Gifts from Beloved

Sound blared from an old TV over the bar in the neighborhood tavern.

“We will return in a moment to the royal wedding with our first look at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. This is Kate Bolduan, CNN.”

The lone drinker pointed to the TV and addressed the bartender.

“My wedding was bigger. You may have read about it in Sunday school. Big Jewish wedding. The Song of Songs? The bride and the bridegroom? Solomon? You remember?“

“Sorry, but mazel tov anyway. Fill you up, Sol?”

“Thanks, another sazerac. That guy is in for it. All this time and I still don’t get my beloved. You want to hear about it?”

“It’s your nickel.”

“I’m crazy for her. I wanted to show it. On our gold anniversary I wanted to show my studied sophistication. Paying with stooped shoulders and weak eyes, I crafted a gift made priceless by its fragility. I etched the story of my life in ice, each page a clear pane set to melt after it was read once. It was the tale of my greatest victories and defeats, a masterpiece to justify everything.”

“Nice, what did she give you?”

“She gave me a fine handkerchief embroidered precisely in lines and angles in the golden mean. In its fine weave were quotes and formulae. For the vanity of your intellect, she said. Then she waved the diaphanous cloth and she was holding a hammer.”

“A hammer?”

“She shattered the ice memoir with one blow.”

“Cold”

“That’s nothing. Seeking redemption for our platinum anniversary, I carved a statue of myself in knotty pine. Each knot represented a hurt, a shame or a trespass. I rubbed each knotty sin smooth with constant rubbing until they shined. I laid the carved monument to my suffering at her feet.”

“And?”

“She gave me a bandanna in a calico, the colors randomly patchy like my feelings. She lifted the cloth like a veil to reveal a match.”

“A match?”

“Pine burns to cinders, she said. She burnt the statue, all of it, to cinders.”

“Fierce, she’s doesn’t mess around.”

“Passionate, my beloved. Speaking of flame, more for me. Make it an absinthe. Liquid fire, liquid courage.”

“On me.”

“You are a gentleman. Not me. I tried one last time. For our diamond anniversary no books or statues, I was the gift. I gave her all my senses, my touch, my sight, all focused on her. No sound or smell but from her. No delicate taste but for her. I gave her all I really have. I gave her my stream of consciousness.”

“I hate to ask. She gave you?”

“She handed me a simple blue cloth translucent like a veil. She lifted it and there was a liquid jewel, her tear. The tear flowed into the spindrift of a breaking tsunami that became an ocean. My stream of consciousness was lost in an ocean of her. Of me there was nothing left, only an absence like a memory.”

“Poetic. So what happened?”

“One more absinthe and then my future beckons. So I dissolved like salt and there was nothing left. She laughed at the pretensions she waved away with her three gifts. She embraced my absence and called it my soul. She thanked me for my fine gift with a kiss. What do you do with such a woman?”

“Marry her? You’re a lucky man. What’s her name?”

“Grace. Gotta go. Here, keep the change.”