Dan has bought a Roman fetish in a junk shop — he calls it an antique shop but it’s like a disgusting back street emporium. I hate it, I hate it. It’s just lewd. What did he call it, a satire? No, that’s something else. A satyr, that’s it. A nasty evil-looking thing with crafty, smirking eyes that look at you in a horrible knowing way, you know? A leer, that’s what it is.
But that’s not all, it’s got … I can hardly bring myself to describe it. He call it ‘apo-‘ something — he got me to repeat it a few times — apo-, apo-, apotropaic, that’s it. He says it’s an ancient charm to ward off evil, all ancient cultures had it, even in the Himalayas where I thought they were Buddhist or something. The Romans, he says, even stuck stone carvings of it on the ends of their roofs, their walls. Some old churches even have figures like them carved on the outside, over entrances — I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it. Churches? That’s not even Christian.
I can’t even bring myself to say it. It’s, it’s — I’ll have to use the Greek word he told me, sounds only a little less rude. A … phallus. There, it’s out. And a ruddy great one, horrible, yucky, obscene. What possessed Dan to buy it? It’s as if I don’t really know him, never knew he had this … this stuff in him, how could he do it, to me, his wife of all people, how could he? I’ll never, ever be able to look him in the face again. Never.
Charm, huh, I’ll give him charm. Ruddy thing.
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One of the creative writing tasks we could choose this week was this scenario: two people on an unsatisfactory holiday together. One of them buys something the other dislikes intensely. Describe what happens.
Calmgrove 