Monthly Archives: January 2017

Four Quills of a Tale- as scribed by Elias Kent (entry 3)

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Dear bloggers, I need your help. After rediscovering something I wrote a few years ago, I am recovering the story and editing as I go. Is this a worthwhile project? Have you read the last two entries? No pressure, but any comments or advice will help me in this endeavor. Thanks so much!

(Four Quills and a Tale is a folktale about losing one’s creativity and the struggle to regain it)

Entry One

Entry two

Alas, I remember something new.

“There is a canteen in fine leather casing on the kitchen table,” the old woman had told me. “Drink from it and quench your thirst before you depart.”

Stitched into the leather were gems of topaz, emeralds, rubies and other fine stones I did not recognize. I had picked up the canteen only to realize something anew. The colored gems where not gems at all, but oval splashes of color flush with the leather, yet so vibrant, I felt I could have pulled them off and filled my pockets.

Upon her suggestion, I had pulled out the cork and drank the refreshing liquid allowing its contents to soothe my questions and irritations. Then, quite peculiarly, my heart began to pound and my palms moistened. It was then, the first time in my months of travel that I yearned for home.

Unmoving from my desk, I Elias Kent, find myself dubious regarding the box before me and the old woman who allowed me to take it home.

Yet, the villagers never waivered in their faith of the free-spirited Katarina. And why would they? In her ingenious manner, she had mesmerized her listeners with a prolific and creative tongue. Tis’ the reason for their bewilderment when she disappeared.

Months went by and when traveling carriages, horsemen, and tradesmen heard no news of Katarina, her admirers fell into despair. Some became angry calling her “The Great Deserter.” Some believed she had become ill or had been taken by thieves who held her captive for her stories. Other speculators believed Katrina had given so much of herself, that she faded into the darkness like cold ashes blown into empty air.

I force myself to look down from these thoughts and pick up one leaf of the parchment. Exquisite it is! Like a jeweler feeling gold for the first time.

But what is the scrawl? Have my eyes defrauded me? Why have I not seen this before?  I pick up the small square of paper and read:

These feathers, made into writing quills, came from my goose, my muse. Trust them to write the story but know that…

The remaining words have faded away like our Katarina. I am no longer deterred. Her story must begin.

 

RAW Journal Kernels -Am I still here?

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I haven’t done one of these in a while and I’m overdue. This one makes me laugh. (Andy is my brother-in-law)

In case you are new to these: Skimming through these old treasures, I had this thought: “What if I shared kernels, bits of my past from numerous journal entries?” All kernels are raw, unedited and scanned into this blog. 

peace-bubbles-3

Waitin’ for the Gunshot

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Instead of Uncle “No-Account” Red taking young Cono to buy a donkey, he takes him to a bar in Sweetwater. Cono doesn’t know it yet but he will soon return with his pistol-toting Aunt Nolie. (1930’s)

No-Account gives Sunshine a pinch on her round butt and she lets out a sound somewhere between a squeal and a giggle sound. It sounded stupid.

Sitting there by myself doesn’t stop me from staring, disgusted-like at their carrying ons. She whispers in his ear, he gives her a little smooch, he whispers in her ear, she lets out another harebrained giggle. I get so fed up my belly starts to twist around and I think I might just puke. Standing up I say, “I’m gonna wait in the truck.” And that’s what I do.

I look around the truck, but it’s not there. Not one rope. That sorry son of a bitch never intended to buy me a donkey.

I watch people go in and come out and think about the loser I’m with, the jackass full of bullcorn. My hard-earned-honest-days-work-seed-selling money had gone straight towards something to do with that blonde haired giggly eye winker named “Sunshine.”

No-Account finally gets back in the truck and starts jawing again about more things that don’t make no sense. The difference is, this time he’s swerving around the road like a drunk man, which he is.

He seems to have forgotten about buying me that donkey since we’ve driven past the donkey field for the second time. I look over at him. He’s got a shit eating grin on his face that tells me his mind is sitting on something else. Wink, wink.

That grin flipped over real quick when we got home.

“Where ye been so long and where’s that donkey?” screams Aunt Nolie.

“Couldn’t get one today,” he says.

Aunt Nolie looks at the mad on my face and yells, “What the hell were ye doin’ then?”

No-Account whistles himself into the other room and ignores her.

“Cono, where ya’ll been?” she asks, her tone a little softer now.

“We went to Sweetwater to the Lucky Start beer joint.”

“Why didn’t ye get a donkey?”

“He wouldn’t stop fer one,” I tell her. Then I add more of the honest truth. “Red had some beers and started kissin’ on Sunshine.”

“He was, was he?”

“Yep.”

“Com’on, Cono. I’m gonna get my pistol and I’m gonna drive right back over there and shoot that no-good hussy.”

“Ye know who she is?”

“Everybody in Sweetwater knows that slut.”

I decide right then and there that another ride to Sweetwater to shoot Sunshine didn’t make no never-mind to me. I don’t have a donkey and nothing to strum but and idea.

After Aunt Nolie gets her gun, we’re back in the truck. She puts on some kinda girly scarf and ties it under her chin. Then she takes out her lipstick, looks in the rearview mirror and smears it on her lips. Aunt Nolie must want to look good when she shoots No-Account’s girlfriend.

Here I go again, on the way back to Sweetwater. Not to get a donkey but to shoot Sunshine, My Only Sunshine.

