Beginning with a single, random word, given as a gift or appearing in a flash, I wrote for a week freely, wildly exploring and emerged with a complete piece (or couple of pieces, in some cases) inspired by that single word.
The result is a curious collection of 38 different pieces serialised on SUBSTACK.
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"What an inspired idea…the stories, each one, are remarkable. A feat of imagination. They are so playful, and also, manage to draw you in."
- Esther Freud, novelist
HERE IS ONE OF THE PIECES - RANDOM WORD 18
King Edward lay in bed as the clock struck noon. Burying his face in his pillow, he could neither rest nor rise. This was the seventh night of the seventh week of the seventh month of sleeplessness. He didn’t understand why his mind was so mashed. His kingdom was at peace. Crops were plentiful, the weather a fine combination of rainy and sunny with regular breezes to keep all refreshed. His every cell was longing for respite. Would he never let himself be?
King Edward was not yet twenty-five. His mother still lived but not long after his father’s death had fallen in love with the art of adventure. One morning last autumn, she had taken up an easel, shed her ermine, pearls and diamonds to don an old nightdress that soon ran thick with splodges. Her fingernails, once so gleaming, magnetised grime as her soft hands calloused and hair matted from immaculate to scarecrow. She took to whistling a troubador’s travelling tune.
“Wander wander who dares,” it began.
“Follow the waterfall’s thunderous call,” it went on.
“Draw deep inside and deeper yet.”
Then she’d whisper, “On your knees, oh traveller, crawl.”
She’d hush, “Here within the sacred caves.”
She’d point as if she were actually there, “Alive the walls alive.”
Suddenly raise her hands. “Ancient handprints usher you home.”
Her gaze turned further and further away until she informed her son that she’d see him when she’d see him for there were untold places to discover.
Then she was gone.
Edward still loved his mother even though she clearly didn’t exist in the same world as he did any more. He missed even more his dead father who had fallen from a ladder whilst cleaning the palace windows. This was the one chore he had all his adult life insisted on undertaking every three months to show solidarity with his loyal staff. King Russet had been a stocky pluck of fellow, a ball of delight.
“No eyes on me,” he’d joke.
No one knew what on earth he meant but he delivered it like a truism. His son guessed therefore that his father was at best wise or at least making light work. So, good for him.
King Edward had also had an elder brother Rudolph who had fallen from grace after stealing increasingly rare and irreplaceable pieces of the ceremonial silver to fund his obsession with rare breeds of tobacco. The more obscure and difficult to locate the more satisfying the plant and ultimately the smoke, it seemed. Edward wasn’t convinced that Rudolph would ever be satisfied. After mother had sallied forth, so had Rudolph, in the opposite direction carrying a watering can and trowel muttering, “Kiss of life.”
No one knew what this meant either. He didn’t seem to be wise nor having much fun. Sad for him.
Exquisite droning swelled below his window. King Edward half-listened, half-wondered what it would be like to be Maris whose prodigious talents were threefold: swimming, dancing and playing those pipes. He customarily piped up at dawn when King Russet was wont rise. But since the good King’s demise the morning reveille had slipped towards afternoon. King Edward turned onto his back and wished he could do anything as well as Maris. “If only I could leave my mark on the world.”
Then he rolled out of bed and landed with a thump on the fluffy rug that softened his fall enough to mute any bruising.
Still in his night shirt, King E plodded downstairs to the kitchen where he found waiting for him the silver teaspoon he’d rescued from Rudolph. The porridge was waiting too.
“A little less salt please.”
Cook shook her head and smiled. He smiled back. He knew she knew he lived in hope that maybe she could remove a smidgeon of salt somehow after it had dissolved into the mix. Then life would seem once again to be filled with untold possibilities.
“How are you doing today, King E?” asked Cook.
“To be honest,” he gently sighed, “I feel like I’m poxy with eyes.”
“Might I ask?” Cook looked askance. ”What does that actually mean?”
“I guess that I’m going to seed.”
“Well before your time, indeed?” Cook shook her head. “How come?”
“I’m none the wiser than you on that.” King Edward rubbed his forehead. “Maybe I need to become good at something.”
“You’re good at holding the fort for us all,” said Cook. “As far as decent kings go, you’re counted amongst them.”
“Spectacularly kind of you to say so,” sniffed Edward.
Cook piled spoon one, two, three of porridge into the same bowl King Russet had used each morning (at a significantly earlier hour than this) and the weary monarch cupped his hands in grateful receipt.
