The Beauty of Futility: Short story collections, #1

By Cameron Gordon

"The beauty of futility" is a collection of eight stories about people whose lives are strange, and fantastic and ordinary, all at the same time. The titles give some sense of the range: Cursus caninus: emperor of the dogs; Confessions of a champ'een pie eater; A perfect human being; The transmigration of souls; Artificial light; Order of Merit; Father, father, quite contrary; Collective unconscious. Enter into a familiar world that is never quite what it seems - or all that it seems if you look at it in the right way.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: TallTelling Press
• Release date: Jun 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393439189

Cameron Gordon

I am creative fiction and nonfiction writer of plays, poetry and prose.  My themes are eclectic but the major ones include: the meaning and practice of daily spirituality; the human experience and how it is affected by an increasingly technocratic and technologized world; war and peace in the digital age; quirky narratives of quirky trips; and unusual bits of history.  I have training in a technical field and have had careers in government and academia.  I continue to practice as an independent scholar but have devoted the greater part of my time and energy to being an artist.

Book preview

Cursus Caninus: emperor of the dogs

I CAN'T REALLY SAY how I assumed my title. It just happened. Dogs are not nearly so formal or pretentious as human beings, being creatures of action rather than of thought. They do things one way with you and then do them another way with you and then you know that your status has changed. One day I was treated as something less than an emperor and then the next, well, there I was, a ruler, without a formal coronation, but crowned nonetheless.

I really do mean emperor. It sounds quite august, but I do not rule my domain so much as I preside over it and am paid the highest respects and honorifics for doing so. That really is what an emperor should be about, I must say, none of this Napoleon or Caesar nonsense. They were generals who pronounced themselves as statesmen after military coups and battlefield exploits. They remained generals through and through, taking what they wanted by force, used to commanding men for the purpose of aggrandizing themselves, until their force reached its limits and they were murdered or deposed or defeated.

No, I prefer the emperors of the Middle Ages, like those who presided over the Holy Roman Empire before it became, in Voltaire's words, neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. That is an emperor who literally presided, who gave some sort of form to something otherwise formless and centrifugal, and who was much appreciated by those presided over for giving such form. Those are emperors who exerted power and influence through their office, rather than through mere action, so much of which is unnecessary and destructive. The most respected of them were those who didn't seek the title but on whom it seemed natural to have it bestowed upon them.

I am revealing my other great love besides dogs, and that is books. I once thought that all I needed was in books and still enjoy reading them immensely. Books are great teachers, but you can never become anything while devoted just to books except to be a reader or a writer. I don’t write, except for this little testimony I am delivering for posterity. So that leaves me as a reader

A beautiful thing, but being a reader just isn't enough in this life, I have learned. Thus life made me an emperor, though I didn't seek the title and never had the slightest intimation that I wanted it. It's just a pity that my subjects cannot read.

YOU MAY BE TEMPTED to ask who I am. Really, it is bad form for an emperor to talk about himself. But since you ask, I will tell you a little bit. But no names. Real emperors have no names, only titles, and my title is Cursus Caninus.

I digress, as I am wont to do. My background is humble, as is fairly typical of those with great titles bestowed upon them by true destiny, rather than the ersatz version sought by status seekers and megalomaniacs. I was born and raised in this Great City that I continue to live in and which serves as capital of my domain. My mother was a schoolteacher and housewife and my father was a librarian. I think you can see where I got my love of books. I have two brothers and a sister, all older than I.

I followed in my father's footsteps and became a librarian myself. Actually I began working in the library where he worked when I was a teenager, my first job returning books to their proper place on the shelves. I work in that same library today, having taken my father's old position. That, I am proud to say, is the only instance where I have used my familial position for personal gain. I do know that I do my job well so this does not trouble me.

There are all the usual and irrelevant details that I won’t bore you with: school, college, work, and the activities of life such as eating, sleeping and, of course, reading. I will only say that I managed to avoid getting a master's degree in library science, thanks to the position of my father. Not that I needed that rather useless credential in any case. I am thankful to have been saved the trouble of getting it, a mere price of admission as some would say, to the profession that I serve and love and which was fortunately gifted to me through family and natural passion.

A small apartment filled with books: that is where I have lived for many years. My mother and father both passed away within a year of each other. No particular cause, thankfully, just the old age that takes everyone who hasn't been taken by something else first. My siblings have long since moved away and have given up contacting me, as I present no clear interest in them or to them. I am not hostile, just uninvolved. I politely rebuffed and ignored all the advances they have made in years past and now they have stopped trying to reach me entirely. I have entered a different realm altogether. That is the burden, and gift, of my office. It was the natural course of events for me and I accept it as so.

There my story might have ended, not worth telling at all and something I