The Heap or the Hoard (Random Musings #1) by Patrick Firth

                                         Garbage Pile by Patrick Firth

The Heap or the Hoard

 

I was reading a collection of Ainu folk tales and came across a story about a boy who gets sick and is condemned to bed. What is interesting about this boy is that he has two companions who no one else can see. They have played with him in the past, but now, when no one else can figure out why the boy is ill, his invisible companions become messengers instead of playmates. They speak of an ax that the boy's father threw away. In fact, these two are the tray and pestle that the ax, their chieftain, has fashioned. The boy's ailment comes from an object scorned; the ax has cast a spell, as only a personified ax can do, and the boy suffers for the wasteful sin of his father. Only once the ax has been retrieved, cleaned, and the proper respect given, does the boy recover. The Ainu, an indigenous people of Hokkaido, Japan, must have put a lot of stock in axes.

Imagine every time you threw something away it cast some horrible, retributive spell on your kid. That is, until you brushed it off and set some symbols around it. Imagine being haunted by that 500 lb tube television that you inherited from grandma and grandpa. This is the same television that you left by the dumpster in the alleyway when you spent that loan money on a new flatscreen.

But maybe I cannot take it that far. In all fairness, the story is called “Don't Throw Away Useful Things.” That 500 lb washed out screen is no longer useful compared to the high-def set that even your less than coordinated kid could pick up. The older television has lost its 'use' value. We can assume that the Ainu boy's father has not replaced the slighted ax with a chain saw. The object still has value, it still has a use, and so he and the boy are punished.

The question becomes, what is useful and what is not? What belongs in the garbage heap, and what belongs in the dragon's hoard?

Objects have a whole different meaning for us, in the Western 21^st Century sense of “us,”, then it did for whatever century the Ainu folk tale came from. At the risk of making a sweeping generalization, I would characterize us as being part of a throwaway culture. Sure, we may still have that band t-shirt from high school, but a lot of what we own is disposable and ready to be replaced by something “better” the moment we take it off the shelf. An ax may last longer than the smart phone, but probably not by much. We have the ability to get objects easily, depending on the size of our bank accounts. If that ax gets buried in the snow and dragged into the vacant lot by the neighbour's dog, you can drive to the store and pick another one up. The folklore is not an easy match between my context and the Ainu's.

                                         (Image downloaded from www.dailymail.co.uk) Photo of Collyer Brothers House

Our folklore now, in its fantastic “reality television” form, points out the extreme of object possession. Namely, people who hoard. They are stories of horror, brought into the public imagination by the Collyer brothers in their New York brownstone (google it), and popularized by the show, “Hoarders.” From an unassuming facade of the house next door, to an interior littered with feces, dead cats, heaps of newspapers, rotting food, corridors of stockpiled bathroom tissue, and collected mounds of bottles and glasses. Sure, we can all look at our messy basements and cringe, but the stories of those who hoard speak of showers impossible to access and ovens that have become storage rather than a tool for cooking. Those things that define the house have become useless.

These are the things that belong in the garbage heap. The number of objects and their age demand that they be disposed of. However, to the person who lives in it, the stuff is equivalent to the treasure in a dragon's hoard. You can imagine a great adventurer slaying a dragon. After brushing off the dust and mourning the loss of his eyebrows from the dragon's fire, he is greeted by hoarded papers with dead cats lost in their depths. After all that risk and effort he would do better to call a junk removal company than try to take any of it away. But to the creature who hoarded the newspapers and the cats, they were valued.

I do not claim to know the mind of a person who hoards, though I have read enough literature, listened to enough presentations on the subject, to muse on it. One such study, which I will not be able to quote or cite, used the example of a bottle cap. Remove yourself from the perspective that it should be flicked into the bottom of the beer case or at your friend's head. See it instead as a beautiful work of human craftsmanship. See its thin metal edges, rippled like the ocean's waves, its surface catching the light when placed by the window. Would you throw such a work of art out? Or would you keep it near so that you can enjoy its exquisite form? It still has value, even though it no longer contains the beer.

For the person who hoards to throw out something that has value, means she will be haunted by it. She is sick from throwing it on the garbage heap. Take another example that I will not be able to cite. A therapist takes a man with hoarding tendencies to a book store and has him pick up a cook book. Then he instructs him to put it back down again. He must now walk away. What does it mean for him to not possess the book? It means that he will not be able to cook, to host a party, and, ultimately, to not have any friends. This is an odd example because often people who hoard have actively reduced their social circles anyways. However, it still speaks of haunting, of consequences, of value lost. The man is haunted by a future void of dinner parties and companions.

