Short story written in 2012. Inspired by the novels by Henry Green, who wrote wonderful novels about rich British people with ugly complex souls, mostly taking place in 1940s England. Oblivious Summer (It Falls on All Our Shoulders) was originally developed to kick off a novel, but inspirations steered the author elsewhere… As a short story, though, it works.
Oblivious Summer (It Falls on All Our Shoulders)
‘The world is going to end,’ Daniel said in a melancholy manner.
‘Stop being so surly,’ his friend answered. ‘What has got you this down?’
‘Oh nothing,’ he replied. ‘Only that once again my entire family is off to the beach and I am expected to tag along.’
‘And this is expected to bring the next apocalypse?’
‘Oh hush,’ Daniel exclaimed. ‘It is only my own reckoning. Everyone feels it best to shove words into my ear about what I should and should not do.’ He fastened his glare darkly. ‘I will soon forget who I am.’
‘You are not as ambiguous as you lead on, sir,’ Mr. Green responded. ‘If you were so easy to mold, I shall have formed you long ago and not been as good a chum.’
‘God bless you, John,’ Daniel affirmed, ‘but I feel more vulnerable than my appearance may let on.’ A darkness quickly huddled around him. ‘The things this family procures is enough to persuade a badger.’
John laughed slightly. ‘Come now. Surely with you having a kid and a new bride, there is only too much advice for the elderly to offer.’ He paused briefly to sip on his tea.
‘And with you being so young yourself, there are but plenty of elders to offer too much. Why I say ignore it all.’
‘That is the curse,’ Daniel said. ‘There is too much. Every mouth I converse with has so much to offer, and there are too many tongues talking. The person I trust most however…’ He almost blushed. ‘…is my mother. And she, of all people right now, has the worst words about my future. How sad it is that those most trusted become the worst to trust.’
‘Well what has she lent?’ John wondered.
‘Who?’
‘Why your mother, of course.’ The space between their stares stung a bit brightly. ‘What did she say?’
‘The usual bullshit!’ Daniel proclaimed. ‘You know, get a government job, become a prison guard, but most of all—‘ The spit in his throat was heavy and broken. ‘She suggests I give up entirely on my novel for such fantasy is a waste of precious time.’
All John Green said was ‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah I know,’ agreed Daniel. ‘How presumptuous! What? Does she believe me to sacrifice my soul completely solely because I have created a human with a soul that is just as temporal as mine?’
‘You will need work soon though,’ John reminded his pal before taking another sip of morning tea. ‘Have any plans?
‘To live and die,’ replied Mr. Pondre. ‘I shall follow whatever it is that compels me to follow it.’ His eyes dragged across the café that he happened to find himself in. ‘And there will be no more talk like this. Tell me now, how are you and your affairs? How’s Cassandra?’
‘A rather splendid wife.’ Subtle bitterness leaked from within John’s toned answer, ‘Unfortunately not mine.’
‘Whatever do you mean, sir?’
John’s gaze orbited around the pallid brick walls. ‘I wish she were more like you when it comes to one’s perspective about work. I understand the girl has got to eat and all, but if she were less committed to that lousy job with the bankers, she could have more time to be wild with me. And she does have the most beautifully wild temperament when she wants to.’
‘Ah,’ replied Daniel. ‘So this dreary world does fall onto all our shoulders.’ The server came and refilled his coffee. ‘For I swear Anne has become rather careless in our bedroom as well.’
‘Comes with marriage, I hear,’ John laughed. ‘But I suppose it is not that Cassandra has neglected our bedroom but rather she’s in her office or her apartment more than she is with me. Things must have been easier in the day before women had to work. The way they obsess over things…’
‘I could never see Anne with a permanent career,’ Daniel remonstrated. ‘She likes too much to sleep and be with the kid.’
‘And how is the little bugger?’
‘No, no, we should be talking about you. I have so many problems we could get stuck on mine all day. Humor me with the trifles of a single man’s life.’
‘Oh boredom is the main problem. I play guitar at the coffee place, I try to slither up Cassandra’s dress, and I do my best to work as little as possible and think about it even less. There is no drearier place than confined to that horrible desk.’ Mr. Green took his last sip of tea for the morning. ‘I also watch a lot of television.’
‘There is nothing wrong with loafing about,’ Daniel responded. ‘If I had moments to fill with loafing, I would do so with every single one.’
‘Perhaps,’ John considered. ‘But one does feel the need to find some purpose in life.’
