Handle with Care

Quiet conversation filled the back room of the tavern. I sat and nursed my drink, listening to that same polite discourse. Well, polite for the most part.

John and Mary were arguing again—that’s John Wayde and Mary Linette—and the rest of us seated around the small table listened with varying degrees of amusement and interest.

I let their conversation wash over me like white noise, and pulled my pocket watch from my front right vest pocket. 5 to 7. The old time-piece was tarnished, and no longer gleamed as it had in its youth, but it still faithfully kept the time to the second. It had been a gift from my old man, years ago. I’m notoriously bad at keeping time, you see. Well, no more.

I still half-listened to John and Mary argue—something about how many changes one can make to historical events while writing for the sake of embellishment, and still, in good conscience, call it “Historical” fiction—but my mind was elsewhere, as it so often was.

At one point in the conversation, Mary slammed her hand down atop the table—causing Herman Wright to wake up from where he’d been nodding off in the corner—and then pointed her finger in John’s direction as she found the verbal ammunition that she needed to verbally dismantle John’s argument.

John opened his mouth to object, and then frowned. Mary’s eyes flashed with triumph, and John let out a small, rueful laugh. He grinned at the rest of us seated.

“I guess I’d better tell my publisher that my next story about a man who time travels back to Ancient Rome to steal Nero’s fiddle should probably be marketed as “Science Fiction”, and not “Historical” fiction.”

Laughter rippled across the table like waves across a once still and quiet lake. Mary rolled her eyes good-naturedly at John and then motioned for Susan, the waitress, to bring us another round.

John leaned over, clapped me on the shoulder, and grinned. “That’d be closer to the sort of things you usually write, eh?”

I smiled faintly back at him and nodded. I glanced back at my pocket watch. 7 on the dot. I closed it with a faint click of the metal clasp and stowed it away once more.

“Are we all accounted for?” I asked softly, addressing no one in particular.

Herman nodded shortly and cleared his throat. “I talked to Sean; he and Maura won’t make it tonight, but they send their regards. Anastasia is still on tour, halfway across the world, of course, and Jim is subbing for one of his colleagues.”

“Sounds good,” I nodded in thanks. “Let’s come to order then.”

The others sat up straighter, and the demeanor in the room shifted ever so slightly. It became more attentive and anticipatory. They looked at me expectantly. Their stares used to bother me, but I’ve grown more comfortable in my role as a facilitator.

I’ve never been interested in leadership, mind you. I much prefer the background, near the peripherals of a group, and to offer a word of encouragement here, a piece of kind advice there. Other than that, I’d much rather keep to myself.

But for nights like these… Well, let’s just say there’s always an exception to the rule.

I smiled back at them and leaned my elbows on the table, arms crossed. “The 492nd meeting of The Misfits is now in session.”

Smiles at that, and a few muted claps.

The Misfits… yeah, that’s us. We meet in this tavern, The Bard and The Barstool, every Thursday night at 7. If you’re a storyteller of any nature of the word, and you’re in the area, stop on by. Sit for a spell; stay for a drink or two. We’d love to hear your story if you’ll tell it.

It started out as that, you know, nearly ten years ago. The Misfits, I mean. The storyteller’s life is a hard one—not that I mean to bemoan the profession. Selling stories can be difficult at times. Sometimes, stories don’t sell at all. That’s all the more difficult and heartbreaking when all we as storytellers want to do is tell those stories.

Yes, it’s about the money too, putting food on the table and having a roof over your head, but money isn’t everything. Ask anybody with a true story to tell. The main goal is always for the story to be told. The Misfits is a place where people are willing to listen to those stories, even if no one else will.

Take Richard for example. He’s been attending The Misfits’ gatherings since a little after we first formed. He’s written nearly a hundred stories, and not one of them has been published and sold. And yet, The Misfits have heard every single one of those stories. That matters more to Richard. That means more.

There aren’t too many of us in The Misfits, no more than ten most weeks, when we’re all able to make it. Some have been around since the beginning, and others we’ve picked up along the way. Tonight, there were six of us.

We come from all walks of life. What common bond we Misfits share is that we tell stories. There are just as many genres and types of stories represented as there are members. Like I said, join us if you wish. All are welcome.

Some nights we’ll talk about the art of storycraft or some other element of the writing process, but most nights, we’ll sit and share stories. You’re in luck. Tonight, there was a story to be told.

As Susan brought over another round to our table, I turned to Herman. “Do you have the minutes from our last meeting?”

Herman grunted and opened a small notebook with yellowed, ink-stained pages. He squinted down at the minuscule writing and then spoke. “For our 491st meeting, last week, we listened to Eliza’s story, The Mannequin Come to Life.”

Next to Herman, George shuddered and paled in remembrance of her chilling tale of the frightful and macabre. Eliza grinned back at him and positively glowed. To her, George’s reaction was high praise.

I hid a smile behind my glass as I sipped my drink. “Very well,” I said. “I believe I am up for tonight, yes?”

Herman checked his book and then nodded again. “That’s correct. You haven’t gone since our 440th meeting—”

“Which is terribly selfish of you,” interjected Eliza with a frown of disapproval, “keeping us waiting for a year!”

