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A Tale of 23 Things
by juliett jade
A novel published online with one of 23 chapters sent via e-mail just about every new and full moon from January 23, 2008.
A Tale of 23 Things is a metaphysical, open relationship love story set in San Francisco starring a web of artists, street performers and itinerants. Each chapter unfolds around the action of discovering, creating or gifting an object, revealing the messages and stories contained within each thing while passionate entanglements and fringe philosophies unfurl.
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Welcome to A Tale of 23 Things. I pounded out the first draft of this novel in a feverish haze in November 2006 during my first Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) adventure. Since this intensely-determined, 50,000+ word birthing process, the story and its characters have evolved and grown, organized puppet shows in parking garages and sculpted lawn chairs from old license plates, and now that they have matured to the point of asserting volition, they insist on entering the public eye.
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Subscription
7 Euro US $9
or equivalent foreign currency
The subscription is for the entire novel sent in chapters over the course of 2008, one chapter sent every new and full moon from January 23, 2008. If the subscription is made after the installments have begun, all previous chapters will be sent in the first e-mail.
To subscribe, please ...
* send an e-mail with "subscribe" in the subject line and indicate if you choose the reduced price, after which you receive a Paypal invoice via e-mail.
* send an e-mail with "subscribe" in the subject line, request a low-tech payment option and indicate if you choose the reduced price, after which you receive more details.
* encounter jade on the path of her journey and purchase a subscription in person. (This option was voted best by 5 out of 6 main characters and is highly encouraged by the author.)
jade at jadecreation dot org
The first two chapters ...
Chapter 1 ~ The black bird
Bright, electric pink rays of dusk striped the autumn San Francisco sky, fading from a soft, young blue from the west to the deep enchanted sapphire of east. I watched this marvelous sky with unfocused eyes as I walked down Laguna Street carrying a little black bird with me. The bird was tucked warm and safe in the left pocket of my zipped-up hooded sweatshirt, bound beneath a layer of ribbed cotton sweater robe and a heavy black velvet coat.
I found this crafty little bird earlier that morning on the painted-grey wooden slats of my front porch. When I pulled open the front door and walked out into the open air of daylight with my head clouded by lists and unspoken monologues, I almost crunched the bird underfoot, missing him with an awkward forward lunge. I recoiled, pulling back my leg and instinctively curling up into a ball shape as a panicky wave of horror vibrated through the sensitive space between my heart and my stomach. Bending down to examine the bird, I saw that he was made of fake black feathers and little red plastic eyes glued to a hard, hollow body. I de-gloved my right hand and picked him up. I imagined he was a displaced Halloween decoration from the festivities of the night before, and he must have fallen from a costume or descended from a neighbor's wreath of dry and burnished orange-brown leaves.
I said a silent thank you to the bringer of such things, surprise gifts of unknown origin, motionless playthings that don't end in a mess of fluid and decay, that instead become ever more alive with the touch of each hand, with the fresh theatre stage set by each new gaze. I am grateful to have found you, little black bird. I am grateful for things like you: lost treasure flashing upward from grass and rosebush mulch, curious things discovered in dirt crevasses of sidewalks or displaced on littered curbsides, gifts from the grand, chaotic matrix of the urban imagination.
Chapter 2 ~ The red rose
The cold, dusk air pricked my lungs as I inhaled and breathed deep, walking in a quickened pace toward the bus stop. I felt like I had a trusted friend with me, comforted and protected, with the black bird sitting in my pocket, nestled against my hip as we moved through the silvery chill evening under a darkening sky.
I sat on a bench by the bus stop, a rectangular bus-sized space delineated by faded yellow lines painted on the street. I unzipped the main pouch of my backpack and pulled out a small roll of black electrical tape, placing it in my coat pocket. I sank my hand into the depths of the bag, groping for the cool touch of metal, searching for the pair of stainless steel surgical scissors that I had placed inside which sunk to the bottom of the bag with its weightiness. I gave up the search and trusted that the scissors were still there somewhere and that I would find them when it was time.
I intended to cut a strap of tape to bind the bird with a long piece of wood or a thin and sturdy stick. I wanted to raise him high into the air, above the mass of painted faces and costumed bodies and gloved hands illuminated by white candle flames during the Dia de los Muertos procession in the Mission, my imminent destination.
