The funny thing about rock bottom is . . .
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The funny thing about rock bottom is . . .Prompt #104
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heartmom
The funny thing about rock bottom is that it’s as relieving as it is painful. The free fall is frightening. It warps and distorts reality until there is no beginning and no end – just an out of control hamster on an impossible wheel.
Rock bottom is a stone cold floor. The thud when you hit is unmistakable. The icy silence can be over whelming, but it IS ground under your feet. It offers you a chance to stand again and consider the climb.
The trick is to identify “rock bottom.” It isn’t the ledge, jutting out from the cavern wall, that breaks your fall, or the tree branch hanging over the gulch that you can cling to. Rock bottom is the landing pad in Hell. Things can’t get any worse. you’ve burned every bridge, destroyed everything you value, you can’t stand the sight or smell of yourself.
The funny thing about rockbottom is that, while it is your personal worst, it can also offer the people who love you a chance to be at their personal best. The fact that you can fall no further can be a gift to those who care. A starting block to begin again.
The funny thing about rockbottom is that it isn’t really an ending. It is a pause, a time out, a “Chapter 11”. The only real ending is death. Rockbottom is more of a tough love slap in the face – a wake up call from the universe and a chance to start over.
mcullen Post author
Brava, Heartmom, vivid writing. You deserve an award for finding the good in rock bottom, for giving hope to someone who might have no hope left. Your exquisite writing is clear, concise, with strong verbs — warps, distorts, identify, burned, destroyed. Equally strong images — out of control hamster on an impossible wheel, stone cold floor, icy silence, ledge, jutting out from the cavern wall, landing pad in Hall. Okay I could just rewrite your whole piece and say . . . every word is place precisely where it should be. Like the rock wall builder who uses no mortar. Rather, each rock is placed in a precisely where it should be for perfect placement to build a solid wall. That is what your writing is like: Solid. Building an excellent foundation and building for the reader to learn from, receive hope from and enjoy. Absolutely.
Ke11y
Dear Reader-
This will not be a long journey, in fact it’ll be over before you’ve truly understood, but promise me this at least; whatever follows, it is not the fault of my dog. My dog is completely blameless in all this.
It began at sea. The storm that blew up lasted three days. When it calmed I was beaten and broken, unshaved, and suffering sea sickness, but I was alive! On the third morning the sun rose. I spent the fourth day carrying out repairs, interrupted occasionally by the visits of dolphins. It was on the fifth day that trouble really started.
I never saw him arrive, he was just there, perched precariously on the mast. I’d come up on deck, and there he was; more beaten, more battered, and more lost than a lumberjack in the desert! He looked pitiful, which for an enormous bird like the Albatross, is the saddest of sights. On the sixth day he fell to the deck. It was a hefty thud. He lay there unconscious, and I have to admit to feeling certain terror; no sailor wants such a bird on his boat in the first place, but to have one stone-cold unconscious lying on the deck, well it’s just a little too unnerving. I rushed over. His heart was still pumping. For three or four days this bird must have weathered the same storm, buffed and blown, sent sailing and diving, gusted and got at. It seemed very likely he’d simply collapsed from hunger, too weak to know anything, falling like a stone onto the deck. One wing was sprawled out over port-side, the other covered his head. Gently, I moved the wing from his head; his eyes flickered. I found myself asking this damned bird if he was okay! (Look, Tom Hanks spent years talking to a stupid basketball, remember?)
After three weeks at sea, and three days fighting my way through thirty-foot swells, I’d begun to consider anything that moved as being friendly. That said, I wasn’t expecting an Albatross.
“Com’on, pal, you can make it. Just open your eyes, talk to me. Say something.”
The bloody big bird opened one eye. When the second opened I knew he was asking himself what the hell had happened.
“It’s okay, I think you just fainted. You probably haven’t eaten in almost five full days. Here, let me help you up.”
I brought his out-flung wing back inside the confines of the boat. He made a noise, and I wondered if I’d hurt him.
“Sorry!”
He seemed to scramble a bit, turning onto his webbed feet, a precarious maneuver.
“Maybe I could get you something to eat. I’ve got corned beef… ah, true, maybe not. How about some bread?”
He seemed quite uninterested for a bird that hadn’t eaten in some days.
“Wait, I think I have tuna in the fridge.”
