Old Man Talking
Of course all men in World are naturally good with children but it is generally agreed that Old Man Talking has a special way with the young. Is it because he has Story?
Well, obviously not Story itself but isn’t it funny how you can small-tabu around him when you would never small-tabu around any other adult? Around him, who’s going to even notice if you say Story? Even with sacred slidey-lips when you say Story. Or not.
Anyway he has stories. Stories up Left Stream and then some. Left Stream chatters like a man and it is said that high in women’s bath they can tell you what it says. Well not you personally because maybe you’re Woosh or ‘tum or someone. A boy (like that). Like what, says Plop or whoever’s on that side of bath six. Women know, is the point. Yet here’s Old Man Talking just up and doing his own thing and tinkling out stories. Yes, he has stories, that’s for sure.
And mush. Don’t forget the mush. Which is surprising because there are women who can actually cutting-hot better than Old Man Talking. He’s so bad at cutting-hot he doesn’t even put clothes on in there. Woosh who’s always small-tabu-ing in bath six says Old Man’s thing is too small to even get cut so why bother with clothes? Yeah but Woosh also once said that Old Man Talking used to be a woman so no one believes Woosh anyway. Did I say woman? says Woosh, who supposedly only said that Old Man used to be a child.
Some say the mush is because he potions in a way even men can’t figure out, but others say he just waves clays over the mush like he’s actually pouring something from the clays when in fact it’s mental like hot hand. Some kids who went over to Men’s bath or up to Women’s can’t get back to Children’s through the scoot holes so they hang around cutting-hot for mush and stories. They probably shouldn’t be in there but it’s a tabu so small women walk past all the time and pretend to study the redstone in the passage arches. Old Man is the ultimate man or Man, frail and loveable, is maybe what the women are thinking. Woosh says…oh here we go again with what Woosh says…women sneak in to taste mush in cold-chamber and get ideas. But the truth is mush is just mush and it feels good, like Old Man’s tales of that which is not World. What does “not World” even mean?
Like you can “go” somewhere that is not World. As if. Even Woosh is skeptical. But ‘tum says it’s a symbol. A symbol of what? “Of symbol,” says Woosh, who knows when he’s in over his head. (gets splashed)
But nobody doesn’t listen when Old Man says imagine going down as far down as World is wide. At that idea Woosh does shroom-opening pinch fingers and pretends his head is falling off. And the little kids lecture Woosh about how down there they have Straight. Little kids can say almost anything they want because they are creek chatter. (Gurgle gurgle…oh were you talking?) Woosh agrees that small hard downwater on left bank up Left Creek is actually straight if you think about it so…so what. But there’s way more little kids than there are Wooshes. According to the lore of the little, there’s so much emptiness in “Down” that a ball of fire the size of World floats without falling and kids down there can say all the small tabus they want and eat back-fin crackle-burnt in red-shroom. Or in Old Man’s stories you can go along Way past End and up or over you go and that’s called Out and people hang on to the stone so they don’t fall off. Maybe there’s whole Worlds of hangers-on, “out” on the wrong “side” of stone. At that Plop does “let me in” crying noises and even ‘tum does a one-hand help me gesture.
That’s nothing, says Woosh, and he tries to tell his version but it’s not nothing it’s something say the little kids noisily till they’re splashed back down over and up to small kids’ bath where there’s no sulfur and it doesn’t even have sides. Girls can come to boys bath anytime without even small tabu but they usually don’t so none of Old Man Talking’s stories ever really upset the known World. We’re just having fun here. In other words the boys mostly seem to hang on to the stories like they own them. Wait, isn’t owning small-tabu?
—d.t., northern Columbia [British section]
Photo topside by Dave. It’s from the Dakotas last October up a side valley but sort of adjacent to the head of George Washington [if any] so may have certain talismanic powers. Picture below depicts the author exploring worlds.
