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May 15, 2008 |
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Men Call the Hou
FOUND by Mark Briscoe
in Falls Church, Virginia
I found this on the floor next to the photocopier at my office. I love how it tells a story — one of a husband and men [who] call the hou[se], and of implied accusations and seemingly faded desire — all written on strange brown paper. Such intrigue! It strikes me that the story offered by this brief scrap is perhaps more engrossing even than the story we might have had if I’d found the whole page.
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All About a Female December 21, 2005 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
» The BBC's Jamillah Knowles mixes it up with the FOUND crew after a show in London (starts 1/3 of the way through)!
» We're hopping on a plane and jetting to Europe for our Fall 2008 Euro Tour!
This is intriguing.
Writing surface almost appears to be 2nd century papyrus, but the ink seems more modern. I suggest a scanning electron microscope and extensive chemical analysis to determine the age of this manuscript fragment. That might lead to a conjectural decision on the subject of the "longer want me" in the line under "men call the hou[se]".
It's a shame, sort of, that once someone gets the spelling, grammar, and handwriting down well, barbarians rise up and destroy the original manuscript.
@LIBRARIAN- Well put!! You know your stuff...I learn alot from your posts.
Thank-You!
Entropy has ravaged this fascinating scraplet to the point of obscuring the real message - which is: The WIFE not only denied ALL of the accusations, but had her phone number changed to stop the men from calling the house.
The ordeal ended badly.
Three-Hun-dred Six-ty-Five De-grees! Burnin' Down the Hou!
Our hou..
in the middle of our stree
I find it interesting that the first half is a husband accusing a wife (??) but then the second half actually involves the writer. Even more interesting, "they no longer want me" after "men call the house". Hmmm...very intriguing indeed. The last word is whore.
Okay...I think this is what went down. The writer is telling a story about her lover, a paranoid husband who believes his wife is cheating on him. He in turn cheats back by taking a mistress...our beloved writer. However, his plan backfires because he soon realizes that he has made a mistake and his wife isn't actually cheating on him...she's pregnant with their first child! The mistress is truly shamed for two reasons. one: The husband now wants nothing to do with her; two: She put so much effort into this relationship with the husband that she has broken contact with all of her previous customers; thus, "no longer want her". I think the last line reads..."I am such a whore".
@ Winston, or possibly "he no longer wants me BECAUSE I am such a whore..."
Looks like it's been chewed on. Mark, have you noticed any critters in the office?
@Holly ... thanks! (But I'll admit that the edges don't look like papyrus, mostly just the color)
How is this for a conjectured closing: "...[no] longer want me [to try to buy groceries off that illiterate shopping list he gave me when he asked me to go to the st]ore."
@chillin...yes, actually I think that fits better.
It doesn't look like it says "no longer" to me. It looks like it says "...ow longer..."
I'm interested that this was found by the xerox machine. I imagine several puzzle pieces of this letter lying face down on the scanner, in someone's effort to replicate the original.
I know of a school custodian who found a scrap of paper on the floor and copied it, then passed it out to a bunch of people and someone - no on knows who - taped a copy of it on the wall in the school library. Which is where the principal found it. He is a bad, evil principal who had been terrorizing his staff for months with threats and accusations and spying and interfering and bullying, driving some of them to resign. He is also the superintendent because it's tiny rural school district. Yep, there's only one school. So he's trying to get the custodian fired. The subject of the scrap in question? School board meeting draft copy of the minutes stating that he planned to eliminate the music program. He wanted to keep it secret from the students' families. You see what can happen if you pass around scraps of paper found by the copy machine. The happy ending is that the evil principal is going far far away.
It seems like the ending would be "... longer want me anymore." But I think Terrie is right. It looks more like "..ow" instead of "no." Let's see..
snow longer
plow longer
tomorrow longer
row longer
wow longer
crow longer
blow longer
brow longer
grow longer
escrow longer
below longer
Nah. I think I'm on the wrong track. But alan, I love that phrase, "fascinating scraplet."
Awww, the "no longer want me" breaks my heart. Such a sad realization to come to.
Those crazy 2nd Centurians and their 'ruled' papyrus... I can just see some poor scribe wiht an ink pot and a stick drawing those lines... Steady there, caliigraphy boy...
I think the author of this FIND, happened to write a TYPO. They wanted to write, " No longer want me..." but the typo on the scraplet is, "No]w longer want me..."
Maybe??
This strikes me as a police report, especially because of "The husband" and "accused"
(I added words/letter in parenthesis): "& accuse(d)...The husband...and accused (her)...(said other) men call the hou(se)...(no) longer want me(n to call the house anym)ore"
Looks like a domestic distrurbance.
Meh. The comments are a lot more interesting than the Find. And reveal more about the commenters than the fragment itself.
The repetition of "accused" and the round, unformed handwriting make me think that the writer is either immature (and given to gossiping--"Did you hear that so-and-so was accused of...") and/or fond of blaming everything on everyone else. Any criticisms in their mind automatically get catalogued as "accusations."
There's gotta be better stuff in the mail than this...
Ever notice that "SCRAP" is just "CRAP" with an "S" in front of it?