Sunday January 28th, 2018

The exercise:

Write something that has to do with being: weak in the knees.

4 comments:

Greg said...

After 'breaking away', the prompt 'weak in the knees' is a little worrying. Are you planning a 'body-disassembly' theme weak by any chance?

Today I'm returning to Alice and Betty... who probably should need an introduction and... perhaps don't.

Weak in the knees
"Shove up, love,' said Alice. The long couch in the Blue Room had eight elderly ladies on it and no apparent room for any one else. The lady at the end closest to Alice pursed her lips, the wrinkles making her face looked like a dried fig.
"There's no room," she said. She folded her hands in her lap, her fingers whitening just slightly as she gripped her Hermes purse.
"There's plenty," said Alice in the face of the evidence. "You have to let me sit down."
"We're all mature ladies," said the first woman.
"She means old," said Betty, who had sidled up to Alice and was now eyeing the row of occupants beadily.
"I'm not old!" said the third lady along.
"Right, you can budge then," said Alice. There was flushing of aged skin, little showers of powder as heads quivered, and a tightening of hands on purses as she realised she'd been outsmarted. Finally, with ill-grace, she stood, and Alice slipped deftly behind her into the space she'd had.
"It's me knees," she said. "I'm always been weak in them. I blame my Tony, he took all my calcium."
"Excuse me!" The first lady in the row craned her long, wattled neck to look at Alice. "I recall you: you were a dancer in Les petites pieds. You used to do the can-can!"
"It's definitely the can't-can't now," said Alice. She sighed. "On account of my knees, you see. Weak."
"Hang on," said Betty. "Isn't Tony your cat?"
"That's right," said Alice. "I've been teaching him to speak Chinese."
"So how did he take all your calcium?" This came from the lady forced to stand. "Are you... alleging you gave birth to... a cat?"
"Cheeky moo!" said Betty, while Alice shuddered theatrically. "She's a respectable lady, she is!"
The was a moment of silence while the room tried to come to terms with that statement, and eventually everyone gave up and pretended they'd not heard it.
"He drinks all the milk," said Alice. "And I've never much liked cheese after finding out what they did with it in the old Brewery."
"Cats can't speak Chinese," said the first elderly lady.
"Was the one run by Mathilda? Her what runs the Rutherford Bridge Club now?" asked Betty.
"Mine does," said Alice. She opened her purse. "Tony, coochy-coo. Tony!"
"The Rutherford Bridge Club use knives," said the elderly lady on the other end of the row. "That's not how most people play Bridge, you know."
"No he doesn't," said the first elderly lady.
"I've got a knife," said Betty. She smiled.
Alice pulled a cat from her purse, which looked around the room and miaowed.
"See," she said. "Ni hao. That's Chinese, that is."

Anonymous said...

Typo, try again:

Weak in the Knees
“I can’t climb up there,” she said. “I’m weak in the knees,” qualifying her inability to take the 140 steps up to the lookout that, according the tourist pamphlet, boasted of misty waterfalls making their own rainbows as the showers of recent rains flowed down to the abyss below.
“You go on,”she beckoned, “Grab me a photo, that’ll do.”

I felt sorry for Mum. Ageing can be such a bummer. She used to love to hike. She had her own camera, a Hasselblad with a 50mm Leitz plugged onto its nose, pre-digital age. She’d take these haunting black’n’whites, saying she preferred the mood it created and the surprise of discovery that never ceased to amaze her as the scenes developed in her own dark room, although those days were numbered: developing film was as scarce as hen’s teeth, now, and expensive, too. “You don’t get that sense of expectation any more, not even with a DSLR, although I have to admit, the quality is supreme,” she’d quip - every single time she’d say it as she unpegged the freshly dried pictures for her album or wall. I couldn’t argue with that - this Age of Instant was something we took for granted. There was no effort, nowadays - snap off a hundred pix and choose one or two to Instagram - no real thought involved, probably wouldn’t even mind about the choosing, now, takes too long, the world hungers for “instant” and moves on to the next moment without thought of the preceding one. No patience, no time spent, no real effort, no anticipation, no appreciation, no real surprises anymore.

I lamented this Instant Age for a second, even as I snapped off about twenty images on my ‘phone and switched to “video mode” to record the sounds of the gushing waters to show her later. Well, it was something, I suppose.

No, my mum has stamina, a will to go on, to seek and never stop seeking until she finds that creative moment she’s looking for. No matter what you do, that attitude takes strength, stamina and sheer determination - Saturnine qualities if ever there were! Ha, she’s a Capricorn, too. They say that sign rules the knees, that there can be “difficultly with the knees”. I’m sure I read that somewhere while surfing the ‘net.
Maybe, after a lifetime of striving, but no, she’s certainly not “weak”.

Marc said...

Greg - hah, no. But there's a theme behind Monday to Friday's prompts, so at least there's that.

And, um, no, they certainly don't need any introduction :D

It's, uh, nice? To hear from them again. Love the dialogue here :)

Dana - this is such a great introduction to your mother (I'm presuming this is taken from real life, though I'd be all the more impressed if this was entirely fictional). I find myself hoping to be like her when I reach that stage of my life.

Also: I remember developing my pictures in a dark room in grade... 8? Definitely a different experience today, with my little pocket do everything including photography. I can't say I miss it, but I do appreciate that the anticipation and surprise aspects are lost with today's technology.

Thank you for sharing this with us :)

Anonymous said...

Marc, ha, this piece is entirely fictional, although my mother was most certainly strong and stoic.
Her knees were intact, too :)