The Metaphor Peddler

A phone call from the memory care facility let Ryan know that his grandmother had suffered a stroke and that their physician had pronounced her dead. It had all been sudden and quick, sparing the gentle old lady much pointless and unnecessary suffering. Ryan was at a laundromat, loading a big washing machine with blankets and towels from an animal shelter. He talked with the memory care employee, turned the washer on and locked himself in the bathroom to cry. He knew Nathalie’s health had been rapidly declining. Not long ago, she could still talk in her metaphorical language. During one of his visits, she asked him to turn on the windows. He understood that she wanted him to open the windows so that sunlight could get inside her room. He did as she said, only for her to complain that it was too bright and ask him to turn off the sun.

Attending to a request that she had made years ago, her grandson gave her the least costly type of eco-friendly green burial, with no service, no coffin, just a wicker casket with her body covered in an organic cotton shroud, placed straight into a hole in the dirt, at a forested site owned by the burial business. All her savings were spent on that final event. Such a basic interment, so simple, yet so expensive.

Ryan allowed his heart to grieve at its own discretion. Ever an optimist, his healing process was fast and effective. While he missed his grandmother and resented his lack of luck in the boyfriend department, on the bright side he no longer had to pay for her care and could count on his roommate to share the rent and bills. Odd jobs were never lacking. He started to feel that he should contemplate returning to metaphor-peddling at Carnival-by-the-Sea, at least for a few days each week.

On a Sunday afternoon, biking to the grocery store, he suddenly decided to go to the amusement park first. He hadn’t been there in a long time. He wanted to look at it once again, feel its vibes, enjoy its gleeful atmosphere, and perhaps talk with one of the owners, if he was there. From a distance he noticed that the rides and attractions were still. He saw no fun-seekers. There was a picket line of striking workers at the front gate. Through a megaphone, a woman was protesting economic inequality and exploitation. Ryan parked his bike and walked toward the gate to hear her better. She was saying that she had worked there, doing caricatures for a ridiculously low wage, and that when she complained, she was fired and replaced by a peddler of short poems who then was so exploited that he had to work just for tips. Ryan felt awkward. Guilty as charged, he thought. Workers from other companies and young people, from town and elsewhere as their signs indicated, chanted slogans such as Capitalism has to go!, which was written on a banner held by Amir and Kenzo. They were all being watched by armed policemen threatening them with their brutal paraphernalia.

For Ryan, the demonstrators’ slogans were poems of the matter-of-fact, in-your-face, tell-it-like-it-is kind, with no metaphors. He joined the protest. He was caught in the ever-growing tidal wave of resistance, as Amir had predicted. He could ride the wave, swim in it, or drown in it, but he couldn’t avoid it.