‘Until that purpose is found,’ declared Mr. Pondre. ‘For once you have purpose, such a burden makes you long again for the freedom from such responsibility. Why, look at me and my new family. They offer plenty of purpose but that purpose requires that I provide for them, care for them, all that nonsense. It would be so much easier to run off with a bag of hashish and loaf about somewhere while I write sweet nothings.’
John became briefly hysterical with a fit of giggles. ‘Oh Daniel, you can twist up one’s brain like no other. So what you are saying is that while you love the purpose that you have in your life, you would also do away with it?’
‘Not do away with…’ Daniel corrected. ‘But rather wish it had never been at all. For if it had never been, there is no burden of doing away with burdens. In fact, that burden, once decided upon, can be the heaviest of all.’ He took a moment. ‘It falls onto all our shoulders.’
‘I would heed your advice, good sir, but to vanquish all my purpose would require me to run off elsewhere, and damn, I do enjoy our talks too much to do any such thing.’
Daniel slightly smirked. ‘Do you have a cigarette, John?’ His friend reached into his jacket pocket and removed two filtered cigarettes. Mr. Pondre lit his and offered the flame to his companion. Silence sifted between them for a minute before Daniel pronounced, with sudden enthusiasm, “Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. Did you hear about poor Samson?’
‘Peter Samson?’
‘Yes, the very one. Well he is now with our old crush, Beth. It seems he finally wiggled his way into her arms and now, from all I can tell, he has been tied to an utterly dull whipping post.’ Mr. Green absorbed a long drag from his smoke.
‘Well such a whipping post might as well be a throne if he has managed to wiggle under her dress more than into her arms.’ Daniel smiled with a splash of useless longing under his eyelids. ‘Peter Samson is a stupid wise fool.’
‘I hear he’s at the beach for the summer,’ John mused. ‘You and Anne could meet up with them.’
Daniel tried not to laugh. ‘Oh, I’m sure I’ve told you before how Anne despises Beth. Anne insists that she is trying to steal me away from her, and that’s preposterous considering she didn’t steal me away when she had the chance. Four years before I knew Anne.’
‘Maybe stealing someone away only becomes a, uh,” Mr. Green’s dangerous smirk shimmered, “appetizing endeavor when there is a third party to steal from.’
Beth has always seemed subtly devilish.’
‘The devil is real, Daniel, in all of us. I would murder Cassandra and Peter both to have but one night with Beth as my submissive slave.’
‘Your crude manner sadly speaks truth.’ Mr. Pondre sprouted a peculiar grin onto his cheek. ‘The beach may be even more interesting and convoluted than I first presumed.’
The ambiance around them filled with the hustling of waiters clearing away dishes. White walls echoed the noise into some kind of orchestra. They smoked their cigarettes. ‘What are you thinking, old friend?’
‘That I’m not as old as we think.’
*
Cassandra took a moment to skim the letter a little. A bank notice articulated the reasons for some fee. She folded it up neatly with three folds so it would fit neatly into the pale envelope. Licking the seal, her red nail polish reflected fluorescent light. She placed paper in a pile and grabbed a hold of another letter. She skimmed this one too, lightly. Folded it up, licked the seal, put it in the pile. Her stature slightly straightened when a coworker walked into the office.
‘Hey Casey,’ beamed Lillian. ‘How’s life?’
‘I can’t complain.’
‘Do anything fun this weekend?’
‘Well…’ Cassandra took a quick pause from sorting letters. ‘John and I hung out all day Saturday. We stopped by a friend’s house for a brief moment, but other than that, we didn’t do much.’
‘I hear he’s good at that.’
‘At what?’ She shifted her entire weight, along with her total attention, and lent Lillian a certain tight stare.
‘Doing nothing,’ her coworker replied. ‘My girlfriend works at the coffee shop where he comes and plays guitar. She says he’s a bum.’
‘What did she think of his guitar playing?’
‘Who? My friend? She said he’s alright.’
‘Yeah, but I think it’s attractive.’ Cassandra turned herself back to her desk and grasped another bank notice. ‘It’s true he could get his shit together, but at the end of the day, I’m young. And I think he’s cute’ Her soft hands tensed as she neatly folded another piece of paper.
A natural laugh leapt from Lillian’s tongue, and a tint of redness came to her cheeks. ‘I like you, Casey. I don’t know what it is, but I like you.’ The gray beaten carpet beneath their feet rustled like needles as Lillian left.
