Inn-By-The-Bye Stories - 21

By William Flewelling

In an endeavor to find a fresh way into the scriptural text upon which I would be preaching, I began to develop an imaginary world populated primarily by wee folk. I found that they - the characters I developed and the way that they evolved in my mind and on the page - served me well as a consideration of how I sensed things happening in the scriptural text at hand. I want to make theses stories and the world they represent newly available, and so I bring them to book form, fifty stories at a time.

The cover drawing in done by Eve Sullivan, the author’s granddaughter.

The drawing is the artist’s conception of Geoffrey as he exits the Inn-by-the-Bye.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728367965

William Flewelling

I am a retired minister from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) living in central Illinois. Led by a request from Mildred Corwin of Manua OH when I arrived there in 1976, I long developed and led a series of bible studies there and in LaPorte IN and New Martinsville WV. These studies proved to be very feeding to me in my pastoral work and won a certain degree of following in my congregations. My first study was on 1 Peter, chosen because I knew almost nothing about the book. I now live quietly in retirement with my wife of 54 years, a pair of dogs and several cats.

Book preview

© 2020 William Flewelling. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/17/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-6795-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-6796-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Foreword

MI

MII

MIII

MIV

MV

MVI

MVII

MVIII

MIX

MX

MXI

MXII

MXIII

MXIV

MXV

MXVI

MXVII

MXVIII

MXIX

MXX

MXXI

MXXII

MXXIII

MXXIV

MXXV

MXXVI

MXXVII

MXXVIII

MXXIX

MXXX

MXXXI

MXXXII

MXXXIII

MXXXIV

MXXXV

MXXXVI

MXXXVII

MXXXVIII

MXXXIX

MXL

MXLI

MXLII

MXLIII

MXLIV

MXLV

MXLVI

MXLVII

MXLVIII

MXLIX

ML

Appendix: Texts For Stories

About the Author

Also By This Author

Poetry

Time Grown Lively

From My Corner Seat

Enticing My Delight

The Arthur Poems

From Recurrent Yesterdays

In Silhouette

To Silent Disappearance

Teasing The Soul

Allowing The Heart To Contemplate

As Lace Along The Wood

To Trace Familiarity

The Matt Poems

Elaborating Life

The Buoyancy Of Unsuspected Joy

To Haunt The Clever Sheer Of Grace

The Christmas Poems

Life Is Employed

Adrift In Seas Of Strangeness

Composure In Constraint

An Elegance That Dawdles

The Ash Wind Sigh

Unplanned Obsolescence

Savored Once And Once Again

The Simple Curvature Of Words

Weave Tapestries Of Naught At All

On Inscape’s Curve

Inn-by-the-Bye Stories

vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,

9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

17, 18, 19, 20

Devotional

Some Reflective Prayers

Reflective Prayers: A Second Collection

A Third Collection Of Reflective Prayers

For Your Quiet Meditation

A Fourth Collection Of Reflective Prayers

Cantica Sacra

A Fifth Collection Of Reflective Prayers

A Sixth Collection Of Reflective Prayers

A Second For your Quiet Meditation

A Second Cantica Sacra

Directions Of A Pastoral Lifetime

Part I: Pastoral Notes, Letters To Anna, Occasional Pamphlets

Part II: Psalm Meditations, Regula Vitae

Part III: Elders’ Studies

Part IV: Studies

Part V: The Song Of Songs: An Attraction

Exegetical Works

From The Catholic Epistles: Bible Studies

Paul’s Letter To The Romans: A Bible Study

The Book Of Hebrews: A Bible Study

Letters Pauline And Pastoral: Bible Studies

The First Letter of Paul To The Corinthians: A Bible Study

The Gospel According To Luke 1:1 Through 9:50: A Bible Study

The Gospel According To Luke 9:51 Through 19:27: A Bible Study

The Gospel According to Luke 19:28 Through 24:53: A Bible Study

all published by AuthorHouse.com

FOREWORD

I was nearing 21 years of writing these stories when this series began in May 2002. I had long since found myself in a rhythm of composition that easily flowed from the text into the story. As always, I began with the immediate experience of the day in which I sat down to write the story. I found that the stories had quickly developed into a pattern of three pages of yellow paper in an eight and half by eleven pad, all in my tiny script. I always used a pencil.

