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This is a short story I wrote. No, I'm in no danger of a literary career
but it was great fun writing it and it is short if you care to check it out.

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It was a lie, a shameless lie. A person does not get phantom limb pain when they still have all of their limbs. Ellen's gift for hypochondriacal invention had grown to increasingly comic dimensions as she got older, and by older I'm talking the imposing sum of twenty four years. Though I should point out that this had been going on since we were in grade school together so there is some history involved.

Of course this wasn't the main reason she was missing work, she was anguishing under the oppressive burden of "rhinopharyngitis" ( a cold). The phantom limb bit was just the dramatic flourish that she felt all of her petty ailments needed to add that finishing touch of pathos that marked all great illnesses.
The worst part of all about all of this was that I was now stuck all alone in the shop all day with our boss Mr. Medford.

What can I tell you about Maurice Medford, "the not so divine Mr. M." as we'd taken to calling him. He had become an alliterative clay pidgeon for a steady barrage of snide and catty potshots secretly slung by Ellen and me since we started working in his fabric store six months prior.

Certainly not our first choice for a vocational opportunity, but it actually paid fairly well and it worked out rather handily that he happened to need two salespeople when, as fate would have it, we both found ourselves jobless at the same time. We managed to convince him that we were a formidable tandem that would greatly enhance his business, a colorful exaggeration that he fortunately didn't scrutinize in the ensuing months.

Mr. M was an odd man. Meticulous, exacting and completely humorless.
He had a thinning unruly shock of wiry graying hair, not unlike an Airedale's, that seemed to almost float suspended above his unusually oval cranium.
His face was a collection of rather unremarkable features except for a set of droopy expressionless eyes that would only light up in their very odd way when he was closely examining one of the myriad bolts of linen, damask, organdy, madras and every other imagineable fabric. All painstakingly arranged with a military exactitude that would have made a five star general blush.

What few facts we did know about him came from our friend Juliet, for whom the details of other people's lives were the currency that filled in for what would otherwise be an actual life of her own. Namely, that he was in his late forties had never been married and apparently was orphaned for some unknown reason at a young age and raised in a very austere Catholic orphanage.

It's not so much that he was unfriendly as much as he was, let's just say, unsociable. And though generally speaking he treated us fairly, I was still never sure if he regarded Ellen and me with a thinly veiled disdain or just complete indifference. He just seemed to always inhabit his own little world. There was something about him that reminded me a little of my Uncle Wesley who used to fall asleep playing scrabble by himself at the Elk's lodge while all the retired shipfitters were playing shuffleboard.

Ellen mused that he was just an eccentric introvert, I on the other hand held less charitable views on the subject. Mr. M. struck me as more of a self absorbed dour old prig whose life amounted to a joyless excercise of filling ledgers, crossing T's, dotting I's and continuosly fussing, straightening and tidying with a religious fervor that threatened to induce an apparition of the Virgin Mary.
Ellen who was blessed with a forbearing and philosophical nature that I could only occasionally simulate was always quick to point out that there were alot worse jobs out there and besides, we weren't going to work there forever.
As for me, having graduated valedictorian from high school, something that in retrospect feels more akin to being emblazoned with the scarlett letter, I've never been able to escape the perpetual feeling of having fallen short and that life was never quite as glorious and abundant as my promising start would have led me to believe.

What is it they say about the eyes, that they're the window to the soul? Well I've always been far more keen on a person's hands and there was something slightly strange that I'd noticed in the last month with Mr. M's hands. Those supple unblemished type of hands reserved for concert violinists, neurosurgeons and fabric store owners. They suddenly were marred with an odd collection of small bruises, nicks and abrasions. Now among other things, I happened to be born with a rather morbid and perverse imagination. So just what our fine minutiae manipulating Mr. M. was doing to put his genteel little upper extremities into harms way gave wing to some of my most ludicrously grotesque flights of fancy.

Ellen's speculation, predictably, ran along the lines of a gardening hobby or a newfound interest in automotive repair, Jeezus H! sometimes I had to just bite my lip and smile at her, and though my more sinister notions were certainly even more laughable, having also been born with a somewhat untrusting disposition, I couldn't quite shake a vague unsettled feeling, and I usually had a pretty good sense about these kinds of things.

