Preliminary exercises for a short story

These exercises preceded the writing of Bread and Wine for Eight. The first is an account of a real life incident involving Dan and Ruby. The second explores Dan’s motivation. The third describes the location in which the story is set. The fourth is the dialogue that might have taken place. Much of the material in these four exercises does not make it into the story, and the story itself ends up going quite an unexpected direction.
 
1. Dan and those taps Dan’s sense of himself as a spiritually evolved being had been stoked by a cocktail of cannabis, MDA and what Ruby somewhat wryly called Sacred Sex. Dan had lived through the sixties, but never actually been there. He’d heard of hallucinations, but never had one – until now. As he walked down the steps to get a glass of water for his inexplicably dry throat, he saw that the record player was working, but he could hear no sound. Wonder flooded him as he realised that he was having an auditory hallucination. All the hallucinations he’d heard about until then had been visual: seeing what wasn’t there or what ordinarily wasn’t perceived. If vision did this, maybe all the senses did it. And if you sometimes saw that was not there, maybe you sometimes didn’t hear what was there. What other explanation could there be for not being able to hear what the player was clearly putting out. As he entered the kitchen he was startled to see that taps at the kitchen sink had become invisible. Two black holes stared back up him from where the taps were fitted. Shaken by the unexpected confirmation of what he’d half suspected about the material world, he applied the lesson he taught himself the first time he spun out on cannabis: stay calm, realise that things are often not as they seem; there is an objective reality which your mind knows; do as your mind would bid you do – act on what you know to be true, and no one will ever know that you are a seething mass of emotional chaos. So pick up the glass. Put your hand where you know the tap is. Turn it on and fill the glass with water. Then go and tell Ruby what an amazing thing just happened. Dan picked up the glass and reached for the tap. But his hand just went straight through the space where the tap was. Now he was really spooked. “Oh my God!” he gasped. “I’ve become trans-substantial!” a conclusion he drew on the basis of what he’d heard about another spiritually evolved being – the guy who walked right through the wall of the room where his friends were hiding out from the thugs who’d killed him three days earlier. Utterly agog with the realisation of expectations he’d barely dared to say out aloud, be bolted up the stairs to tell his lover what had happened.
“What taps” said Ruby. “There’s no taps there. They haven’t been put in yet.”


2. About Dan Dan paced as he rehearsed, anticipating his moment of truth. Not since high adolescence, when others his age were exploiting their infatuation with one another’s bodies as he lavished his passion on the new rituals of his church, had he been so intently focused on the drama of prayer. His slim stooped frame, the very model of supplication, his powerful baritone voice, the perfect instrument for a God in need of being heard, not to mention the patiently nurtured trust of those who would be his first congregants, would take care of the externals. But his qualms about the legitimacy of what he was about to do drove his zeal for the interior efficacy of his prayer. Denied ordination to the priesthood because of his sexual orientation, he had shifted his focus from liturgy to social justice, and watched mournfully as the conservative rump of his former church trivialised its ceremonies and drove out anyone with an enquiring mind by their authoritarian intolerance of debate. For three decades he absorbed the contributions of people who would otherwise have been strangers, to the larger picture of what it means to he human, and learned decency from those whom the pious judged as damned. Thirty years of enduring self righteous bigotry might have embittered most people. But Dan was not most people. As a boy he’d fallen in love with God. Now, at almost 60 years of age, he was about to consummate that love. After three decades of denial, he was about to hold the sacred elements in hands that had never lost their need for sacred gesture.

