Geraldine's story
Sophie was a violonist ever since a little girl. She loved the melancholic sound of her instrument and when her parents, both pianists, started to show her how to play, she complied, but kept on about the sound the violin made and how it made her shiver each time she heard one.
- I love the music you play, but I really would prefer playing the violin : you see, you can hold it like a baby or a doll, or a cat and it feels so much closer to me than our huge piano that I find much more intimidating….
So, both her parents were open to her feelings and wishes and found Joseph, a very good music teacher to start her with the violin.
Joseph, a tall fellow with blue eyes and dark hair that he wore down to his shoulders, had a very romantic look : he would start playing, steady on both his feet, and ten seconds later, the whole body would be swaying, his eyes would close, and he seemed to be in a completely other world where he didn’t belong any more and submerged by the emotion of the music emerging from his bow.
Sophie was immediately enthralled by him and his teaching. On the whole, she wasn’t a very good learner at school for example. She would easily learn things she found interesting or she thought might be useful for her future, but whatever seemed off-putting didn’t really interest her or get her to make the effort to explore.
But, as soon as she started her violin lessons with Joseph, everything became wonderful : her life changed into a warmer colour, her emotions became so strong, her face would illuminate like a candle or tears would pop up to her eye lashes. She experienced something so new to her and started loving living every day. She would grab her violin whenever she had a spare moment and get those notes right, the sound clearer and her bow would run on the violin trying to get the purest possible sound.
Joseph, now, came twice a week so as to intensify the learning. By the end of the first year, she was able to perform Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” with vivacity and feeling. As she was progressing so much, Joseph suggested she joined the very well known Calicot Orchestra in which he was “first violin”. Sophie was so happy, learning how to adjust her performance with the others, waiting for the conductor to give her the indication when to start, when to play louder, when to make her instrument softer, when to give an attack etc… This was a whole new experience again for her and she just did and gave her very best at it.
But, somehow, although she was doing so well, she had a feeling something started to go wrong! What could it be? She couldn’t really spot what was going on, but she felt much less secure than when she was just learning with Joseph. One day, she opened up to him on the subject and he reassured her : “being part of an Orchestra was the finality of music… Playing together, with others. Maybe that step was a bit big for her to take, but it was where she was going”.
Every year, around Christmas or New Year, the Calicot Orchestra would give a live concert in town. This year, Sophie would be playing for the first time with the Orchestra. She had practiced, and practiced and practiced Shubert’s Arpeggione sonata.
When this special Evening was there at last, all the musicians were dressed in black and white : black dresses for the ladies and black costumes for the men with white shirts and a black bow-tie. Her auburn hair was casually lifted in a loose “chignon” , her blue eyes underlined with a shade of green make-up and her lips redrawn with some red vivid lipstick. She looked and felt gorgeous….
Joseph was, of course, the most handsome musician and being 1st violin, strongly attracted the public’s attention.
The concert which took place in the city’s town hall, all decorated with a huge Christmas tree and light garlands, was very good. All the musicians played with such intensity and the public gave large applauses after each movement. The cheers were so strong that, at the end, they had to give 3 more pieces in order to satisfy the spectators. Joseph had to come forward and bow for almost 10 minutes and got so many applauses that the people’s hands must have been all red….
At the end of year concert, the routine had always been to offer Champagne to the public, with a little tradition : as in Fellini’s film “E la Nave va”, the crystal flutes were filled at different levels with the champagne and Joseph, the 1st violin, played a Christmas Carrol hitting them gently with a small spoon to get the purest possible sound. The whole assistance was enthralled and a very beautiful young woman came up to him with a “bouquet”, kissing him on both cheeks. Once more, another thunderous applause for the hero of the evening.
What was going on in Sophie’s mind at that moment, nobody could guess, but…. She completely lost control, dashed to the table where the champagne flutes were standing, picked one up, lifted it in front of Joseph and the young women screaming “cheers”, and then “she smashed the glass”!
Silence! Complete silence followed her gesture. Then a murmur started in the crowd, while Sophie’s parents ran towards their daughter to take her away. And she left the first and last concert she ever gave with the Calicot Orchestra between her parents holding her with all their love and wondering what on earth had so deeply upset their child.
Sarah's story
And she smashed the glass 2 (Deconfinement Day)
(20.05-08.06.2021)
She didn’t want to go.
“It’ll be bedlam,” she said. “It won’t be fun at all.”
But he wanted to go, absolutely had to. “It’s been, what? months, over half a year since we could go out to a café or a restaurant. I’m not missing this. If we go early we’ll get a place.”
So they went early. But then so had everyone else. It was as if half Paris was there, and the other half still coming. There was much pushing and shoving, bitter words on the lines of “we were here first!” and “are you mad, it was us!” and so forth, and some punches were exchanged. But they got a table. Or rather the corners of half a table, the other couple a bare metre away at the other end of the small rectangle.
Then they had to wait, because of course one had to be served. There was no getting up and going inside to order for oneself.