Now think of our adventurer again, he of the scorched eyebrows and the dead dragon. Picture him grasping the enchanted sword of the dragon's hoard. Hear a chorus of angels and see a ray of light upon him. This sword means a future of dragons slain, a land free of the fear of the great scaly demons. Then, our adventurer throws it back into the hoard, walks out, and is quickly burned to cinders by the dead dragon's understandably upset spouse.

In our throwaway culture there is very little consequence for throwing things out. Well, there is in an environmental sense, but we have very little in the way of stories like our Ainu friends that put so much value on an item thrown away. Though I do not want to make light of the very real danger that hoarding can create, maybe there is something to be said in finding a happy medium between the extremes. Maybe we should see beauty in things we would normally see as banal, or valueless. Maybe we would appreciate what we have now, rather than view things as disposable and always be looking at the next object to replace it with. There is something to be said for extending the value of things, and to seeing things in a different way. To see magic in the mundane.

                                         Ainu Family, 1906 (Downloaded from japanfocus.org)

Chamberlain, Basil Hall. Aino Folk Tales, 1888

Picture Photo Combo #2 - "Tower Set Sail" and Essex Masque Update

Hello All,

Just an update that my story, "Douglas and the Snowball" is up at the Adventure Worlds Blog. Check them out on the blog, and on their Facebook page, for other Windsor - Essex writers.

http://adventureworldsblog.com/
https://www.facebook.com/adventureworldsblog

Also, I will be posting my first Random Musing (Creative non-fiction) very soon. It is called The Heap or the Hoard, and is an Ainu folk tale inspired meditation on people who hoard.

And here is a brief little story inspired by a picture I took the other day.

                                         Floating Tower by Patrick Firth

Tower Set Sail

On days where mist formed on the Detroit River, Brandon got out his mom's camera, took out the watercolour paints, or got out his pencil and paper. He had read lots of stories where the hero would only be able to use his powers if he was really angry. He had watched a movie where the hero could only fight well if he was drunk. Well, he had seen half of it before his dad realized that he had been hiding behind the chair and watching the adult movie an hour after bedtime. Brandon's muse, the source of his artistic power, seemed to be mist.

This day, with both the States and Amherstburg invisible with the fog that hung heavy over the river, Brandon felt electrified. His hair stood on end and his fingers twitched for whatever work they might be put to. There was a difference today though, and Brandon had a hard time thinking of what it was. As if something might, happen. He really didn't know what that meant, this happening, but it was hard to keep himself contained.

Later he could not explain why he chose to draw instead of going out into it. Breathing in the magic of the mist and finding the hidden things that only come out when the light of the day is not there to scare them away. He should have at least taken the camera, instead of sitting in his room and looking out the window. Instead, he was forced to see the tower on Boblo Island, the legacy of the amusement park that closed before he was born, float away into the mist like it was the mast of some ship set sail for an otherworldly coast.

He stared at the place it had been for a long time after, forgotten pencil on paper as white and untouched as the mist that had carried the tower away.

Potato Boy comic

Hello All,
Here is a comic coming from J.H.P ("Brought to you by someone fancy" as it says on the website), who lives in the Windsor - Essex area.
Enjoy! He is a sassy little spud if I do say so myself. Storytelling at its best.

http://potatoboycomics.weebly.com/

And here is a sample page.

Potato Boy Doesn't Find Gold and Potato Boy Makes Bank Deposits by J. H. P.

Picture Photo Combo #1 - Bridge into Cloud

                                          Bridge into Cloud by Patrick Firth

      Halfway across, Detroit disappeared into a cloud. Though all the other cars turned around he kept on going. He had been born and raised in Windsor, lived in Windsor, worked in Windsor. Still, the thought that Detroit was disappearing was too much for him. In that moment, he decided he would follow it wherever it went. His car disappeared into the fog, and he was never seen again.

Serminus Interruptus (Mini Story #7) by Patrick Firth

(Church and people are of course fictional, and resemblance to actual is purely coincidental.)
 

      Mistress Flemgulge nearly fell off the pew when Reverend Lots swayed up to the pulpit like a ship in a tempest. He gripped a single sheet of paper with a hand palsied by age. The Reverend was nearly as old as she was, and Mistress Flemgulge was as old as the wooden bones of the church itself. He had not spoken in St. John's in a decade.

      All conversation ceased. Some were anxious to hear his words. Others were more concerned that he would shatter into a cloud of dust and broken bones on the red and gold carpet of the nave.

