It's Still Life

At an Intersection Named After an English King and a Saint
Six Sentence Story: Part 22 “Mycorrhizae”

Last week: “Yes, I am hungry,” his eyes laugh, but his expression is dialed-to-neutral. 

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“You seek advice, Brigid, which I cannot offer until your thirst is deep enough; advice must be cool water to a dry throat,” and I look up from my gravy streaked bowl and say, “I only asked if you liked the beef stew, Hanzō.”

And as if truth must hatch from one’s soul in order to fly, he says the root vegetables are prepared by a tailor who sews a crooked seam, and the herbs are the litter of wind without light or brightness … and then he puts a positive spin on my cookery skills by saying that it’s very nourishing.

“It is imperfection at its near best, Brigid, it is almost wabi-sabi,” … and he finishes with a look of clear-eyed certainty that would bruise science. 

My ego stings like fire, and I tell him that he’s bloody well cooking tonight – beef stew his way, his way is Nikujagaa, without crooked seams or herbal litter, but first … 

… there’s someone he must meet whose name, four years and two months on, still resonates as low and dark as the A0 note on a piano.

Hanzō looks as if time flows through him, “I am to meet Pierre … yes,” he is as deeply calm as a river that appears unmoving. 

And from miles away Pierre hears us coming – we are far away thunder of infinite wings to his ears, and yet Hanzō and I are still on a bus making slow progress towards Bedlam, but Pierre knows … we are like mycorrhizae; we are all connected. 

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Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story, including the word “hatch”. Notes: Nikujagaa is Japanese Meat and Potato Stew and here’s the recipe – it’s quick, easy and delicious. Mycorrhizae: fungi that have a symbiotic relationship with the roots of many plants.

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