“Er, yes,” Herman glared at Eliza for the interruption and then cleared his throat apologetically. “Well, all this to say, we came to the consensus last week that a story from you was long overdue. So, yes, you’re up.”

What can I say? I hadn’t intended to keep from telling a story for so long, but some stories take time to gather and grow, you see. And I’m not the sort of person to speak before I’m ready. I’ll certainly not do so with my stories. But now, this one was ready, and so was I.

I simply smiled and set down my drink. All eyes in the room were on me, watching and waiting, but I didn’t care. Like I said, such nights were an exception to my usual discomfort. I was telling a story. Nothing else mattered.

“I first heard this story long ago,” I began, sitting back in my chair. “You may have heard it too. For, all stories have been told before, and the ones that matter are the ones retold throughout the years.”

I held my tumbler in my hand and swirled its amber contents slowly, causing the ice cubes to clink against the sides of the glass faintly.

“This is one of those stories.”

The rest of The Misfits were listening, I had their full attention. I smiled again, small but sure, and began my tale.

“There once was a man who lived all alone. His solitude was not always so. Once, he had a family, a wife and kids. His home was full of laughter and love, as a home should be. But now, it was not so full.

“You see, the man’s children had grown up and moved away to the far corners of the country, and now he only saw them on occasion. That was alright. The man missed them, but he and his wife managed just fine on their own. They were both retired now, in their autumn years. The man had his hobbies, and his wife had her garden.

“She loved that garden. She would spend hours upon hours there, carefully tending to the flowers she loved so much. And they were beautiful flowers—their neighbors would remark upon their beauty. They were his wife’s pride and joy.

“The man just saw flowers. Sure, he saw the joy on his wife’s face as she worked among them, but to him, they were still just flowers. He’d look at them from time to time, but then would quickly lose interest, going back instead to one of his hobbies.

“That all changed when his wife caught sick and spent her final days lying in a hospital bed with clean white sheets, in a room that smelled of disinfectant and cleaning products. The walls were bare, and the view out the window was no good at all.

“So, the man brought his wife flowers from her garden so she’d have something to look at, something better than white-washed walls and blinking monitor screens.

“And the man saw the smile on her face once more, a beautiful smile that brightened his whole world for a moment. And then the man saw that smile no more. The whole world turned gray.

“His children, now grown with kids of their own, flew in for the funeral. They stayed for a time, trying to comfort and support the man, but eventually they all left again, and the man was left all alone.

“He sat in the now-empty house that no longer felt like a home. He looked out the kitchen window, to the garden, and saw that weeds had begun to creep in among his wife’s flowers. That wouldn’t do. He cleared out the weeds from the garden, and as he did, something peculiar happened.

“Clearing away the weeds from among the flowers in his wife’s garden, the man found a small, slightly dirtied envelope. The letter inside, however, was unsoiled and clean. Reading it brought tears to the man’s eyes. I will not repeat what the letter from his wife said, for the words were for him, and him alone. He wept in that garden for a long time.

“Then, he carefully refolded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He slowly clambered to his feet and left the garden and went back into the house that was a home no more. But he went out and worked out in the garden every day thereafter, weeding, pruning, and tending to the flowers his wife had once loved.

“He visited her grave every Sunday. And when he did, he brought with him a flower to lay on her headstone, a flower from his wife’s garden. The garden and the flowers now passed on to him since she passed away.

“And now, he saw the flowers in a way he never saw them before. He saw them as beautiful because his wife saw them as beautiful. And he remembered. He remembered what those flowers had meant to her; the joy they brought her.

“For that, he treated them with that same love and care, as best he could. They had passed on to him now, and what they meant to him was different from what they meant to her. Different, but similar too. The meaning of the flowers changed, even if they were the same flowers as before.

“Years passed, and the old man passed too. His garden passed on to another, as did those same flowers. Another took up their tending and care. And meaning was given once more.

So too with stories. They’ve all been told before. They pass on from teller to teller, from one generation to the next. The words may change, but the heart of the story is still there. The meaning may change depending on who tells it, and what the one who hears it does with the story afterward. But they are still those same stories as before, those stories first told with love all those long years ago. Handle them with care.”

I fell silent, and my silence was followed in greater part by the silence that filled the back room of The Bard and The Barstool on that Thursday night. I finished my drink and set the now-empty glass down on the table.

You might assume that the silence made me feel uncomfortable, that it made me anxious that my story was not well-received by the other members of The Misfits. It did not. For, I saw what you could not as I told my tale. I saw the looks on their faces, the joy, the sadness, and then the deep wonderings which accounted for the silence. That silence was comfortable. It did not leave me wanting. For in it, the silence spoke volumes more than words ever could.

No other stories were told that night. Eventually, we adjourned and drifted off, each back to our own homes, each with our own thoughts occupying our minds. A story will do that at times. Such is not always my goal.

Oftentimes, I’ll tell stories that make The Misfits laugh and laugh. Some bring tears to their eyes and mine. But tonight’s story was meant for something else. Tonight was for the stories we love oh so much, the stories we’ve been given by others long, long ago. The stories that are now ours. We tell them to each other for many reasons, and they all have meaning to us. Who knows what sort of meaning they’ll have for those who come after us?

Handle them with care.

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