I left him, still dazed, on the foredeck, and went aft to search the fridge. Yes, one small can of tuna left. Back for’ard the Albatross had managed to move, somewhat awkwardly, toward the wheelhouse.
“I got some tuna here, pal.” I forked it into a dish, and shoved it under his beak.
I think he recognized immediately that tuna doesn’t even remotely look like squid, but hey, when lost at sea, you eat what the sailors eat, okay.
He made a feeble attempt, but quite honestly it was a little pathetic. I went for a spoon. When I came back he was fluffing up a few feathers. It was a little unsettling, but I was relieved, there’s no way this bird was going to be allowed to die on my boat.
“There we go…there’s a good Albatross…you just eat that tuna for daddy.”
Albie, I named him, (look, it was the first name that came to mind! Get over it.)
Here’s a little education for you; Albatrosses only stop flying for two reasons, rest and mating. I was in no mood for the latter. By lunchtime Albie was looking pretty good, his eyes were bright, and his huge white body was beginning to look like the flight machine it was supposed to be. I was still twelve-days out from Newfoundland, and having an Albatross for a companion remained perturbing.
Just my luck when the oceans are full of tankers, cargo ships, cruise liners, and even migrating whales, on which he might have chosen to recover from his ordeal. I hate to imagine this bird actually selected me. I’m not your ordinary everyday kind of guy, I get that. Actually, my fate is such that I haven’t yet found one person with whom I can truly relate to experientially. My entire life, I’ve felt like an alien on this planet, never on the same plane of experiences as others.
But enough moaning. If I’m to have an Albatross as a soul mate, so be it.
Albie stayed around the wheelhouse all that day, and then, quite suddenly, with a storm of beating of wings, he entered into flight! But only to the mast top. I had saved his life, I was sure. No bird, recognizing that he owed his life to you, would ever bring bad luck, and so I slept peacefully that night; that is until a migrating whale hit my yacht broadside.
If I was superstitious I might have believed this could only happen to a yacht with an Albatross perched in the rigging, but I’m not superstitious, okay, so this whale was simply passing, on its way to the feeding grounds. It could have bumped into anything! It just happened to bump into me. Look, a whale is a bloody big thing, right. If it’s in the ocean there’s every chance you’re going to bump into it. Don’t blame Albie.
The hull and keel were damaged, not so severely that I was in any great trouble, but the balance of the yacht had been affected, and getting home would take an extra day or two…or three. I looked up at Albie.
“Hey, it could have happened to anyone, don’t blame yourself. It happens all the time.”
Later that day the wind dropped.
It’s now seven days since Albie arrived. A week is a good holiday in anybody’s year. In the year of an Albatross it’s almost unheard of. There’s a gross lack of information contemporarily available on the subject of bad luck. Oh… there’s info about UFO abductions, paranormal phenomena, and anything that’s really sensational. But, face it, who, except those who suffer it, are really interested in chronic non-sensational bad luck? Only enduring victims truly recognize how uncanny and debilitating their consistently maneuvered lives are! And so, since I’m a major victim, I decided to break the ice, and make best friends with Albie, who is busy sunning himself, and seems quite uninterested in hearing about blame, or not so much blame. I’m concerned we are going to have a disagreeable conversation when, with one boom of wing-power, and the kind of draught an airplane propeller might make, Albie was up in the air. How my heart sang. Albie is leaving. Suddenly, there’s a gust of wind! The bloody big bird soars skyward. What a magnificent sight. Who could ever believe this site; the saddest creature that inhabits the earth, living and sleeping, traveling on the winds. Well, when there is a wind. The great bird is magnificent, and I had saved his life. I felt a tinge of sadness as the black tips wings grow fainter in the sky. A minute or two I could see him no more.
“Bye, Albie, thanks for stopping by.” I raised my hand in salute.
Within the next hour a breeze stiffened, enough to hoist sail as I slipped west. Three more days and I’d be chugging down a pint of ale, taking a bite of sharp cheddar cheese, and feeling pretty content with myself.
One’s first night back on land is always a treat. A few drinks, good company, some silly tales and a good night’s kip. I didn’t tell anyone about Albie. Not that I’m superstitious, as I say, it’s more tradition. Like people throwing salt over their shoulder. For a long time I’d been trying to figure out the meaning of my abnormal life. But it was only much later that I concluded: ‘Why bother? It’s obviously mischief. So I now view my life as a tedious, irrelevant saga, wherein, at various points along the way, I’ve even managed to accomplish a few good deeds.
