Once Upon A Time

In response to

Bedtime Story for Dasi’s Son by Karthika Nair

I have waited long to see you, Child, waited, day after day after day,

with little to offer you but this one story, a tale without a distant

once upon a time to gird it, to keep us safe. Once happens, again

and again, and will, again. I need you to know how that once

happens, each moment and each step, so clearly, so intimately, that

you become the one within the recursive once. They will say you

are not old enough to hear these things. But I was not old enough

to live them either, and you will not stay young for long, Child. It

is better I lead you out of childhood with my own hands, with my

words before the world does. And so, I wait, Child, I wait to tell

you how once happened to me, how it happened to my kind. To say

When the king decides to (say it, say it, say the word, I tell myself.

But I cannot, I find, not yet, at least. I shall begin with periphrases

and work my way towards the word. I must begin again.)

I’ve zoned in on the o in Once and the o in Upon because Imogen mentioned it, and circles, and Tracie mentioned that momentousness is upon us. And now I can’t stop noticing the circles in all the words I have just written. Which brings me to the my love of and the power of language. How I’m always collecting words and how they do not always suffice. How we need to embody life sometimes rather than just talk about it. Or are we always embodying it anyways even if we are jabbering on and on? Or maybe it’s just me doing the jabbering on and on! I need words either way, they sometimes formulate and organise themselves of their own accord and give me the essence of feelings I have been trying to articulate. I think I might prefer writing to speaking, the look of words are as important as the pronunciation. The hearing is less powerful sometimes than the scribing. I’m rereading Love in the Time of Cholera after a recent exchange brought it to my attention again and I’m astounded by Gabriela Garcia Marquez’s skill in joining words together to make the most beautiful, strange and heart breaking images. Who would be without books, not just book, also the writers of the books; books raised me and raise me still. I’ve stopped writing and glanced out the window to the rooftops of Brighton but I could just as easily be in the harbour that has just been described in the last paragraph of the book (see above) and I’m amazed, not for the first time this week, about the power of the present, disintegrating every other moment so that I am.........

A tale to tell. Many tales to tell. I don’t want to tell my tales. I want to skirt around them. Sometimes I feel the telling will diminish them. Sometimes I feel it will magnify them. I run from the reality of them. Words can take me towards and take me away from. Ebb and flow. Gentle approaches, nibbling erosions, loosening a few fragments that fall and are swept away. Other times, the roaring crashing waves dragging at my feet, pulling me under, collapsing on top of me. Asunder – what does that word mean? Plunder. Rapacious sea. We can say and not say. Words can be manipulated. Conceal and reveal. I say and I try to unsay. Words can lead us out of childhood, if we let them. I like to hoard my words, gather them to me, hold them close, safe from the plundering rapacious hands of my sister. Her – I am writing, keep writing – her need to possess what’s mine, to possess me, to see me as an extension of her world, there solely for her purposes, an object for her, to meet her needs, a word she designates, a prescribed life. Claws. She had such claws my sister. Such a fierceness in the pursuit of what she wants. Now still. Her hobbies – fencing, stone carving, metal welding – she likes to wield powerful tools, weapons, exhibit still her power to hurt, to wound fatally. Sometimes she is less obvious; she sees herself as an arch strategist now and she tries to – I am writing, writing, writing – she tries to manipulate, tries to persuade me it’s for my benefit, me she is thinking of. I see through it, always have. Sometimes I name it now and she comes up short - shock and hatred etched on her face – how dare I say it like it is for me, speak my truth – nearly wrote “her” truth. How dare I assert myself an shatter her illusion that I am a creation of hers, a mirror, a servant, an object – a stone to be carved, metal to be welded as she desires. Steely will she has. I envy and fear her. And I despise her too. I am angry with her without any sense she could ever receive or comprehend or accept my anger. Anger with no place to go. That’s a recursive once up on a time for me. Anger cycling round and round. Imogen’s circles, spirals. Recycling. Each time a little different. The past still within but a little shifted, a steel drum worn with time, softening, beating out a new tune. Once upon a time. Once. Recursive and also resonant. Once. Booming once. Sometime once is enough. Enough. No more. Sometimes – what – other voices – where am I? No more, no more what? Sometimes what? More words? More stories? No more stories. No more time.

Once upon a time it didn’t happen to me. Once didn’t happen, nor twice nor three times. I wish oh wish that the cacophony would soothe this part of the distant labyrinth in which the monsters live but sigh, oh sigh, no need to look back, chop, chop on you go. But look back! For laughter and the very heart of things is in the people you love, really love, not because they love you but because you have no need of loving and because you love them. Our love.

Once upon a time dwells in the section of the labyrinth, the labyrinth, I can’t say

Go on, keep pushing open the great steel door. Studded, bronzed, break it down.

No answers today. But you tried, didn’t you? At least you tried. I tried. You and I tried together but when the angels descend they will say the same thing again and again. Keep singing until the clichés unfold…

Once upon a time a little girl sat on a swing under the cedar tree and trailed her feet until they nearly touched the parched ground, packed hard after the hot, hot summer. She smelt the river and the evergreen pine. She began to swing slowly, pushing away on her toes. She pushed, a rush, she pushed until she was making long swoops and at the top of the swoop the swing nearly tipped her out onto the hard earth. But she held on to the blue nylon rope until the palms of her hands burned and she fell again, flying through the air backwards. Through the air backwards, the river snaking off under the willows. The cows on the bank, knee deep in mud, cooling off, replete. The hill moved, it seemed. But it wasn’t the hill, was it? It was you.