We are en route to Blenheim palace. The shred of sunshine billowing overhead has completely dissolved. Everything is gray. The sky looks like stale British tea. Vivian notes that, you really get a sense of England being an Island due to the constant flux and change of the weather our here in what could pass as the moors.
"Normally the Cotswolds offers some of the most idyllic scenery in all of the British isles but we just so happen to have come on a day when it is rather morose and depressing now didn't we?"
At the phrase Cotswolds Jim starts to chuckle. Sir Charles looks back. Jim bites his lips. You can tell he is rehearsing the the phrase with the word cock in his eyes.
"Stories about the stones origins are quite esoteric. The most popular story is that the large circle are Knights who were transmogrified into stone by a witch. In contemporary times the site has become quite important for Pagan fertility rituals."
Vivian is talking about what she alludes to as spiritual magnetism. She is talking about how even many scholars seem to surmise that Aliens had a hand in engendering the configuration of this edifice since crop circles are spotted nearby almost yearly.
"One mysterious thing you will note is that, when counting the stones clockwise one always derives a different sum of stones from counting them counter clockwise."
We get off the bus. Vivian says that our job is to count the stones from one direction and then the other. The monument looks like a tiara of Limestone spouting from the lidded green of the earth, a wreath of poked crags blinking into the British cosmos on winter solstice, a combination of theosphical bewilderment and alchemical awe.
. Everyone is counting. Several members of the Big Ten are patting each rock like they are playing a game of duck-duck goose. There is gridlock since half the group is counting counter clockwise and the other half is counting clockwise.
I look for Harmony, I want her scent. She seems no where in the orb of red-coated bodies clustering around the rock configuration and counting.
I see Greta. She is wearing almost inexplicably purple boots while counting in a method that involves assenting her nose like a conductor. I picture her and fellow thespian vegetarians clad in togas and laurel leaves burning incense and holding some sort of ordained spring solstice ritual that involves tarot cards in the center of the monolith.
I’ve counted 69 twice. Fuck this. I thought we were going to see a Palace. I thought we were going to go to Oxford. There was nothing on the agenda about getting off on the formation of rocks.
I begin to walk back to the bus alone when I am thwarted by the tour guide from Bus #4. The British tour guide from Mark’s group is wearing a gray trench coat. There is something about him that is almost painfully reminiscent of a future John Major.
I begin to walk back to the bus alone when I am thwarted by the tour guide from Bus #4. The British tour guide from Mark’s group is wearing a gray trench coat. There is something about him that is almost painfully reminiscent of a future John Major.
“We don’t look now like we are enjoy this much now do we?”
I want to tell him that I am not a we. I want to ask him why they insist on everything being plural on this island.
I want to tell him that I am not a we. I want to ask him why they insist on everything being plural on this island.
I am in Vivian’s group. I don’t know why this British tour guide is bothering me.
I am audacious. I tell him no. I almost tell him that this sucks only I don't.
"Well I suggest you learn to enjoy participating in these activities. It would be a shame if you were left on the bus while the majority of your peers were having the time of their life while you had to mull over the difficult modalities of your materialistic-driven adolescent american life."
I have no clue what he is saying. He didn't have to talk to me that way. I think about Mr. Reents teaching us British patois the day before my trip.
Under my breath I call him a wanker.
Trying to assent with the stolid tour guide’s mandate I oscillate around the interior of the rocks a third time when I meander head into Mark, informing him again that that this like the coolest beret I have ever seen.
Mark makes the overt comment that this is an exercise in extreme tedium.
"I just got reprimanded by your tour guide for sulking. He thinks my attitude correlates with the weather."
When Mark smiles his lips emanate a subtle huffing sound.
“Yeah, I’ve counted the rock-configuration three times and every time I get sixty-nine. I’m the only one in our group that keeps on getting the same number.”
“Sixty-nine is a rather auspicious number.” Mark says. With a smile. I nod in colloquial concurrence. I have no clue hat he is talking about.
Rather I circle counter clockwise again. For the second day in a row I want to be anywhere but here. I am circling the stones. I am thinking of Mme. Suhr back home so I decide to count aloud in French. Counselor Dan hears me and immediately breaks into a rendition of the Marseillaise. I want to say that I thought we were seeing a palace. Dan offers me a long stream of conscious sentence en francais, the only part I can comprehend being the rejoinder where he rhetorically asks n'est-ce pas? I nod stoically. I have again lost track of my count. The Big Ten seem to be counting the slabs of rock saying the name Daisy after every chunk of granite.
