Today
we hear from our dewy-eyed keeper of his little stone in the
discombobulated reality we regard as our nogginal ambiances. He
really believes it has kept us safe through many perils. Who knows?
When
we were a little boy just starting school, we found a nifty little
stone by the railway track. It had a hole almost through it so we
took it home and gently chipped and scraped till we got that hole big
enough to put a cord through. Of course it had to be a red cord. It
took a while to find out, but when we had that stone in our pocket
nothing went badly. We could go to school with no homework done and
the teacher with the eyes in the back of her head wouldn't mind. We
could get the kitchen floor muddy and mom would just laugh and say
“Oh my deary, I'll clean that up”. That stone was amazing.
Of
course we had to brag about it to our two best friends and they had
to try it out too. Our one friend took it home and that evening he
had a fight with his sister and she was the one that got sent to her
room. That stone might be worth a fortune in neat stuff. So we lent
it out for a model plane to one classmate who was in big trouble over
some missing change from his brother's piggy bank. But it didn't
work. He came next day with a black eye and wanted his plane back.
The little stone still worked for us and anyone else we let use it
for free, but after several more attempts, we found charging for
it's use made it useless.
As
we got older we kept our little stone with us and it proved valuable
many times. It was no good for making money, whether from renting it
out or getting lucky with a bet. But for everyday, practical
problems it always came through. Even to this day, things like
wanting some hankypanky with the good wife, we just slip that stone
in her pocket and soon she's poking an pinching us to no end.
We
read up on charms and charmers many years ago. In Europe, people
called 'charmers' might use an object which had special properties
for healing purposes. This came out of practices predating the
christian era. They did not charge for their services and often
would not even accept a verbal thanks. They were merely custodians
of a gift, not masters of dubious magical forces and spells.
Consequently, people did not incriminate charmers as they did many
premodern medical healers, because there was little to accuse them of
as they imposed no charges and they did not provide often faulty
diagnoses of ailments.
So
I, as a persona of what we call 'us', have the unique responsibility as
keeper of our charm. This is a rather huge undertaking in
light of everyone’s lack of concern over it's preservation. If
they consider me manic I honour this title.
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