www.philipquinn.ca
"Writer "
The Bearded Mirror published in Lichen journal Spring/Summer 2005
page 2
Uncle
thinks I don’t know but I have known for years why the other children bark
at me when I attempt to play with them.
One day, my grandmother became annoyed with my scratching. Oula, the
family cat, must have given me her fleas. Grandmother came over to where I
was sitting with a shiny object in her hands that bounced light all over the
room. She asked for a blessing from the Lord as she held it to my face.
I saw this furry-faced animal but with eyes I knew were mine. She
then led me into the hall and turned over one of the picture frames and
lifted me up to it in case I did not understand. "That's you, not some dog I
hold in my arms. My poor child, it's you. You poor, damned creature."
But I pretend not to know of my freakish state, mother and father
denying me nothing, believing me to be the devil's work.
I have taught myself to read and write with the old man's help. And I
stay inside unless he takes me for a walk.
We have a favourite spot on the shore of the lake where the trees are
thickest and we sit on flat stones, watching how the wind draws on the
surface of the water. In the spring, raiding jays will push eggs out of
nests, and uncle will sometimes hobble over to retrieve a smashed egg.
Today the egg was blue. A robin's egg. But once the cracked top was
pulled off by uncle, all I could see was the blood that the little body was
made of. A terrible colour and form though the old man marveled at it.
"See the small beak and thin delicate wings, fragile yet with the
strength of quick-fired silver,” said uncle. “The eyes that look like a
speck of emerald in a pink, evening sky though certainly not what one sees
here with all that grey factory smoke."
He put the top back on and placed the small egg in the palm of his
hand and held it out to show me.
“Imagine, boy. I could fit an entire world into this egg.”
I do believe him, for father is a watchmaker, fits tiny pieces of
metal into round shapes the size of a franc though when I marvel at father’s
work, the old man becomes angry.
"The Swiss are too practical. The true joy of the artist is to make
an object of beauty with no use. Even the stupid Czar could appreciate the
wonder in that. Maybe one day you’ll understand what I am talking about."
Back in the old man's room, he allows me to light the small stove and
to fetch water from downstairs for his tea. We wait for the whistle and I
enjoy how the steam moistens my face. Though we both know that as soon as
the sun sets, the old man’s coughing will start.
In the morning, I help him dry on the stove the green and black mess
that he has coughed up during the night. I watch as he takes a small tool
and fishes out the specks of gold and silver. He separates them into small
piles and when there is enough, he weighs them on his scale, puts them in a
pouch and after weeks of this, we visit a jeweler who gives him coin for
what was once inside him.
The old man tells me there is enough in his lungs to feed and shelter
him until another old man dies. He is waiting for the death of this other
old man.
