Sisyphus, with Butter Fingers

Lonely Lotus was a peculiar soul, sipping black tea with candy red lips and a drop or two of potent perfume that smelled of the desert, and saffron, and roses. And though in flesh, she looked her part of twenty-three, in her thoughts, she was ancient, with an affinity for the unknowable.

At seven each night, the kettle whistled loudly, marking the start of her nocturnal daydreams. She’d slowly sip away at a cup of earl grey, and scribble her thoughts into her favourite black book that she had bought at a vintage shop last year.

Lotus, like all wannabe poets, had piles of notebooks and journals already, and sometimes, when a poetic line rushed through her veins in the absence of one, the ungreased edges of a napkin did the trick just fine.

But this black book was different. It didn’t have a golden feather or turquoise flowers on the cover, and it wasn’t particularly pretty, like the shiny ones in local book shops. On the contrary, it was unremarkable and a little bit beat up - its pages black and unlined, bound by a leather that had aged with the times, slightly torn in the bottom right corner, and yet its simple elegance was calling her name. For words to be seen in such a book, only white ink could tenderly kiss its pages.

The afternoon she found it, Lotus had gone wandering in the old part of the city where whisky was once distilled, and she stumbled upon a strange little shop that sold old hats, and metal cigarette cases, and candles, unscented, like they were in the old days.

Lotus found a neat little hat, that worn properly, would have been ideal for a twenties garden party. No luck. There she stood, in front of the mirror, struggling to fit it on her head, which was slightly too big for it.

“That’s a nice one,” said the owner, “They don’t make them like that anymore, huh?”

The owner was a short man with a kind face and a limp, wearing a yellow checkered shirt that matched his cane.

“They sure don’t, sir,” she said. “But I can never pull these off, anyway. Head’s too big. I guess all these thoughts gotta fit somewhere, you know, sir?”

The old man laughed.

“I like you,” he said. “You’re a funny one, you know that? What is it you do anyway?”

“I’m a philosophy student. Specializing in life’s absurdities.”

She placed the small-headed hat back on the mannequin and continued to wander.

“Ha! A philosophy student,” said the store owner. “And what absurdities have you stumbled upon, if I may be so bold to ask?”

On a small round table, toward the back of the shop, were several books that were mostly mysteries, and the little black book that was calling her name. She ran her fingers along its edges, and giggled.

“Well, good sir,” she said, “Life is so different from how it was, isn’t it? I’ve got friends that are glued to their phones all day, and I have yet to meet a suitable gentleman, and I haven’t even finished school, but student debt is just waiting to suffocate me. Twenty thousand dollars, at least. You know, sometimes I feel like Sisyphus, with butter fingers. I’m supposed to get this rock uphill, over and over and over again, but my hands are so slippery that I haven’t even started. And I think I wanna write stuff, but I’m so scared to start.”

She paused, smirked, and held up the little black book. “How much for this, by the way? I like it.”

“Twenty thousand eh? No kidding,” said the shop owner, in a momentary state of deep reflection.“That one--that one is probably the most ancient ol’ thing I’ve got in this store. No one ever really lays eyes on it. It’s damaged as you see, and has no price on it. I’ll do it for ten.”

With an unspoken gratitude, Lotus smiled at the old man and handed him a ten dollar bill before she made her way for her exit.

“Hey kid,” he said as Lotus approached the door.

“Wash your hands real good, will ya?”

That day at the shop had nearly been a year ago, and now, Lotus was sipping her usual black tea in the dark, in between absorbing thick existential texts for school, and twelve page essays in the works that would wrap up her undergrad in a few short months.

More than anything, Lotus longed to surrender to her fine, black, naked sheets inside the old leather notebook, dressing them up in whimsical verses that she dreamed would one day live on the shelves of book stores, speaking to strangers from all walks of life, and finding the spot inside their hearts that tick; the spot that made them vividly remember long lost loves and the places that they wandered long ago as children, with the whole world inside the tiny palm of their hands.

Lotus glanced at the moon through the window. It was a mid-winter’s night and it happened to be full that night.

With her fine-tip white pen, she scratched some prose down into the book:

“I burn lavender sticks in the morning these days, watch the strings of blue smoke crawl up to the ceiling, and then I write about the sun and the moon, and the strange fixation we all seem to have with crawling into hearts that are heavily coated with mould inside.

