We Lived Downstream (from a Wizard)

Howdy,

[read with Southern accent] 

This here little story is just an antidote to the craziness in world out thar. I wrote and recorded it in hopes that it would distract you from the chaos, but also help you find something soft to sink into.

In Neighborliness~

Jill Badonsky

The full script and other goodies are found at Substack

For more information about me and such, go to this here link.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hi, this is Jill Badonsky, and this is Amuse's Daydream. This is called We Live Downstream. Now downstream from Glenn and me, tucked back like a tick behind a hound's ear, lives a feller named Frederick F. Dilly Dobb. That's his name. It's on his mailbox. We don't rightly know why he lives out here, but we think he's up to no good, mainly because we have too much time on our hands. We don't trust new folk in these parts. We think he's a wizard, mainly because he's got the word wizard spray painted in yellow on his cedar roof. I say a man who advertises like that has gone plum past going a worry and into some higher form of confidence. Glenn thinks he's a fugitive. I didn't want to argue for a change. This wizard don't dress how you'd figure neither. We spied him one Sunday at Luna Bell's diner, sitting two tables over, eating his chili slow as Sunday school, wearing a red and black checked flannel shirt, worn out jeans, but his socks had little moons stitched all over them. Any man that wears moon socks to eat chili on the Lord's Day gotta be up to some enchanting, even if he don't wear no cape and pointy hat, I said. Dan rolled his eyes. I walked by his table just to take a good look. He nodded once, real polite like, and then went back to staring into his bowl like he was reading the future in the beans. I looked at his beans. I saw no message. He's got a whole pack of them rescues. Every one of them hounds got Mac talked on the front of their name. Mac Henry, Mac Magic, MacRuff, Mac Mackie, Mac Moe. And this little scraggly fella named Mac Bailey, who looks like a rat, but it's still so cute you'd let him lick leftovers off of your plate. They each got mailboxes, is how he knows their names. Every so often, when the day gets real still, Glenn and me will sit by the petunias with our peach pie by the creek, and two of them Mac dogs will come balanced and floating by on a bamboo wrap. They stand dead center on the craft, tongues breath bobbin, ears lapping in the breeze, and when they seize a catfish, they suspend their breaths like they're watching a cat fall out of a tree. They glide by so quiet you'd swear the water was carrying secrets instead of dogs. Them dogs don't just drift down for fun. We'd seen them float all the way down to Connor's place at the ravine. Right where the band is. As soon as they bump the bank, they leap off the raft, tear back through the woods, snapping up twigs and roots like they was shopping off a list. Well, after 35 years of living up in this holler, it's only a matter of time before curiosity turns into a plan. So one evening, as the sky turned peachy as our pie and the cottonwoods whispered like they was in on the joke, I announced to Glen tomorrow I'm following one of them dogs down the creek. Glenn adjusted his cap nervously, but said, Well, don't wear your good shoes, we're the ones the pig stepped on. Next afternoon, I parked myself by the creek, and boom, here comes two of them dogs riding that bamboo raft like they're on a mission. Soon as they drifted by, I slid down the bank quiet as a whisper. Followed the creek's curve while a raft did a slow glide. The cottonwoods made that shimmery canopy overhead, tossing little dapples of sun all over them dogs, like someone had sprinkled them with gold dust. By the time they bumped ashore at the Connor spot, I was hid up behind a clump of patonias growing wild, pretending like I was scenery. The dogs hopped off, shook themselves, then trotted straight into the woods, noses down, tails up. I slipped behind, them ducking under branches and waved through the ferns, watching them collect twigs and pine needles. I went deeper till the trees thinned out, and there it was. The wizards downstream hideout. Those dogs made their way up to where the rest of the dogs had piled twigs and leaves in little neat stacks. And there they all were hanging out in front. And in front of them was a little stone circle. There was an ancient hum in the air. Possibly bees. Maybe something older. Then outstepped McDilly Dob himself. For a second my heart thunk so loud I was sure the dogs would start barking, but they stayed calm as you please. The wizard looked straight toward the bushes, right toward the part of my lap that made decisions like this and smiled at this little lopsided thing as if acknowledging that surveillance is just another form of neighborliness. Maybe neighborliness. That single syllable rearranged the air. The dogs abided, grabbed their bundles of Kinling, and put them in the stone circle. Then it happened. For five glorious minutes, everything, including physics, takes a coffee break. Instead of catching fire like Kinling ought to, the piles dissolved into a yellow-orange light. A smoke that rose and turned itself into circles and spirals, and then, like a party changing theme, became crisp red and gold leaves that drifted down into a heap as large as a pickup, right here in the middle of summer. Then the whole Macpack of rescues starts diving in, leaf-colored and ecstatic, taking turns over and over like it's some higher form of theology. It hits my heart like opening a map and seeing my name on a place I'd never noticed. Watching them, I felt something old inside me unclenched. Like maybe faith isn't belief, but astonishment that rescues you when you least expect it. I backed away quiet and slow and headed back home. But when I tried to explain it to Glenn, language failed in a way you wish it wouldn't, like a car or parent. All I could tell him was, maybe we are all in the end just trying to transform the debris of who we are into something soft to fall into. No matter who we are or where we come from. And for once Glenn didn't argue. He just nodded real slow, like maybe the magic had already floated upstream in his direction. And honestly, that was enough magic for me. Visit www.themusesn.com for more neighbor neigh neighborliness. I don't know why I can't say that word. Neighborliness. Workshops, retreats, and creative prompts. Thank you for listening.