      "The Lord saw fit to give us a dark side," he began. The silence of our collective shock was a blessing as his voice was tremulous, and seemed to disappear into the heavy timbers above us. "Satan's side. The side of brimstone, and fire. The side of temptation."

      I thought back to the night before when I had caught a hidden glimpse of Prissy Handen through a square of naked window. She had been in the midst of disrobing. I could not remember smelling any brimstone, though I was not sure what sort of odour it had.

      "The side of carnal desire," he continued. "Of knowing the heat of another's flesh. Of tasting their salt. For pleasure, and pleasure alone." My mother looked over at me, then back at Reverend Lots, and then back at me. I strained to hear every word. Each syllable was like the thrumming of an insect's wings beside my ear, and just as hard to catch.

      "Does he not know there are children here?" Mother hissed. Father blew out a long breath, moustache twitching under closed eyes.

      "And just as He gave this side to all of us, so did He to Rev ..." Lots cleared his throat, which turned into a long, wracking cough. "Mister. Mister Sullust." He cast his eyes Heaven-ward, mouth gaping and dark. "Mr. Sullust has spat in the face of Creation." Here his face twisted into a grotesque caricature of incredulous horror. "He entered the body of Widow Jeggins. He, my fellow followers of Christ, has fallen into his temptation. Into the Devil's side."

      "Children," Mother said. Father harrumphed again. Or was it a snore?

      "Easy for you to say, Lots," said Mr. Chum in the front, a slight man with a thick, plaid blanket over his lap. Mr. Chum had given much of his sizable fortune to St. John's. He since had suffered from a stroke that, according to Mother, had removed his 'filter.' "Even the Devil wouldn't try and tempt you." Mistress Flemgulge laughed in spite of herself, and Reverend Lot's face darkened.     

     However, he knew better than attempt to remonstrate Mr. Chum. Instead he looked back down at his notes and traced the path of his sermon with a finger that reminded me of a winter branch. The Reverend mouthed a couple of words, but shook his vulture's head every time, until he made it to the bottom of the page.

      "Mr. Sullust will not be returning. We do not have a replacement."

      "Widow Jeggins would probably give a better description of Sullust's sin, Lots. We'd all learn our lesson then," Mr. Chum said. "Where is she?"

      Mistress Flemgulge's cackling laughter followed Lots as he tottered down from the pulpit and into the recesses of St. John's.

                                         ... or my bird'll get ya. by Patrick Firth

@EssexMasque

For those stumbling across this blog, I have a twitter feed celebrating story telling in Windsor - Essex County / Ontario / Canada / The World. Let me update you on my own writing and the stories of others.
You can find me at @EssexMasque.

Remember, while I love the sound of my own Voice, this is a spot for more than just me. Send mini stories in, thoughts on modern folklore, narratives about Windsor - Essex (especially), or comments on what I am doing here. You are most welcome. I would take a picture of myself with open arms, but let us just assume it is there without actually subjecting you to that.

I have a couple other mini stories on the way, plus a meditation on folklore and hoarding, plus a companion story. This meditation is still in its rough form though, so do not expect it tomorrow.

Primary Intruder (Mini Story #6) by Patrick Firth

        The hulking shape of the man stopped when the door cracked and the light from the hall lamp struck his reaching fingers. My drawers were open and clothes flung into piles. My initial impression was one of disorder, the clean lines of folded apparel now erased in the crumpled heaps. But after another moment of consideration, I realized that this was merely one form of order imposed on the other; this order being that of colour. Red socks with red evening jackets. White underclothing with white blouses. And it was this epiphany that led to another. Namely, this must be the eccentric captain of the ship, "Primary Currents," whose red, blue, and yellow hull had docked two evenings previous.

The Right Stance (Mini Story #5) by Patrick Firth

      The man beside me at the Windsor Bus Terminal held the peculiarity of his arrival as a badge of circumstances bested. His once manicured beard was torn, greatcoat soiled and bloody. His notebook, normally devoted to drawings and annotations of the various contortions his body would assume during meditation, now had a scrawled entry about the shadowy stranger who had waylaid him halfway across the green space of the former Grace Hospital site. I had moved away from the odour he exuded, his violent appearance, when he occupied the seat next to me. Perhaps he was more disturbing to me since his station reflected my own, only fallen on a disturbing series of events. In spite of this, he turned to me and held up a page. It depicted a man, naked but without genitalia, with one arm twisted behind his back and the other held like a crane's head in front. The heels pressed together, toes pointed perpendicular to the forward facing torso.

      "This is the stance that saved me. I suggest you memorize it, young man."

      And I found I did.