Something We Could All Pronounce

This is part 6 of 13 • Table of Contents

It took Ruth Tarver several years to tunnel though the prison to the cell of the Russian poet. They were in different wings, and each shovelful of dirt had to be laid reverently to rest. While she was busy digging, the male protagonist showed up on a few talk shows to praise the Lord for his resurrection, but the ratings tanked. Macho miracles had fallen from fashion.

At a doomed gathering outside the governor’s palace demanding that Ruth Tarver be freed, the cops shot two protesters with multiple rounds. As soon as they were hauled off to the morgue and arrested for dead treason, a bit of grim-faced pushback against the administration began. Still, with the smoke from the press room, lots of people on farms as well as street corners couldn’t see anything wrong. When asked if they had an opinion, many said that with the cost of barbecues, kids, and crackdowns, they couldn’t afford one.

Personality update: Ruth Tarver could be any of us, could see pain through multiple lenses. She said so several times. She could be the ruined guy on the tenth floor ledge, the single mom, the fentanyl addicts with gravedirt in their eyes, the unemployed abused, the bone cancer kids without a health plan.

Yet her platitudes are lies and we’ll prove it, the prosecution team chanted in choral harmony when Ruth Tarver’s first criminal trial began.

Joke on them. They didn’t really need proof. Ruth spoke in her own defense, which wasn’t an actual defense because she admitted her shovel training. She said: damn right I did it and you would, too. The stenographer fainted.

When she was imprisoned, Ruth Tarver often wondered why none of this made sense: How the male protagonist was alive again, how the garden tool murder weapon, once on the evidence table, was now in her cell, and how she knew the way underground through the prison buildings to the Russian poet.

It didn’t matter. If she had stepped over an injured bird, or made some other seemingly insignificant decision that had steered her life’s course into a shootout with the cops instead of turning herself in, and that shootout left her hallucinating a story from another bookshelf as her life leaked out on the roadside, she still grabbed the shovel, propped in the corner of her cell, and began to dig.

And Jane Tarver was an immense help during this time. From the outside, she helped the movement spread, academically. She published a pamphlet. She spelled it out in red paint on walls. It became something we could all pronounce.

Still, it wasn’t enough. With Ruth out of the spotlight, romance authors recycled plots. Desperate optimism declined. Militants took jobs in shoe stores. Only one band made a song.

The night Ruth Tarver broke through to the cell of the Russian poet, he touched her gently on the cheek. Thank you, he said. It’s good to finally see your face.

For several seconds, Ruth couldn’t move. She crouched in the dirt, as if from the soil reborn. Her hand clenched the shovel grip. Her limbs shook, and sweat painted her nose brown. She panted.

When she recovered her breath, Ruth climbed from the hole. Thank you too, she said. It’s been a roundabout road of a story, but I think we’re nearly half way there.

The Thirteen Faces of Ruth Tarver • This is part 6 of 13 • Next Part • Table of Contents

Thanks for reading Dynamic Creed. Hope you’re twisting and having fun.

Would love to hear your thoughts. Drop a comment. Share. Like. There’s other stuff you can do, too, but you already know what they are. Carry on.

Thanks again, and may you stay open-minded and blessed,

Victor David

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