Hi;
I split my time between Ottawa, Canada and Merida, Mexico.
Since retiring from my job as a university professor of Spanish, I have devoted my time to music and, more recently, to creative writing. In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, inspired by the Chichester Festival Theatre’s competition to write short plays, I wrote a series of five dramatic sketches now published as a Kindle e-book under the name Corona episodes
Each of the sketches connects in some way to these strange times of the pandemic, and the work is dedicated to those who have dedicated their time and even their lives to helping covid sufferers.
More recently I have begun a series of short stories and vignettes reflecting on the lot of individuals marooned or marginalised by disaster, cruelty or bureaucracy, entitled The shipwrecked of the world. Their situations range from the light and farcical to the tragic and, like most stories in this world, inspire both tears and laughter. Here is the preface of the work, about a character appropriately named Sindbad.
THE SHIPWRECKED OF THE WORLD – Preface
SIndbad
So I went back to the pub… the one where I always used to go. The one I used to tell you about. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the smell of old beer… the place smelt of beer as though it would smell of beer forever. But maybe it was also the bargirl’s friendly smile as she wiped the tables outside in the chilly London afternoon. Though maybe it wasn’t. I wasn’t looking for anybody. There was no meaning. I just wanted a drink and to rest for a while. I went in. And in the half-light there sat a man with dark eyes. By that I mean the dark circles around eyes that maybe are painted with eye shadow, with mascara, with eye paint, who knows? Like a woman’s make-up. He looked brave and solitary, and his eyes were like a deep well. He sat at a side table and his fingers picked the strings of a guitar. He set it aside and picked up the bow of a solitary violin. And he scratched his name on a fiddle tune.
Its desolate tones spurred my courage. “Who are you, and why are you playing that tune?” I dared to ask.
“I am Sindbad, a mariner, cast up upon strong sand. Upon the harsh desert where all human desire founders”.
Now who talks like that? Drugged out of his mind, I decided. Dare I ask him other questions? Strike up a conversation with him?
“Sindbad? Sounds a little exotic”. I tried not to sound ironic.
“It’s a name like another.”
“So where’s your boat? Moored down the Thames somewhere?”
“I’m just a castaway.”
Where did he come from and how did he get to London, I’m thinking. Kabul? Baghdad? A thousand and one nights of suffering. Certainly not the stuff of legend.
He scratched away again at his fiddle tune. “Maqam, maqam,” he murmured darkly. Mournfully descending half tones and bright overtones like a secret song of hope hanging above his rasping bow.
“Aleen, daughter of Salsabel, so beautiful and nimble in her dance. I am young again. I scamper out of the house across the beaten earth. River of heaven. Sunlight reflections in the water. Everything is beautiful. Sunrays fall on my lids, and there is birdsong in the trees. Her shimmering dress… I see her dance still. Across a distant plain of memory still I see her dance. There, far away, there are no bombs.”
“Why do you look at me that way? Are you questioning me? Am I a suspect? You suspect me of killing a man? Why? How could you possibly know him? What reason could I have? No, it was me who helped him! You want to understand, but you cannot listen to my words. No… you and me too, we just want to understand how he took me to a place where men dig their graves. My words are not yours. You cannot understand them.”
My thoughts entirely. They are too full of time and languages and voices I can never know. The time of ages. Not the handful of time I hold right here and now.
“Listen to my music.”
So I listened to his music and tried to transcribe it into words. They were as wide as the world. They are in the pages that follow.
Williamson Author Site 