Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread

This is a quick attempt to make whole wheat pumpkin bread with my puree pumpkin supply. Also, my sourdough starter isn't as up to snuff as I would like it to be, unfortunately.

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Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread

1 c warm water
1-2 Tbs dry yeast
1 c white flour

Mix until even in a bowl, allow to rest

2-3 cups puree'd pumpkin
2-3 Tbs molasses
about 1/3 cup honey
3-4 Tbs pumpkin spices (cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, etc.)
6 Tbs butter
1 & 1/2 Tbs salt

Add to a small or medium pan, heat at medium until butter is melted and mixture is warm. Blend starter and pumpkin mixture in a large mixing bowl.

1-2 cups white flour
3-5 cups wheat flour

Gradually add flour and mix until you have a soft but not particularly wet dough. You can also make a sweeter, whiter loaf or a heavier, heartier, whole wheat loaf. Allow to rest at least thirty minutes, then turn out and knead until smooth. Separate into loaves (three medium loaves, or two rounds; I am doing a small braid and a full loaf) and shape, place on greased sheet or loaf pan, allow to rise for about thirty minutes or until size has doubled, then bake at 350 F for (probably) 30-40 minutes (they're in the oven now). Hopefully it turns out!

Granola Bars & Bird Seed Bread

Last summer I bought a small food scale that was on clearance. I didn't use it much at all at school, but I broke it out the other day to work on brownies and sort of fell in love with it. It is a simple, analogue dial readout with a medium sized boat-shaped bowl, that can hold a surprisingly large amount. My mom and I have also used it for weighing fruit for preserves. If you can find one for a modest price, or a used one, I would suggest it. I have stuck with weights for these, which may be inconvenient without one.

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Nut Chocolate Granola Bars

Toast at 350 F for 15 minutes:

8 oz thick oats
3 oz sunflower seeds
4 oz walnuts
4 oz almonds
4 oz cashews
3 oz pecans (optional)
4 oz millet
2 oz sesame seeds
1/2 c (or 2 oz) wheat germ

While the above are toasting, in a medium sauce pan on low to medium heat, melt and blend:

3/4 c honey
1/4 c molasses
1 c creamy peanut butter
8 oz bittersweet or unsweetened chocolate (at least 65% cacao)
2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbs cinnamon

Separately, measure out and put into a large mixing bowl:

4 oz flax seed
4 oz sweetened flake coconut

Mix the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl and blend until even, then mix in the dry ingredients (you can allow them to cool, first). After the dry ingredients are blended, stir in honey-peanut butter mixture and mix until even; be sure to check the bottom for remainder. Turn out onto lightly greased 9x13 pan (I use the same pan as In toasted them in, so the butter glides right on) and press to the pan with wax paper. Bake at 300 F for 25 minutes, allow to cool entirely and cut into squares. They'll last a while (no ingredients to spoil), but I've wrapped them up to avoid drying out further. Undermixing makes some parts too dry to stick together, but the wet ingredients and coconut generally make a solid batch.

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I started with the same base and made some with dried fruit.

Fruit Granola Bars

Toast at 350 F for 15 minutes:

8 oz thick oats
3 oz sunflower seeds
4 oz walnuts
4 oz millet
2 oz sesame seeds
1/2 c (or 2 oz) wheat germ

While the above are toasting, in a medium sauce pan on low to medium heat, melt and blend:

3/4 c honey
1/4 c molasses
1 c creamy peanut butter
2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbs cinnamon

Weigh out and mix:

6 oz dried cranberries
4 oz dried apricots (cut into small pieces)
4 oz shredded, sweetened coconut
2 oz dried papaya

The specific choice of fruit is up to you, these ingredients will likely change over time.

Put dried fruit into mixing bowl, then add toasted ingredients and blend until even. Add in the honey-peanut butter mixture and mix until even. Turn out onto lightly greased 9x13 pan, pressing even with wax paper, and bake at 300 F for 25 minutes. Allow to cool before cutting.

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Bird Seed Bread

2 c white flour
2 c wheat flour
1 c oats
1/3 c sunflower seeds
1/3 c millet
1/3 c wheat bran
1/3 c flax seed
1/4 c sesame seeds
2-3 Tbs dried yeast

Blend together in a large mixing bowl. Then add:

1/8-1/4 c molasses
1/3 c honey
4 Tbsp butter (room temperature)
2 tsp salt

(The honey and molasses I sort of just drip over and estimate to help with an even consistency, so those measurements are flexible.) Mix the above together and add enough water to make a wet dough (1 & 1/2 to 2 & 1/2 cups).

Allow dough to rest at least 45 minutes in the bowl. Turn out on floured counter and knead with whole wheat flour until smooth. Return to bowl and allow to rest for another hour.

Punch down, roll out, and shape. I favor four small rounds, but can be made into fewer or more loaves. Optionally dress the loaves with a mixture of 1 Tbs each of oats, bran, and sesame before proofing; proof for at least one hour. Preheat oven to 350 F and bake for about 25-35 minutes until crust is firm and crisp, sounding hollow when tapped.

Enjoy!

Recipes to Post

Sometime in the next 36 hours I will post these recipes. I had planned on doing so today, but a little misadventure prevented that

Chocolate and nut granola bars,
Dried fruit granola bars,
& Bird seed bread;
and in the near future
Pumpkin bars,
Whole wheat pumpkin oat cookies,
& Whole wheat pumpkin spice bread.

Notes on "Droplets"

The story I have just finished posting is still in its rough. I have been reading through it--I just finished doing so myself a few days ago--and have already begun to iron out inconsistencies. Overall, though, I am pretty satisfied with the tale. Kalisa refered to it as a novella, which may be saying a little much, but then again, it may not be. The story is definitely slightly macabre, but the suspense is intended to be subtle, a gradual building rather than something cacophonous. That has been taking up a bit of my time, particularly because the style is one I am rather attached to. Generally speaking, I feel that we ignore some of the mystery that pervades our world in order to make it feel solid. The introduction of George touches on the mysterious even in the world of science; it is only upon reflection that I think of "the miracle" as really tying into the story as a whole. (The science joke about the miracle is based on something a chemistry teacher brought up in high school, by the by.) Upon rereading, I feel that the story does tie into itself surprisingly well, the bits and pieces of background lending to the overall story in a way I had not predicted. I hope that it is an enjoyable read for those who have finished it, and mind that it has a few more drafts to undergo before I set it down for a while. In the meantime, I have a short story that I look forward to playing with in the near future which I will post here as well, probably in two parts.