I was still feeling pretty good about everything when I manage to inexplicably drive my car into a ditch! Looking at the wheel I could see there was no hope of extricating the car out of the damned ditch that evening. Fortunately, home was within walking distance. I noticed, after a few hundred yards, that my forehead was bleeding. It seemed nothing. Except that as I looked at the blood on my fingers, it happened, a great shadow crossed the moon. The shudder that went through me was no more than a sudden recognition. Yes, it was Albie.
I staggered the mile and a half home, reached in my pocket for the door key. It wasn’t there. I remembered putting it in the glove box! Either I walked back to the car in the ditch, or I climbed the ladder.
Albie made a low pass.
There’s no way I was going to accept my fate. I struggled across the garden with the ladder, finally managing to put it up against the half open bedroom window.
Albie passed again…this time low, and slow.
“Albie, clear off.” He didn’t.
Albie swung in one more time, a very low pass indeed, which sent a cool draught across my neck. Next, I recall that the distance from my bedroom window to the lawn could be covered in less than a blink of an eye.
My left arm was broke. My dog, Reckless, barked, raising the awareness of neighbors.
The nurse tucked me in for the night, and asked me to explain how it all happened.
“My dog jumped up at me,” I said.
“I know,” she replied, “dogs will do it to you every time.”
Okay, so that was spectacularly unfair on my dog, but look, would you be happy trying to explain who was really responsible for my predicament?
End Note:
Did you know you can’t actually sell an Albatross? Seriously, have you even seen one in a zoo? You cannot even give the bloody thing away on Craigslist! Albie lives in the wardrobe now. Friends seldom visit.
mcullen Post author
Hilarious! Oh, Kelly, you’ve outdone yourself here. Exceptionally brilliant writing. This one will stay with me for a long, long time. I’ve spent some time at sea. . . you didn’t know that, did you? We’ve sailed with dolphins riding our bow wake. Watched whales get too close for comfort. We’ve had dogs on board, flying fish on deck (after hitting the sails, they kerplopped down) and the odd bird or two. One bird joined us a few days out from arriving in our home port. What this land bird was doing so far from land we never knew. We nursed the little bugger as best we could. Eye drops of water and all. But the poor little thing died just as we entered our harbor. There is no moral to this story. Just a note about odd things at sea. Oh, and there was the time a full kitchen-sized refrigerator floated by on our way to Hawaii, just as our galley fridge konked out. I watched it bob along and then turned back to my helmsmen (or helmswoman, in my case) duties. Compass set for the tropical isles.
Ke11y
Aloha, sailor. Let the compass be your friend, and the stars your company.
mcullen Post author
Oh, yes, you betcha. And, by the way. . . we sailed using sextant and sun/star shots. This was all before GPS and we didn’t have Loran!
Ke11y
Wow! Heartmom:
“Things can’t get any worse. you’ve burned every bridge, destroyed everything you value, you can’t stand the sight or smell of yourself.”
This is one of the most powerful sentences I’ve read in a very long time. You’ve written something incredibly thought provoking, sincere, and I have to tell you, once read, I felt how a hunted hare must feel. It was that real for me, grabbed me, shook me, and finished reading hoping I could outrun what was coming. Sadly, some people never do.
Sometimes people are so alone with life.
mcullen Post author
Yes! What he (so eloquently) said!
heartmom
Wow – I think your responses were more eloquent than my original, Marlene and Ke11y … rock and mortar, hunted hare, some people are so alone with life – painting such vivid pictures with words – I love it! And I “see” it too. Thanks for a wonderful Monday interaction 🙂
Ke11y
“Seriously, doc. What do you think?”
“Well…putting it bluntly. You’ve hit rock bottom.”
“Meaning…?”
“You’re pretty much done.”
“Hell, that’s a cool bedside manner you have there.”
“I believe you deserve to hear it the way it is.”
“Okay, cool. So there’s no remedy?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So there is?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“There’s hope, that’s all. When one hits rock bottom, there’s nothing left but hope.”
“Hope for what?”
“Well, it’s not scientific, I mean it hasn’t been tested on rats.”