*
Later that evening, as Cassandra drove home from work, she decided to pull into a local pub. She wore a red overcoat, which complimented the dark wooden walls of the tavern. She filled a seat at the bar.
‘Hi, how are you?’
‘An ale, please.’
A man came into the bar after she had taken a considerable gulp of beer. He sat down next to her.
‘Hi, how’s it going?’
‘I’ll have a shot of rye and a pint of house ale,’ the man ordered.
‘No problem.’ The bartender retreated to a liquor shelf.
‘Thanks.’ The man nodded and glanced down at his chest. Then his neck tilted and he turned to Cassandra. ‘How’s the brew?’
‘Good,’ she replied.
Moments passed by quietly. Shadows breathed between dark walls. The man had taken his shot and was sipping on his beer. Cassandra meanwhile stared off into a void and stole occasional sips from her drink. ‘I used to care,’ she blurted.
‘Excuse me?’ said the man.
‘Life,’ she answered. ‘I used to care about this shit. But now…’ The man’s eyes roamed across her body as she struggled to find the words. ‘Now I just feel blemished from the world.’
He was dumbfounded, unable to say anything other than, ‘Oh.’
Redness swarmed her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No,’ he urged. ‘Go on. Forgive my silence, I was just a little taken back by such a moment of brutal honesty.’ He grinned. ‘It was refreshing.’
‘Oh, but I could not go on now. I have become embarrassed.’
‘Then I’ll go on,’ he announced to her surprise. ‘I, as well, feel apathetic. I feel as though I am lost at sea. After high school, I went to a bigger school and after that I went to another school and I got a bigger degree and a bigger job and now all I feel is broken numbness. The job fulfills only superficial needs. And yet I keep going to work, dealing with my boss, and submissively enduring every excruciating bland moment.’ He looked at her with a fierce glare. She had not stopped blushing.
‘You could pretend to care,’ Cassandra eventually responded. ‘That’s what I do. I invest dense amounts of effort into pretending to be interested in things that I honestly, and subconsciously, don’t care for at all.’
‘I would much rather deceive others than fool myself,’ he answered. They each took a momentary pause to gather thoughts and sip beer. ‘I’m Carl.’
‘I’m Casey.’
*
A few days later, Cassandra received a call from Mr. Green. He said, ‘You want to go to the beach?’
‘When?’ she wondered. ‘What beach?’
‘Across the pond in Maryland, my dear. You see, I had been talking to Daniel about his summer and apparently he is going to stay at his family’s beach house for a week. And this is all necessary for him because his entire family is coming to gawk at his baby. I thought it would be nice to not only take a vacation, but be there in case Daniel needs some company. We could be there to offer him an escape from the madness of his family. And I know you and Anne love to spend time together.’
‘I swear,’ Cassandra spoke into the phone, ‘if you two had just married each other, Anne and I would both be a thousand times happier.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ John sighed. ‘Do you want to get a place at the beach or not?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Come see me. I miss you.’
*
Daniel bent his head low. “You see, in all truth, I am terrified whenever someone talks to me. Because deep within, I know I can say literally anything within the means of possibility. I go over and over every possible thing that can be said. And when I lay in bed at night, I replay events and conversation and romanticize what could have been said, what should have been said. What would have been said had I been smarter or dumber or cooler or better or worse…”
Anne nibbled her fingernail for a few moments more. Then she gave Daniel a weird look and held up two dresses. ‘Which one do you like better?’
His eyes roved around both pieces of fabric. ‘The green one, I guess. But do you get what I’m talking about?’
‘I wasn’t really following. What in God’s name were you talking about?’ The green tones of one of the clothes reflected in Anne’s eyes. ‘You talk to people fine.’
‘Well, yes.’ Daniel nodded. ‘I have sufficient social skills. Those are relatively easy to develop unless, you know…’ He shook his head. ‘Nevermind. The point is when people talk to me, every possible thing that can be said flies throughout my mind. I think of mean things to say, nice things to say. I think of things I could say that might change their hearts or minds. And I also think of things that are disgusting and ridiculous, but what I usually say is stupid shit. I think of clever shit to say that other people would say. Now do you get what I am saying?’
‘Yeah,’ Anne said.
‘I like the green one, too.’
Written by BW Derge, All Rights Reserved 2024
© USA
This was a short story composed in 2012 called "Oblivious Summer (It Falls On All Our Shoulders)"
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