Mr. M rose from his desk. He was wearing a nondescript gray suit that looked a couple sizes too big for him and hung on his gaunt frame like a big gray toga straining arduously to arrange itself into a passable representation of a business suit. He was shuffling along the rows of fabric and making notes on a small yellow legal pad while his lips vaguely pantomined the facts and figures that were dancing through his orderly train of thought.
The phone rang, I picked it up "Lorna, it's Ellen", she was watching soap operas and sipping chicken broth. She asked me while yawning in that just barely decipherable yawny tone if I wouldn't mind picking up her little brother Henry that night at the ice skating rink. Her mother's bowling tournament had to be rescheduled due to a gas leak at Victory Lanes last week and now was on Henry's skate night, which meant she could drop him off but that she needed someone to pick him up. Apparently that someone was now me.

Ellen's little brother Henry was a peculiar kid with an odd fixation for catching and observing insects, frogs, snakes and other sundry creepy crawlies,collecting comic books and spoons, watching old scary movies and ice skating. I agreed to pick him up at 8:00.

Ellen had that raspy Lauren Bacall after a bottle of Cuervo sound in her voice, I told her if she could manage to maintain it she could make alot more money working for one of those phone sex outfits. She snorted and coughed for a minute from inhaling some chicken broth, gave me directions and hung up sneezing.

The last customer of what mercifully turned out to be a slow day, was one of those nightmare customers who made you pull twenty bolts of fabric out from every corner of the store before deciding that she really did like the first one she looked at the best. She was an attractive middle aged woman with the exception of the fact that she wore a green floral pattern scarf over a full set of curlers and had an odd habit of biting on her pinky finger while perusing the fabric.

Mr. M was blissfully ignorant of the majority of what went on with the customers. Tucked away in the alcove at the back of the store where his desk was situated he could raise himself up on occasion to peer over the display of remnants that obscured his desk to apprise himself of whatever unorderly activities were taking place. But generally speaking, he liked his human shields in the person of Ellen and me to buffer him from the unsavory business of human interaction.

I drove home that night lost in a cloud, no not from spinning anymore depraved yarns about Mr. M . There was a word that was on the tip of my tongue and it always drives me crazy when that happens and I can't let it go until I think of it. I think I was in self pity mode, reflecting again on the injustice of life not rising to the level of my own inflated expectations of what my talents deserved.
I tooled along barely aware of my surroundings and of the imminent danger I was creating for fellow motorists and pedestrians, ...something like, equal to or .... the same as ... concomitant? no no no .... more like equivalent ... like... con ...com ... commiserate, no no ... com ... damn it! ... com ...... commensurate! that's it! commensurate commensurate.
Funny how these insignificant little personal victories served to momentarily
assuage my fears of impending senility.

I arrived a little early to pick up Henry, the evening crosstown traffic having been unusually light. The waiting-suiting up area was a dimly lit affair with rows of grimy looking benches underscored by the spongey rubber matting that covered the whole floor area. Through the plexiglass was the brightly lit rink and in the background were the breezy sounds of 40's Big band music.

There was a mixture of kids and adults gliding with various degrees of aptitude around the frozen oval, wisps of steamy breath rising from them as if they were all big upright tea kettles. I recognized the song that was playing, it was "String of pearls" one of my parent's favorites.

Suddenly a lone figure emerged from behind a group of three teenagers who were merrily skating along arm in arm. He was teetering along, legs quivering like a newborn fawn, it was ... it was ... Mr. M ! just then he pitched forward just managing to get his hands out in front of him in time to break his fall. He was awkwardly sprawled out on the ice, his yellow knit cap with a pom pom on top all askew. Zigzagging up from behind him and stopping with a clumsy flourish was Henry who immediately thrust out his hand to help him up. He smiled and nodded at Henry while clambering to his feet and continued faltering along. He was wearing a white parka that of course was too big for him and made him look like a kid playing a snowflake in the school play. And his face, there was something odd... he was ... he looked.... happy.

For a moment in my minds eye I saw the little boy who grew up in
that solemn place who never knew a carefree moment... I felt my eyes start to moisten,
just then Henry came bounding out of the rink and hopped a few times on the rubber matting exclaiming
"that's why they call me Thumper" he plopped down on one of the grimy benches and started removing his skates.
"Hiya Lorna". "Hey Henry". "Ellen's still got the sneezies huh?"
"That's right sport, I think she's going to survive though".
He looked up at me his dark straight hair all disheveled, his cherubic face glowing
"You know, you should try ice skating sometime Lorna, really makes you feel alive"
I looked at him, then looked out over the ice once more and smiled
"Yeah, you know I think I will... I think I will"
© 2003, Tollak Ollestad

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