The Fate of Droplets (x, and final)

It was some time later, about three weeks, that I saw George again. As no body had yet been found, the case had become a missing persons rather than a homicide and George had been released from custody, though she was expected to stay in town. She had not yet continued work, though with the expectation that she would cover all the ground once she returned. She had called, uncharacteristically quiet and timid, and we had set up a rendezvous at a coffeeshop near her apartment. It was a familiar place in which we both felt at ease despite the bizarre circumstances.
“I have had difficulty assembling the pieces,” she stated plainly, humbly.
“Do you think that they can be?”
She looked up at me, holding her mug tightly despite its heat. I caught myself staring at her partially amputated digit. Something crossed my mind and vanished again, leaving an emptiness in my head where it had been.
“I have always lived and worked under the pretense that experience is explicable. If I lose that, what do I have left?”
I was quiet, stewing over the words, of George's axiomatic principle. According to all accounts, I had apparently lost Henry, but I had no deeply rooted suppositions about the world as George had. Now, she was losing that well out of which she had always functioned, from which she was nurtured.
“Henry amazed me,” she said. “I couldn't help but envy him, envy his contact with something outside of his own questions, outside of their answers. I wanted it, whatever he had found. He touched, he tasted something I have yearned for my entire life. One day, he comes back with it and doesn't know what to do with it.” George spoke calmly, quietly, and I shied from her tone which was neither passionate nor angry, but analytic and uncompromising.
“Can you say anymore about that night?”
“No,” she said into her mug, and then looked up at me, her eyes oddly soft. “By then,” she stared at me, then past me, “by then whatever was happening was happening through me, not by me. My God, Lex, all I could do was squirm as it played me. I would never believe it if it weren't for the feeling it gave me. It felt like something had reached up inside me, something ancient and viscous, the way...” and she whispered such that I couldn't hear. Her conviction, her sentiment shook me. I had continued to wonder if she had been at least somehow part of the action, that she might have stopped it somehow. Then, and I still maintain, that she had made some decision before all these events that sided with that malevolent curiosity, that drive that had led to Henry's death or disappearance; but all the same she was mute to its control, left unable to combat or complain until after.
“I have heard something else,” I eventually added. “Brother James, Henry's spiritual tutor, he seems to have vanished as well. He packed up odds and ends, but his suitcase was found in a ditch outside of town. Do you know anything else?”
“No, but I have heard that, too. What do you think it means?”
“Well, he would have been the most knowledgeable person of Henry's state of mind. If anything, it points to a higher order, that what happened involved more agents than just you, or whatever was coming through you.”
Each of us meditated on this. The space was at first uncomfortable, then smoothed again and we sipped the last of our drinks. We parted, unclear of all that was around us. I sensed a sort of frequency, a vibration in the air as if cracks were forming. Late autumn was upon us, and a gust of chill air can do that with or without the bizarre circumstances. That evening, I met with Mona and she shared something she had heard from others that had slipped her mind up until then. It seems that Thomas, my party-time interlocutor, had been seized by something like an epileptic fit and hospitalized. He woke the next day and could recall nothing of the past two or three weeks. His doctors call it temporary amnesia, with some minor neurological damage showing up in this scan or that. This tidbit struck me silent as I thought of how he had acted on the porch of Jessica's, and I did not enjoy the weight of knowing only I could recall the words spoken there.

The Fate of Droplets (ix)

Two days later, the police allowed me to see George. I had undergone a gamut of inquiry the day following, as well as a series of psychological evaluations, which were not particularly satisfying. The morning before seeing George, I tried to visit the scene. Damage had been done to the floor below and the top floor just above, all of which was taped off and two guard were posted, mostly to fend off media and gawkers. The displaced residents were put up in a hotel at the time. I explained who I was, but all they allowed was for me to see in from the hallway. The scene had been swept over for clues, samples of blood and wax and hair, some fine powder marked spots on the floor and wall. I noticed a strange smudge, like a wide, rounded footpad, as if of an elephant or something was incompletely described by some of the powder. Some trace of that smell like burning plastic remained, but it had been dismissed as residue from the fire. I maintained that Henry avoided synthetic material as part of his study, but no one listened.
I suppose what I went to see was any sign of the portal from the fire. Though ash and charred fabric lay about the room, as well as marks where the fire had nearly spread to the destroyed furnishings, I could determine nothing peculiar relating to the blaze. Other witnesses confirmed the weird, bewitching hue of the flame, but it was explained away by certain metals mixed with the fire, like those in firework displays. This was also to account for the odor that firefighters and other residents had emphasized in their tellings.
When I arrived at George's hospital door, I was still recovering but felt doubly drained by the unsurprising nature of the scene we had left. The furniture, though torn apart had lost the qualities I had seen in that altered state. I had omitted any mention of the strange properties I had seen exhibited on the wall while the fire I limited my story to the chromatic intensity. The silverware had shown some strange magnetism, but most of it, it seemed, had been forced into the yielding plaster of the wall; and the magnetism quickly faded, suggesting it had never been sufficiently potent to hold anything to it.
Seeing George for the first time since, I felt demolished. She was held as the primary suspect—I was set apart thanks to witnesses who saw me enter following the events—responsible for the disappearance and likely homicide of Henry Carnes. The blood on the wall was cross-checked with hair samples from a comb and confirmed to be his, and the quantity found suggested a severe or lengthy bleeding. In the apartment, police found George's backpack, the one I had seen her with days before, filled with pieces of wax and some odd, indecipherable scribbles of which neither officers nor George could make heads or tails.
But here was George, strung up and guarded, wounded and accused. I had, almost off-handedly, assumed George's guilt, particularly with the oddities I had witnessed and Henry had described. All the same, I could not deny my curiosity and the absurdity of the situation, so I chose to think of George as a friend first, and as somehow involved in the probably demise of Henry second or third. (This, too, felt absurd, but the profound difficulty in shaping the experience to anything that fits in my life has allowed some strange flexibility in my choices.) And so, I came to speak with her.
“How are you feeling?”
“They drug me, but not enough. I can feel my bruises whenever I fidget. I think the nurses refuse to give me more out of disgust.” She peered at me, suspicious and clever; later, I understood that she was considering if I might be acting the stooge for the police, but she must have thought better of me. “Why are you here?”
“To see you. To try and make sense of it.” We sized one another up, and for a moment, I felt exceedingly dishonest. “I went to the apartment this morning.”
“How was it?”
“It felt and appeared pretty normal. Normal for a crime scene. Normal for tables and rugs torn in two.” I looked at my feet and muttered, “Normal for Henry being dead.”
“You don't know that, there's no body.”
“But you do. You know.”
George stared at me, her face turned cold and bloodless.
“George, you were there.”
“No, I wasn't exactly there.”
“Henry called while it was happening. He mentioned you.”
“What did he tell you?”
Then I thought of his words, I pulled them out and felt them, realizing I had misspoken before saying them again.
“Through me, he said. It wasn't me, it was through me.”
“What does that mean, George?”
“Henry knew while I didn't. Most of my actions were numb, dream like. I couldn't feel myself as I did them and then they would fade from memory. You saw me. I was in no state to have done anything.”
“I know, George; but what happened?”
“Henry told you that he was channeling something, that whatever he had gone into was still with him. Well, when he punctured the veil—that is what he called it when I spoke with him—it must have weakened something, triggered something. I was curious and then obsessed by his experience. Before I knew it, I wasn't in control of my actions or my words. I remember, vaguely but I remember, spying on the two of you, then on him. Lex, if I was so obsessed with Henry, why can't I remember anything specific?”
“How do you know so much, though?”
“I have had two, under-medicated days of surgery and thinking. All I have been doing is piecing it together as best as I can.” George's face reddened and I saw her in rigid, furious pain; “It was in me, Lex. It took my curiosity and twisted it into obsession, madness, and that was like a beacon through the hole Henry made. When I came to, I felt its absence, like emptiness, like it had carved me out so that it could fit, like I was some, some costume. Lex, I feel caved in, my body feels polluted, toxic.”
I moved to her, to reach out and touch her and she shifted as best as she could away from me. The guard turned and saw me approach her. George made a noise I could not discern. The guard ordered me out. I obeyed. In the hall I sat and thought for a long time before leaving.

