My typewriter

So here is the second installment of my serial with no name. It needs a name I just have no idea what to call it. I love to write. Not just about farming, but I am always playing with something or other usually fiction that never gets finished and just drags on. I have decided to do this as a serial, because it remains half done though it was started long long ago. Every so often I pick it up and play with it and take it further. But I thought sharing it this way would force me to be more… diligent about my writing. It is one of several things I have been toying with for years.

Yes, Wildflower Farm, has a book club. The book club actually started several years after the story. If anything working on this and crawling into another world through my writing inspired me to start a real book club. None of the characters in this story represent real members. Nor are they based on real members. Because when I started this, there were no members at all. The members were not selected to try to bring the story to life. This is only a fictional story. The book club here at Wildflower, has developed as it’s own unique entity and bears no resemblance to this story. Any similarities between characters and real people are strictly coincidental and accidental.

We will begin meeting our branch of this mysterious ancient book club now… I want to be clear. I believe that every kind of person belongs in literature. Like with a book club’s discussion, a story becomes enriched by the various and different characters who interact with each other. Books, also help teach us how to treat each other and see each other. So it is important to me and always has been to be inclusive in my writing. If you can’t handle alternative life styles stop reading, this is a DNF, because you will not enjoy this. My writing likely has many failings. I do not pretend to be good at writing. I am also openly dyslexic. If the inclusivity of my writing turns you off however, it will not be a failure of my writing. it will be a failure of character on your part. No I won’t sugar coat that. Human differences are what makes life and people interesting, at least to those of us who do not live in fear. I know of no greater bravery than to share the constructed worlds that exist in my mind. When you put a piece of yourself out there, anyone can piss on it. I am happy to hear criticism that is constructive. I am always trying to write better. But then there is just being destructive to be horrible… That doesn’t take bravery, nor does it take or involve what makes the world a better place. So please give me constructive criticism. But the latter…. Well… That says more about you than it does about my writing. Especially if it is something hateful about the diversity of the characters in my little story serial. Anyone can be horrible. It doesn’t take much. But to help someone improve, that takes something special…

Yes, I know you all read this site for the farming and the pretty pictures… Unfortunately, I have been so over busy for the last week, that I have not had a chance to do anything farmy cool. So you get this. Hopefully I have something of a farmy nature to post by the end of the week. So bear? Bare? with me. Uggh, dyslexia is the suck….

Without further explanation, here is part 2 of my unnamed story.

Rose, ignored the filthy man pissing against the outer wall of the brick church in the heart of Central Square Cambridge. He stood some feet behind her with his filthy ill fitting denim pants down so anyone walking past could see his over sized ass cheeks. Why had she come into the city today? She couldn’t quite recall what she was doing here… So, she sat on the bench watching the people go past. The girl who looked like she had escaped the Harvard Square pit in 1997, in her long flowing goth gown carrying a book of sheet music in her arms with her long purple hair flowing out behind her. The clean cut young man on his way to the subway station. The city was a place for the young. So why was Rose here today she wondered? Rose, was here, to meet an old dear friend who was running late. They had planned to meet at this bench and head down to the subway where they would catch the red line to Park Street, and from there head to Haymarket, where they would nourish themselves before heading back to Park Street, to sit in silence each with a copy of the same book. Each reading for a time quietly to herself.

Rose watched the people go by, a business man checking his watch, A hippy that looked like he had taken a time machine to the future. He must be one of them Buddhists from that odd commune just around the corner. She saw a Greek church clergy man, heading up the road past the brick church to the stone church where the Greek Festival happens every year. Then her eyes settled on a young mother with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. She looked sad… Her child held her hand and stood next to her. Even the little girl wasn’t smiling, where were they headed? The thought clipped through Rose’s mind as they stood at the road waiting for the light to change color. The little girl held books. Perhaps they were headed to the near by branch of the library? Rose, saw the big oaf like man, as he walked up to the young mother and her daughter. He stopped in front of her. Rose could hear him from where she sat, just an in obtrusive part of the scenery. A little old lady alone in the big city in the middle of Saturday.

The oaf spoke to the young mother and her child. “Look at you… You know, you would be so pretty if you smiled. Put a smile on your face, dear, you will be the prettiest flower on the block.” He indicated the flowers growing along the path that lead to the brick church’s door, while the dirty man pulled up his pants and began limping away. Rose watched, as the young mother’s shoulders sagged. Dark haired Sonnet, was in the middle of a painful divorce and had just come to collect her daughter at a friend’s house following a difficult morning in court, where the child’s father’s rights were terminated. Sonnet looked at her child, then she stood up at her full height of 5 ‘1″. “How dare you speak to me in front of my child that way sir,” she said calmly. “I am not an object. I am a sovereign human being with thoughts, feelings, and moods. I do not owe you or any other stranger a smile as you walk past me. I am not just a piece of the scenery that you can control as if it were as inanimate as one of those church flowers.” Her frown deepened as she held her daughter’s hand a little bit tighter.

