Page 42 - WTP VOl. X #4

Anatomy (continued from preceding page) ~
He’d watched her take the heavy volume from the table reverently, with the same care she bestowed on her cats. Then, from the pockets of her cut-offs, she produced three bronze coins the size of a quarter, each with a hole in the center, like old subway tokens. “To use the book,” she said, “you must ask a question, then throw these to determine your hexagram. The ancients used to toss a bunch of yarrow stalks—rath- er like a fistful of uncooked spaghetti, I imagine—or pick-up sticks—but the coins are easier.” She was seated on the bare hardwood floor in the lotus posi- tion, which she insisted that Dad assume as well. “So what’s your question?”
My question is,” Dad said, shifting his weight uncom- fortably, “Am I wasting my time?”
“One must not jest with the book, sir. It is a tool of self-enlightenment. He who jests makes a joke of himself. Now toss those coins. Let’s determine your hexagram.”
A hexagram, Mom explained, consists of six horizon- tal lines, one above the other, like a symbolic ladder from earth to heaven. Some lines are solid, some broken. And some are capable of movement, indicat- ing change.
She’d looked up to make sure he was listening. (“How could I not listen,” Dad told me. “She had a husky fe- line voice, a delight in itself, yet altogether feminine.”)
“Each hexagram bears an Image and a Judgment, with corresponding readings to be considered in light of one’s situation.”
“Like a goddamn horoscope.”
“Horoscopes are heresy, Mr. Taylor Franklin. The I Ch- ing is based on the wise observation of human experience over thousands of years. One ignores it at one’s own risk.”
“Let’s get on with it. Give me those washers.”
“Please, Taylor. They’re sacred coins.” Dad watched her pull a pencil from behind her ear, unraveling sev- eral locks of mousy hair. Then she cocked her head at a schoolgirl angle. “Now what is your question?”
“Ask the book what it thinks of you and me.” “Heavy question, Taylor. Heavy question.”
Six times Dad tossed the coins across the bare hard- wood floor, often scrambling after them on his hands and knees, while Mom recorded the results in a little spiral notebook labeled Readings. When he finished, she thumbed the I Ching’s index. “The hexagram is Kou. It means Coming To Meet.”
Locating the appropriate passage in the text, she read:
“This hexagram indicates a situation in which the principle of darkness, after having been eliminated, furtively and unexpectedly obtrudes again from within and below. Of its own accord the female principle comes to meet the male. It is an unfavorable and dangerous situation and we must understand and promptly prevent the possible consequences.”
She looked up as if to say I told you so, then contin- ued:
“The rise of the inferior element is pictured here in the image of a bold girl who lightly surrenders herself and thus seizes power. This would not be possible if the strong and light-giving element had not in turn come halfway. The inferior thing seems so harmless and inviting that a man delights in it; it looks so small and weak that he imagines he may dally with it and come to no harm.”
“And the whatchamacallit?” Dad said, suddenly inter- ested. “The Judgment?” He watched her flip the page.
“The Maiden is powerful. One should not marry such a maiden.”
“That’s the problem,” Dad concluded, extending a small hand to take the book from her lap, just like the Dean had extended his large hand to conclude his job interview. (“I was by no means an intellectual,” he told me. “As I told your Mom again and again, I was just a photographer. I just liked taking pictures.”)
“You’re hardly a maiden.”
Smith is a Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio Northern Univer- sity and the author of eight books and co-editor/translator of three others. His work has been translated into five languages, including Russian and Chinese. He holds a DA from Carnegie-Mellon, an MFA in Fiction from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, an MAT from Yale, and a BA from Wesleyan. His short story “Help- ing Padraig Die” won the 2021 Great Midwest Fiction Competition of the Midwest Review.
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