Free A Widow's Curse by Phillip Depoy Page B

stories and songs and ways of doing things, we lose our humanity. We become as superficial as an Internet search or a television comedy. We’ll end up looking back on our past with as little comprehension as most people today have of Egyptian hieroglyphics, or the meaning of Stonehenge.”
    â€œSay amen very quickly,” Andrews muttered to Shultz, “or this could go on for another couple of hours.”
    â€œNo,” Shultz protested, “I actually agree with him. The good old ways are the best.”
    â€œThat’s not remotely what I mean.” I closed my eyes. “I’m saying this: You hear the story of Saint Elian’s Well or of Conner’s encounter with a fairy and you think it’s a quaint story for children. I’m telling you that these are actual phenomena. They happen all the time.”
    â€œYour great-grandfather saw a spirit disguised as himself in a field in Wales.” Shultz gave me a withering eye.
    â€œA supernatural event is only an occurrence that some idiot can’t properly explain.”
    â€œHang on,” Andrews protested. “I thought you always said these stories served primarily as metaphor.”
    â€œTheir significance is metaphorical; their action is actual.”
    â€œCould we stick to the part where I’m primarily right about everything?” Andrews reclined. “We have a silver coin with a big B on the back and a family named Briarwood who minted silver coins.”
    â€œThose are facts,” I agreed. “But I could assemble them a hundred different ways. The B stands for Britain; the well isn’t Saint Elian’s at all, but something, say, in the Lake District, or on the way to Canterbury. Saints walked all over the place around there.”
    â€œThe B stands for Breton.” Shultz beamed. “It’s a French saint, and it’s not a well at all; it’s the grave of, you know, Jesus or something. This is fun.”
    â€œWhen you’re a first-year medical student,” Andrews began wearily, “you’re told that the most obvious answer is nearly always the correct one. If someone in Kansas is describing a four-legged mammal with hooves and a mane, it’s more likely to be a horse than a zebra.”
    â€œYou know this from your years in medical school.” I sighed.
    â€œAs it happens, my roommate in graduate school was on his way to being a surgeon, and he made me study with him because I made him run lines with me when I was in plays.”
    â€œAside from the very distracting image of you onstage,” I told him, “I probably have to admit at least a modicum of agreement with your premise.”
    â€œYes, you have to admit that—fond as you are of Occam’s razor.”
    â€œWho’s what?” Shultz barged in. “Is that another folktale or something?”
    â€œIt’s a philosophical concept of which I am fond,” I explained. “The precise statement is: ‘Universal essences should not be unnecessarily multiplied.’ The useful extrapolation is generally given as ‘The simplest answer is the best.’”
    â€œKISS rule.” Shultz nodded slowly.
    â€œKiss what?” Andrews’s eyes widened.
    â€œK-I-S-S,” Shultz spelled. “‘Keep it simple, stupid.’ Plain good advice, in my book.”
    â€œI used to think it was just you,” Andrews told me, “but now I realize that all Americans are irritating.”
    â€œAnd proud of it.” Shultz grinned. “So where are we on the subject of my doodad?”
    â€œAt the frustrating, somewhat embarrassing admission on my part”—I sighed—“that my great-grandfather might have had something to do with it.”
    â€œWhy would that be so bad?”
    â€œYou have no idea how many ghosts are in this man’s head,” Andrews said simply, nodding in my direction.
    I stared out my kitchen window. Charcoal rain