Wendy Parciak Presents Requiem for Locusts - An Extraordinary Look at Fearful Lives

 

“Do you see the little pale yellow flowers at the tips of the branches? Hanging in long clusters?” “Flower child. I always thought it of her. Perfect, perfect child, covered with roses. Yellow and gold and pink,” the voice answered, promptly this time. It was easiest to assume that this response was a yes. Step 4: Answer subject, and continue in this manner until you or subject is tired of topic. 

“Those are called catkins,” Dr. Norton said. “They hold the male flowers on this tree, and if you look—” “Yes, kitty kitty. You’re fluffy, and you’re a girl, not a boy, aren’t you?” “What?” Dr. Norton had momentum now and hated to stop. “She’s a sweet thing, and she’s my friend, isn’t she?” “Well...,” Dr. Norton hesitated, sensing that his finely-engineered conversation on oak trees was crumbling. He had never gone past Step 4, but he could see that would be necessary now. Step 5: Subject is tired of topic. Change topic to subject’s choice. “Isn’t she?” the voice persevered. 

Dr. Norton sighed. “Yes,” he said, abandoning the oak flowers. Perhaps another time... “You really think so?” “I do.” Dr. Norton was amazed. This person actually cared about his opinion, and it had nothing to do with demyelination of the nervous system, perivascular inflammation in the brain or progressive-relapsing multiple sclerosis. His opinion about a cat! He gave a small, shy smile to the shadowed trunk of the oak tree. “I know she’s happy because she’s purring, and she must be purring because she likes you.” Dr. Norton paused, feeling the trembling bark beneath his hands. “She’s not an easy lady to please,” he added. His cheeks warmed at the boldness of this remark. “She isn’t?” the voice sounded doubtful. “No...she’s often annoyed with me these days. Even though she’s been with me for thirteen years. That’s why I was so delighted to discover her purring here.” “Yes, you’re a happy girl, happy girl, friendly girl,” the voice crooned to his cat. “Such a friendly girl, friendly friend...” Dr. Norton waited. “She likes to have her back rubbed, right above the base of her tail,” he volunteered. “Oh yes, I know what Princess likes, I do,” the voice chuckled. 

“Princess is...a good name,” Dr. Norton said, trying to be agreeable. “I call her Mathilde.” “Ma-thilde. Like Matilda?” “Yes, very similar to that.” “Matilda. Almost like me. Do you know the song?” And before Dr. Norton could respond, the song came drifting down from the top of the tree,  “Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong, Under the shade of the Kulibar tree, And he sang as he watched and he waited ‘till his billy boiled: “You’ll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me....” 

Dr. Norton pressed his hands into the bark, furrowed imprints in his palms. The singing was wistful, translucent. Each note descended and tingled on his face, along with the rounded raindrops, perfectly on pitch, glasslike. He stared at his hands, or where they would be if he could see anymore on this spring night. As the melody swirled around his hands, his head, he thought of himself as a young child, skipping and singing in a preschool class.  “Up rode the squatter mounted on his thoroughbred, Down came the troopers, one, two, three, Whose that jolly jumbuck you’ve got in your tucker bag? “You’ll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me....” 

He tried to remember what the song meant, but all he could recall was that it was odd. Something to do with sheep shearers wandering around Australia carrying blankets to keep themselves warm. Was Matilda the blanket? “Up jumped the swagman, sprang into the billabong, “You’ll never catch me alive, said he. And his ghost can be heard as you pass by that billabong: “You’ll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me.”

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda, You’ll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me.And he sang as he watched and he waited ‘till his billy boiled:“You’ll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me.”

A heavy stillness settled out of the air. Dr. Norton didn’t move. He had no idea what to do now. How could conversation follow a song such as that? Step 6: End conversation? “What are you thinking?” asked the voice, startling Dr. Norton out of his thoughts. “Oh,” he said. “Uh...,” relevant thoughts, relevant thoughts, Roland. “I was thinking...what a lovely song that was. I mean, not the song, but the singing,” he hurried to explain, his cheeks on fire again. “Although the song itself is quite nice, too. Perhaps I should go inside now,” he added. He removed his hands from the tree.

