CARIBOU HANDS
I am watching 'Caribou Hands,' which is
a movie in my mind, of no import. All
about, as it is, a man who goes out one
day, quite aimlessly almost, but to buy
some soap, which his wife has requested,
or he seems to recall that she'd requested.
He goes to a tavern and then recalls that
the difference is telling - a bar of soap
has nothing to do with a bar in any way.
'Why would anyone request this at all?'
He begins asking himself this question
as he wanders; getting father afield each
moment. Then he enters a place called
'Heretsfelds' - it claims to be a village
but is really just a soap store run by
two quite striking young women. One
of them he is sure he's seen before. He
strikes up a conversation - just some
small talk while looking over the displays
of soap. The one he thinks he knows starts
calling him Harold. 'Hmmm,' he thinks,
'that's now quite odd.' For it was, actually
what his friends at school had once taken
to calling him. Then they'd all completed
their college and moved away. Now no
one ever knows to call him that. She takes
his hand and sprays something on it. 'This
will remind you of something else entire,
I am sure.' He wondered what she'd meant.
-
Oh life can be such a conundrum - a
winsome frolic one day and a deadening
bereavement of time the next. 'I wonder
what I should do?' he thought to himself.
'Play along some, pretend I get it, but admit
to nothing; or just flat out say 'Well then,
whatever do you mean to say?' He'd read
some books as a child - he still remembered -
talking rabbits and all that; frogs in pedigree
and a princess or two in frock-coats and lace.
But this was nothing like that really, though
he felt about the same as he used to then.
A bit eerie. A bit spaced.
-
'Well, I'll let the present time be,' he thought,
'and approach the past as all erased. I have
nothing here with which to play.' He asked
the other girl for a bar, 'No, make it two,'
he said, 'of Calumet Soap, the lavender kind.'
She knew what he meant, and reached to get
them, when she fell over - off the small
step-stool she'd risen upon to reach. 'Oh,
are you okay?' he asked. 'No, not at all,'
she spoke, I seem to have really hurt my
ankle. See, it's twisted.' He looked down,
but really couldn't even pretend to know
of this or what to do.
-
'Should we call for help?' he asked. With
that, the other girl - the one he thought
to perhaps know - came over. 'Oh it's a
trifle, and I'm sure it's nothing. Let me
credit your soap and you can go; we'll
take care of this,' He smiled; 'All right,
then, if that's OK.'
-
He found he deliberately stared her down,
and he liked that smile that he just could
not place. 'That'll be fourteen twenty-two,'
she said, 'includes a stipend for the taxman
too, don't you know. Everything gets
included in that these days. I remember
when all this first started, Harold, we all
fought like the Dickens to overturn those
new laws.' He smiled, nervously, 'Yes, I, I
can say so too, yet I can't say I remember
that - so long ago.' She took his open
palm and pressed his change. 'It's OK,
really now, OK; happening like this to us
all, don't you know? Well, you'd better
keep your own change ! as they say,
and isn't that a twist now, isn't it.'
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