And I don’t even know what I'm doing anymore.

I mean I say I’m a poet, throwing confetti at skeletons, but I’m swallowing thorns wrapped in thin white rose petals, and I think my heart’s been pierced.”

She glanced back up at the moon through the window, running her fingers along the book to feel its soothing leathery texture, when she felt a sudden urge to re-read the poems she had filled its pages with thus far.

Flipping to the very first page, she noticed a zipped pocket inside the front cover that she had failed to notice before. In sheer curiosity, she unzipped it to uncover an enclosed letter:

“I was like you once. I was an odd little soul, and a dreamer, and a chemist of words, if you will. I had a lover named Mildred who tore out my heart, and I tore out a couple myself, kid.

Eventually, I forfeited the empty pages in front of me, begging to be filled with ink, and I let my mind take the lead. I married a good woman and raised some good kids, and I had it all, at least most of the time. I had it real good, and I brought home the bread, and spent the sunnier days of the year by the lake, dancing under moonlight. Oh yes, I was deeply content, but I sure missed my pages and I think they missed me too.

And here’s the thing, kid. Sometimes in life, our hands get real slimy with grease and with dirt and with the goddamn remnants of heartbreak, you know? And we hesitate to build with the hands that tremble and slip and slide.

Promise me something, kid. Wash your hands real good, will ya? Wash your hands real good, and then be the sweet creator that you are. Marinate your fractured heart in glitter and in roses, and show the world your beauty, will ya? The world sure needs that, kid. The world sure does.”

With the letter still in hand, Lotus witnessed a fresh warm teardrop hit the page that she read from, and as she reached for the pocket to put the letter back in its place, a greenish shade was contrasting against the faded black leather.

Twenty bills lay flat inside the little black book’s pocket. Twenty bills amounting to a thousand dollars each.

Lotus gasped, and with trembling hands, her mind raced.

“I think I’d like to go to Budapest,” she thought, “Or Capetown. No, no. I will get on a train and aimlessly wander, and I’ll sip good tea, look for lavender fields, and talk to interesting strangers, and collect stories and sights and sounds. Yes. Life is about the interesting strangers we stumble upon at the right place and the right time. And I’ll still have cash left to pay most of my debts off. But first, I must return to the shop and thank the kind old man for this most wonderful gift.”

The next day, Lotus set off to the city’s distillery district where the vintage shop had been located. It was a cold and wet winter’s day, and the cobblestone glistened from the ice laced rain that gently fell.

Lotus reached the vintage shop and immediately noticed that the sign by its entrance had been upgraded. Though the store name still read “Sweet Old Things,” the sign looked new and shiny.

“Hello,” she said, as she walked through the door which prompted the sound of a faint bell, announcing the arrival of a customer. The interior too, had gone through some noticeable changes, but the shop’s quirky friendliness still remained.

“Hello. Welcome to Sweet Old Things. Vicious out there, isn’t it?”

But the voice did not belong to the old man she had met last year. This voice belonged to a young man in his twenties, peering over a book in glasses from behind the cash register.

“It sure is,” she replied. Outside, the sound of wind and ice pellets intensified.

“We’ve got some neat old hats, you know. Check out that red one on the mannequin. Gatsby vibes all over it.”

“I tried that one on last year. Head’s too big for it. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude,” said Lotus, “But there used to be an older gentleman who worked at this shop, roughly a year ago. Do you happen to know where I might find him?”

He chuckled.

“That..." he said, "That was grandpa Clark. He passed away three months ago. He was eighty-nine. Loved this place. Lived a beautiful life. Little while before he went, he shared a collection of poems with me that he wrote as a young lad. A closet poet, my grandpa, and a damn good one. Who would have thought?”

“He sounds like he was a gifted man. I had the pleasure of meeting him last year and he was very kind to me. Anyway, thanks for your time. I should get going.”

As Lotus headed for the door, he spoke.

“Hey, listen. This storm is pretty bad right now and I just made a fresh pot of black tea. Would you care to join me? I’m Alex, by the way.”

“I’m Lotus.” She peered out the front window, noting that the ice drops were indeed unkind, and turned around as she unzipped her jacket. “It is pretty bad out and I could always go for some black tea. Hey, what are you reading, anyway?”

“Oh this?” he asked, waving the book in the air with a laugh. “The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus. Not the most cheerful book out there.”