During the impatient space of time waiting for the bus, in which most people enter into various modes of distraction, noses in newspapers or novels or ears plugged with white earphones blaring digitized music, I noticed what was around me, looking upward with a soft gaze into the sky and staring into the oblivion of artificial golden glow from illuminated streetlights. My attention wandered to a sparse stream of people walking by, following the pedestrian trajectory of a dark-grey haired man wearing jeans and a David Bowie T-shirt under a leather jacket, turning my head to assess a stunning woman with African, long-locked hair.
I focused on the mission to find a stick for the bird and walked around the trees of the sidewalk looking for loose branches, scanning concrete-bound squares of grassy earth. Nothing. The bus lurched to a stop almost within the yellow lines on the pavement, and I stepped on board through the front doors, dropped a series of coins into the ticket machine and collected a bus transfer, a long strip of paper valid for bus rides the entire night. I stood close to the front of the nearly full bus, holding onto a metal pole with both hands and surfing the stop and go swaying motion as we whirred in electric silence, turning corners and moving past pink pastel church walls and a closed elementary school, a vintage boutique and two sushi restaurants, a black-doored bar and a few donut coffee shops, narrowly passing bike riders without helmets. Along the fast-moving stream of street scenes, I continued my scanning search for a stick, though I saw no evidence of tree branches anywhere I looked. The city holds no space for organic detritus, it seems. City streets are swept clean of curling autumn leaves and clumps of dark verdant soil and fallen pieces of tree, drying like bone on hard grey concrete.
The bus pulled to a stop, and I descended the steps with a push and shove pack of people into a flurry of motion at 24th Street and Mission. I listened for the distant sound of asyncopated drumbeats and bells and howling voices, seeking the direction toward the Dia de los Muertos gathering. I couldn't hear anything yet, so I started walking south, past colorful burrito shops and fluorescent-lit liquor stores and a stream of expressionless, unpainted faces, slowly moving people wearing ordinary grey and black clothes. I pressed onward seeking the pulsing beat of the night.
Costumed participants who were departing the event appeared in small clusters, and I followed a reverse stream of them until I found and joined the nighttime celebration. Skeletons with stark, black and white painted faces and wide red lips and bright white bones painted on black cotton clothing mixed together with Victoriana brides with dark umbrellas, black and blue flowers woven into veiled hats, and pointy-heeled, lacey boots, as the otherworldly resonance of a mobile Indonesian gamelan orchestra clanged and gonged along the candlelit and crowded path.
I saw a roundish man wearing a blue kilt who was standing in between two women who were likely his twin daughters. They were paused at the side of the street watching the procession, each one holding a thin white candle twisted into the center of a Styrofoam cup. I opened my bag and pulled out a bundle of dried white sage, and I approached one of the daughters, the one standing to the left of the man. She wore long, straight red hair draped over enormous copper earrings sculpted into dragons. I leaned in close, my lips nearing her ear and asked, "May I use your fire?"
I pulled back and her green eyes shined deeply into mine. Wordlessly, she lowered her gaze to her hands as she tipped her candle toward me. I held out the sage wand, touching the tips of the dry, crisp leaves to the center of the flame, lighting the sage an electric orange-yellow glow. I blew on the wand lightly to encourage the burning, and wisps of smoke twisted upward into the streetlamp and starlit night sky. I winked at the red-haired woman and she smiled shyly as I stepped away, broke her gaze, and began tracing wide arcs in the air, leaving tails of smoke trailing behind me as I skipped down the street and spun around in circles, inhaling the dust of time past and the scent of love lost and the moist wind of bodies breaking apart and exhaling a pristine stream of breath, purified wisps of lightness, dancing wildly in spirals and fading away into air.
My feet tamped down to the rhythm of drumbeats echoing through the streets, as I flowed with the crowd in a velvety, dreamlike state of mind. Passing a cluster of seven police officers standing in front of an alleyway, I felt the muscles in my face and chest tighten with instinctual authoritarian fear. The officers offered blank and stern expressions as they stood together with crossed arms or hands on hips, their batons and guns strapped into leather holsters that wrapped around generous waistlines. The group emanated an electronic orchestra of quiet beeping and crackling of walkie-talkies. I walked past them and sighed, slowly turned around and strolled past them again, my eyes averted and pretending not to care or notice as I swirled the burning sage in small circles close enough to penetrate their auras. I exhaled as I sent the purifying smoke into their heart space, clearing a path for levity, for the softness of infant skin, the meowing of kittens, dispersing the heavy imprints of force and havoc, cleansing into purity their intentions and actions in the present moment and in the echoing, spectral arc of past and future.
