Finding Figeró

Note: my wife and I started a tradition years ago to make one Christmas present and then give a book. This is all we get for each other for Christmas. Partially this is because my wife’s birthday is in December and I’d rather get her a great birthday present.

Anyway, this year my wife really outdid herself. She gave me a Magik Box. Inside are three bags: genre, place, and object. Each week I pick a popsicle stick from each bag and these form a prompt. It mimics a contest I’ve entered the last two years where you have 48 hours to write a 1000-word story. I’ve decided to post these stories to the blog. Just fun little asides to keep my creative juices flowing and force me to write something at least weekly.

If any of these inspire you, I’d love to read your original works.

Prompt: Magical Realism, the beach, a bicycle

Helmin Hiller lives in a little town with multi-colored doors by the sea that no one has ever heard of, and that’s how he prefers it. On infrequent trips outside the hamlet, others often ask the frog-eyed man dressed in the extravagant colors of his native town where he heralds from, and when he replies, it usually comes with blank stares or knitted brows. Even those who’ve lived in the area for years, some their whole lives and all their family’s lives, don’t seem familiar with Figeró.

Helmin refers them to a red pocket atlas kept for such an occasion, turning to a creased page smudged in an unfortunate accident with a careless waiter and a rather disappointing pinot grigio. His finger drifts northeast on the tiny map, marking the town of Figeró.

“Ah, you mean Geró,” someone might comment, and he shakes his head in the negative.

“North of Geró. Over the hill.”

“You mean Carminó,” they might reply.

Again a shake of the head, round sunglasses catching the light. “South of Carminó.”

Most nod or sigh and don’t care to inquire further. Others, true scholars of the area, whose forefathers no doubt traversed the entire countryside and mapped every inch, claiming minor hills or streams with family names, might refute “my good sir, there is no town between Carminó and Geró. They touch in the middle.”

Helmin doesn’t pay any attention to these stoics, men of reason for whom a kilometer is simply a thousand meters. They’ve never ridden a bicycle along the coast, feeling the wind in their hair, though Helmin has little of this these days, seeing the rocks bathed in the rays of the light and tasting the salt oyster fog on their lips as they crest the little hill out of Geró. Half the distance to Carminó and then half again and half one more time, the roads getting tighter together, blocking out the ocean spray and crash of waves, and then seeing the first periwinkle door among all of the dour browns and tans. Were Helmin to drive a car, the engine whirling away, others honking in annoyance, he might miss the door and the little alleyway next to it. Down to the corner and another right. The sides of the buildings close enough to scrape the handlebars, already worn thin from similar trips. Half of half and one more half of that smaller and smaller till even a single breath might be too wide for the breadth of the alley. And then, all at once, bright sunshine where all the doors meet him like smiling faces in Sunday pews.

Figeró.

Exactly where he always says it is. North of Geró and South of Carminó. If he turns his head, the spire of the Geró church comes into focus with its little dragon weather vane gusting away from the sea. And to the North wafts the sweet scent of fresh taffy from the dozens of candy shops that line the oceanfront.
His bicycle tires follow a well-trod path down the hill, gravity pulling him to the sea, past all the shops selling picnic baskets and blankets, and the rainbow city with kites in every color. Down into the village with the brightly colored houses against the tan rocks blocking the sand beyond. The bike keeps going, past the fishermen hauling in the day’s catch and the children building sand castles to watch the waves carry them away.

He has to peddle hard now, the sand slowing the bike tires, stopping him from reaching the water. But then the soft sand of the upper beach gives way to the hard-packed sand of the castles, and then all at once, he’s launched into the waves, tires churning the brackish water, splashing well-worn linen pants he’ll have to wash tonight before then stiffen. Faster, faster, as a wave on the horizon threatens to topple him. One last push of the peddles, and he pops over the top, gliding past the kayaks and day boats, dolphins surfacing to see who’s making all the fuss. Helmin tips his hat to the dolphins and the tourists in their rented paddle boats, no doubt ready to tell stories of their encounter with a local.

These tourists are much better than all those silly people who can’t find Fiegró. Even when he invites friends or those from outside, they cannot find it half the time, lost in either Carminó or Geró and calling on the phone to complain. What can he do?

No matter how precise he writes it, only a spare few make it to his door to drink wine on the porch and watch the sunset over the harbor framing the final tan-bodied surfers glistening in the last rays of the day.

Helmin tried to live abroad once, but cell phones, wifi, computers, and Starbucks disagreed with him. He prefers the squawks of the seagulls, the smell of the taffy, and the laid-back nonchalance of Figeró. It is home. It has a grip on him. And no matter what, he always returns to its unchanging shores with the multi-colored doors. And those who follow his directions might join him for the day to sit in peace and enjoy the tranquility.

These sparse fellows understand that Figeró is more than a little town on the sea’s edge. It’s a state of mind.

Ride a bicycle! Turn left at the periwinkle door, see the ally, and think of twenty years prior. If you hit the wharf, you haven’t gone back far enough. If you see the whale bones, you’ve gone too far. Follow the taffy. Smile. Journeys end in sweet embraces.