The Old Funeral Home. A new novel by Tim and Amy Torkildson. Chapter One.

 Chapter One.

The best books are written in the spring. The best stories start and finish with buds and bunnies and baby robins and pink rosy clouds settling into a Disney sunset as the icicles thaw away and the babbling brook begins to burble.

You can already tell this is going to be a disgustingly quaint tale, can't you?

So be it.

After spending a year on nothing but haiku, I am ready to resume a longer narrative form. Or rather, We are.  To create protagonists and the ever-elusive mise-en-scene. And by the way, when you come to a parenthesis you'll know that it is the Beloved writing, not me. That's how we've divided up the labor; I'll dictate to her, and as she writes my golden words down she will interject her thoughts and feelings, in parenthesis.)

Hey, if it worked for Tristam Shandy it can work for us.

Spell check is turned off. We've canceled our subscription to Grammarly. This is going to be a work of pure unfiltered art. Stream of consciousness and surreal all at once.

And it starts with Michu, the World's Smallest Man. He indirectly got me my first broadcast job at KGCX Radio in Williston North Dakota.

I started there in the spring as news director. Got paid 600 dollars per month. No benefits, unless you count getting up at 3 a.m. each morning as part of 'the early to bed and early to rise' gambit to great health, wealth, and wisdom. Which I don't. I have always loved to sleep in. Until I grew old and bothersome. Now I never sleep past 4 a.m. no matter what I do. Go figure.

As I saying, I wrote down local news stories on great rolls of yellow AP paper -- a grainy parchment carpet that was attached to the dinging, clattering, AP typing machine in the broom closet. That poor old machine shook like a man with the d.t.'s. 

Once I was settled into my work in Williston I discovered the old funeral home. Where my Beloved lived. Fifty miles due north in Tioga.

************************

Haiku: 家にはパンがありません

 

There is no bread here.

The night stars are turning dark.

My pills roll away.

 ここにはパンはありません。

夜の星は暗くなってきています。

私の錠剤は転がり落ちます。

A spark of static

leaps off the earth and escapes;

I am deleted.

静的な火花
地球から飛び降りて逃げる。
削除されました。

Dawn is unnoticed.

Clouds are drained of all color.

The wind moves but trash.

夜明けは見過ごされています。
雲はすべての色で排出されます。
風は動くがゴミ。

Timerick: Gas Prices Pressure Drivers’ Finances

 

When driving down the road of life

you have to meet a little strife;

but when the price of gas explodes

you can't afford those handy roads!

Instead you stay at home and sulk

or as pedestrian go skulk

on sidewalks, paths, in alleyways --

muttering of 'end of days.'

A bicycle will melt some fat --

if you can be an acrobat.

Or try a skateboard, gnarly dude,

if you have got the fortitude.

Public transport would be nice

if buses smelled like edelweiss.

And trains showed up on time, you know;

instead of running awful slow.

A horse might do the trick, by Jove!

But then, it costs a treasure trove

to feed it in a stable where

they cater to the millionaire.

If I had wings, O how I'd soar

these holidays like pterosaur!

Back to the family manse I'd flit

around the Xmas tree to sit,

cracking nuts and singing Yule 

instead of feeling like a fool

by bumming rides with Uncle Fred

who drives his car like some bobsled.

But who am I to so complain,

about gas prices inhumane?

I'll drive my car but once a year,

and travel just for Xmas cheer!

Timerick: Workers Quit Jobs in Droves to Become Their Own Bosses

 

I dreamed of going solo,

of being on my own;

no boss to give me anguish --

I'd be a real cyclone!

So office space I rented,

and desks I did install.

I got a secretary

(who'd been laid off at the mall.)

I did some online branding

and offered service quick;

but no one clicked my website;

my ads sank like a brick.

The bank would not extend me.

My secretary quit.

I moped around my office --

felt like a pile of leaves.

I asked my old boss meekly

if I could rejoin staff.

She said that would be okay --

then cut my pay in half.

If you think going solo

is just the thing to do,

I would advise you strongly

to stick with sniffing glue.

Haiku: 詩人は喉が痛い

 

Newspapers work good

to keep out the stark white cold

when greenbacks have fled.

新聞はうまく機能します

真っ白な寒さを防ぐために

グリーンバックが逃げたとき。

Stalked by celery

Vichyssoise is Soupy Sales

My life a fillet  

セロリにストーカー
ヴィシソワーズはスーピーセイルズです
私の人生はフィレット

Storm in the mountains;

bouncing discord and grey mist --

such a shallow noise!