I am not sure how I determined the focus in characters for any given story. I certainly was not transferring the story in scripture into my characters in any linear and direct fashion. Rather, the character seemed to impose himself or herself upon my mind and began to evolve the situation. I know that story writers are said to have the ending in mind from the beginning. But that never happened for me. I was exploring the sinews of the text and discovering the highly nonlinear mapping from scriptural text to Hyperbia rather as a surprise.

Looking back nearly twenty years on these stories, and realizing how the break up of the rhythm I had evolved in my work affected the whole enterprise – those parts of my work that have survived have found new and effective niches in a rhythm of life that is now in retirement. So, the standard week which would see me translating a text on Friday as a kickoff to the next week and the growing readiness for a service nine days hence would lead to the story evolving for me, usually on Monday morning. Tuesday would find me with what I call Quiet Meditations and Reflective Prayers. I would mix in (since the mid-1980s) Cantica Sacra hymn texts and sundry needs of a liturgical nature. Many of the years would find me developing bible studies or translating Psalms, doing sundry other writing projects – the sorts of things that my retirement has found me mining (as in my archives) toward the publication of books.

All that rhythm fed itself and served me well over those years, and lures me back again now in this continuing mining operation I call the Inn-by-the-Bye Stories. I hope you enjoy them.

William Flewelling

MI

Wind rattled as a chill, driving freshened rain indiscriminately in swirling eddies and sweeping phalanx assaults across the Commons. Her cape plastered and billowing on opposite sides, Mahara hastened to escape this fresh squall by entering the Inn-by-the-Bye. She was forced to lean into the gusts and try to hold the cape in place, the hood far forward over her lowered face. All the while, the mischievous wind lashed at her, taunting her for her anxious efforts. Staggering thus, Mahara reached the steps, climbed the steps, extended a hand at the price of a wider billow, and released the latch on the door.

Holding on securely, Mahara found herself yanked over the threshold by the flying door. Her hand felt the tear and grasped more firmly as she lunged into the Foyer of the Inn-by-the-Bye. Quickly staggering around the door, finding rain splattering about her feet on the now-slick floor, Mahara struggled to get herself behind the door, to push it closed against the driven rain and its wind of chill.

Eyes were cast her way from within the dining room, alerted by the curl of wind intruding their corners as well, seeing her slipping feet pushing to close the door … successfully at last, though she had traction problems on the rain-wet floor.

Mahara loosened the clasp of her cape and shuffled with a deep, whimpering sigh to the place where she could hang her cape to dry. The simple act of gathering herself and moving to the steps down from the Foyer to the dining room came slowly.

Mahara half-limped her way, forgoing her usual crisp form. She felt wilted, hardly crisp at all! The lower part of her skirts was drenched, hanging heavily and severely inhibiting any swirl she might desire. The weariness from the labored haste in the squall curtailed any zest in her stride. And the general strain left her feeling constrained. No snap was to be seen … nor sway, nor flash. Even her long hair hung limp, almost disheveled.

Thyruid watched her entrance. It hardly looked like Mahara, though there was no one else she could be! He saw no command of space; Mahara always commanded any space she entered, no matter how spacious or crowded it might be. He saw no flair, no dart of eye, no understated flamboyance … at all. Instead, she slipped down the steps half-awkwardly and plopped herself into the nearest seat. Hers was hardly an auspicious entrance. Thyruid responded by slipping through the swinging door into Marthuida’s kitchen to begin Mahara’s respite with a fresh mug of coffee: such she would usually seek, anyway.

Thyruid backed through the swinging door, turning himself to step out and around the counter, letting the swinging door flap closed behind him. He had a steamy mug, full of rich, black coffee in his hand, destined for the table where Mahara had plopped herself. Surely, this will begin to revive her! As that revival starts, he can arrange whatever she would like to go with it. With confidence, then, round Thyruid wove his way toward her, swaying amiably from side to side with each stride.