“So…”
“So it’s up to you.”
“I’ll take it…what is it?”
“A jab of Monday Interaction.”
“Cool, hit me with a shot, doc!”
mcullen Post author
Love it, love it. . . . Big Smile!
heartmom
I just devoured your story, Ke11y – dove in and didn’t come up for air, it was so engaging. I loved your “asides” ( felt as if you were winking directly at me) and descriptions of your majestic albatross actually caused me to catch my breath. This story will stay with me too, and I have never sailed farther than a ferry ride from one rock to another.
Ke11y
Heartmom:
Your words sail here, like a golden galleon, its many-colored pennants flying on the breeze of your freshness.
Thank you…thank you.
Ke11y
Rock Bottom (In twelve minutes)
My wife’s question catches me off guard:
“What are the things you most love in the world, Kelly?”
I stare deeply into the redness of my wine glass, giving that question a moment’s consideration.
“Well, I love Brahms…I love Chopin…and corn on the cob. I love movies of crusading knights…spaghetti bolognese…and pinot noir…” I said, lifting my glass to the light of the fire, “…the sun…our walks on the shore…Hampstead Heath and Chelsea…I love Irish Setters and Palm Nova…the Household Cavalry turns me on…and of course I love Copenhagen, the mermaid on her rock…but most of all I love the sea…its creatures…” I could go on, but pause to ask “…and you?”
“Most of all,” she replies, moving closer to my knee, “I love you, your blue eyes, and your fingers on my spine.”
I turn away my gaze…tears brimming.
mcullen Post author
Kelly, you have the heart and soul of a poet. Your words touch me deeply. Thank you for posting your holy words. . .and I mean that in a clear, clean, fresh, untarnished, unblemished, wholesome way.
Ke11y
My friend:
I want to invent new flowers for you. Flowers that would bloom and blossom for you, the way your words blossom inside me.
mcullen Post author
Awww. . . sweet! And I would put those flowers in a crystal clear vase and admire them every day!
Ke11y
Rock Bottom, and Sky-blue hat.
Horny doggies and children play around her skirt. Men photograph her. The sun adores her. Lovers, long after midnight, do their courting beneath her, while dead men rise under her. Yet, come what may, she remains stoical, serene, standing alone above the meringue topped waves. There is no denying her beauty.
Slender, curvy, she carries her height with dignity; neither shivering, nor retreating in the face of nature’s onslaught. Don’t look for toes – don’t imagine breasts to feed a wanton child, for she has none of these. No silk panties beneath the fall of her dress. There’s no biting of her ass, no brushing of hair, for she is excited only by the north wind; a wind that whistles a requiem for the passing leviathans. She needs no extra bed clothes, nor has any appetite for sleep. No legs will she spread, yet men have longed for the closeness of her beam.
She’s as much at home with tragedy and catastrophe, as she is tranquility. Those men not blessed by the sympathy of her Fresnel glance, run the risk of journeying to hell.
Seas rise and fall, while sulky squalls, like angry mobs, attack her aloofness. ‘Come close at your peril.’ That’s Arena’s message, every six seconds, of every day.
(Point Arena Lighthouse)
mcullen Post author
Mesmerizing, captivating, intriguing. . . well-written. Love this description. . . bringing an inanimate object to life. Bravo!
heartmom
You had me at “meringue topped waves”. It took everything I had NOT to scan down to the bottom of this piece …. to take in all the amazing, captivating description that was offered in such incredibly mouth-watering detail – to taste and savor every flavor before the “final reveal”. Inspiring, Ke11y.
Ke11y
Here, Heartmom; these are for you, my last bag of Skittles! Your words come in so many colors, and taste as sweet. Thank you.
Ke11y
The great oak door creaks open, allowing the first morning’s light to flood across floor, spreading itself like spilt milk. An old woman enters, hugging herself against the cold, chin tucked between the collars of her alcohol stained raincoat, under which she wears a cabbage-green blouse, torn. She coughs, moans, then whispers a clutter of meaningless sounds before shuffling across the knave to slide between mahogany pews. In the apse, a shapeless figure, in black, kneels, silhouetted against the shriek of light coming through the round stained-glass window, high above the ambulatory. His head bowed in prayer.
This is God’s house, on the better side of San Francisco.