山の嵐;
跳ねる不和と灰色の霧-
こんな浅い音！

Haiku: いびきについて書くことは何ですか？

 

On the bed snoring

An alluring steam engine

A glass of warm milk

ベッドでいびきをかく

魅力的な蒸気エンジン

温かいミルクのグラス

A crumpled silk robe

shedding long strands of white hair --

the smell of hyssop.

しわくちゃのシルクのローブ
白い髪の長い髪を落とす-
ヒソップの匂い。

The distance of stars
The mooning glow of a cloud
And a woman's sigh
星の距離
雲のムーニングの輝き
そして女性のため息

Haiku: 詩人は妻のためにドラゴンを殺します。

 

Holding bony hands

as the wind plucks at our hair --

yours white, mine extinct.

骨のある手を握る
風が私たちの髪を引っ張るとき-
あなたの白、私の絶滅

Deflecting your fate

is as arrogant as cats

learning how to fly.

あなたの運命をそらす
猫と同じくらい傲慢です
飛ぶ方法を学ぶ。

The dirty skyscape

attracts certain kinds of birds

not to our liking.

汚い空の景色
特定の種類の鳥を引き付ける
私たちの好みではありません。

Journalist James Macintosh of the Wall Street Journal: A Man for One Season.

 

As a small boy James Macintosh once asked his tutor at Saint Burley-on-the-Cue Boy's Municipal Fluoride Academy what the difference was between premonition and intuition.

His wise tutor, after filling his pipe with sage and turkish taffy, and lighting it from a nearby burning bush, replied:

"A premonition is hatched from a promontory; while intuition is free to anyone who can play a decent game of soccer."

Macintosh never forget those stirring words. He often tells this story to his adoring acolytes, over a flowing bowl of butterscotch punch down at the Fluffy Sheep's Head Pub.

Jimmy, as he is known to practically no one but his accountant, is the kind of writer who will walk a mile in another man's shoes rather than buy a new pair of his own. He writes a ten-thousand word essay each morning before dawn on the importance of Stilton cheese to the British Commonwealth, and then punts up and down the Thames, taking potshots at mudlarks.

His prize-winning work at the Wall Street Journal includes an in-depth look at the Marmite Cartel and its sinister influence on Brexit. He won the prestigious Arthur Q. Poppinjay Award for his expose of sentient vending machines. His journalist colleagues agree that no one writes a passive/aggressive sentence the way Jimmy Macintosh does.

His hobbies include distilling artisan embalming fluid and cultivating colanders at his villa on Capri.

He is currently under indictment for posting photos of his cats on Twitter. 

Haiku: 詩人はマグロの缶を食べる

 

How to open up?

With a gray and cautious squeak?

Or a purple roar?

開く方法は？

灰色で慎重なきしみ音で？

または紫色の轟音？

Coins in a fountain.

Thirty pieces of silver.

Bowling for dollars. 

噴水のコイン。
銀貨30枚。
ドルのためのボウリング。

All the homeless hearts

face the winter's harsh flurries

so alone alone.

すべてのホームレスの心
冬の厳しい風花に直面する
一人で

A silent chapel

redolent of polished pews

Salted frozen shrimp

静かな礼拝堂
磨かれた会衆席のあふれんばかり
塩漬けの冷凍エビ

Prepare to write verse --

sharpen the red pencil --

hunt for a toothpick.

詩を書く準備をしなさい-
赤鉛筆を研ぐ-
つまようじを探します。

Are those rocks or mice?
Are these the tires or the wind?
Has the road ended?

それらの岩やネズミですか？
これらはタイヤですか、それとも風ですか？
道は終わりましたか？

My favorite quote

I don't quite recall too good;

but I'm telling it.

私のお気に入りの引用
あまりよく覚えていません。
しかし、私はそれを言っています

The rustle of leaves

upon the dry winter wind --

warms my heart for her.

葉のざわめき
乾燥した冬の風に-
あなたのために私の心を温めます

Timerick: Grocery chains are stocked up on Thanksgiving staples like turkeys, though some expect tight supplies of items like pie crust and cream cheese.

 

Pie crust and cream cheese are shades of the past;

the stores have run out and my stockpile won't last.

It's true that the turkey is plump as can be

and cranberry sauce, like the sands of the sea,

abundantly flows round the gravy boat lee;

but where is the butter for rolls and the like --

are we now to face a petite hunger strike?

The dill pickle relish is plentiful, sure --

but glossy black olives have become quite obscure!

 The only boxed wines are uncorked antifreeze.

The heck with it . . . where is that darn mac and cheese?