The Fate of Droplets (viii)

I had very little in the way of warning when I picked up the receiver the next night. Before I heard distinct words, a clanging hymn or prayer carried over the line. Behind that, were noises I do not care to describe, although even now they bring to mind an immense drain or vacancy, like pressure gathering in one's ears and pulling at the back of one's throat. Eventually, Henry said something over the cacophony.
“Lex, are you there?”
“What is wrong? It sounds terrible—“
“It came again, Lex. I knew but could do nothing.”
“Who? What?”
“Through, her, through Georgia.”
And he began shouting incomprehensibly into the room. The speaker clattered as it hit something. I strained to understand as I slipped on shoes. On the other end of the line, as I walked out the door, something foul and deep and guttural, noisome and fiendish bellowed. The menace was diluted by the phone, but I with my door open, it seemed to taunt me as a raced to Henry. My pulse pounded with primitive fear and dread. It sounds mad, but I felt that howl chase me from within my head, receding only as I breathlessly reached Henry's apartment. Some residents had fled the building and gawked above, seeing queer blue and yellow lights swirl and flash. The lights recalled images of space, of stars burning impossibly brilliant and hot; plasma and energy and nuclei dislodged from the normal laws.
The air in the stairwell was noxious and horrible, oppressive in its density. In it were the scents of ozone, freshly crackled into being by lightning, as well as the acrid odor of burning polymers, and something more indescribable, something that once overpowered me and I stopped, only steps from the door swung wide. I became ill and the colors, the space, the steps and walls swam around me; someone seemed to slither by, though it felt infinitely difficult in my psychedelic state; the colors only parted to welcome something in and then shed them again as easily. With the passing of the unknown figure, I recuperated some—though how I cannot say, even the later police could hardly breathe amidst the stink—and forced my way through the air that seemed aqueous or mercurial. At the portal—which the doorway had surely become—I stalled and felt something that had been loosened, become entirely unhinged in my mind.
The floor swam from side to side, as if all the floorboards and rug, even the shredded furniture and curtains, had transmuted into the desk ornament sloshing colored water back and forth. On my right—which slithered above me as much as to one side or another—the kitchen tiles and counters, the sink and refrigerator door were all riven and shattered; metal objects seemed magnetized together and forced into a crater in the wall, though many seemed to stand on end from the floor. In the main room, sundered tables lay against either wall, marked as if they had been twigs, split and tossed by monstrous, diabolic children. In the tabletops, on the floorboards, and upon the wall was the unmistakable hue of blood, but blended with various unknown substances, exhibiting the most horrific properties under these altered physical laws. I saw strange hieroglyphs and fluid scribbles shudder into and out of form, sometimes the macabre media blending and other times separating into clear red, black, blue, and waxy pearl colors. Some candles were overturned from the center of the floor and some scraps of rug and tapestry had caught fire, but the fire rolled about and glowed awfully, casting the light seen from outside. All of this I saw suddenly, as if through a wider lens of viewing and all in focus, in horrible, attentive detail.
Within the fire was something dark and deep. Though something deep and instinctual urged me out again, my hand reached out for it. Unbalanced and horribly fatigued, I fell, and thankful I am for that. I heard then the sucking sound and the laugh again. It originated—I felt from my shaken bones outward—from that depth within the plasma blaze in the center of the room. Against my face, blood splattered and seeped, though already I could sense the return of normal gravity, of the laws around which we have built our psyches as well as our cities. Something in the room blinked, as if something powerful and cosmic had swept its hand over to smooth the ruffles in the fabric. I could see the horrible walls: gibberish scrawled in deep scratches and dripping, malevolent blood and wax, but the former dribbled and the latter cooled as I once felt they always would.
A scraggly sob came to my ear and I pushed myself up. My limbs and mind were drained beyond any stamina of which I was familiar, but I was unharmed. Down the hallway, hiding within Henry's meditation room sad a broken and horrified Georgia. She had been made fragile and was obviously in both physical and psyhic pain. I came to her and fell next to her, holding her as lightly as I could. Beneath my hand, in her skin, I felt damage I am not trained to describe, though later she would be diagnosed with a shattered arm, a handful of broken ribs, and three broken fingers, as well as a concussion and many minor lacerations. All I could do, though, was hold her and push the fear down, swallow that horrible uncertainty of her involvement and the fate of Henry, who I had neither the energy nor the motivation to discover.

The Fate of Droplets (vii)

I was awake when Henry called, though the house had been silent and the ringing startled me.
“Alexis, have I waken you?”
“No Henry, you're fine.” I had not been sleeping, but felt heavy and groggy. A small glass of whiskey sat next to my computer and I contemplated it before Henry spoke again.
“Georgia visited.”
“I saw her in the stairwell.”
“She did not mention that. She had made it sound like happenstance that she was in the neighborhood. I did not know she knew where I lived.”
“I think I showed her yesterday.” Something in his tone struck me, and I reached for the whiskey, sipping slowly from it.
“Georgia, she asked me about my experience. She refered to as 'the incident,' which sounded strange to me.”
“She is very scientific. It is a word she would use.” The motion of the drink in the glass caught my attention, it wavered back and forth, small but majestic. “What did you tell her?”
“Well, I was open to her at first. I tried to focus on details, which is what she asked of me to do. She asked certain questions, questions that surprised me.”
“What do you mean?”
“She asked about the city I saw, or what I could say was a city but also wasn't. The place I saw flowed in many directions like a city, but there were no obvious barrier, nothing that did and did not flow, only everything at a different pace. I did not tell you everything, nor did I tell Georgia. What I told both of you was only the beginning. At the beginning and at the end was the city, but Brother James and I discussed what was beyond that, what I felt and touched was much deeper, much older. Brother James knows words for that place, words I cannot now explain. When I mentioned the smell in my dreams, that was the smell of the deeper place. Georgia asked about the scent, about my dreams, about much more than she ought to have thought of to ask.”
“George has a very inquisitive mind. Might that have been part of it? Could she just have noticed details more so than me?” Agitation hinted at his voice, which bled into mine; my voice wavered as I spoke.
“That is unlikely. In the hospital, her presence moved me, it manipulated the momentum around me, the motions to which I have become sensitive. All people seem to change the energies in the room, it is only natural with how we are bound up—life and tissue and pulse and electricity—but she has a different frequency. I believe I ought to fear her.”
“You ought to fear her? Henry, I have known George for years. She is pragmatic, even opportunistic, but I have never known her to harm anyone.”
“I hope that you are right. Speaking with you calms me. Perhaps I sound a little bewildered. I am very much not myself, so much around me feels novel. Georgia does have a potent personality, and her inquisitiveness is unusual.” Henry spoke distantly, removed from his own thoughts. This was his attempt to calm me despite his own concerns. Then, I accepted it in a lackluster way. The days had worn on me heavily and I had hoped, yearned for some return to normality. Now, Henry was implying something malevolent in George, and I did not have the energy to hear it. “Visit me tomorrow or the day after. If you see Georgia, tell her I am with my parents. I do not wish to see her for some time. Good night, Alexis. Thank you.”
“Good night, Henry.”
With the click of the phone, I sighed and reached for my drink, but found it already empty. I walked into the kitchen and poured myself another glass and plunked in an ice cube, which clattered against its base and then its walls. On the refrigerator was a note from Mona, a little handwritten invitation to Jessica's party. I thought of Thomas and the conversation that had intrigued Henry earlier. As I sat down at my desk again, I picked up the my phone and called Mona. It rang a while, but she eventually answered.
“Hey Lex,” she answered, neither unhappy nor enthused.
“Would you want to get coffee tomorrow?”
“Sure, but I can't. I have work and then a class in the afternoon and am studying with friends through dinner. What about Tuesday?”
“That's fine, I'd like that.” I paused, feeling the silence on the line and wondering what to say. “Something else. Have you known Thomas for a long time?”
“A while. He dated Jessica for a while, that's how we met. Why?”
“Something about him from that night sticks out. When he and I were on the patio, he acted funny.”
“He acted strange? You had to walk Henry home.” At this, I could hear the reluctant smile in her voice, and I could not help but smile, blushing mildly. “But I know what you mean. He likes to pick arguments, but that was a weird one for him to go after. You two were still talking about it out there, weren't you?”
“We were. I wanted to nail down his opinion on his argument.”
“He can dodge around just to see what everyone's thinking without saying much himself. What did you learn?”
“He mentioned that he thinks politics or culture or whatever are impacted by something we can't figure out. How he acted as I asked him was strange, almost paranoid.”
“What? How? Thomas is so confident, that doesn't make sense.”
“He kept scanning the backyard, as if he was seeing things. It”—and here I faltered, pausing sharply—“reminded me of someone.”
“Well, I don't know anything about it.”
“I didn't suspect you to, but I wanted to talk to someone about it. Sorry for leaving so suddenly.”
“Henry needed your attention. It was good of you. It was nice that you came, I liked seeing you in that jacket.”
“Thanks. You looked pretty phenomenal.”
We both were smiling, perhaps even blushing, and a warm silence circulated.
“I have work in the morning. So, good night, Lex.”
“Good night, Mona. I'll see you Tuesday.”
“Tuesday, I look forward to it,” and shortly after, the phone clicked.

