And now for Robert’s WRITE HERE, WRITE NOW entry ...

Lighting A Fire

On the door of the church, proudly posted, was a simple sign. The paper was faded and crumpled, and you could just about make out some faded pencil etchings, shapes or a drawing. One corner had been severed completely, leaving a jagged emptiness. The tack, reddish and flaking, was obscured in a layer of its own rust while streaks of this wine-coloured liquid had blazed down the page, bleeding into and being absorbed by it. Yet, unlike the other notices, where the edges had curled in, almost hiding themselves, this sign was stiff, proclaiming loudly: “Typewriter needed. Ink and paper preferable. Deliver to Ryan’s Corner-store ASAP”
This is what awakened the people of Hartley. Little towns, you’ll find, often consist of the same conversation occurring in different households. From the butcher to the bookstore, the entire village was buzzing with talk of this sign. Barbra Kelly, who runs the Parent’s Association of Hartley Elementary School, was the first to mention it. She said, almost in passing at the end of a meeting, “Oh, and did anyone see that new sign on the church? The crumpled scrap, barely enough of it to be here? So ragged. It ought to be taken down.” This is what sparked the conversation which dominated Hartley, April 1964. It was picked up by the other women who brought it home to their families, then by the children to their schoolyards and the husbands to their work and so on, spreading like smoke, seeping steadily through the town.
This is why, not ten days later, the Reverend Peter O’Neill preached, saying, “But let us not forget that it was Jesus Christ who reached out to the humble, the meek, the lowly. It is He who gave them a forum, a voice and that is the legacy continued by our church, providing a message board for whomever may use it.” For the first time in living memory, the pleasant chatter which usually accompanied the tea and coffee after the service had been extinguished, only a few strained attempts could be heard over the heavy silence.
But later that evening, over Sunday roast, in homes across Hartley, the fight was reignited and raged into the night. Husbands argued with wives, brothers with sisters, even parents and children. Some believed it was a horrible blemish on the message board, others thought that it was no different to any other notice. In the Dorian household, the argument got so heated that Irene screamed at her husband “Oh, you’re such a hypocrite! Complain about the state of the notice board, but can’t keep our damn house clean!”
The only quiet room in all of Hartley, it seemed, was the back apartment of a small house, near the corner-store being rented by Jay Miller. As he slept, waiting for a typewriter, he could feel his Great American Novel trickling away. Dreaming of stirring people, of lighting a fire in their minds, not realising that he already had.


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