The mug in place before her, Mahara looked: steam curled from the swirl that governed the mix, rising in a column until it disappeared into the air. She sniffed: aroma tantalized, reminding her of how that same aroma would slowly coax Guerric from the morning’s lingering lethargy of slumber. She twitched here nose, gathering a better waft of the rich aroma. And she nodded: ‘Thanks’. ‘Biscuits?’ ‘Fine’. And Thyruid departed.

For her part, Mahara stared into the coffee’s dark, impenetrable and seemingly imperturbable surface. Her hands sat in her lap, her arms hanging as if weighted from the shoulders. Posture was but slightly slumped, perhaps only enough to lean over the mug set on the table and let its luscious steam caress her sense of smell. To drink, she would need to lift the mug. To lift, she would need to raise her hands. To raise her hands, she would need to stir her arms. All remained weighted, still while she inhaled the heady, aromatic steam … as if a substitute elixir for the fluid she would desire to sip.

As Thyruid returned, Mahara remained still, gazing into the mug of the slowly cooling swirling coffee. The innkeeper thought this odd; he asked, ‘Is everything alright?’ ‘Oh yes; just fine. Thank you’. Mahara smiled and lifted her eyes to him, even turning her head to look his was as he was beside her. ‘Biscuits?’ ‘Thank you’. Thyruid set the basket on the table, a plate, a tub of butter and a glass of clear currant jelly. She smiled thinly in return, figuring she would have to move these arms sooner or later … better sooner than later.

Across the room, Missus Carney reached her thin hand to tap Thyruid as he came by; he paused, looking to whatever may be the reason for her deliberate tap on his passing hand. She motioned for him to lead down; he did, over his ample roundness. Speaking with soft simplicity, Missus Carney asked after Mahara as she seemed strange this morning. Thyruid acknowledged the strangeness and mentioned the gaze into the slowing swirl of the coffee mug. Missus Carney nodded: ‘Would you bring my tea to her table, please? … I … I wish to join her’. Thyruid felt he had not much choice in the matter, so he agreed; perhaps (he thought) Mahara will welcome Missus Carney to her table.

This was a studied move on Missus Carney’s part, to rise from her chair. This was never a simple matter anymore. And she moved with effort and a certain kind of delicate grace. Once up, she moved slowly, shuffling along with care, a hand always riding the back of some empty chair.

Mahara watched her as she rose and as she came across the floor of the dining room toward her table. Once there, Missus Carney allowed herself a flicker of fair brightness. ‘Would you mind if I join you?’ she asked. ‘Of course not’ replied Mahara, without a second thought.

Thyruid placed Missus Carney’s tea on the table and lift, figuring this was not a place he really needed to stay.

‘There seems to be quite a rain outside’. ‘Yes, indeed!’ ‘I imagine it would leave a body half drenched’. ‘Worse than that if you are not careful!’ ‘And I was never careful in olden times’ grinned Missus Carney with a distant gaze in her eyes.

This was a gaze that Mahara was not quite prepared to see. ‘O, there was a time when I was more daring than I can be today’. ‘Certainly: I have heard the tales’. ‘Oh yes: the tales that do not tell the rich parts of it all’. ‘Yes, of course’.

‘But now it is time for afternoon tea. You don’t mind?’ ‘Not at all. Let me … uh … join you with my coffee. Would you share a biscuit’. ‘Thank you, but no. I am more attuned to my meal cakes and I pass by the biscuits any more … as delicious as they are’.

Mahara raised her arms, lifted her mug, sipped the coffee and sighed: ‘It is just right’.

19 May 2002

MII

Bright sunshine played across Hyperbia, beaming all over the places of the wee folk, from the Fringe to Apopar, from the Sea to the Empty Area. At the same time, that bright sunshine deceived; a crisp chill darted along the gusty breeze, instilling a noticeable tang to the day. That tang brought a little more zest to stoves and firepits, to the hearth in the dining room of the Inn-by-the-Bye. Clyde and Missus Carney agreed the small fire on the hearth served delightfully to chase the chill from their little corner of Hyperbia.

Only shortly before lunchtime for most, as Geoffrey had but recently completed his typically late breakfast, Carymba bustled through the front door, into the Foyer. With the door closing behind her, Carymba undid her cloak and spun it from her shoulders, taking both hands to set it on the hook. Her syncopated gait led her to the steps, there she paused slightly to scan the dining room before stepping on down into the room. Directly, the purposeful waif moved to Geoffrey’s table. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ she asked as she pulled the chair out for precisely that purpose.