Reading The Road, and Apocalyptic Fiction

Apocalyptic story telling has always captivated me. I think I own three anthologies of end of the world short stories. This is a somewhat embarrassing interest since it is a niche few writers can pull off well. Who, after all, has experience with the end of the world and how people act?

As it turns out, Cormac McCarthy seems to know people just that well. The Road follows a man and his son in the gray, damp, and ashen wastes of a world breathing its last. Few other characters besides these two exist in the book, save for savage, cannibalistic marauders and strangers secretively passed at night. One character, though, breaks into the lives in an uncannily potent manner. I encourage the read and will say little, but do want to share some of my reflections on the encounter.

The man--usually, but not always, a self-removed narrator--ponders in the text, "Maybe he is a god and he will turn us into trees." The line, as well as others in the episode, suggest a certain divinity, a sort of heightened reality going on, one enmeshed in mythology or spirituality or--what McCarthy seems to imply--simple but uncommon humanity that is otherwise ambiguous or lacking both in the book and amongst the audience. What McCarthy hits on in his post-apocalyptic tale is the simultaneous transformation, degradation, and elevation of humanity and character under such tribulations.

Some scenes are profoundly troubling, haunting in their suggestive horror. The man often attempts to shield his son from the markings of an increasingly desolate world, saying and later repeating that, "Once something is in your head it stays there." All the while, the boy and man adhere to being the good guys, distinct from the bad guys, who carry the flame. The episode alluded to above is obviously a manifestation for the boy concerning being the good guys. It, against the backdrop of decay and death, shines all the more clearly as beautiful and enlightened.

What McCarthy deftly expresses is what any setting like that of The Road ought to capture: In the presence of unforeseeable and unpredictable upheaval, it is possible to find humanity shine against the dark. It is obvious to the man in the book that his role is not just as protector and sojourner, but as sentinel to the light that most others--though living--have already lost. Such radiance casts subtle, remarkable, and beautiful hues around the setting; hues we are not always prepared to witness, but hues that we long for all the time.

The Fate of Droplets (vi)

I returned to the hospital the following morning. George had taken me home and joined me for some coffee. She asked about Henry, about his condition and what had been going on. She sounded, at the time, genuinely concerned and I was happy to shake the strangeness of her meeting with Henry. I could not then make sense of why she would probe except out of sincerity or some earnest curiosity. I informed her as best as I could, avoiding only those details which fit poorly with my own memory, the ones that lacked coherency with the remaining story—though I would have omitted the feeling of transmission or broadcast that Henry had emitted on his return home following Jessica's party.
At the hospital, Henry and I filed the appropriate records and left, at which point I asked about the meeting with Brother James.
“We spoke of my experience, that which I tried to articulate when you visited. Brother James assisted me in finding words for it, though words will remain lacking for describing it. Brother James referred to a Japanese term, kakugai, or 'world beyond conditions or understanding;” he said that I had reached perception of such a place, that I had returned from a backward journey.”
“What does that mean, 'a world beyond understanding?'”
“It is hard to say, my memory of the experience slips in and out of my own thoughts; it evades my ability to place it anywhere, not in experience, memory, or intellect will it stay.”
“You're speaking differently. Is that from Brother James or from the experience?”
“I do not know. I feel uncomfortable, cramped, as if this space I am now in has changed, too.”
“Are you worried? What will you do next?”
We had walked passed the hospital parking lot and entered the neighborhoods surrounding it. I felt alarmed, but in an intellectual, academic way, as if a research subject were describing unusual responses, not presumed by any preceding research. I was also rapt by Henry's telling, though his tone lacked luster and finesse, but spoke plainly and courteously, as if he were offering it all to me. Henry replied after a moment of contemplation.
“I feel beyond concern. Seeing 'world beyond conditions' was like seeing a city from an airplane or an antfarm from outside, but every detail is illuminated: What I sensed were underlying patterns, motions, energies that revealed that which one cannot see from within. It was all clear and crisp, unpolluted. I smelled it, even in my sleep last night it came back to me; I smelled the world, both the richness and the foulness, neither beautiful nor disgusting, but certainly, sharply. I feel the pressure of waves—the secretive momentum of the world—urging me forward or backward or to stay put, walking is not exertion so much as flowing. In that tide, in the tingling sensation on my calves and at the base of my neck, I can ascertain danger, danger keeping itself hidden, but I cannot fear it. Do you worry for me, Alexis? Perhaps you are frightened.”
He turned to me then, with those words, and I saw in his eyes some hint of the foreignness he had experienced, some exquisite depth and volume that does not reside in our eyes normally. I thought then of Brother James and the droplets on the window pane. The recollection swelled up stolid and powerful, like a wave gathering at the edge of sight.
“You have been where others cannot ponder, where you yourself cannot understand. Yes, I am frightened, but not exactly of you, but of what you now are.” I trembled then, and he reached out and touched my shoulder, heavily, with the palm of his hand pressing against me, warming me and cooling my fears. I knew then that he had returned not only as himself, but also as an avatar of this world of an illuminated, majestic city, of that place beyond understanding. He calmed me with something in his touch.
“That is good, that you do not fear me, and likely wise, that you fear the what of me.” He turned ahead again, toward his home. "Tell me of the party, of when I felt far away. I remember leaving with you, but that feel vaporous and thin. How did the evening go.”
This change startled me because it so directly connected the two entities that were and became of Henry. I did not expect him, I know realize, to be interested in the events before. Now, I see that it may have been a ploy to further calm me, a sort of theatre to assure me that Henry remained Henry. All the same, I recovered myself and told him of his discomfort and described my aspirations concerning Mona. When it came to the telling of the conversation with Thomas, I began to pause and stutter. It felt foreign on my lips, like someone else's story I had adopted.
“This Thomas, had you met him before? Have you spoken with him since?”
It struck me heavily that so much had occurred in the time since the party only two nights before. I had heard mention of Thomas, but never in detail, and that night had been our first meeting—as it had been for me with Mona's other friends. “No, why do you ask?”
“I wonder if something else is about, something that revealed itself in him. I wonder about those patterns I witnessed. They revealed layers, incomprehensible depths, each working in itself and between the layers.” Henry's words tapered off into his own quiet thought. We were nearly to his place when he began to speak again. “Please, tell me what else happened?”
And so, I concluded the tale, the walk home, saying as little as I could about his murmurings. At the end, I asked him about the accident, if he recalled it at all.
“I do. That is what drew me back. It was like a cord, tugging on me back to myself. I believe the physicians thought me far gone as I worked my way back. When we left for the party, I had been at the end of a lengthy meditation session, during which I had felt an increasing and profound distance from my familiar characteristics. With the accident, those accoutrements were brought sharply back into focus. First I felt my legs, then my feet, then my fingertips. It was like my body was shipped back to itself piecemeal.” I winced at the idea, which Henry noticed and added, “It felt more scientific than painful, I enjoyed the novelty of waking bit by bit.”
We were at his door when I asked, “I am a bit worn out. Do you mind if a stay a while?”
“Not at all. I'll make tea. You can lay down if you would like.”
“Tea first, then perhaps I'll lay down for a moment.”
Up the stairs and in the apartment we went, but the tea sat untouched as I nodded off on his simple but comforting furniture. When I woke, I found the cup of tea cooled, but I drank it quickly. I heard nothing at all in the apartment and so stealthily searched the rooms. One of the doors was closed, so I checked the others first. Each was tidy, though the bed had been hastily made, with the edges of the blanket ruffled near the single pillow at the head. Finally, I peaked into the room with the closed door, cracking it just so slightly. The room was completely unfurnished, but in the center of it sat Henry in full-lotus position with two firm cushions underneath him. I nodded and left, hoping that I might not disturb him. I pulled a scrap of paper and pen from my pocket and wrote him a note, thanking him mostly, and hoped to hear from him soon. Quietly, I laughed at myself because finding an appropriate place to put the note was difficult, as anywhere I might place it seemed to clutter the whole room. In the end, I set it on the table, next to my empty teacup and left, easing the door closed on my way out.
On the stairs, I heard and then saw George. She was mildly frazzled, a typical look for her between her own questions and the work she did, but her presence in the setting befuddled me.
“George, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, Lex, I wanted to see Henry. I wanted to hear more about his incident.”
“How do you know where he lives?”
“You mentioned it to me on the ride to the hospital. You pointed it out in case we were going to take him home.” This, I very well could have done, and it had been on the way, but I could not at all recall the ride to the hospital with George the day before. Nor, it might be said, did I recall not bringing up Henry's apartment.
“Well, he's in the middle of something. I would suggest coming back in an hour. I just left and the door locks on its own. I don't know if he would hear you if you knocked anyway.”
“Oh, alright.” George's face turned pink, and faintly red, as if she had made plans for this rendez-vous and now they were spoiled. “Where are you off to?”
“I need to take care of a few things at home today before work tomorrow.”
George stared at me, then around the stairwell, and back at me, waiting for a cue or hint.
“Are you coming down, then?” I asked.
“Oh, of course.” And so I walked her to her car, out of which she grabbed a bag heavy with this or that. We said goodbye to one another and I began to walk home, retracing some of the course to the hospital on the way. It was a longer walk home, but in the time I was able to consider all the strangeness my life had entertained over the past few days. The wind was sharp and whipped my face. I felt satisfied in the motion of dried leaves and the rustling of grass; somewhere, a lawnmower hummed and as I walked, the scent of the grass wafted over. Some semblance of peace, even a hint of tranquility had made its way into my mind, and I sincerely believed that the worst of it had passed.