“Couldn’t they have got on a few more waiters for the occasion? They must have known there’d be a turn-out like this.”
“It’s not like there aren’t people out looking for jobs,” agreed the man of the other couple. Then the two of them got going on the present situation and the obvious solutions, while the two women exchanged helpless looks. Meanwhile other couples and threesomes and foursomes were jostling at the edges of the terrace.
“They really ought to have hired somebody else.”
“Ha, looks as if they did.”
Indeed, the boy who finally showed up at their table was clearly a rookie. He was flustered already. They might have been his first customers ever. They placed their orders and, looking quite uncertain, he went off. The men drummed their fingers on the table and the women tried to relax. The air rustled with the milling of impatient feet, the murmuring of would-be celebrators waiting for a table of their own.
Finally the waiter brought two glasses of lager, but he wasn’t sure which couple to give it to.
“We ordered a lager and a cider,” he said. “It must be theirs.”
“We ordered a lager and a glass of white,” they said. The waiter looked distressed.
“Just give us the two beers now and then bring the cider and the wine.”
But the waiter had already made out his bill. “Who’s to pay then?” he asked.
“I’ll take the other lager,” she said, and he put the order down in front of them.
“So now it’s a cider and a wine?”
“’No, a lager and a wine.”
“Sorry?” The boy was looking confused, and the people at the edges of the terrace were getting boisterous. She was originally from the country and had often noted that the Parisians could be pushy, but she had never known them to be so rude as this.
“A lager and a wine,” one of them called, “and get a move on, there’s a queue here!”
The waiter left and the two of them shrugged, smiled in commiseration at the other couple and clinked their glasses. She took a sip, and realized that she really didn’t like beer. “Oh, crumb,” she said.
“Still sulking?” he asked.
“Sulking? I never sulk. I just knew it would be like this.”
“Like what? This is great!”
Then the waiter came back with a cider and a beer. The woman of the other couple said, “I didn’t order cider! She did.”
The waiter looked uncertainly at her, and she looked longingly back at the glass of cider.
“Hey! You’re not thinking of taking the cider too? You’ve got your lager now.” He always had been a penny-pincher.
“But I hate beer!”
“Why didn’t you say so before, then?”
“I didn’t order beer.”
Heckling began to come from the crowd at the edge of the terrace. “Make up your mind, Madame. There are people waiting!”
And then she smashed the glass.
The poor waiter got the worst of it, because he had to clean it all up. There was more bad feeling because of having to pay for the broken glass, and much good-natured jeering from the crowd as they put on their masks and left, after he downed his beer in record time. Two other couples fought to take their place.
“Well, now, that was a pleasant outing, wasn’t it?” she said sarcastically as they got into their car. But he had recovered his good humour.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” he said. “Six months without going out for a meal or a drink! Good times are here again.”
She raised her eyebrows slightly, as she buckled herself into her seat. There was no point in replying.
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Paula's contribution
Being on the move again felt so good. Finally, after a year of pandemic-restricted movement — or no movement at all — they were traveling again. And what an ambitious plan it was: a flight from Paris to the States, and then six more flights, five states, 21 days. Those three weeks were chock full of activity: seeing family and friends, breakfast dates, lunch dates, dates for cocktails, dates for dinner … but also long talks, long walks, always on the move. As the days passed in a whirlwind of activity, they became more and more exhausted at the pace. But they were determined to pack as much into those three weeks as possible.
The final flight, back to Paris, like the other six flights on the trip, was on time, smooth and uneventful. All their bags spun merrily toward them on the luggage carousel. There was no line at passport control and customs. Relieved, they made their way to the door of Terminal 2E, looking for the friend who had promised to pick them up and drive them the four hours home to Flavigny.
Finally, their luck ran out. She wasn’t there. She had mixed up the dates.
She promised to set off immediately for Paris, but the prospect of a four-hour wait after eight hours across the Atlantic, followed by more hours on the road was just too much for the weary travelers. Trains weren’t running, so their best option was to rent a car and set off on the autoroute, fueled by coffee and an intense desire to just get home.
And now, five days later, she still felt like she just couldn’t catch up on her sleep. She had so much still to do: She had already delivered the mule saddle she had brought across the ocean, but she still needed to unpack their clothes and toiletries, sort through all of the American products they had hauled back with them, do laundry, get to the grocery store to restock the frigo, tend to the neglected garden — and on top of all that, there was the appointment at the prefecture in Dijon, two days after arriving home, to renew their French residency permits. It felt like there was no end to the weariness. As she relaxed late one afternoon with a glass of champagne at a neighbor’s house, her friend Sarah reminded her that the writing group was meeting in a few days, and had she written her story? She could feel her eyes glazing over as a wave of fatigue engulfed her. She hadn’t given it a thought; there was no room in her brain for the creative energy necessary to craft a story. Oh, well, she sighed to herself. They’ll understand.