The dense crowds and commotion of gamelan and drummers had flowed forward during this interlude, and I followed behind amongst a thin trickle of bodies moving together in a loose pack, an army of silent strangers. The light of the sage wand burned out, leaving the tips of the leaves black and grey with smoke softened to a thin wisp. I stepped to the side of the street near a gated doorway, opened my bag and placed the sage bundle within a lavender envelope and zipped it away. Behind wrought iron bars, on the steps ascending toward a Victorian doorway, a lovingly constructed altar glowed in votive candlelight. I gazed upon a collection of carefully woven dried roses and fresh carnations and faded photographs, handwritten notes, little white skulls made of sugar and accented with fuchsia and green and turquoise blue, and a framed and faded image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Near the bottom step, I lowered to my knees, the coarse pavement biting through my clothes and dimly pricking my skin as I sat back on my heels and closed my eyes, letting the flicker of candlelight beam through the darkness behind my eyelids. With slow breath and hands pressed together at my chest, I found a space, an empty room with no corners or shelves, no couches or mirrors or light fixtures, only the pulsing glow of fire. A space filled with the comfort of warmth and heat. From this place I whispered to the human spirits and angels honored by this altar, "fly free," and a stream of white birds erupted in flight, wings laced with sunlight and gliding though the darkness of the beyond. I smiled and opened my eyes a slit, taking in the vision of candlelight and shadow dancing on the glowing altar objects. I raised myself to my feet and brushed off specks of concrete and dirt from my hands and knees. I bent forward at the waist and offered a bow and a wink.
Back into the street, I quickened my steps, moving fast to rejoin the procession, my heart pounding a beat challenging the rhythm of the swelling drums sounds. I felt like I was gliding above everything around me, above the teenagers lighting cigarettes by the newspaper stands, above the pavement littered with crushed cans and plastic bags, above the parked cars edged up against each other in a tightly packed row.
A long-stemmed red rose lying against the dark grey of pavement caught my streaming gaze and stopped me midair. I descended onto the solid ground of the here and now, settling into the momentary heaviness of the earth plane. I bent down and touched one of the rose petals with a fingertip, feeling the coarse textured fabric and recognizing its artificiality. I took the rose in my hand and stood upright, pulling the flower close to my eyes, examining it in the dim streetlight, fingering beads of hot-glued dew and assessing its length and weight and sturdiness. I decided that the rose belonged with me, that it was just what I intended and what I was looking for, the long, thin piece of thing I needed to elevate my bird. I knelt to the ground and swung my backpack around in front of me and unzipped the main compartment. I dug inside, pushing aside a metallic water bottle and a multicolored knit scarf, searching through photocopied manuscripts and paint samples until I felt the cold, metal scissors and pulled them out.
I removed the roll of tape from my pocket and pulled taught a long piece of smooth, black tape, cutting it with the scissors. I unbuttoned my coat, opened my sweater robe, and lifted the bird from my sweatshirt pocket with great delicacy. I wrapped the tape in tight loops around a short metal wire protruding from beneath the bird, binding him with the stem of the red rose, snuggling him into the clothy green leaves near the bud of the flower. I beamed a smile of satisfaction as I tucked the rose stem under my arm and repacked and zipped my bag.
I ascended again and held the green, plastic-coated wire in my right hand, lifting the bird strapped onto the rose high above me as I followed the street celebration to its culmination in a nearby park with large, illuminated altars and art installations. The weight of the bird atop the flower gently pulled in a back and forth sway. I waved the bird-tipped rose like a wish-fulfilling wand, sweeping it over the heads of unsuspecting pedestrians and ghostly parading souls. My bird was flying through the midnight sky, absorbing rays of distant starlight, gliding through the breeze of the wind and the whisper of leaves shivering in the overarching trees. I felt pleased with myself for creating this coupling of found objects, of eternally alive flora and fauna. I was happy and proud for making this opportunity for the bird to fly free, to fly majestically, when at the dawn of the day he lay so motionless on the ground, so still in the shiver of morning air not yet warmed by the rays of the rising sun.
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