Vivian announces that we our to give our speculation bout how many rocks are in the circle to our counselors once we get on the bus and that the winner will receive a prize. I am through. I don't know who to say 'screw this' en francias so instead I say fu-toi followed by a form of etre. Just when I am headed to the bus skimming the rocks counter clockwise for the last time I look up.
It is her. it is Harmony.
She is counting stones the opposite direction. We seem to clang into each other.
"David." she says.
"Hey," I note, not wanting to talk to her, wondering why she blew me off last night.
Before I realize it she is giving me a little hug. I refuse to hug her back. She says she was worried about me. I inquire why.
"Hey, I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you last night."
I want to say yeah, tell it to the judge. She says no,
"I wasn't in the room last night."
"What?"
Jennifer said you called. She had a bunch of girls over for a sleepover. She said that you called and that they were acting goofy.
Behind Harmony I see the crisp tar-flavored bangs of Jennifer Flood. She gives me a little wave and then makes a vulcan sign and jiggles her tongue through it.
"You weren't in the room last night when I called?" I inquire, befogged.
Harmony swipes her head back and forth. For a second I wonder if, like Mark, she went Awol. For a second I wonder if she was with another guy.
"No, I had to help an Escort of Parade out and by the time I got back to my room it was after midnight Jennifer didn't tell me that you called until this morning."
Somehow I believe her. Somehow the daffiness of my phone conversation with Jennifer Flood is abating. Somehow I realize that this in only our third conversation of the entire trip.
I realize she looks ravishing
It feels like it is Celtic Kismet that we have meandered into each other once again while counting the number of geological petrified knights whose number always changes when you count it in reverse.
I am waiting for her to call me but instead I hear Sir Charles voice behind me.
"Comeon' Harry. Time to go to the palace. They'll be a chance for romance in London."
For the first time in over a day I board my bus with a smile welded into my face.
Rather I circle counter clockwise again. For the second day in a row I want to be anywhere but here. I am circling the stones. I am thinking of Mme. Suhr back home so I decide to count aloud in French. Counselor Dan hears me and immediately breaks into a rendition of the Marseillaise. I want to say that I thought we were seeing a palace. Dan offers me a long stream of conscious sentence en francais, the only part I can comprehend being the rejoinder where he rhetorically asks n'est-ce pas? I nod stoically. I have again lost track of my count. The Big Ten seem to be counting the slabs of rock saying the name Daisy after every chunk of granite.
Vivian announces that we our to give our speculation bout how many rocks are in the circle to our counselors once we get on the bus and that the winner will receive a prize. I am through. I don't know who to say 'screw this' en francias so instead I say fu-toi followed by a form of etre. Just when I am headed to the bus skimming the rocks counter clockwise for the last time I look up.
It is her. it is Harmony.
She is counting stones the opposite direction. We seem to clang into each other.
"David." she says.
"Hey," I note, not wanting to talk to her, wondering why she blew me off last night.
Before I realize it she is giving me a little hug. I refuse to hug her back. She says she was worried about me. I inquire why.
"Hey, I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you last night."
I want to say yeah, tell it to the judge. She says no,
"I wasn't in the room last night."
"What?"
Jennifer said you called. She had a bunch of girls over for a sleepover. She said that you called and that they were acting goofy.
Behind Harmony I see the crisp tar-flavored bangs of Jennifer Flood. She gives me a little wave and then makes a vulcan sign and jiggles her tongue through it.
"You weren't in the room last night when I called?" I inquire, befogged.
Harmony swipes her head back and forth. For a second I wonder if, like Mark, she went Awol. For a second I wonder if she was with another guy.
"No, I had to help an Escort of Parade out and by the time I got back to my room it was after midnight Jennifer didn't tell me that you called until this morning."
Somehow I believe her. Somehow the daffiness of my phone conversation with Jennifer Flood is abating. Somehow I realize that this in only our third conversation of the entire trip.
I realize she looks ravishing
It feels like it is Celtic Kismet that we have meandered into each other once again while counting the number of geological petrified knights whose number always changes when you count it in reverse.
I am waiting for her to call me but instead I hear Sir Charles voice behind me.
"Comeon' Harry. Time to go to the palace. They'll be a chance for romance in London."
For the first time in over a day I board my bus with a smile welded into my face.
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