The Parable of the Parable of the Man Who Lived by Himself by the Sea

One day Hank sat down to write a parable. He was in the mood to write a parable. He didn’t know why. The previous day he had written five bawdy limericks. The day before that he’d written a piece of flash fiction about the hardy sailor’s knot that Hooper tied in Jaws. Today he wanted to write a parable. He’d never written a parable before, and he was excited by the thought of it. The challenge. “Let’s get this parable party started,” he said to no one.

A parable, though...a parable wasn’t small potatoes. A parable was a heavy load, man. Shoo, you wouldn’t want to screw up a parable, because with a parable there’s a lesson involved. Usually an important lesson, like a life lesson. Wasn’t that what a parable was? A story with an important life lesson? A story that was thick with metaphor and symbolism? Like the one about the guy who eats tuna every day for a whole year, has a pantry full of tuna cans, but when a hungry villager comes to his door and begs for food, he says his pantry is bare. But he’s got seventy-eight cans of tuna in there along with a nearly full box of Honey Nut Cheerios! Or not like that, not exactly. Sometimes, in a parable, the devil pops up, tries to make a deal. “Let’s make a deal,” the devil says, or “A deal we shall make” or “Us a deal make let.” No, not that last one. Sometimes the devil is in disguise, says he’s a traveling salesman or an itinerant preacher, but you can see his hooves (cloven?) and, when he guffaws, his long forked tongue (cloven?). His spiky tail (cloven?) keeps popping out the back of his pantaloons, and even when the devil tucks it back in, you can still clearly see the outline of it through the thin fabric.

Hank was getting nowhere, parable-wise. He had been staring at his laptop screen for about an hour. But then he remembered the sea. In his mind’s eye he saw the sea, and then he imagined a man living by it. Living by the sea. Alone.

“This has the makings of a parable, of a fine parable,” thought Hank. He began to write it down—“There once was a man who lived by the sea, alone,” he wrote—when suddenly there was a knock at the front door.

When Hank opened the door, he saw a man holding a vacuum cleaner.

“Hi,” said Hank.

“Hello, sir,” said the man with the vacuum cleaner. “I wonder if I might come in and demonstrate my wares.”

The man nodded toward the vacuum cleaner he was holding.

“I have a vacuum cleaner, though,” said Hank.

“No you don’t,” said the man with the vacuum cleaner.

“I assure you that I do.”

“After you see this baby in action,” said the man with the vacuum cleaner, “you’ll realize that what you have isn’t a vacuum cleaner at all. You’ll see that it’s more of a child’s plaything than a vacuum cleaner. A mere toy. A fucking joke.”

“In any event, this isn’t a good time for me,” said Hank. “I’m in the middle of writing a parable, and I’d like to get back to it as soon as possible. So I’m afraid my answer will have to be no.”

“So parables are your game, eh?” said the man with the vacuum cleaner. “I used to be in the writing biz myself. Psalms were my line.”

“Psalms?”

“Did I fucking stutter?”

The man with the vacuum cleaner looked hard at Hank.

“Well, anyhow, I’d better get going,” said Hank.

“Wait, don’t go,” said the man with the vacuum cleaner. “I’m sorry I said that. I’ve had a very stressful day. No one has invited me inside their house. Not a one. I’ve been lugging around this goddamn vacuum cleaner since this morning. My back is killing me. My neck hurts. And please don’t ask me about the state of my undercarriage. I haven’t even had any lunch. I don’t suppose I could pop in, have a bite to eat, and show you how this baby sucks things up off the ground.”

Hank furrowed his brow. He did have stuff for sandwiches; he had stuff for so many sandwiches.

“Sorry, I don’t have any stuff for sandwiches,” said Hank.

“Huh…I didn’t say anything about sandwiches,” said the man with the vacuum cleaner. “That’s interesting that you said it that way.”

“I equate lunch with sandwiches.”

“Interesting.”

“It’s really not.”

The man with the vacuum cleaner narrowed his eyes.

“Us a deal make let,” said the man with the vacuum cleaner.

“What?” said Hank.

“Nothing, nothing. I messed that up. Gawd!”

The man with the vacuum cleaner turned to leave. Hank could see the outline of a thick writhing tail through the thin fabric of his pantaloons.

“OK, well, have a good one!” said Hank. Hank shut the door. He went into the kitchen and made himself a real boffo sandwich with all the sandwich stuff he had. Pastrami. Spicy mustard. Three kinds of cheese. Bread, of course. He was set up real nice, sandwich-wise.

Hank took his sandwich and a glass of milk into his study, where his parable-in-progress awaited him. He bit into his sandwich and wrote a few more sentences.

Hank’s lonely man by the sea was just about to restack all his tuna cans when the roar of a vacuum cleaner from somewhere inside the house interrupted his train of thought.

This is where it gets good.

There is where the parable of the parable of the man who lived by himself by the sea really takes off.