Caleb Fox

Please check out a new blog several of us have started, http://freefallhome.wordpress.com/. It's a start-up on a collection, or community, of stories about the quirky creatures known as human beings.

In our minds the blog is a kind of SOUTHERN EXPOSURE, but it will become whatever the contributors make it. Enter, read, chuckle, and contribute a story yourself. Only you can make it a community.

The first story is in the blog below, What Did the Navajo Lady Put in Her Mouth?

Sarita and I live in Navajoland, and the clash of two cultures is worth a grin sometimes. Here's a report of a recent event:

Michele bustled into an exam room. Since Navajo Health is not Cedars of Lebanon, she’s not a doctor but a physician’s assistant. She’s blonde, big of hip and bosom, undeniably cute, and unstoppable as a HumVee.

An elderly Navajo lady huddled in a chair opposite, dressed traditionally in velveteen skirt, turquoise bracelets and necklace, head scarf, and jacket. (For whatever reason, even in August at a temperature of 102, there’s always the jacket.) As Michele opened her mouth to ask what the problem was, a stink bug skittered across the floor between them.

Michele raised her foot to stomp it. The old lady was quicker. She snatched the bug up and popped it into her mouth.

Michele kept her voice down to a low scream. “What are you doing?” She reached, but the old lady averted her head.

“Get that thing out of there.”

The old lady said, “Mmphphssrrhhss.”

Michele tried to pry the mouth open, but the old lady clamped her teeth tight.

Michele fingered. The old lady said, mushing her words out around the bug, “These things heal mouth sores.”

Michele babbled. The old lady froze her mouth closed and glared.

Michele left and sent a nurse in to perform the bugectomy.

Soon the old lady trundled down the hall toward the waiting room and the front door. Michele looked at the nurse but thought better of asking about the insect.

“Respect for tradition,” said the nurse.

Michele sighed.

Eduardo Galeano's trilogy MEMORIES OF FIRE is a kind of mythic history of Latin America. Here is part of his folk tale account of how human beings were created:

"In their dream about God’s dream the woman and the man were inside a great shining egg, singing and dancing and kicking up a fuss because they were crazy to be born. In God’s dream happiness was stronger than doubt and mystery. So dreaming, God created them with a song:

“I break this egg and the woman is born and the man is born. And together they will live and die. But they will be born again. They will be born and die again and be born again. They will never stop being born, because death is a lie.”

"Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life"--Robert Louis Stevenson