(Un)Seasonal Rejuvenation

It has been some time since I spent autumn in Lincoln. The season seems affectionate, but fickle. Days of sunlight and wet warmth follow a few days of cloudy chill, and then the reverse. I may be learning how to read the season as much as it is learning to respond to me as I have been trudging out on my bicycle everyday after the early--and rather perturbing--snowfall on Friday; that day I spent almost exclusively inside, hoping that it would disappear if I just ignored it long enough, which it actually did. Now, though, I bundle up with sweatshirt, jacket, scarf, hat, wool socks, and gloves, get on my bicycle, and pedal away despite the changing season and its occasional bite. I have been rewarded, I feel, for embracing it.

On Saturday and the days since, I have been surprised and enlivened by the scents and hues abounding. Autumn is a season for harvest, preservation, and expectation for the winter to come; it is not a season that particularly celebrates new life and rejuvenation. All the same, I take profound satisfaction in overrunning a carpet of soggy yellow leaves on 27th Street, crackling and crinkling as my wheels crash over them, stimulating a mouldy, squash-y sort of scent that is so characteristic of this time of year. If I were at school, I would likely have begun my long internments in the library, happily shuffling through this or that cultural studies book, Wired and Utne magazines, a science fiction book or something I had uncovered by happenstance, and working away on whatever classes I would be taking. For the first time in years, I feel like I am really paying attention to the shift out of summer, as I am removed from all those distractions of academia. (I might add, that I do have quite a bit of fondness for such distractions, but right now I am enjoying new items to dote over.)

Ruby red leaves and warm, filtered light; soft, wet soil and its accompanying odor; the corresponding cool, saturated air and dry, wintry gusts all find their ways to captivate me. I sense a secretive abundance, the stores of energy and life in plants and the soil, bustling creatures and people, each with their movements, scents, sights, and textures. While my mother and I create cookbooks replete with squash soups and peanut butter bars, beet salads and pecan pies, savory apple bakes and sprouted wheat loaves, and I anticipate their use, their taste, their times for ripeness and richness. I doubt if ever I have felt so strongly the importance of harvest and storage, the role of life in this time when the living already anticipate the anxieties of the winter. I know the cold ahead, the ice and snow and wind that can bare down ruthlessly, that snaps trees in half but brings out blankets to share, cuts out power but ignites fireplaces, that paves roads in ice but allows for sledding and snowball fights. I was tempted by the first snow to brood on the frustrations ahead. Now, I cannot help but be excited by the significance, the uncanny liveliness of autumn and winter, of their own, somehow less obvious celebrations. And again, I am made warm by such thoughts.

Recipes, Property, & a Mill

How do you feel about sharing or not sharing personal recipes? This little project of mine illustrates a bit of my position, and anyone who heard me pummel my way through my philosophy thesis knows something further on the subject. Generally speaking, intellectual property is private until--through personal choice or accident--it becomes subject to the information commons and is maintained by those interested in a particular field, in this case, cooking and baking especially. I may make a recipe, but that doesn't mean that even given the opportunity anyone else is going to make it. (I wonder, has anyone dabbled with any of recipes I have posted here? Laura P. made a remark that she was planning on it, but I do not know if that was followed through.)

Maintaining one's recipes privately is tough work. I may have a notebook to record and annotate recipes of my own (which I do), but a notebook is easily lost, damaged, stolen, or destroyed. A recipe made available to many people--via correspondence or publishing or a weblog--has the benefit of many different copies and is unlikely to vanish so completely. Many recipes are carried down family lines like oral histories and mythologies, a tradition that can maintain and disperse knowledge a little differently. Such a method preserves the knowledge within a specific group (a family) and can denote important events (like marriages or adoptions/births that invite new members into the group); it suggests unity and coherency to those groups in intellectual and social ways; it encourages pride and respect for and amidst the group, a reality which has fallen away in the economic North.