3. The address is ? William Henry St The address is ? William Henry St Glebe. It’s a terrace house in a row that’s being refurbished on the outside by a builder. The owners are taking care of the interiors. The front door is a jewel of coloured and bevelled glass. It opens into a hall that leads to a stairway. Two cherubim stand guard. To the left another door , a maze of inlaid wood, opens into a dining room. It appears at first glance to have very little in it: a table with eight chairs and a sideboard. But as the eye catches the finish the furniture reveals itself as the love child of a craftsman besotted with wood. Polished with a mixture of bee’s wax and myrrh, the room is filled with a subtle but powerful fragrance that evokes in all who enter the sense of being present to the whole of what exists, and gives a wholly redeemed meaning to the otherwise pejorative jibe: the odour of sanctity. Two candle sticks on the sideboard are crowned with bee’s wax candles inlaid with intense red and green runes. They have blackened wicks. The ceiling is Art Deco pressed metal painted a faint silver gum extending down the walls to a picture rail. The rail and ceiling highlights are silver grey, and the walls below a darker tone of the ceiling colour. A floor to ceiling bay window with fan light is draped with narrow tapestries in reds and greens. An Aeolian harp is fitted onto the lintel. On the wall opposite hangs a wide mirror framed in ceramic tile. It is heavily smoked so that any image it reflects is as flat as a painting. Miniscule concave and convex curves on its surface renders a surreal and mysterious image. The floor is polished hardwood. Two Turkish rugs in pink and blue break up the spaces between the table and the bay window at one end; and the mirror at the other. An Abyssinian cat soaks up the sunlight flooding through the bay window. Its unselfconscious indifference to visitors makes it clear who the room belongs to. It stretches its neck and lunges at the fur on its lower neck, lavishing it with an impossibly salmon pink tongue. A faint breeze sends widdershins of dust particles exposed by the sun swirling above the cat. Pigeons coo on the lintel and poo on the tiles outside the bay window. The cat utters a guttural moan as the fur along its spine does a Mexican Wave. A clank of ceramic on marble draws attention back to the interior of the room. A decanter of red wins has been set on the sideboard, and a platter of bread on the table. Two figures robed in bone linen are retreating to the kitchen. The fanlight closes down onto the Aeolian harp. It begins to hum. The liturgy is about to begin.


4. Oh come on Dan…Ruby
“Oh come on Dan, you don’t believe that New Age crap, surely?”
Dan
“What do you mean crap? What have we been doing for the last 36 hours?”
Ruby
“Having sex.”
Dan
“Is that all? What happened to the sacred bit of it?”
Ruby
“Spare me, Dan. You’re sounding like a gay man in drag who thinks he’s really a woman!”
Narrator
Dan was silenced by the unexpectedness of this as much as its power. He saw an implication for the huge range of styles that people affect – not that he would have used that word until now, but if Ruby was right, then maybe it was all just role playing.
Dan
“How many men who wear drag think they’re really women?”
Ruby
“I wouldn’t have a clue. It doesn’t matter if none of them do. It wouldn’t make any difference to my point.”
Dan
“Which is?”
Ruby
“Affecting an appearance of doesn’t make you the real thing.”
Dan thinks
Dan speaks
“There’s that word,” he thought.
“So men who dress in leather, wielding whips and body piercing gear, and talk S&M…”
Cowboy
“Most of them are all talk. No one takes them seriously – especially themselves.”
Dan
“No one? Some of them do…”
Ruby
“Yes, and aren’t they sick puppies.”
Dan
“You hear them saying exactly that about themselves all the time, and apparently being proud of it.”
Soldier
“Apparently?”
Dan
“Well if they’re so good at pretending to be brutes, maybe they’re only pretending to be proud of their perversion!”
Ruby
“Oh come on, that’s a bit rough.”
Dan
“What, calling it perversion?”
Cowboy
“Yeah. Who are you to judge?”
Dan
“Ruby’s the one who said they’re sick puppies. I didn’t hear any one getting upset then. You’re OK with euphemisms, are you?”
Narrator
Now it was Ruby’s turn to pout in silence. Dan’s needed to ferret out what she’d started.
Dan
“You know,” he continued, “you can’t tell most gay men from the heterosexual herd. But some are effeminate at home, and even in public when they’re with other gays. This doesn’t seem to be an act. It seems to be who they really are. Yet, they know not to flap their wrists where homophobia rules. And that’s the overwhelming majority of situations in the western world – and maybe even the whole planet – so you have to wonder about their sense of belonging. Does the contempt of blokes make them choose to be un-blokey?”
Ruby
“Who cares. And anyway where’s this going?”
Dan
“Well, is it the unforgiving harshness of reality that prompts people to bang on about star signs and the like?”
Astrologer
“What are you on about? And what do you mean “bang on”. That’s a bit rough, isn’t it”
Dan
“Well, again, it was Ruby who wrote off the New Age as “all that crap”; and once again, I didn’t hear anyone getting upset then. ”
Ruby
“What’s the New Age got to do with star signs in newspapers? No one actually believes what they say. It’s just fun.”
Dan
“If it’s just fun, what’s the problem with saying that people bang on about it? But more importantly, is it just fun when someone explains another person’s behaviour by saying “Oh yeah, he’s a Virgo.”
Astrologer
“Well what’s wrong with that?”
Dan
“Why do you assume I’m saying there’s anything wrong with it?”
Ruby
“Because you make it sound pathological. You said that people bang on – the tone of your language is negative.
Dan
“Ah ! Beauty!”
Ruby
“Don’t patronise me, you bastard!”
Dan
“What is patronising about what I just said?”
Ruby
“You beauty! At last! She’s catching on….”
Dan
“No, that was not what I meant! I meant beauty (and what’s pathological) – is in the eye of the beholder. You’re the one who used the word pathological. I put being interested in star signs together with the unforgiving harshness of reality, to wonder out aloud if people are looking for certainty, a way of explaining reality if not controlling it.”
Ruby
“It sounds like you’re saying it’s the opium of the masses!”
Dan
“It will sound any way you make it sound. And by the way, Ruby, you’re not still wallowing in Marxist ideology, surely?”