“Wait, Mr. White Oak Man,” said the voice. “Miss Matilda will come with you now.” Mathilde. Once again, he had forgotten about her. “Mathilde?” he called up the tree trunk. “Mrrow.” Here she was, slithering down the tree and into his arms. “Mathilde. I’m glad you didn’t get stuck up there,” he said, with his nose buried in her wet fluffy neck. “It’s time for us to go do some reading.” Holding Mathilde, he began to step cautiously away from the close blackness of the tree. At the edge of the canopy, he hesitated. “Goodnight,” he called upwards. “And...thank you. Mathilde has had a fine evening.” Excellent resolution. The tree breathed a shower of mist in response. Dr. Norton waited, wanting to ask the voice if it was indeed real, and if so, why it should choose to spend a damp evening in the top of his oak tree. But that might precipitate another conversation, and he was worn out. Or he might find that he had had an imaginary dialogue with one of his plants. Best to end on a good note, he decided, and ask no more questions. He shut the screen door, latched the back door, and carried Mathilde to the kitchen.

“Look at you, Tilly, you must feel terrible when you’re all wet like that.” He rubbed a towel over her thick fur. She sat without making a sound, looking pleased with herself. He used a corner of the towel to rub the short fur on her head. She twitched her tail to show that her patience was wearing thin, and he hooked a finger under her collar to keep her still. “What’s this?” he asked her. Her collar felt unusually lumpy. He parted the fur on her neck and instead of the black of her collar saw gloppy dirty white, no...pale greenish yellow. Soggy smashed petals, hundreds of tiny petals connected in catkins. Catkins intertwined, around and around her collar. “Did you get tangled in the oak flowers, Mathilde?” He pulled some strands off and held them up, sniffed them. They had little fragrance, but they smelled faintly of growth and crushed earth...

~~~

Breathtaking

Compelling!

Page-Turner

Informative - Love Thy Neighbor 

 

Normally I would read the short summary for a possible book, but having connected with the author, after trying to rebuild twitter connections after its takeover, I just bought the book and began to read...

It was interesting to try to get into a book cold turkey, so I was soon enthralled as each new character was brought forth. Certainly this book is character-driven, in an unique and extraordinary manner! You see, if you happen to have moved into town, purchased a home on Locust Street, you may quickly begin to wonder one thing...

Does anybody else live on the street? In fact, the author sets up the book for us, her readers, in a Prologue. She talks about the houses, the walks, the grass, which apparently is required to be kept in a certain way... Still, nothing about who lives on the street... except to point out it could be you, me, or even a psycho... But does it really matter, she challenges...

And so the book began. And there I was, Willow Stokes. I am a single older woman, living alone, and somewhat physically fragile... Ms Stokes differs in one way from me. She has nobody to depend upon or to help her. Miss Stokes was quite self sufficient, until noises and voices started beyond her home, she knew that she wouldn't be able to settle until she learned what was happening. She crept out carefully, wearing her special glasses to see better. At first what she saw scared her--but then she looked again and saw it was a large painted bus that took up most of the street. She escaped this major disturbance with earplugs as she shuffled off to bed...But she worried about what was going on...

Clarence and Janice St. Couer might be considered the elite of the street. And, like some who get into higher paying jobs are those who are hungry for more and more power, while looking down on those who do not meet their status... It was Janice who immediately, when seeing the bus, decided to call the police, and even made a sign and placed it on the window of the bus to warn them. Unfortunately, it rained and the sign could not be read. They have a two-year-old little girl who they think rules the world, being the smartest, and bound to be able to do anything they wanted her to do.

Miss Stokes comes back into the story, thus introducing our new character, Dr. Norton. Miss Stokes has fallen outside and her neighbor Dr. Norton hears her...

Dr. Norton is a neurologist and reminded me of my nephew who had Asperger's Syndrome. Dr. Norton is a good man and has a wonderful professional career, but had come to realize that he is totally unprepared to meet...people. Yep, Dr. Norton and I were also in sync. With guidance, Dr. Norton had learned a set of steps which could guide him through conversation which required what most people call "small talk." So each time he was involved, he would struggle how to deal with the situation. At least, finally, Dr. Norton was able to handle the situation to get Miss Stokes to the hospital. And, to do this, he had sought help from the newest resident--the owner of the bus!