Driving down the highway, Aunt Nolie doesn’t talk much, at least not with her mouth. She clutches that steering wheel like she’s about to squeeze all the Texas sand and grit out of it and that’s a whole conversation in itself.

We finally get to Sweetwater and park in front of the Lucky Star Bar.

“Cono, ye wait right here.”

“OK,” I say, since I’ve already met the woman, who’s about to be shot anyway.

I sit in the car, again. I watch the people come and go, again, except this time, the ones that had been going were coming and the ones that had been coming were now going. I wait for the sound of a gunshot, the sound I’ve become familiar with when I hunt with my dad. I wait alright ‘cause there’s nothing else for me to do.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

Four Quills of a Tale -as scribed by Elias Kent (entry 2)

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Entry 1

(Four Quills and a Tale is a folktale about losing one’s creativity and the struggle to regain it)

As you can imagine, I was agog with surprise and confusion. I had traveled miles and miles in search of the mystical Katerina and there, in that small cottage, my journey ended with an old woman who merely handed me a box of quills and folio of parchment.

Now, as I stare at the items before me, I can only muster the shake of my head. How can these things help me discover what happened to the Great Storyteller?

I do not, dear reader, relish the idea of keeping you in the dark, nor do I intend to quicken your despair. I do, however, require you be provided with a parcel of background about our magical storyteller, thereupon allowing you to not only feel her heartbeat, but its unfortunate absence.

Katrina traveled far spinning her tales so clearly that villagers felt like clay being molded by a gentle potter’s hand.

After departing each village, her cascading auburn hair and multi-colored skirt disappearing into the distance, her tales kept the residents alive with exuberance as if she had dribbled potent nectar from a sorcerer’s cup over the entire town, leaving them enraptured.

The oft-feuding townsmen became docile. Fussy children played with a new aloofness. Hardworking laborers rejoiced as they leaned over hot melting irons or carried objects twice their weight. Women washing clothing in the river disrobed, danced, and splashed one another as if small children.

Katerina had given them something they had all been longing but were unaware they lacked – something new and tantalizing. Something fresh. Exotic stories of gold raining in a forest, a two-headed serpent who entertained himself by singing opera while he ate, a feathered boy whom the red-beaked eagle thrillingly hunted.

Then, after time, Katrina disappeared and it became my life’s focus to find her.

And now, I stare at the quills next to this parchment and work up the courage to pick up the first of four.

 

 

The Infinite Search for Self

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There are those who I remember

And prefer to let them dwell

Within the ghostly shadows of a Nostradamus spell

Whether prophesy or heresy

Or the cost of simple jealousy

Is life a simple parody?

Since it’s me I know not well?

-CDW

 

Infinite

Meet and Greet: 1/7/17

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Thanks, Danny. I’ve been bad about not doing this so here I am. When I’m not on the computer keyboard, I throw the ball for my mini Aussie, fitness box, sneer at at certain politicians, play with Grand-Babies …. Two published novels and one on the way. I suffer from ASS (Author Sleepless Syndrome) especially when I am percolating an idea. You may find me at http://carolyndenniswillingham.com because I’m usually there.🙂

Four Quills of a Tale – as scribed by Elias Kent (entry 1)

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If my newfound knowledge was an honorable truth, these four newly acquired quills upon my desk will finish the tale. Then you, and I, will finally discover the truth of what happened to this beloved woman.

I must inform you that I do not consider myself an author. I am a historian. Tis’ the reason I took it upon myself to discover how and why she disappeared and left the countryside in such deep despair that they deemed it “The Reign of Drought.”

Hence, I traveled this side of the globe gathering bits and pieces of her existence from contacts with perfect but willing strangers.

If the old woman in the cottage was correct, that she was indeed the last to see Katrina the Great Storyteller, then, according to her, these four newly acquired quills she gifted me will guide my weary hand without waver or indifference to me.

Yet, they remain untouched on my desk.

Yes, I stall to pick up the first of the four. I have traveled too far and if disappointment awaits …

I allow my mind to stray from the quills. I think of the nameless old woman with the silver hair who rocked to and fro in her chair, her thin hands folded on her petite lap, the oil lamp dimly lit in the corner of her one room cottage.

“Please ma’am,” I had said. “I have traveled many paths for an answer and carried with me many questions. Your path is my last. Will you unburden me?”

She peeled her eyes away from her lap and looked at me for the first time. “My dear Mr. Kent,” she said in a whisper of age yet one as clear as a robin’s song. “There is never a last path, nor a last road. Only a last breath.”

And then, she gave me the box.

A book launched Texas style…

Aside

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author's avatarCarolyn Dennis-Willingham

Since I have “friends” now, I’m reblogging this post from 2011. It was a special day for me, indeed.

No Hill for a Stepper book launch Carolyn Dennis-Willingham

No Hill for a Stepper was  launched Texas style with  James “Slim” Hand as our  special musical guest.  Singing the songs of Cono’s era that would have made Bob Wills and Gene Autry proud, the music was the perfect foreground for our hill country setting. What an evening!  The word for the evening was “surreal” as I saw the efforts of the last 3 1/2 years come to the end of just a beginning. I cannot begin to thank all of the attendees who supported me although I certainly tried! Plus they donated sacks of coins that I will give to the winners of the students in Bell County for the “No Hill for a Stepper” essay contest.  Payin’ it forward as they say.

To the crowd of over seventy…

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