A short Story

This short story was preceded by a number of exercises that explored its various aspects. The original intention was to turn an incident in the life of Dan into a larger story. The larger story emerged, but the incident in Dan's life doesn't get a look in. The exercises are in the previous post. People who have read both have different opinions about the intent of the story,depending on whether they read the exercises first or the story.

Bread and wine for eightAt first glance it looks as though the Village People have gathered for a meal, except that no one here is in costume. Eight people, variously uniformed, are talking in twos around a table of Huon Pine, polished with bee’s wax and myrrh. The fragrance is subtle and powerfully conspires with the table’s exquisite design and craftsmanship to evoke the numinous. Ruby’s slightly shrill voice raises above the mild hum of conversation. “Oh. Come on Dan, you don’t believe that new Age crap, surely?”
Dan responds quietly. Only those nearest hear his reply. Conversation flows as people take in the room . The ceiling is Art Deco pressed metal; a picture rail separates light tones of contrasting colours: silver gum above, blood wood below; a floor to ceiling bay window with fan light draped in long narrow tapestries of reds and greens at one end of the room; a wide, very heavily smoked mirror framed in ceramic tile at the other.
Ruby’s voice is strident again. “Spare me Dan, you’re sounding like a gay man in drag who thinks he’s really a woman.” This time the room is silenced – momentarily. “How many men who wear drag think they are really women?” asks Dan. The self-absorbed Abyssinian cat soaking up the sun on the pink and tan Turkish rug stretches its head back and lunges at the fur on its lower neck, lavishing it with an impossibly salmon pink tongue. “I wouldn’t have a clue,” returns Ruby. “It doesn’t matter if none of them do. It wouldn’t make any difference to my point.”
“Which is?”
“Affecting an appearance doesn’t make anyone the real thing.”
Lance, in full cowboy get up, chaps and all, stares at the perfectly flat image of the room reflected in the mirror. “So ….men who dress in studded leather,” he begins, “wielding whips and body piercing instruments and talking about S&M…”
“Are all talk!” Ruby cuts in. “No one takes them seriously – especially not themselves.”
There’s a slight pause as people consider whether or not to let that one through to the keeper. “That’s not true” protests Lance. “I know people who are into S&M, and they’re, like, totally fervent about it”
“Sick puppies,” grins Ruby.
“Well, exactly” retorts Dan. “You hear them talking about themselves – with apparent pride – in exactly those words.”
A tall young man robed in bone linen places a decanter of fortified wine on the sideboard between two ceramic menorah, each bearing seven bees wax candles inlaid with intense red and green runes. A similarly clad female lays a ceramic platter with piping hot wholegrain bread on the table.
“What do you mean apparent?” asks Bruce, resplendent in military dress uniform.
Sunlight streaming through the bay window illuminates widdershins of dust particles above Dan as he speaks. “Well, if they’re so good at pretending to be brutes, maybe they’re only pretending to be proud of their perversion.”
The silence is now so thick that everyone, after a sharp intake of breath, hears the pigeons cooing on the lintel and pooing on the tiles. The cat utters a guttural moan and the fur along its spine does a Mexican Wave.
Ruby is furious. “Oh come on. That’s a bit rough.”
“What, calling it perversion?”
“Yes!” shouts Nero in fireman’s yellow. “Who are you to judge?”
“Ruby’s the one who called them sick puppies. I didn’t hear anyone getting upset then. You’re OK with euphemisms, are you?”
The fanlight closes down onto an Aeolian harp forcing the slight breeze through it’s narrow mouth and across its strings. It begins to hum in unstable harmonies. Silence falls. The formal part of the Liturgy of bread and wine has begun.