I choose (and generally support) an open method of recipe maintenance. Sharing recipes means enlivening them, encouraging innovation and creativity in others, and is part of maintaining the practice and skill of baking amongst others. Baking is almost necessarily experimental, as it depends on innumerable variables like ingredient specificities, humidity and pressure, temperature, equipment age and reliability, and so on. The practice of baking means learning about food (ingredients), a place (climate and weather), and tools (ovens, mostly), and therefore encourages a sort of rootedness to surroundings which I have appreciated and continued to discover, which I wish to witness and learn from in others.

Openness ought to have mechanisms that cite sources, the way one does when one writes an essay. I would hope that someone would not claim a recipe of mine as their own, though it makes absolute sense that the loaf of bread, cookies, scones, bars, brownies, or whatever is that person's, rooted as it is in the ingredients, equipment, place, and handiwork of that one person. Presently, I am learning more and more about baking sweets, which I have not generally done before. In so doing, I am using the knowledge and insights of others more skilled than myself. "Why yes, I made those brownies. I started out with a recipe from Oprah's website." I made the recipe a bit more of my own and have further work to do--particularly when I learn to use a different oven or have different ingredients--but the recipe is heavily inspired by this one. I don't just start from scratch when I begin a recipe, I have the work of innumerable other bakers on whom I can rely and from whom I can learn. If I can be like that for others, then I am thrilled to do so.

I am also looking for a grain mill, both a kitchen one and probably a smaller commercial one.

...

Spicy Brownies

Preheat oven to 350 F and line a 9x9 brownie pan, preferably with butter. Blend together dry ingredients in a medium bowl:

3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 & 1/2 Tbsp cocoa
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp cayenne pepper
2 Tbsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp dried ground ginger

Notes: For a sweeter and smoother brownie, go with all or partially white flour instead of whole wheat flour, which is what I like to use for its substance and texture. Also, you can go with more cayenne and ginger for spicier brownies, but these are also expensive ingredients so I will likely limit their use for the present.

3/4 cups butter
6 oz bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks (60-80% cacoa content, Adrienne suggests Black and Gold's)
1 cup brown sugar

In a large pan, melt butter over medium heat, then turn to low and add chocolate. Stir chocolate regularly to prevent burning and scrape bottom to loosen any pieces there. (This can be done with a double boiler, but I don't have one and didn't want to juryrig one, so I was careful with low heat.) When chocolate is melted and mixed, remove from heat before gradually stirring in the brown sugar. Then allow to cool at least ten minutes.

2 or 3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Note: If using hearty eggs (firm orange yolks, usually from local, cage-free sources), cut down to two. These are rich brownies and three "regular" eggs (of which I don't approve) was a little too much. Also, from here on out, be careful of overmixing. Blend ingredients just enough and no further to achieve the right consistency.

In the pan, stir in eggs and vanilla just enough to blend. Fold in dry ingredients and stop once they are incorporated. Pour out into greased pan and bake fro 24-30 minutes, checking with a toothpick (if it comes out with dry crumbs or clean, it is done).

1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp powdered sugar

Blend cinnamon and sugar. Once they brownies are cooled, sprinkle the mixture on top. Do not cut the brownies until they have completely cooled. Also, the spiciness picks up gradually over time, so they are not very hot when they are fresh, but are pleasantly so after eight or twelve hours. Enjoy!

...

Oh, and Adrienne, sorry for the delays in posting.

The First of the Gray Days

Autumn has come with low skies and the making of soup. Moving around feels heavy and drab, my bicycle gears are more stubborn now than they've ever been and getting about is a bit more laborious than I expect. Hopefully I can spend some time well accompanied on cool walks with pleasant conversation abounding. For these early days, I am caught unaware and not exactly sure of what to do with myself.

For the first time in about three weeks, I sat down and meditated. Though moderately distracted, it wasn't unfocused or difficult. Rather, I felt connected and--if not exactly calm--sincerely reflective. More than yoga or tai chi, zazen fills a psychic space for me with remains with me the rest of the day. Perhaps my occasional lethargy has transformed itself into something quieter, potentially enriching, and I feel again in a peaceful space.

With news (and complaints) of my friends' collective living conditions, I am increasingly envious of their proximity to others. Having returned home, this space is warm and familiar, the time spent with my mother is really wonderful and I am thankful for the way things have fallen together. All the same, I am increasingly aware that for my own well-being and satisfaction, such time is limited and it may be good to now be pushing for my way out via graduate school next fall (if all goes according to the present agenda). More now than ever, I can acknowledge and treasure the good fortune of a quality bond with my mother, a bond that not too many of my friends seem to share. Now that I have learned of my fortunate circumstances, preserving it is all the more important; but doing so means knowing when to stay and when to leave.

...

Tomorrow I plan on making spicy cinnamon brownies. I will post a recipe of the whole wheat baguettes I made today then as well. I have been thinking of my fellow travelers from my semester in Brazil. I have spent a good portion of the past two years traveling and I hope that this is not some early sign of cabin fever. If it is, I suppose I'll have to pack up my backpack and figure out a route to see some missed friends. Then again, I may have to do so anyway.

Brownies, Lemon Bars, Soda Bread, oh my!

I have been baking. In the wake of finishing a draft of "The Fate of Droplets," I have spent rebounded effort at playing with recipes and baking. Revising my story is near the front of my mind, but setting it aside for a spell allows me to return to it with the right state of mind. So, a few more excerpts of it will show up here until it is through, and be then I will have probably worked my way through it at least once. Also, I completed reading Scott McCloud's Zot!, which was pretty lovely in its youthful insights and critiques; youthful in that way that they remain clever and heartfelt long after the first encounter. Very shortly, I will finish Wendell Berry's The Unsettling of America, which both captivates and frightens me, thus forcing a more relaxed pace in reading it. Bill McKibben's Hope, Human and Wild has been set aside until I need something distinctly hopeful again, which will probably be after Cormac McCarthy's The Road that lays immediately ahead for fast-approaching book discussions. While I bake and clean, Neal Stephenson's Anathem plays on CD nearby, which is incredibly sharp and plays on those primal chords in the human psyche that Stephenson loves to dig into.

Yesterday, I did not leave the house. Gray, autumnal air has found its way to Lincoln and I felt pleasantly locked inside, busied with this or that cleaning task. In the past, days spent indoors usually leave me all the more lethargic and malcontent, but after travel and regular work over the past week, I was happy to be made simply busy in the house. For lunch, I made some simple whole wheat soda bread; a recipe I used nearly verbatim, an uncommon incident these days. Cool but not chilly days are upon us, though I hope to avoid the wintry days that hint on the horizon. I have found a few interesting graduate programs to which I will shortly apply; among them are Northern Arizona's Sustainable Communities Program, Lesley University's Urban Ecology Program, and a few others of which I am less certain. Research and paperwork lays ahead, though I would hope for more interesting fare in these fall days.

Here are a few recipes I have been entertaining. The peanut butter swirl brownies are a little finicky, but I think I have them just about right. They are derived from two other recipes which I modified and may continue to tweak, but only slightly. The lemon bars I will just link to, since I didn't play with the recipe available here, needless to say, they turned out pretty well. The soda bread is mildly modified from Muffins & Other Morning Bakes.

---

Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease a 13x9 pan.

Brownie Batter

1/2 cup butter

Melt butter in a pan, remove from heat and stir in:

1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tspn vanilla

Separately, blend together

1/3 cup cocoa
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tspn salt
1/4 tspn baking powder
1/2 cup (scant) chocolate chips/chunks

Beat dry ingredients into the liquid mixture. The whole wheat flour and chocolate will prevent it from being smooth, but incorporate all ingredients until pretty uniform. Avoid over-mixing (which is pretty easy).