Stopping there, I wanted to spotlight just how the author has garnered so much attention from her readers. In reading many books, I don't think I have ever read a writer who was so prolific in weaving each and every character through not only the physical descriptions so that we feel like we can imagine the individual, as well as how that person speaks as a part of his or her personality. Picture for yourself, just how you might think through your day--moving from thought to thought, idea to idea, backward and forward until you are able to decide just how and what you want to say or do... 

Now, think about your friends, your family members...how they differ from you...and what that means in your own ability to interact with them. I could go on and on, but I must say that Parciak's character development, especially in, this, her first book, is qualifiedly well beyond  any in my memory of thousands of books.

Back to the story...for before long--two young women slowly invade each life on the street in some way... as the Circus has come to Town!

Eugenia is one of the main characters. She is 13 and lives with her father. One day, one of her neighbors called; she had never met the woman so was surprised when she explained that her babysitter had to be away for a week and hoped that Eugenia would be able to take care of their daughter, Alicia, during that time period. Eugenia was thrilled--finally a way to make a little money...

But she had no idea what she was getting into! For one, the child, age two, never went anywhere outside of her home except in a car, being driven. This tragedy soon became the first problem to solve since Eugenia of course was not old enough to drive...

The home of the couple who had hired Eugenia was certainly reflective of the personalities of the two parents who both worked. But only as we read do we begin to see the obsessive-compulsion of the father while at the same time, the insecurity and trauma of the past that has held the mother for many years. Watching how Eugenia handles each task within an extremely structured environment, well, was just plain fun. 

Eugenia may not be brilliant, but she sure came across as an extremely self-sufficient and intelligent young girl. What she did in order to take care of the child was creative, and indicative of a child who, having faced bad times in the past, was quite able to stand on her own two feet to handle a new situation. And while she faces each new experience, she begins to create a "scene" in her mind in which she works to solve the problem... These little stories flow easily through the entire novel...

Eugenia Walch, an observant girl on Locust Street, gives us the following eyewitness account of a break-and-enter robbery by a sociopathic homophobe.... Or...Eugenia Walch describes in terrifying detail how she outwitted a pack of feral Dobermans, which were about to consume one of her neighbors....

One of the surprising times was when Eugenia had decided to take Alicia into the back yard and, upon seeing what was a very carefully created sand pond was seen by Eugenia and Alicia as, simply a sand box! (And even stranger when her father comes across this ruined scene!) And, it was at that sand box that Eugenia and Alicia first met the second young woman.

Infantile French lesson versus her first big break as a journalist? No contest. She scudded back across the street to the St. Coeur’s yard, yanked her roller blades off and threw them under the bush, and tiptoed in her socks to the backyard shrub-wall. She pressed her ear against prickly branches, inhaling the pungency of sap and fleshy blue juniper cones. Nothing. 

She pushed her hand into the branchy mire. “Ow.” She pulled her hand back. How did the St. Coeurs get into their backyard? Not from here, evidently. The neighbor’s yard had a rather hostile-looking gate, so she climbed up on the porch, unlocked the heavy doors and went inside, remembering just in time to de-activate the security system before the alarm went off. She trotted to the large glass doors in the sun room, where shades kept all but a hint of the sun from entering. She slid the doors open and stepped out onto the deck. 

The yard below was large and bare. No grass. Round rocks stretched in an orderly fashion in all directions to the boundary hedge. Here and there a small tightly-pruned juniper stuck out. In the middle of the yard, plastic edging bordered a kidney-shaped area that was filled with sand. Not an errant leaf or a weed in sight. No crickets chirping, either. 

Eugenia didn’t see any criminals, wild Dobermans or anything else exciting, so she descended to the yard and pulled off the car seat. “Look, a sand box.” Eugenia deposited Alicia in the middle of the kidney, so that her bottom made a nice round imprint in the carefully swirled, rake-crafted ridges of sand. Alicia looked up. Her mouth formed into an “O.” Uh-oh, fish gasping for air, watch out. 

