Amanda

We were out celebrating a friend’s birthday at a little tavern in town.  The waitress I had been used to seeing was no longer there, and I asked the owner Chris what had happened.  “Oh well, you know, she just up and left.  Took the kids and went out west.  Family problems.”  And so, we were served by Amanda, an odd sort of girl who apparently was in for just her second night.  I could see Chris watching her closely whenever he had the chance.  She was painfully conscious of it too.  Very thin she was, almost emaciated.  Tattooed here and there, with obvious sores on her arms and face.
In guilty hindsight, my first thought was Chris, why would you hire her?  She’s in pretty rough shape.  I saw that she was desperately trying to keep up on this busy night, and it so happened that one of the other waitresses had called in sick, adding to the confusion.  She came to our table, penciling down the dinner orders from our party, and getting a little flustered by some of the guests who either couldn’t make up their minds or kept changing them.  When she came to my wife and I, I just said “two meat loaf, please, and we’re good for drinks.”  She made brief eye contact with me, and gave the slightest smile.

In a face that was not used to a smile.  I knew her eyes.  She was, or had been, a user.  The furtive glances.  The jerky movements.  Tough as nails underneath. I know this assumes a lot, but, as the evening wore on, she gave me a brief searching look more than once, as if something had passed between us.  I have known two people in my life who went down that frightening rabbit hole of hard drug use.  One is dead, and the other in custody.  It is something that you feel utterly helpless to deal with, no matter your compassion.
As we got ready to take our leave, Chris came to me and asked “What do you think of Amanda?”  She’ll work out, Chris.  Give her a chance, eh?  She’s trying.

Live ones today

I posted an ad on Facebook (what a fool).

I done dood it all wrong, I think……

Ad said “I have 3 old bicycles, free to a good home”

“They have been stored outdoors in a shed, and are a little rusty here and there”

“One has a broken seat.  We no longer need them.  They are adult size.  May need tires,

or maybe just some air.  First pickup at (my address)

***

The following are some of the responses:

Pictures, please!  (NO)

What are their measurements?  (unknown)

Are they functional?  (perhaps)

Will you deliver to Collingwood?  (30 miles away)  (NO)

Can you hold them until Monday, and I will come and get them for sure.  (NO)

I just want one.  Show me a picture of the best one. (NO)

Can you just take the brakes off one of them, and sell them to me?  Mine are broken.  (NO)

Show me some pictures of the rust.  I don’t wanna waste my time.  (excuse me.  you are wasting MY time)

What size are they?  (Please read ad)

I’m coming in half an hour!   (someone else said they were coming in 20 minutes)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHANGED AD TO READ:  THREE BIKES AT CURB.  PLEASE STEAL.

“It’s just Colin”

We had been looking for a place to rent near town because our landlord gave us notice to vacate.  His kids wanted the house to live in.

We’d never lived in the country before, but were attracted by an ad for a newly renovated farmhouse.  Met with the owner, signed a lease, and moved in.  It was a century old brick home that had been completely redone.  The property was beautiful, and he assured us we would only see him “the odd time” because he had some machinery stored in a barn there.  The main floor of the house was spacious, with a nice kitchen and carpeted living room, and there were two small bedrooms upstairs for my son and daughter, who were in their late teens.

After we had moved in, we heard through the grapevine that two elderly brothers had once owned the house, and they had lived there for most of their lives, never having married.

The story was that they had also adopted a young boy to extend their family, and he would eventually inherit the property.  His name was Colin, and it seems that he was a handsome young lad.  Among his reputed qualities was his penchant for being a snappy dresser.

It developed that his adoptive parents both eventually died within a short time of each other, and he was left with the farm.  There are some differing versions of what happened next, so I must go on hearsay, but the most likely one is that he had never married either and had stayed there until his death at a young age from misadventure.  How the house fell into the hands of our new landlord, I do not know. He was secretive, and not the type of man to suffer too many questions.

We had actually moved in during the spring, and enjoyed a beautiful summer and fall there.  In the middle of a winter’s night, my wife and I awoke to a series of terrifying screams coming from upstairs.  Dazed, confused, and frightened, we rushed up the steps to our daughter’s room.  Simultaneously, we saw headlights coming up the drive.  Our son had returned from a late shift at work, and he could hear the screams from outside.  He bounded up the stairs just behind us.