Well… Hot damn, thought Rose, deeply impressed. Sonnet, lead her daughter across the street as the oaf gawked in shock that a woman had spoken back to him. He wondered how she dared. Sonnet, looked down at her child, a little girl, wondering what else could she do in such a situation with her child there? She had an example to set. And that example would be one of a strong powerful woman, the kind of woman she wanted Leonie, to be one day. The take no prisoners serious woman going somewhere. Going anywhere that her heart desired. Rose, lifted her old bones off the bench. She had completely forgotten her meeting. She was awe struck by this mother and her child. She was perfect. She, was exactly what Rose, had been looking for now for some time… Rose began to follow from a distance. And she was not wrong. They walked all the way to the library. Rose would spend the day following them unobtrusively. She needed to get their address and learn as much as she could about them. She had to be sure of this woman before she sent the invitation… Not everyone would be fit to answer the invite with their attendance. But it would seem, this young woman just might be the perfect person to take over…

Sonnet loosened her grip on her daughter Leonie’s hand once she was sure the oaf was not going to come after her. She smiled down at Leonie. “So what books do you want to get at the library this time?” The little girl shrugged. “When is daddy coming home?” The little girl asked, “oh baby, I am so sorry, he is not coming home this time.” “Why not?” asked the child. “Because the judge says he can’t come near us ever again… You remember what he did to mommy?” Sonnet had spent over a week in the hospital. Leonie, had gone to stay with friends. Jared, had come to apologize but it had been the last time. Sonnet, had a duty to her child. She did not want Leonie learning that men can do what they wish to women and that women are nothing but powerless victims. She wanted so very much more for her child. She looked around the dirty city, made note of the wet pee spot on the brick church she had never attended in disgust… She had to get her child out of the city now there was no longer any reason to stay here. But where would they go? That, remained an X-File, still under investigation. Somewhere with a good school system, and clean air. Sonnet, wanted to see the forest trees and hear the sound of silence without the loud sound of smoggy cars… The reality was, on one half baked income they couldn’t get too far from where they were. Sonnet sighed heavily, as they went into the library to look for new enrichment for Leonie’s wounded soul and for Sonnet’s as well.

Leonie, left the library with The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, Hansy’s Mermaid, and a couple Amelia Bedilia books. Sonnet, had small collection of her own. Woods Woman, Mud Season, and The Birth House, were going home with her from the library. Rose watched noting the titles as she seemed to walk past fading into the background. She simply had to satiate her curiosity as to what Sonnet read. The titles had excited her. She had the right person. She was sure. All she needed, was an address to send the invitation. The same one that had once been sent to Rose herself so many years ago… It had come from her auntie Helen, who haunted the home that now Rose, called her own before Rose had moved in, replacing her gradually. Helen, had aged until Rose, had to put her in a home where she could have the care she needed. Rose smiled thinking about Helen. What a gift Helen had given her.

Rose’s phone rang waking her from the reverie of the past that was forming in her mind, of the old days at Black Rock, with Helen… “Rose, hit the button, stopping for a moment in confusions. These new fangled phones… She had heard people did all kinds of stuff with them. Including a thing called texting. Rose, was too old fashioned to do anything beyond dialing numbers, and answering the thing. She hit the green button and spoke into the phone, “Hello” The voice was almost feminine. Yet somehow not quite right for a woman’s voice. Rose smiled, she recognized the sound of her friend anywhere and everywhere. Even on this ridiculous contraption… Gone were the old pay phones which made this miserable piece of metalic plastic a necessity. “Rose, honey, it’s me… I am at the church. Where are you?” Rose remembered suddenly why she was in the city. She was going to have lunch and sit in the park with her dear friend Godiva. “Oh…. Godiva…. I am so sorry. Something came up…. If you can catch up to me we can do something a bit different today? You game?” Godiva laughed, “Always.” she said. “Where should I meet you?” “You know the 24 store, behind the teen center at the far end of Essex st? Seems I will be here for a little bit, if you can catch up.” Godiva, responded, “Girl, you know I’ll be right there!” Rose loved the way Godiva called her Girl. As if she were still young. “Ok Girl,” Rose responded in kind. Because to her, Godiva was a girl, always had been a girl, and always would be a girl, even if she had been born Christopher. Godiva’s family had disowned her years ago. When she got the invite, attended, and to her shock found she had been accepted, Rose, had become like a mother to her over the years. Godiva loved Rose. Loved her for her rebellious nature, and her willingness to accept what was once viewed as unacceptable. When Rose was a girl, the surgery Godiva had had and the hormones she took, had not yet even existed. All the same, Rose, had accepted her and treated her like the daughter she had never had. Godiva, thought Rose, was a wonder so untethered from the conventions of her day. No wonder she ran things.

Godiva, picked up her pace, crossed the giant central street of Central Square, heading towards Inman. She went past the Florist and the subway, put the H and R Block, that had once been a video rental store in her rear view, and kept moving past the optometrist, she took a right then a fairly quick left and flew down Essex, as fast as her legs would go in her fish net stockings, heading for the park and teen center where she would meet Ms. Rose.