After a pause for gathering in the moment, Dan says, “Call to mind someone who has personally offended you and made you angry. Recall the incident. Name the offence. What standard was breached? Focus on that single fact and,” he pauses for effect, “maintain your rage! For justice is not served by being nice to those who offend you.”
He picks up the loaf of bread, and, with some difficulty – it is very hot – breaks it into eight pieces, saying, “Our humanity is broken by conflict.” Taking one piece he gives it to Ruby. “This is your adversary. Feel the heat of your shared anger.” He wraps both of her hands around it, then walks around the table doing the same for all. Dan takes the last piece and pauses for a moment; then opens his palms , and says, “This is your adversary. Do what you will in the name of justice.” After a short pause he says, “I forgive you, John-Paul, for marginalising those who do not agree with you.” He hears Ruby say, “I forgive you, Dan, for no longer being my lover.” Everyone addresses the token of their rage. Then, on Dan’s cue, all raise the bread to their mouths and eat it, still quite hot – and fragrant, to remind them that the ‘other’ is truly beautiful. After a moment of silence Dan says, “Forgiveness changes us so that we can invite the Other into community. Having been prepared to change, we have the right to speak frankly to the Other, hoping that the resulting dialogue will facilitate rapprochement and maybe even mutual respect.” He then invites everyone to reach left and right and take the hands of those nearest, and says, “Anyone who angers you manifests an aspect of your shadow. We have symbolically integrated our shadows into our personas. As community we have a collective shadow – not personal but structural. If you are Builder’s Labourer, you’re your shadow may be Capital; if you are an Industrialist, your shadow may be the Green Movement; if you are a Cowboy, your shadow may be Urban Sophistication; if you are any kind of Tribal Leader, your shadow may be Globalisation. If we really are community, we are fully inclusive. No one is excluded – not the Capitalist, not the Unionist, not the Mine Owner, not the Green Activist. We manifest one another’s shadows. As community we strive to understand the necessary contribution of our adversaries to our well being. Having shown that we here can change in our individual relationships, we can believe that we, as community, can critically honour those we might otherwise despise. We cannot know, yet, how we will do this, but we can dream.”
Silence resumes until it is broken by Dan saying “I have a dream!” As the spirit takes them others join in a prolonged outbreak of exclaiming, “I have a dream!”
When the silence resumes Dan releases his grasp and picks up the vessel of fortified wine, and says, “The spirit herein will flood your body with passion. When it grips your soul, speak in the spirit, and be not afraid.” He offers it to Ruby who takes a sip and is dazzled by the rush. She holds it to the lips of Sandy and croons, “Oh happy day!” And so it goes until it comes back to Dan who takes the final sip, and joins the ecstatic chatter about ‘The Dream’: a shared experience that no one person can fully know. The cat jumps up onto the table and struts from one to another receiving their strokes and adulation as its due, and dispensing the occasional rasp of its tongue, then reclines in the middle of the table and begins its divine ablutions. People begin to hug. Some cry with joy. The fanlight raises, and though the room is vibrating with loud conversation, all sense that the harmonies of the Aeolian harp are no longer rolling through them. The liturgy is over. Dan takes Ruby’s hands in his and wishes her peace and joy in her endeavours of the coming week. All do the same until they have farewelled one another. The room empties. The cat sleeps. The table is just a table.