We switched on the lights, and found our daughter standing on her bed with her back against the wall, crying out “He’s gone!  He’s gone!  I held her closely, sat her down on the bed, trying to calm her, and kissed her on the forehead.  When I asked her what was wrong, she said there was a man in her room, sitting on the floor looking at her.  My instinct told me that she was a very impressionable girl, and had just had a bad nightmare.  She became distraught again, and said he was real, then proceeded to describe him in some detail, saying that he had freshly pressed pants on with cuffs, a crisp white shirt with golden studs, and raven black hair combed in a neat pompadour.  He had sat with his arms folded, and had just gazed at her with a smile.

As the days went forward, she would not go back to that room for some time, sleeping instead on the main floor with us.  Each time this event was mentioned, she became annoyed because we were treating her as a young impressionable child, and were dismissing her terror as a bad dream.

When spring arrived, my wife and I happened to be out shopping in town, when she ran into an acquaintance.  She and this woman got into a conversation about our time in the country, and how it was, etc.  It turned out that the woman knew something about the history of the place.   When the subject of the winter’s night visitation came up, she suddenly showed intense interest, and asked about the appearance of the apparition.

After we had related the story to her, she said, matter-of-factly, “It’s just Colin”.

photo credit….www.youtube.com

 

The Seventh stairway

Furtive and troubling, the rustling of things,
Imagined, perhaps, in the dark.
And close now, the flapping of leathery wings,
And the hounds are beginning to bark.

Some thing keeps them at bay, at least for the while,
As I gather my breath near the top
Of the seventh of stairways, to the narrowest aisle.
I dare not consider to stop.

I know not the agent that’s let me go free
From the poisonous pits down below.
Perhaps entertainment, for somebody’s glee-
Is the hope I’m beginning to know.

There was a faint glow on the steps further up,
But now it is bleeding away.
The guttural growls are without interrupt,
And the bats are denying the day.

How much life I have left in these limbs to go on
Is in doubt, as I climb once again.
To such dizzying heights, trying to make it to dawn,
And the Order of everyday men.

With a desperate run up the last of the stairs,
There’s a light I see glowing once more.
Through a portal there’s flowing the sweetest of airs,
But a Presence is guarding the door.

Its radiant blackness, its absence of eyes,
Its telepathy shrivels the spirit.
Its figure of nearly impossible size
Says that doom is upon those who near it.

“Ah, me!” did I cry, to a nebulous Savior
That I always had held in such doubt.
My faithlessness; all of my wretched behavior,
Had brought this misfortune about.

Wake me up!  Wake me up!  Let me out!

Image credit to:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/arthakker/8720100528

Might it be you?

I skip and skim too much, really.

Too picky, you know?

Might spend an hour in a bookstore, and come out with nothing.

Just ’cause the first paragraph didn’t grab me.

Didn’t invite me in.

Well, that was an hour I’ll never get back, right?

With my iPad on its lazy boy bedtime stand,

I skim through WordPress Reader,

Playing eenie meenie minee moe.

What a way to do things.

I’m sure I miss some gems.

Whoever said the old have more patience was a little off the mark.

My filter is set too finely, you could say.

It’s that way with the people in my life, too.

Fewer and fewer seem to get through,

or perhaps just give it up as a bad job.

Maybe they’re right.

The louder they get, the more deaf I get.

But you, now.

You’re a funny duck.

A person of few words.

Coquettish glances and winky smiles.

Always seeming to recede in the distance,

but always looking back just before you disappear.

Like an elf peering from behind a sketchy tree.

You beckon, without gestures.

I am aroused from a sleep on the silty bottom,

like that wise old lunker,

still captivated by the shiny golden lure.

A dream of northern climes

Twenty years have gone by, such a passage of time,
Since I dreamed the most singular thing.
You and I, we were natives of a far northern clime,
And we traveled from winter to spring

Our huts we would build out of snow as we went,
And we’d live off the fish and the seal.
When the weather’d relent, we would set up our tent,
And we’d both have a bountiful meal.

Secure in each other is what we had felt:
Two adventuresome souls on the trail.
But I would not wait for the spring ice to melt.
I’d a place I must be without fail.

You knew this was coming, and I would but go,
Still you stayed with me all of the way.
We picked up supplies at the local depot,
And we pulled them back home on the sleigh

A good sturdy team of some strong husky dogs,
With a sled they could pull all the day.
And I needed them all for the hard lonely slogs
I would face, many days, up that way.

Yukon gold, I was after, and swore I’d be there,
Before anyone staked their own claims.
Already I’m missing your presence so fair
And must go while the time still remains.