Thyruid had noted her arrival and entered the kitchen to prepare a pot of steeping tea. That readied, the pot and a cup on a tray, Thyruid backed through the swinging door and took himself to her table with utmost propriety. Setting the cup, then the pot on the table, he asked if there would be anything else. ‘Thank you, but I fear there will not be time’. ‘Very well … but do enjoy a bit of tea as you ready for your next necessity’. ‘Thank you’ she repeated as he slowly turned to return to his more customary posts by the counter.

Pouring her cup full with the piping hot tea, Carymba asked Geoffrey if he would join her for some hot tea. As he watched the steam curl from the surface of her cup, picking up from the oils that swirled about the cup, Geoffrey nodded. ‘That would be a pleasure; my pot is about empty and rather cooled by now’. She poured for him and the pair readied to enjoy the piping hot tea … at its best.

‘Something brought you here. And clearly it was not lunch’ offered the musing Geoffrey. ‘You are right, of course’. ‘Of course: you rarely do things without a purpose’. ‘Oh, I don’t know …’ ‘No: no! You may be searching for the purpose … but you are always sure there is one’. ‘You are right; of course, you are right’.

Geoffrey felt a twinge of smug satisfaction flicker over him … and made it pass. A slight scowl followed, wondering if Carymba noticed the flicker and being fully convinced that she would not have missed such a self-betrayal. Thus, a whispered sigh rippled from the unfolding of the rankled scowl.

Carymba smiled slightly, softly allowing that sequence to elapse and disappear before continuing. ‘I wanted to see if you would accompany me on a trek’. ‘And where might this trek be going?’ ‘I am not real sure. But I feel it is important … and, it seemed to me, that bringing you along would be best … if, of course, you decided to come along’.

By now Carymba was leaning forward in her chair, her head cocked slightly to the side and her shoulders back … all the lean coming from the hips. So, Geoffrey could not help but be caught in the impulsive urgency of her request, so much so that he knew no way existed to not decide to go. ‘Of course, I can go’ he replied flatly, bringing his teacup to his lips for a tantalizing sip.

Teasing her own elongated sip of ripe tea, Carymba let her face smile, blithe and bright, an unselfconscious flush hinting across her features. ‘How soon can you come?’ she rambled out across the cup as it balanced in her fingertips a short distance in front of her curling lips. ‘I am enjoying this cup of tea’ he began, ‘but that is hardly enough to delay once your pleasure over the fresh tea is complete’. Carymba half snorted an abrupt chortle, recovered to sip again at her tea … nearly finishing the cup in what proved to be a little overly ambitious draught. Recovering, then, from that draught, Carymba set her cup on the table: ‘Well, shall we go, then?’

Geoffrey answered with a long sip of his own, savoring the oils and the rich flavor in his mouth: exquisite, he thought as he also set the nearly finished cup to the table. ‘Might as well’ he finally replied. ‘Let me retrieve a bit of a cloak and we shall be off!’ ‘So be it!’

While Geoffrey hastened upstairs, Carymba pressed her syncopated gait around to the Foyer, up the steps and across to where she lifted her own cloak from the hook in order to swing it around her shoulders with a bold flair. She had it latched in place by the time Geoffrey strode down the stairs, his own cloak riding his shoulders as he brought impeccable presence to the trek proposed. ‘Shall we go?’ he asked when he stood mid Foyer. ‘Yes’ she replied. They moved together toward the door heading out to the Commons.

Their steps hit the soil of the Commons, just off the steps from the porch beyond the door, and Carymba struck a course aimed just to the right of the Big Rock, toward that passage point between the Commons and the paths to the Plain and to the ‘Y’, the latter leading to either the Fields or the Valley Road.

Geoffrey figured she had had more of an inkling of her destination … now theirs … than she had suggested. Of course, he knew full well that she would protest to the contrary. On his part, however, he was forced to wonder when she never wavered nor stutter-stepped once on the journey. Furthermore, their path turned