After porridge, King Edward sat in the kitchen by the fire even. Outside, the sun was shining. He contemplated the window, sighed at the brilliance of a ray of light that beamed across the flagstones to a spot on the floor beneath the table edge. Here, illuminated, lay a single potato. At that precise moment, Maris came into the kitchen lugging a large basket filled to the brim with spuds aplenty.
“How many potatoes does a palace need?” wondered King Edward aloud.
“More than you realise,” grinned Maris who never stood on ceremony. He’d been the queen’s favourite musician, so he’d always been allowed to be familiar. But Mother wasn’t around anymore, was she? King Edward thought he probably ought to demand that the palace piper show greater respect to his ruler and monarch, but he felt a fraud because Maris was about five years older and anyhow, he couldn’t bear to invoke the crown. The weight of that blessed diadem upon his head bore too heavy, even when he wasn’t actually wearing it. He sighed his mightiest sigh of the day so far.
“Your highness,” said Cook, “Are you still hungry or still sad?”
King Edward looked floorward. “I’d rather be that potato lying under the table than the ruler of any kingdom ever.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” laughed Maris.
“I daresay,” said King Edward. But he realised that he meant this with all his heart. The more he pondered the potato the more he felt that that its existence was far preferable, certainly simpler. Another sigh escaped him. To be a potato indeed.
“Would you like me to prepare it perhaps for your lunch or dinner?” asked Cook.
“Very well, thank you,” said King Edward.
“How would you like it?” Cook wiped her hands on her pinny. “Baked in the oven till its skin is perfectly crisp? Then it’s a matter of the topping.”
“Hm,” mused King Edward. He imagined his mind to be a knob of butter melting into his flesh. He shuddered. “What other options might there be?”
“Perhaps peeled then sliced into wands, plunged into the fryer?”
King Edward sensed the oil searing. “What else?”
“Boiled then smashed with butter, cream, nutmeg?”
King Edward wondered if this one potato would make very much mash.
“A small portion, more like child-size,” agreed Cook.
“Extras here.” Maris offered the basket-load.
“No, just this,” insisted King Edward, “If I was the one under the table then I would want my end to be exquisite and alone. I have no need to take others with me.”
Cook and Maris exchanged a worrisome glance. Cook had heard King Russet sigh and separate himself like this over the years and still wondered whether the ladder had thrown him or he’d thrown himself.
“Any more possibilities?” asked King Edward.
The potato hadn’t moved. No one had stooped yet to pick it up.
“Paper thin slices atop a shepherd’s pie?”
“I’d like my potato to be star of the show, not an accompaniment…. Actually, no. You know, I would prefer it to be invisible, so I wouldn’t know exactly where it was in the dish, but it was very much present.”
Cook needed no more guidance. “Leave it to me.”
King Edward nodded. “Yes, potato permeating my entire supper. Thank you kindly.”
He looked long and hard at this crown jewel of the soil, fell to his knees and reached towards it, body prostrate as if bowing to a deity awesome and fearful. “Hail, dear potato.”
The potato gave no response. This, reflected Maris, was not surprising considering it was out of its element. “Oh,” he remembered, “Do you realise that that’s a new variety. So, Gardener said.”
“Does this variety have a name?” asked King Edward.
“Well your highness,” suggested Maris, “Since you would like to become this very particular one and it will later become a part of you, oughtn’t it be your name that is bestowed?”
King Edward the potato was then scooped up with care by King Edward the man who placed it squarely at the centre of the kitchen table before he wandered out towards the stables.
“What recipe d’you have in mind?” Maris the piper enquired of Cook.
“Keep your nose out of it and leave me to my stove.”
Maris swiftly vanished upstairs to practice.
Cook approached the precious fare. “So, a little of you in each course?”
Then she fetched her peeler and knife.
When King Edward sat to supper he ate with reverence. It was no hardship to savour each morsel of rosemary bread, parsley soup, spinach and ricotta ravioli, almond tart with lemon ice cream that Cook herself served. At the end of his repast, he gave heartfelt thanks.”
“Is there any of me left?” he asked.
Cook shook her head.
“Then I am done,” said King Edward and went straight to bed.
That night he slept soundly. The next day he made his way to the garden and asked to be shown where the new variety of potatoes were growing. There he lay upon the soil letting himself be the earthiest earth apple ever seeded.
