The Wordsmith's Forge

This poem was written outside the regular prompt calls. It fills the "You can't handle the truth!" (A Few Good Men) square in my 5-1-22 card for the Mixed Quotes Bingo fest. It has been sponsored by janetmiles. This poem belongs to the Rutledge thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem contains some intense topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes references to war, bereavement, people moving away, snappish conversation, broken furniture, and other challenges. People with recent losses may wish to approach with caution.


"The Unbearable Clarity of Lost Things"

[Saturday, April 25, 2015]

Kylemore O'Leary headed
to Vermont Used Furniture.

He needed some pieces
for the apartment that he'd
be moving into soon, and he
wanted to look for scrap wood
that he could use for carving.

The store itself was inside
a large garage space that
covered the back of a two-flat.

Bookcases and china cabinets
lined the walls, while tables, chairs,
and bedroom sets filled the center
along with various knickknacks.

Jonas and Cynthia Duschane
were there, carefully arranging
a white wire patio set that gleamed
with a fresh coat of outdoor paint.

Kylemore soon found a pair of
end tables and a matching desk.
They all had natural wood tops
and knobs on the drawers, but
the bottom parts were painted
with a deep hunter green.

Some of the paint was
a little chipped, but that
was okay. Kylemore liked
things that had a history.

As he was looking for a chair,
he came across one of the Syrians.

Like most folks in Rutledge, he
tried to reach out to them whenever
he could, since they'd had a hard time.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Kylemore O'Leary.
Can I help you find anything? This
is one of my favorite stores."

"Mahir Suleiman," said the man.
"I am looking for furniture ...
chairs, maybe a table."

"There's plenty of stuff,"
said Kylemore. "I got
a desk and two end tables
so far. I'm still hunting a chair.
How many do you need?"

Mahir flinched at that.
"Three," he said shortly.

He kept looking at things,
checking the price tags,
then shaking his head.

"You got a budget?"
Kylemore asked. He
had one, and he was
shopping here because
used furniture was cheaper.

"It's fine," Mahir said, but
he didn't sound fine at all.

"Hey, I can't help if you don't
tell me the truth," said Kylemore.

"You can't handle the truth!"
Mahir snapped at him. Then
he sighed. "I am sorry. It is
just ... everything is difficult."

"Yeah, that happens,"
said Kylemore. "I'm good
at listening if you want to share,
or I can just leave you alone."

Mahir looked at him, looked
down, then looked back up.

"In Syria, there were six of us,"
said Mahir. "We had four children,
we lived near some of our relatives,
and we had a nice apartment."

"Sounds nice," said Kylemore.
"My house is packed -- parents,
six siblings and one on the way.
I'm set to move out at the end of
May, after I graduate. I've got
an apartment lined up for June."

"It was nice," said Mahir. "Then
the war came. Now we have
only our youngest daughter.
There is a little money for
furnishings, but it is hard
to shop for only three."

"Yeah, I can sympathize,"
said Kylemore. "You're not
alone, though. This is Vermont.
Almost everyone here has lost
people who moved away, and
some of us more than that."

"Hm?" Mahir said as he tilted
his head, looking at Kylemore.

"My best friend moved away
a couple years ago, and he
died in a car crash last year,"
said Kylemore. "So I may not
have lost as much as you, but
I have some idea what it's like."

"My apologies," said Mahir. "I
should not have assumed that
everyone in America has led
a charmed life, just because
it looks that way to me."

"It's easy to get caught up
in your own feelings and forget
about other people," said Kylemore.

As they drifted through the store,
a green and gold chair caught his eye.
It was a paler shade than the desk,
dusty olive rather than hunter, but it
had a farmhouse scene on the back.

"I think I'll take this," he decided.
"It doesn't exactly match what I have,
but they should work together okay."

"It is beautiful," Mahir said. "It
looks like it is very old."

"Yeah, it is," said Kylemore.
"They fix up old things that
just need a little repair." He
pointed to where loose parts
had been secured with glue. "Hey,
if you're short on cash, we could
check out the salvage bins outside.
Are you any good at woodwork?"