Peanut Butter Bar batter

Blend together in a medium bowl:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tspn baking powder
1 tspn (scant) salt

Set aside dry ingredient mix. Beat together (preferably with an electric mixer) the following:

1 & 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter*
1/2 cup peanut butter**

* The scant salt is because I have been using salted butter, if you are using unsalted butter, then use the whole teaspoon of salt.
** I have been using JIF extra chunk. If you want to use natural style peanut butter, you may have to adjust for the difference in oil content.

2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat in eggs, one at a time until consolidated. Add vanilla and beat in until smooth. Add the dry ingredients last, mixing until all is incorporated--again, avoid over-mixing.

Empty one of the batters into the greased pan, starting with filling opposite corners and then scooping out small amounts elsewhere. Then, do the same with the other batter, mixing slightly but try not to blend the two together. (If that happens, the result is still tasty, but the flavors are less distinct from one another.) Bake for 25-30 minutes, testing with a toothpick. You may need to cover the edges with foil to avoid overbaking the edges (I did this after fifteen or so minutes the first time, but they baked evenly the second time). Allow to cool before cutting.

---

Wheat Flax Soda Bread

Preheat oven to 425 F. Grease a baking sheet.

2 & 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cup white flour
1/2 cup flax seed (ground or whole)
1 tspn salt
1 tspn baking soda

Blend together dry ingredients, then cut in butter and mix with your hands to form small crumbles from the dry mix:

2 Tbsp butter
1 & 1/4-1/2 cups yogurt

Stir in yogurt, then turn out on lightly floured counter to knead just slightly. Roll into a rough ball then flatten into a round onto a greased baking sheet until about 1 & 1/2 inches thick. Dust lightly with flour and bake for 25-30 minutes until browned and crisp.

The Fate of Droplets (v)

I made peanut butter brownies today, but they aren't exactly how I want them. That means, no recipe until I get them right. This is the first attempt at desserts, but I can't help but try and make them with whole wheat and brown sugar instead of their paler counterparts. I finished the draft of The Fate of Droplets--finally--and will post it bit by bit over the next few days. I need to go over it, but it is a relief to finish something that has taken up so much of my thought-space for so long. Enjoy part v, I believe it is the longest section and you might notice some tone changes which I need to work out with revision. That sort of thing is the biggest difficulty I have with longer pieces, I just get tired of writing the narration the same way.

...