So we stand at our parting, in the twilight deep blue,
With the heavens’ great dome overhead.
The snow is so sparkling, with this beautiful hue;
I must go many miles before bed.

There’s no need for our tears, or our unspoken fears,
As I hitch up the dogs to the sleigh.
I whistle a tune, it comes back to our ears,
As if spread by the starlit array

I did not look back, as I put on my pack,
And departed this heartbreaking scene.
I saw not your face, but remembered your grace,
And your wonderful soul, so serene.

Photo credit to:  https://www.magneticnorthtravel.com/blog/details/the-arctic-and-the-polar-night

#14 Things in the swamp (not at all pleasant)

we’ve been led here. I feel we have. on a forest picnic so bright and sunny. dappled trails. you wanted bare feet, and carried your funny shoes. mossy springy grass. squishy clay mud between your toes, and you laughed. wee violets and buttercups so pretty. we half expected to meet the dryads of the woods. why did we go so far in? happy hearts caught in a halcyon time. afternoon shadows are getting long, and we move to go back, but take a wrong turn. the sun’s at our back. yeah, it’s wrong. at each other we look, then quickly behind. in the greying gloom our recent walk, foot prints and all, seems to have been sucked away, vanishing like Alice’s confusing path. new trees, as close together as a bamboo forest, crowd each other in a riot of obstruction. there is no going, except forward. this very bad thing has us confused and frightened, and we hug tightly. nothing for it but to go on, although there’s a foul smell, the keening of bugs, and sounds of heavy splashing. you put on your shoes, and we hurry ahead with far fetched optimism that we’re nearing an outlet. as we go, there’s a chuck-chuck-chuck tat-tat-tat as trees sprout behind in terrible time lapse, like arrows flung from a thousand bows. we run. the smell of rot in front. our path behind is blotted in a zipper of foliage. and now, we are here: the vestiges of sun show us a lime green cesspool of swamp, lapping against intruding bush on all sides. On the opposite shore is a (fake?) hallway through the trees, a hint of daylight at its end. things flip and slap on the pond’s surface, disturbing the pale lilies. you, the brave one, walk into the warm steaming water, telling me to come…it’s not deep. and we go. halfway now, the silty bottom sucking at our shoes. slithery things caress our ankles and knees. tiny teeth seem to test us. only waist deep, we pause, hanging onto the roots of a fallen tree. and then, you’re down. gone. so fast. i yell and scream, grabbing green slime, and i’ve got your hair, then your armpits. leveraging against the roots, i hoist you up, parting your seaweed coiffure. you vomit a chunk of green mucus onto me, and then i see your face. you are not you. you are my dead school teacher. i let go in terror, and you sink like a stone. i hear insane laughter from the far shore, and there you are waving, silhouetted in the dying day. you turn and take the appointed path. new growth closes behind you. dark has come.

momma, momma, momma.

Marshmallow Moon

Me and my dear daughter
Are a-goin’ to the moon
She’s pilot of our spaceship
And we’ve gotta get there soon

We’re bringin’ back some samples
Of rocks an’ dymond jools
We know somebody up there
We’ve never been no fools

She fires up the thrusters
Her job, it is to land
I’m suited up and ready
To go at her command

The ‘Puter says we’re landed
Though our ship, it seems to bounce
So tipsy and unsteady
Like it didn’t weigh an ounce

We finally seem to settle
The ladder, down I climb
With shovel and a pick axe
I hope we’re here in time

Our man we knew had told us
The “Window” was so shallow
But late we were, and so the moon
Had turned into marshmallow

Say not goodnight

how has it come to this pass
has it all been for love unrequited
or that yours has never been seen
all that you have reached for
all the rare moments of joy
every dream, hope, yearning
dashed
your vessel is frail, dry, and hollow

say not goodnight yet
close not the door
gentle one
there is no solace in darkness
there is at least one who loves you
do not fear
dear one
lay your head to rest
upon the downy pillow of expectation
and let your spirit be soothed
by the hand upon your brow
and the other, holding yours.

Wanting to stay

Slovenly sleep, or so it seems….
in the lightening shades of darker dreams.
Delicious lucidity, floating the soul
over depths of disturbing finality.

Let us stay in this state, where spirit flies,
where youth has returned to our watery eyes.
Still granted our wisdom, our memory whole;
a vacation from earthly reality.

In the glow of the warmth, where the cold never bites,
a candy shop counter of spirit delights.
Release and forgiveness, that’s been our goal,
and the cure of the pain of our malady.