Mahir looked sad. "Once, I was part
of Darayya's woodworking industry,"
he said. "I miss it very much."

"Well, we're building up
some woodworkers here,"
said Kylemore. "Come on,
let's see what's in the bins."

"There's some good stuff today,"
Jonas said, waving them to the door.
"We don't try to repair anything that's
in splinters, so you guys have fun."

The salvage bins in the parking lot
were made of scraps and they
read, FREE WOOD on the front.
They were filled with bits of wood and
furniture too broken to be fixed easily.

Mahir soon found some pieces
of nice birdseye maple wood.

"I think I could make a doll bed,
for my daughter," he said as he
held them together. "Perhaps
she will begin to play again."

"Good idea," said Kylemore.
"I've helped Dad to make
dollhouses for my sisters."

"Before I came here, I also
made models of places from
Syria," said Mahir. "One of
the therapists suggested that.
It helped with the memories."

"That's good," said Kylemore.
"Oh, look -- broken chairs!"

Carefully he extricated one from
the jumble of wood, little more than
a rim of seat and most of the back;
half the chair legs were gone.

"What can you do with
something so broken?"
Mahir wondered. "There
is not much left of it."

"This is perfect for
a project that I learned
to make in shop class,"
said Kylemore. "You
replace the missing bits
with pieces of clear acrylic."

"Oh," Mahir said. "It shows
what is lost, but the chair
can be put to use again."

"Yeah, I think that's
why it's so popular,"
said Kylemore. "In
Vermont, most folks
have missing pieces."

"Every refugee does,"
said Mahir. "I believe that
projects like this would speak
to many among my people, with
the unbearable clarity of lost things.
Could you show me how it works?"

"Sure," said Kylemore. "This is
not very difficult to learn. Here's
another chair. I can do this one
while you work on the first one.
You said you needed three."

"Yes," said Mahir. He
rummaged deeper, then
found a few fragments.

Unlike the first two, which
had similar spindle backs,
this one was oval-shaped.

"The shapes are different,
but they're all dark wood,"
said Kylemore. "Plenty of
folks like mismatched chairs,
and this way you can always
add more later if you like."

"The wood is sound,"
said Mahir. "They look
like something fell on them."

"Yeah, spring storms can get
pretty bad here," said Kylemore.
"I heard that the one last week
blew down some trees -- maybe
one of those hit a house."

"I wonder what this was,"
Mahir said, stroking a piece
of splintered wood that had
fancy carvings on it.

"Then let's find out,"
Kylemore said as he
shifted pieces around it.

The thing turned out to be
part of the headboard
for a full-size bed.

The left post, half of
the bottom board, and
some of the spindles
were completely missing.

Some pieces still clung to
each other, but others had
come apart and had to be
fished out of the scrap wood.

The splintered bit was the top
of the headboard, where some
of the grand ornamental carvings
had broken off and been lost.

Kylemore held up a few
of the loose pieces, trying
to see how they fit together.

"This was so beautiful once,"
Mahir said sadly. "It's a shame
to see it thrown away now."

"Maybe we could fix it,"
said Kylemore. "I mean,
most of the fanciest parts are
still here. We'd need to make
a new post and some spindles.
The hard bit would be cutting
curves for the top part there."

"One of the chairs is curved,"
said Mahir. "In Darayya, I would
make a small, similar project before
attempting a large, challenging one."

"I do that too," said Kylemore. "So I can
show you on the spindle chairs, then you
can work from the curved chair to this.
Besides, if it doesn't work, it won't cost
you anything but time and some acrylic."

"That I could do -- but I don't have
a woodshop anymore," said Mahir.
"The apartment we have is small."

"The Business Incubator has one;
I can take you there as a guest,"
said Kylemore. "If you like it,
you can always join later."

"I would like that," Mahir said,
one finger tracing the curves
where they ended in splinters.
"We must find a way to go on
despite the broken pieces."

"Yeah, that's life," said Kylemore,
"but sometimes, even broken things
can still be beautiful and useful."

* * *

Notes:

This poem is long, so its character, setting, and content notes appear separately.