The Write Room Cafe
Kevin Lynn Helmick
Friday, June 29, 2012
The Write Room: Garden Party
The Write Room: Garden Party: Well the time has come again, and it comes more often than every five years, but those little timely reminders of how old I'm getting are co...
The Write Room: The Collector-a flash of fiction
The Write Room: The Collector-a flash of fiction: Flash fiction is something I don't have a hell of lot of interest in, but a lot of people do, so I pump it out once in a while has a kind of...
The Collector-a flash of fiction
Flash fiction is something I don't have a hell of lot of interest in, but a lot of people do, so I pump it out once in a while has a kind of mental calisthenic. I very rarely share it or do anything with it. But I have even less interest in blogging so it just might be the perfect vehical for my flash attempts.
THE COLLECTOR
The land was his by the way of a will. It was all that he had; the land, the trees, and the artifacts that had been collected by himself and descendants and thought of as a kind of pension. A menagerie of obsessions that decorated the acreage and cluttered the halls of the home where he was raised and now just fodder of ever lessening value.
He locked the doors of the car, coughed till his lungs restricted, choked and rolled the windows tight. He’d been offered great sums of money from the advancing population. Time and again they came with their check books, blue prints and plans for development. He turned them away.
He felt the heat and heard the cracking of fallen timber in the smoke and flames outside. He’d been ordered to evacuate. He’d been given orders over the years on other things too and ignored them as well. It was his land and he’d do as he pleased.
He heard the sound of the tires on the car exploding, one by one and smelled the stench of burning rubber and wires. He had no wife or children to speak of, or would speak of him and he kept to himself, his junk and integrity.
He removed his fingers from the steering wheel and with it came strings of plastic and flesh. They said the fire was coming his way and he thought if it did, it would be his to own as well.
The land was his by the way of a will. It was all that he had; the land, the trees, and the artifacts that had been collected by himself and descendants and thought of as a kind of pension. A menagerie of obsessions that decorated the acreage and cluttered the halls of the home where he was raised and now just fodder of ever lessening value.
He locked the doors of the car, coughed till his lungs restricted, choked and rolled the windows tight. He’d been offered great sums of money from the advancing population. Time and again they came with their check books, blue prints and plans for development. He turned them away.
He felt the heat and heard the cracking of fallen timber in the smoke and flames outside. He’d been ordered to evacuate. He’d been given orders over the years on other things too and ignored them as well. It was his land and he’d do as he pleased.
He heard the sound of the tires on the car exploding, one by one and smelled the stench of burning rubber and wires. He had no wife or children to speak of, or would speak of him and he kept to himself, his junk and integrity.
He removed his fingers from the steering wheel and with it came strings of plastic and flesh. They said the fire was coming his way and he thought if it did, it would be his to own as well.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Garden Party
Well the time has come again, and it comes more often than every five years, but those little timely reminders of how old I'm getting are coming at me from friends and barely friends from the shadowed misty past that yet another class reunion as at hand. Thirty years...shit.
I've never gone to one, not one and it isn't because I don't think I'd enjoy it, I'm sure I would. I just don't quit have the desire to drive 4 hours and talk about schools days, most of which I skipped or was too fuckin stoned to know that I was there anyway.
There's even been suggestions that I read from one my books. Right, like that'll entice me. No way could I compete with REO Speedwagon, Journey ballads and the class dorks' new Russian wife he just bought. No way, nor would I wanna try.
Don't get me wrong, there are people that I'd love to see again and share a laugh with, most of which I'm still friends with and chat with often now thanks to social media. I'm talking to friends I thought I'd never see again. Pretty cool.
My wife says I lack sentiment. I deny this observation because I do reflect often on those tender years of growing, learning, good times and bad. But I'll admit I spend a lot more time thinking of the future that I do the past.
Nostalgia's great and healthy in small doses. The Human spirit, for some reason and to a great extent is powered by nostalgia. I don't know why, but people always have the notion that the past is the place of better times. "Good ole days" they say. And some of them were and some of them were not.
She says, my wife, "There's not a nostalgic bone in your body." Again, not true. I don't know if nostalgic is the right word, but I remember as I write this, hay rides being pulled far to fast by a 4x4 in the cool autumn nights down gravel roads and across the county. Keggers around a bon fire, drinking till dawn, skipping school and bumper skiing. One time when three of us almost drowned in Lake Wilderness by tipping a canoe in April. That was but one very close call, very close. And certain faces that did not survive those years and risky activities.
I'd love to do it all over again, I would, but its already been done, so, to quote Jack Sparrow, 'bring me that horizon.'
Now days when I see or hear the word, reunion, strangely enough what pops into my brain is the Rick Nelson song, Garden Party, and the line in particular, 'if yer gonna play a garden party, I wish you a lot a luck, but if memories were all sang. I'd rather drive a truck.'
So to all of you from 82, who are still truckin, I can't think of anybody else I would have rather shared it with. You guys are all aces in my book. And from this days perspective I wish ya a lotta luck, love, happiness and good fortune and if our paths meet again I hope that it be like accidental ships in the night and in some far away point on the globe, because those encounters make for the best reunions.
Have a great time and raise a glass for me, I'm fine and still suckin air. I'll be thinking of you as I do more than you know.
I've never gone to one, not one and it isn't because I don't think I'd enjoy it, I'm sure I would. I just don't quit have the desire to drive 4 hours and talk about schools days, most of which I skipped or was too fuckin stoned to know that I was there anyway.
There's even been suggestions that I read from one my books. Right, like that'll entice me. No way could I compete with REO Speedwagon, Journey ballads and the class dorks' new Russian wife he just bought. No way, nor would I wanna try.
Don't get me wrong, there are people that I'd love to see again and share a laugh with, most of which I'm still friends with and chat with often now thanks to social media. I'm talking to friends I thought I'd never see again. Pretty cool.
My wife says I lack sentiment. I deny this observation because I do reflect often on those tender years of growing, learning, good times and bad. But I'll admit I spend a lot more time thinking of the future that I do the past.
Nostalgia's great and healthy in small doses. The Human spirit, for some reason and to a great extent is powered by nostalgia. I don't know why, but people always have the notion that the past is the place of better times. "Good ole days" they say. And some of them were and some of them were not.
She says, my wife, "There's not a nostalgic bone in your body." Again, not true. I don't know if nostalgic is the right word, but I remember as I write this, hay rides being pulled far to fast by a 4x4 in the cool autumn nights down gravel roads and across the county. Keggers around a bon fire, drinking till dawn, skipping school and bumper skiing. One time when three of us almost drowned in Lake Wilderness by tipping a canoe in April. That was but one very close call, very close. And certain faces that did not survive those years and risky activities.
I'd love to do it all over again, I would, but its already been done, so, to quote Jack Sparrow, 'bring me that horizon.'
Now days when I see or hear the word, reunion, strangely enough what pops into my brain is the Rick Nelson song, Garden Party, and the line in particular, 'if yer gonna play a garden party, I wish you a lot a luck, but if memories were all sang. I'd rather drive a truck.'
So to all of you from 82, who are still truckin, I can't think of anybody else I would have rather shared it with. You guys are all aces in my book. And from this days perspective I wish ya a lotta luck, love, happiness and good fortune and if our paths meet again I hope that it be like accidental ships in the night and in some far away point on the globe, because those encounters make for the best reunions.
Have a great time and raise a glass for me, I'm fine and still suckin air. I'll be thinking of you as I do more than you know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)