walks out, turning the light off without looking back, and goes into Bluff house to wait until morning himself, until he can go to the mailbox, and see if there's anything for him in a broad looping hand, from far away.
Days three, four, five
slashfairy
G
~~
Viggo seals the envelope, noticing the faint taste of mint in the glue which reminds him of lamb in Morocco during Hidalgo, during Kingdom of Heaven. He carefully affixes the stamp, this one a bird in flight, and carries the letter to the little post office on Ocean Boulevard in Venice Beach. The one-story white structure's unchanged since he first came here, years ago, he and Chris and baby Henry, looking for someplace to work and have fun, not realizing that just like the little post office, Venice was being surrounded, besieged, by twenty-storey condos and chain stores. He stands in line, shy, diffident, not really noticing that people do double takes; the clerks know him, remember a parcel too large for the box is sitting in the back, take his letter and cancel the stamp, put it in the cart for International and hand him the box, a little battered but still intact, addressed in a looping hand to the grey house tucked away in an alley between the traffic and the beach, the one they hide in when they have to be in town for business, for work.
He thanks the clerks, earns smiles and bestows them, kingly, though he'd deny if if anyone said it, and, arriving at the old green truck, carefully puts the parcel in the passenger seat, locks that door, and goes round to the driver's side where he hitches up into the seat, long legs under the wheel, and makes his escape from the concrete and noise up the Coast Highway until the welcome sandy end of Bluff Drive fills his heart with peace.
The parcel sits unopened on the counter between kitchen and living room for an entire day while he works, getting everything out of the way so that he can put his full attention to its contents. It keeps him company as he finishes a proof for the next book, writes a note to Henry about sleeping arrangements over break (Henry wants to bring friends, Orli's made his house available, sleeps 6 if they're friendly and don't mind the floor with futons- they are, and they won't), makes maté and sips it while the dogs mill about his feet on the way to the foot of the bluff where he leaves his maté cup and puts their leashes (kept in the wooden crate there so they're always handy, except when they forget and bring dogs and leashes all the way to the house- no matter, the dogs don't mind going down and up and down again. To them it's a great game) on and walks them down the beach and back again up the bluff to the present-filled counter, where he makes a fresh cup of maté, sits on one of the stools Karl made, and pulls the parcel to him.
Taped to a fare-thee-well, brown paper covers the whole perfect cube, keeping it safe, private. He dispenses with ceremony, cutting tape and paper both, but not before he traces the handwriting of the address with a gentle finger. Smiling to himself he peels back the brown outer covering to reveal a plain white box, nothing special, which opens to reveal newspaper in a foreign language (which, later, he will try to read, sitting by the fire, surrounded by the dogs) crumpled into a rough nest. He lifts nest and contents out carefully, unwraps the precious contents, revealing a glass jar of sand. This sand is white, not reddish Moroccan sand coloured by Africa blowing up toward the Mediterranean, but white, bleached by Caribbean suns and made of the bones of coral, of sailors, of dreams.
He lifts the jar to his forehead, holds it there for one breath, two, three, until his own breathing has slowed, deepened, and he can imagine the sender's having done likewise. The lid is taped too, so he undoes the tape and unscrews the jar and salt-sea scent rises to tell him just what time of day this sand was gathered up in square brown hands, progressively less pale and un-scarred with every film, and poured into glass to carry just this note, just this colour and scent and sensation of sun to the slightly freckled fine-fingered hands that it pours through now, making a little hill, a dune in miniature, on the counter in front of him.
"Orli," he whispers, "Oh, Orli. I miss you, love." He trails off, lifts a finger-full of the sand to his tongue, tastes it, chews a little, wincing at the grit on his mended tooth, then swallows it as he has so much of what Orlando's graced him with over the years, and sweeps the dune back up into his hand, pouring it back into the jar and covering its richness with the lid screwed slowly on again. He gets up, carries the little container, not even a hand's-filling size, to the shelf in the studio where the others are: Troy, Ibelin, the Caribbean... Kentucky rivers, Tokyo inlets, Aotearoa. He sets it down where it will catch the light in the morning, and feeling a little silly at his own sentimentality, puts one finger's kiss on it, then walks out, turning the light off without looking back, and goes into Bluff house to wait until morning himself, until he can go to the mailbox, and see if there's anything for him in a broad looping hand, from far away.
Days three, four, five