“It’s fun. Every child plays in the sand,” Eugenia assured her. “Here, I’ll show you.” She picked up the cow hoof, which had fallen into Alicia’s lap. “Gross, it’s all soggy,” she said, nearly dropping the stinky thing in disgust, but she forced herself to show Alicia how to scoop up sand with it and deposit it elsewhere. “Problem is, you need water to build a proper sand castle. Tell you what, you play with that while I go get you some.”  Eugenia detoured to the side of the yard to see if she could see where the screaming person had come or gone. Much like the front side, the inside of the hedge appeared impenetrable. She walked the length of it, trailing her hand along the flat, scaly foliage. Wait. Here was a skinny branch that had freed itself from the pruned conformity of its partners. It angled into the yard a short ways, soaking up sun. She poked her hand behind it. “OW!” She yanked her hand out. Scratched again, worse this time. 

But wait a minute, she thought, that wasn’t the resistance of millions of tiny interlaced branchlets. Those were prongs. Sharp ones. Broken-off branches. She peered into the dusty darkness, and saw tens, maybe hundreds of white tips. Woody limbs that had been snapped and exposed, lighting a path from one side of the shrub to the other. Incontrovertible evidence that a large body, or maybe a small but fast-moving body, had come through here. 

For the first time, Eugenia felt a chill. If the body belonged to the screaming person, then where was he? Or she? Or it? The first alien to land on earth had an unsavory encounter with the thick-witted residents of Locust Street and fled back to the Andromeda Galaxy with hateful tales of the cruelness, greed and ignorance of the human race. This caused the Intergalactic Council to place a ban on further contact of any sort with Earth. And from that day onward the blue-green planet was left alone, to fight her own internal wars, and to assume that the life within her was indeed unique in the universe.... 

Eugenia wandered in the direction of the house without seeing any more clues. Of course, a bulldozer was about the only thing that would leave a trace in this yard, with the exception of the hedge and maybe the sand pond. She climbed the deck stairs and went inside, trying to remember why she had come. Oh yes, water. 

She looked up. After the basement, the sun felt like a wall of brightness and warmth. What was she doing? Water. Alicia. Eugenia squinted into the yard and breathed a sigh of relief. Alicia was still there. But...no. That was not Alicia, unless she had grown and sprouted an abundance of dark hair. Without thinking, Eugenia ran towards the threatening intruder, towards the sandbox where her feeble little charge had been playing. 

“Don’t!” she yelled in a voice hoarse with fright, and the silver disc sailed out of her hand, spinning and glinting in the sun, arcing up and then down, down, down until it plunged headfirst into the sand, a foot shy of the black-haired maniac. Darn it, a piss-poor throw, Eugenia thought as she ran behind it. So much for being heroic. She stopped short at the sandbox, chest heaving. Alicia was sitting where Eugenia had deposited her, eating sand. She was paying no attention to the stranger sitting in front of her. “...think you’re telling the truth,” the stranger was whispering to Alicia. “You don’t like Carrie or Leon or Jessica either. Perhaps together we...” The stranger looked up, suddenly aware of Eugenia’s presence. Eugenia found herself staring at a pale, open face with dark eyes that were wide-open and trusting. “You’re...just a girl!” Eugenia said. For once, she was at a loss for words. The stranger was small, thin and looked as though she was only a few years older than Eugenia. Eugenia felt weak in the knees now that she knew she wasn’t dealing with an alien being, or some big, hairy convict from the city jail. As soon as Eugenia had spoken, a change came over the girl’s eyes. They darkened to an inky black, a blackness that soaked up the sun’s energy and wrung it out somewhere deep inside.

“No!” screamed the girl, jumping up. “I am not a boy! You can’t make me be one! Make Carrie be one instead!” She was clutching a shiny plastic bag into which she plunged her hand and threw a handful of something yellow at Eugenia. Eugenia dove to the ground to avoid being hit. She found herself face-to-face with one of the small yellow missiles. It was a corn chip. What a freak! She almost laughed out loud. 

“Wait,” she said, ducking her head to avoid another shower of chips. “Didn’t you hear me? I agree with you. You’re very definitely a girl. That’s the first thing I thought when I saw you. Truly.” The girl retreated to the far end of the sand pond, clutching the bag of chips, which looked strikingly similar to the bag Eugenia had opened for Alicia’s breakfast. She glowered and spoke in a voice so low Eugenia could hardly make out the words. “Think you’re so smart, don’t you? ...know better...with Princess Carrie and her knives and tigers...not trustworthy... all fire and light...thought she was a golden child and Leon loved her....know better...it’s me that’s supposed to be the one....know better, I do....”  

“What the heck?” Eugenia interrupted. She was confused and somewhat irritated. Was this complete gibberish or was it a personal attack? And who was Princess Carrie, an evil member of a royal family?