The next afternoon, as she continued to unpack the remaining bags, she longed to lie down for a short nap. The writing group assignment was weighing heavily on her mind. After all, the group had agreed to change their meeting date, just so she could be there after her trip. As she unzipped one stuffed case, a pair of balled-up socks rolled under the daybed in the bedroom. When she bent down to retrieve them, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a little alcove cut into the stone wall, just above the floorboards. Curious, she thought. That was never there before. She wriggled under the couch to get closer, and saw that the alcove was covered with glass, and there was a tiny hammer affixed to the front of the glass. She peered inside the alcove to see a largish envelope with these words printed on it: IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, ONE STORY FOR YOUR WRITING GROUP.
What did she have to lose? She picked up the tiny hammer, and then she smashed the glass.
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From Jackie
___Monday 9th : I sat at my computer on a beautiful June morning with my early morning lemon juice and smoking my first cigarette of the day – .
As I typed away on my keyboard, the table trembled and the a hefty glass ashtray fell off the desk and onto the floor. Luckily it didn’t break but I was perturbed as to how this had happened.
My dogs who were asleep in their beds at the time suddenly started to growl and Daisy’s hair stood up on the back of her neck. I don’t have a cat – the window was shut, door locked so there were no drafts and I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how an ordinary old ashtray could just jump off a table with no warning. Later that week another extraordinary thing happened.
I was making dinner, alone in the house and just served myself some white wine in a beautiful cut glass which I had found in a cupboard containing forgotten crystal ornaments when I bought the house. I went to answer the phone and came back to find my drink spilled all over the floor and the glass overturned on the table. This time I felt quite shocked and understandably scared. The house was in a row attached houses in a quiet London street ;…..
Also my set of keys went lost from the place where they always live. A few weeks of searching high and low, under tables, in drawers and pockets of coats and upstairs and downstairs; they were nowhere to be found. A month went by and suddenly there they were stuffed in the corner of the cupboard where I had found the forgotten objects.
I began to think about a ghost or worse still a poltergeist but there was definitely some supernatural activity going on. So I did some research and it seems that ghosts just appear and don’t do much harm but poltergeists actually are violent and move things and break them. Who was trying to contact me from the other side of the spirit world?
As I said before, when I had bought the house there were some precious pieces of glass in a cupboard which naturally I kept and used. I learnt that many years ago the dried out body of a woman had been found under the stairs in mysterious circumstances with the stem of a brandy glass stuck in her jugular vein.
There is a myth that glass symbolizes the separation between the physical and the spiritual plains –Heaven and Earth — and glass breaking is the spiritual side trying to communicate or get our attention.
The only way to cure the actions of this thing/person/object would be to surprise them at their own game. Acknowledge their presence. So one evening as I was watching television – the curtains in my living room started to move flapping about and even lifting up off the floor. Again, There was no window or door open and no explanation as to why this was happening. Again the dogs growled and their hair rose Both showing their teeth looking towards the curtains ears back they scampered off to the kitchen.
I seized the largest heaviest glass vase ready to hit the thing or something with it – all was quiet again so I didn’t ….the same thing a few nights later. This time my coffee table started to tremble and the coffee cups were rattling and shaking … again I grabbed the vase and just when the table started to shake most violently I seized it and smashed the glass onto the table.
Silence.
Had it worked? Had I killed the thing that was invading my house and life ? Rendezvous in a few weeks time when I’ll let you know.
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Annemarie's story
The Ballad of Bad-tempered Alice.
Alice grew up in Kew Gardens conservatory;
She hated the plants, she hated the glass...and using the lavatory
...and she smashed the glass.
She missed an appointment to have her hair cropped
She looked at her watch and found it had stopped..
...and she smashed it’s glass
She went to the beautician, then gazed in the glass -
Her make-overed face looked more like her arse [1]
...so she smashed the glass.
She longed to go sailing so checked the barometer,
The pressure was low and not getting better,
...and she smashed the glass.
She worked in a lab with thousands of germs in tiny glass vials
When she suddenly jumped with a painful attack of pitiful piles
...and she smashed the glass.
She went to a restaurant for Michelin starred food;
The wine, it was corked and the waiter was rude..
...so she smashed the glass.
She was given some perfume in a beautiful bottle
But the odour was awful and smelt of a brothel.
...then she smashed the glass.
She worked as a nurse injecting some testicles
But her vision was blurred due to her spectacles.
...and she smashed the glass.
Taking her temperature tucked under her tongue
She choked on some pieces which went down to her lung.
...she’d bitten the glass.
She swung from the ceiling on a glass chandelier;
The fixing was feeble, the wire was weak and she fell on her rear.
...she'd shattered the glass.
She caught sight of her husband through a bow-fronted window
Having a breath-taking time with old Henry’s widow.
...so she smashed the glass.
Then bad-tempered Alice went skating on ice
Which glistened and gleamed like shiny white glass;
It suddenly shattered and swallowed her twice,
Through the deep water, then into the muddy morass.
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