The bell on the door twittered when I awkwardly held the door for George at the Chinese restaurant. It was early afternoon as I had slept well through the morning following Jessica's party and the settling of Henry in his apartment. I was groggy, but the ride home had refreshed my senses before I fell asleep.
“The security guards at work are a riot. They have no clue what research goes on and they don't know how to make heads or tails of anything we ask them most of the time. It would be the easiest thing in the world to sneak in and play around.”
“I hope you're not planning anything.”
“Me? No. I don't need to. But I do sometimes play around with them when I'm there late.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, I just suggest that certain chemicals or experiments are highly dangerous or that they ought to ask in a certain way, with that tone that means, 'Otherwise, you might not be able to have children.'”
“That sounds pretty cruel.”
“Only if they are sharp enough to play along. Usually, they don't care and just wander off.”
The maitre d' quietly guided as to a table along the street-facing window, where bright sunshine lit the laminated menus in the dim restaurant. We requested water and tea of our waiter, who then rushed off for them. After we sat, a small quiet ensued, which I then poked with a change in topic.
“You know my friend Henry the Buddhist?” This is often how I introduce him because I feel that the stories about him ought to make more sense if the audience knows he is a Buddhist, but it inevitably comes out like a title rather than a description.
“We haven't met, but you've brought him up before.”
“I think you should meet him. Your, um, pursuits are similar but involve different avenues. I think you two would have good conversations.” George nodded absently, smiling at the waiter who brought in tea, which was poured into each of our little ceramic teacups. “Well,” and here I began to hesitate, because this might still lie in the private space between friends, not yet open to sharing with everyone yet, “he and I went to a party last night but he sort of had an... episode. I don't know what to call it exactly, but it was very strange.” I sipped the tea and George watched me acutely, as if wondering if this might be one of my long, dawdling stories or turn quickly into an intriguing one. “Do you have much knowledge of psychological events, when someone very quickly becomes someone else?”
“Do you mean a fugue?” George asked perking up.
“Maybe, what is that?”
“Well, it has to do with becoming dissociated with earlier memories and manifesting a new persona.”
“Like amnesia?”
“It is one form of amnesia, yes. Someone wanders off and starts a new life for a few days or weeks, then the memories from before return and she abandons the new life for the old.”
I thought on this, chewing over it and piecing together how Henry had acted. I smelled and then sipped the jasmine tea.
“I don't know if that is it, but it might help make sense of how Henry acted last night. So after a couple of hours at the party—he came anxious, but came anyway—Mona tells me he's acting strangely, so I go find him and we walk home. The whole time he sounds like he's talking to himself very quietly, like he's somewhere unfamiliar and quickly keeping notes. At one point, it felt like he was receiving a broadcast from far away, and all his body was was a radio.”
“Or a relay station,” George chimed.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if the message wasn't for you, and it wasn't for Henry, then maybe he was just picking it up to send it somewhere else, like an NPR broadcast out of New York getting picked up and played nearly simultaneously across the country.”
“You're worrying me.”
“Sorry. It just sounded like a relay because it wasn't all that clear and you couldn't decipher it, maybe someone else could.”
The waiter returned with a pad of paper and we ordered; George the kung-pao chicken and I snow pea and water chestnut stir fry. I waited for him to leave before continuing. Talking about Henry and how he had acted embarrassed me, or maybe frightened me. It is hard to tell now.
“I don't have much more to say. Last night, we walked back to his place until he calmed down and I put him to bed. I didn't leave right away, but waited till I thought he had fallen asleep.”
“Have you talked to him since?”
“No. I planned on calling him today, but woke up just before you called.”
“I noticed,” George smiled when she said it. “So things didn't go anywhere with Mona?”
“No, I mean, yes. I think so, but nothing happened because I left early with Henry.” I blushed before adding, “I drank a little too much. Jessica's brother made drinks and they had some fantastic whiskey, which I just can't afford and I drank too much.”
“You seem fine now.”
“I suppose I am. I just don't like to slip out of my own control.”
“You helped Henry when he needed it.”
“Well, I don't know if I did. I think I should have helped him earlier, that I should have paid more attention to him. He was so hesitant about coming, maybe my excitement for seeing Mona got in the way.”
“Don't beat yourself up. You got Henry into bed, what more could you have been asked to do?”
“Maybe I just missed something earlier. I feel like I missed something crucial by not paying attention to Henry, that his episode might not have gotten so intense.”
“I know that it is hard to predict or determine a fugue state, but they can be really disruptive. It doesn't sound like that is what happened, but whatever did happen probably had more to do with what is going on inside Henry's head, not with you or whatever happened at the party.”
We began to shift to lighter topics, small recollections of parties here and there. I thought of the strange event on the patio with Thomas, but did not bring it up. That conversation had continued to feel too intoxicated, too confounded with elements of the evening of which I could not make sense. Our food came and we shared a little bit, though George was not much for vegetables. We sat there, sipping tea and enjoying the space for some time. We spoke of work and classes, I chatted more on Mona and the party, but George mostly laughed at how unhinged my memories were of the night before. They gradually slipped back in at the edges, but I did not push them anywhere.
As early afternoon slipped into mid-afternoon, we left and were preparing to say goodbye when my phone rang. The number was unknown and I answered with hesitancy. It was the hospital calling.
“Sir, we have a friend of yours here who has been asking for you.”
“A friend? Who?”
“A Mister Henry Jenson.”
“What happened? Can I come see him?”
“He would like that very much. It seems late last night he was hit by a car near his home--”
“What time? When was he hit?”
“At about three in the morning, sir.”
“I'll be there as soon as I can.”
“Thank you, sir. Just ask the receptionist for directions. I'll inform her of your arrival.”
I looked pleadingly at George, “Can you give me a ride? Henry's in the hospital.”
“Of course,” and with that, we hurried to her car and sped to the hospital. I was concerned and thought that I should have asked more questions; “How is he?,” “Is anything broken?,” and “What's his treatment?” Instead, I sat, staring out the window quietly, imagining the sound of the door shutting behind me and the loud clamber of footfalls as someone ran down the street.
I hardly noticed that we had parked, received directions from reception, and were in the elevator up four floors when the bell dinged and George and I stepped out, glancing for the appropriate sign. The on-hall nurse met me at the counter.
“He is doing fine, some hairline fractures that ought to heal if he stays off of them, and some mean looking bruises that will clear up on their own.” She sighed and then looked George in the eye, then me, “He's excitable. I don't know what to make of it, but it is all I can do to give him a sedative so he wouldn't run down the hall. One nurse thought he'd belong more in psych observation, but we should be able to discharge him today.”
“Anything else we should know?” I asked.
“Just keep him calm if you can.”
“We'll try,” I added, smilingly uncertainly, hoping that he would make more sense than he did after the party the night before. In his room, I heard him madly scribbling and stepped in quietly, hoping to gauge him before he noticed us. His attention was rapt in a yellow, lined notebook with half of its pages already flipped back over the binding. Studying him, I could see the sharp lines in his hand as the pen ran again and again over the pages, faster than I thought him possible. Henry had always been calm of demeanor and slow to act, as if something might change suddenly; but now, all his energy poured out of him into those pages and I felt, if subtly, frightened for him.
“Hey Henry, how are you?” I asked, stepping up to him and resting my hand on the foot of his bed.
“Lex!” He looked up, startled and shaking. “I have so much, so very much to tell you. Thank you for getting me home, I was in the worst of it then. I just got to that point writing. They won't let me leave yet, but I have to speak with Brother James.” He spoke quickly, swallowing some smaller words here and there, mashing together other words into long, breathless amalgamations. “It feels a bit like a dream, a bit like a nightmare, but it all happened and I've come back! Brother James never suggested that I would come back. You would think that the droplet stays lost, but here I am, jarred back to the present! I am so happy you came, though I wish you had shown up a few hours ago.”
“Henry, calm down. I can't keep up with you. You're worrying the nurses, too.”
“They'll be fine. I'm something else. To think, if they even knew, if they had any idea, they would just break down. A weaker spirit, someone with less training, would maybe not come back, just stay lost out there, in there, wherever it was.”
“Henry, what are you talking about?” Here, George stepped up and began taking stock of the thin, bedraggled man in the bed, two empty notebooks next to him and his present quickly running out of space. Every few moments he would jot down further scrawl and flip the page. His speech—its speed and intensity—surprised me and my worry, once typical and subtle, grew stronger and hinted of accents of the truly bizarre. My mind raced when he brought up Brother James, of the conversation the two had had, and what he might mean about going somewhere. I thought, surprised and slightly angry, that he was recording some sort of alien abduction, but before I could think too much, he plunged back into his monologue.
“I would never have believed it, that Brother James absolutely meant 'off the window.' How absurd is that? He knew the difficulty and intensity of leaving the pane, but I may be the first to return. Everything feels tight and cornered, like a glove now too small with a new winter. You're here, though, and you can help me.” He looked again at George.
“Hello. I'm Georgia, or George, just George. Nice to meet you,” She said, leaning in and offering Henry her hand. He saw it, almost examined it, before setting down his pen and shaking it. Henry set down her hand and peered at George, then at me, confounded by what he saw there, seeing us almost like foreigners or idiots; we were obviously dumb to his meanings.
“What are you thinking, Alexis?”
“Henry,” I breathed deeply, feeling the complexity of my thoughts in the rasping of my throat, the unfamiliar weight of the hospital walls, the difficulty of the situation, “you survived a car accident after speaking gibberish to me all night. Now you have—I don't know—a report of some sort that doesn't make any sense. What am I supposed to think? I am worried. Do you think that Brother James can make more sense of this than me?”
Henry's eyes examined me, peered lengthily into or passed me. Eventually, I looked away but felt that he continued to ponder me, like an experiment, like one of George's obsessive queries.
“Could you call the Center and ask for Brother James to come. There is no rush, but I would like to speak with him and they won't let me leave until tomorrow.”
“I will. Can I get anything for you? Do you want me to ask the nurses for anything?”
“No, don't tell them anything. Please, just call Brother James.”
I met his eyes again and noticed the long shadows of his face; I saw lines on his face that I had never considered before. Henry had always felt calm, collected, and somehow youthful, somehow warding off the world through his simplicity and practice. Now, I believe that he had aged or grown, or perhaps transformed somehow; but I did not think that then, only that a long night had worn heavily on my friend and that I had not before seen age work on him. I sighed and found a phone book at the nurses' station and called Brother James, whom I first reassured and then explained Henry's request.
Returning to the room, I felt suddenly and surprisingly intrusive; George and Henry were quietly staring at one another, unmoving and firm, as if planted as statues. I saw between them a balance, an uncanny and weird energy that charged the room. For a moment I cannot measure, I silently and unknowingly observed, caught by the strange spell. A light flickered or I blinked and we were all back in the room together, just two friends visiting another who had suffered an accident. I breathed deeply and thought of Henry's advice to watch my breathing, when I noticed a strange scent, a hue in the light, something that seemed off center, tilted, forced. Then, as if it had never been there, the sensation evaporated
“Brother James is on his way. I spoke with him and he has an open schedule.”
“That is like him, never one to make plans,” Henry replied, smiling sagely.
“Why do you want Brother James to come?” George asked.
“Brother James has guided my meditation in the past. I think he might help me with,” and he inhaled sharply, his ears perked, he glanced out the window, “understanding my thoughts.”
“When was the last time you saw Brother James?” I asked.
“When you visited the Center with me. I called two days ago, but he was out in the gardens at school. Why?”
“You said something about what he told you then.”
“Yes, the droplets on the window pane; I have been meditating on what he told me then. I would have difficulty explaining it. He has also guided me with meditating on the koans, traditional riddles or puzzles that defy reason. This, I consider, to be similar to the koans. It is difficult to explain.”
Questions bubbled up inside of me, then settled again, feeling like a film over my thoughts. I was confused, profoundly so, and felt something mechanical in Henry's words. George made very little noise, even when she had spoken, it had been stealthy and hushed. I wanted to leave quickly, immediately, like the mouse at the imperceptible hint of an owl above. I felt threat then, a threat that has yet to leave me.
“Could I go, Henry? Will you be okay?”
“That is fine, Alexis. Can you come back tomorrow? The doctor informed me that I might have trouble getting around.”
“Of course. I'll come back tomorrow morning. I'll take you home.”
“Thank you.” He turned to George and tensed. “It was nice meeting George. Perhaps I will see you again soon.”
“I would like that.”