That same early morning light, now soaks the brick walls, grips the dusty rafters and holds within its shaft, the crucifixion.
The kneeling figure stands, his sense of smell aroused, and looks for the source of the cough, the murmurs, and the rankness. Whomever had made that sound, he cogitates, may have been in the Cathedral all night. He makes his sandaled way through ancient prayer books, ragged hymnals, touching each row of Jacobean artistry with his fingers till his nose is stifled with smell of urine, mixed with the scent of furniture polish ingrained into the dark wood of the alter. The air is cool above the stone floors.
“Father…” She spoke.
The figure stands, distant.
“There are places…” he responds, “…where the homeless will be warmed and fed.”
“I’ve come to forgive you, father. When you had me locked up in the attic, when you cast me away, a wandering child, abused, into a bleak countryside beneath a frugal sky, while you followed your divine gaiety. I forgive you, for what is my non-being compared with the stupor that awaits you.”
When the great door had creaked closed, the light became darkness. The coughing, the murmuring gone, but the rank smell of evil persisted.
mcullen Post author
More good writing, Kelly. Your word choice is exquisite. . . every word carefully placed to create a scene, to paint a vivid picture. Visceral, unforgettable writing.
heartmom
Gasp gasp gasp …. Ke11y, yer’ killin’ me 🙂 Every word was perfect – every sense was aroused and in such a short period of time you managed to say such BIG things. Loved this “skittle” for it’s beauty as well as it’s pungent tang!
Ke11y
Hi Marlene:
It seems everywhere I look the prompt: ‘Rock Bottom’comes to mind.
‘Would anybody call you Beautiful?’ I asked a dead jellyfish on this cooler, but not cold morning – Wednesday – in September – halfway along ten-mile beach, at the edge of MacKerricher State Park. The opening sky rose behind the hills, inviting seals to come rest on the chunky coastline. It was dead of course. I toe’d it over to discover mouth-like orifices, never seen in life. High overhead a pair of clouds hovered, uncertain. No wind. Nowhere else to go. I squat, seeing its mauves and violets, blushing domed-patterns down to its tentacle skirt. I humped it back to the ocean edge, watched as the crystal dome washed clean with waves. A shadow appeared beside me, attached to a child. ‘Poor Jellyfish,’ it sighed aloud, and gave back smiles, before running off.
mcullen Post author
From “rock bottom” to poor jellyfish” to “running off.” The circle of life continues within the dome. Love “crystal dome” = great descriptor.
Ke11y
Matchless.com
Alicia…
I read your profile. It read sadly. I agree, love is not like it is in the movies…in the movies the hero says his final goodbye, with tears in his lover’s eyes. The truth is, good or bad, in the movies the characters all get up and go home. Make believe. If you’re meant to be in love, trust me, you will be. It will seek you out, somehow, somewhere, even now as I write, this man could be stepping off a plane at San Francisco International, in from Rome, looking for you!
Let me put it like this. You have a game in America called Softball. The pitcher throws a hard ball at you standing there with just a round bat in your hand as protection. Two balls fly past your head and you’re thinking ‘I’m done for.’ When the third ball comes in, you see it clearly, seem to have all the time in the world. You swing and connect with this missile coming right at you, the crowd rises, the ball hits the very corner of the sky, and you jaunt round the diamond with the crowd standing and cheering.
This is what love is. It is the driving force of life. It’s about that walk where there’s nothing to think about but the person you love. Sure, I’ve been hurt, so have you, and with time we battle it out, shrug our shoulders, lift our face toward the sun and march on.
This is a good world, but only if we don’t let people try to convince us otherwise. They won’t me, and they never will. Grown older, all the worst memories, and the greatest triumphs behind me, I still long for a challenge. I’m generous and sensitive without giving in. I love to laugh, and see myself as a fool, even act like one. I’m interested in my world, my children…seldom get stressed or moody.
Anyway, isn’t the internet a wonderful thing, putting two people together who may otherwise not know of the other’s existence? I understand you have to be careful, no-one seems to be who they really are in the World Wide Web. However, if anything I’ve said creates an interest in you wanting to have a long-distance email relationship, please respond:
Poetinprison@sanquentin.com 🙂
mcullen Post author
Omigosh, Kelly, laughing here. I was wondering where you were going with this. Brilliant! The last line cinches it!