~~~

And Ruining through the remainder of the book is this song...

With unexplainable results since we never learn all of the words...

Well, I was curious enough to find them so they are at the bottom of this article...Latin to English

But it is not really the words that are sought

But rather how the song came into the story...

I was about 40% of the way through the book when I started noticing something... Each of the homes had very high fences or trees, so much so that an individual could not go from one home to another through their back yards. In fact, it quickly became clear that there was little involvement with their neighbors, which is not altogether unusual, except, we sense that most of the individuals are dealing with some personal fear that caused them to withdraw into their home, seeking the security that could not be found out in the world...even on their own street, in their own town... Even one of the newcomers, who presents as an extremely friendly outgoing man, has a terrible burden that he only allows to come forth with those who are caring enough to listen... 

Readers, I was one of those who carefully listened to all those who came to live on Locust Street... I invite you into the most complex book you may ever read... Yet, in many ways, the most touching tale that can only be read as a whole... Because if you don't, you will truly miss the treasure to be found...beyond...the end of this book! How Exciting to say that! I wanted a different ending...but it would have to have been a  lengthy novel that would merely elaborate on the ending we "experience..." Still, I must say that I would love to see a follow up book featuring the two young women, perhaps working together to continue to spotlight the crux of the storyline in Requiem. Don't miss this literary gem!

O fortune

O Fortuna

Like the moon

Velut luna

Changeable

Statu variabilis

Ever growing

Semper crescis

Or you decrease

Aut decrescis

Hateful life

Vita detestabilis

Now it's hard

Nunc obdurat

And then soothes

Et tunc curat

I play the game of the mind

Ludo mentis aciem,

Poverty,

Egestatem,

Power

Potestatem

Like ice.

Dissolvit ut glaciem.

Fate

Sors immanis

And empty

Et inanis,

You are a rolling wheel

Rota tu volubilis

Bad status

Status malus

Vain salvation

Vana salus

Always disintegrating

Semper dissolubilis

Overshadowed

Obumbrata

And veiled

Et velata

You are also looking for me

Michi quoque niteris

Now through the game

Nunc per ludum

Back bare

Dorsum nudum

I will bear your crime.

Fero tui sceleris.

The fate of salvation

Sors salutis

And of virtue

Et virtutis

against me now,

Michi nunc contraria,

It is an emotion

Est affectus

And failure

Et defectus

Always on duty.

Semper in angaria.

In this hour

Hac in hora

Without delay

Sine mora

Touch the heartbeat

Corde pulsum tangite

That by lot

Quod per sortem

It spreads strong

Sternit fortem

All mourn with me

Mecum omnes plangite

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Carl Orff

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