Winter 4

Chapter4

Dan looked into the stove whose embers were all aglow. His face reflected its fiery light.

"I've really missed you and the talks we used to have, though they never seemed long enough to say all I wanted to, and now how much time do we have left together, Dad?"

"Well, you know your schedule better than I do, but don't you have to be at the ferry on a certain day?"

"We can stay here for two nights, no more." 

“Then let's make the time count," responded his father. Father and son hugged and went to their bedrooms without showing each other their faces. 

On their only full day together, the adults rose before the children and went for a stroll on the beach; it was wider than Dan remembered it to have been. That would be due, he knew, without his father reminding him, to the increase in precipitation as snow, and to its build-up on the mountains of the interior. They chatted about the distant past when the man was still a carefree boy with his whole life ahead of him, when what he wanted most of all was to be a football star on the high school team.

"When I refused to sign the papers for you to play football because of the injuries I'd seen players suffer, and because of your dislocated knee, what effect did it have on you that I didn't see?"

"That's a harder question to answer than it seems," replied his son. '”Can you stand the bald truth?"

Instead of answering, his father said, "I imagine you hated me for it, that you felt I was arbitrarily preventing you from realizing your dream. I think now that your unwillingness to give college a real try and to develop yourself intellectually may have been your way of showing me how wrong I'd been to deny you your sport."

“Something like that," answered Dan. "Though I don't think I reduced my feelings to that kind of a tit for tat. I knew you thought you were doing it for my own good, but I certainly didn't see it that way. What really got to me was your certainty that you were doing the right thing. You were so damn sure you were right that I couldn't begin to try to persuade you to change your mind. And Mom didn't try either, at least not  hard enough." There was a long silence as the two men made their way over the sand.

"Do you remember when the resentment began to fade?”

"It gradually wore off after I left home, after you did some nice things like crating up my bike and sending it to me. But the really big change came when you attended my graduation from the Academy and I understood you to be proud of me, as I was too. That was when I started to appreciate and love you as an adult." They stopped walking and turned towards each other. "Then came the time of trouble when you and Mom stood by us till we got through it. That put everything into perspective once and for all time."

"You know, son, when I started to get frail and really felt my age, I was also able to feel your love more fully. I want you to go away from here knowing that your love has lit up my life for years. Even across miles of countryside, it has been the warmest and dearest part of my old age. Now across the sea and in another nation, I'd like you to feel my love for you a constant in your heart."

"I shall, Dad. You'll never know how much your love has meant to me. It has been something I can always come back to when times get tough and I'm sure it will be there for me always."

"Thank you, Son. Now let's go make breakfast for us all."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Previous chapters published January 10; January 17; January 24.

From Dorset, UK to Tobruk

Michael James-Mined in England. There thrown on the wheel for impress of first hands.

Turned and shaped in Berkeley.

Fired and painted by students of Tamalpais district which he left in 1993. 

Writes essays, stories, and poetry. 

Saturn - ROBYN

I’ve just picked up my red Radio Flyer

From the astro-ship tuneup shop

Its super-duper quadruple turbo chargers

Rocket boosters, aerodynamically designed wings

Are all in tip top shape for lift off

My space suit was designed by an ET couturier

I’m off to the Cosmos, you see 

Not to visit the Man in the Moon

But Saturn and its nine rings

The sixth planet from the Sun

I’ll need to navigate its main rings

Through gaps opened by moonlets

I hope to encounter Titan, its largest moon

Where I’ll pull in to a drive-in window

And order a Lemonade float “No ice please”

Won’t that be a gas!

Then I’ll steer to the moon named Phoebe

A beautiful name, hopefully beautiful to behold

She orbits in retrograde at a different angle

There will be no stopover here

For my destination is Big Boy Saturn

I’ll land on the planet in my high fashion suit

Shut down the boosters, fold up the wings

Step down from my red Radio Flyer

Look around with my X-Ray vision

And hear the 6 a.m. alarm ring into a new Earth day.

Jan.17 2014

WINTER 3

Chapter3

"Dad, you know we'd like you to come with us, don't you?" asked Dan when they had settled into armchairs.

"Yes, son, I think I do, and I thank you. But you know that's out of the question for me. We've discussed it often enough; nothing's changed." There was an embarrassed pause. Soon Dan took up the thread of conversation again.

"How's the net working?"

“Great! Everyone's on line at all times with these," answered his father pointing to his mike- headset. "'W'e're the greatest bunch of chatterboxes you've ever heard."

"And the power grid?" asked Dan casually.

"So far so good," was the reply. "We're all generating one way or another and our capacity far exceeds expected needs and all emergencies we've had. In fact there's a start-up grid up the coast that's going to join ours until their generators put out what they need. We're going to export microwave power! How long's it been since anyone's done that?" 

"I dunno," came the laconic response. "We never got into that because of the hydro. But of course that's history; with the lakes and streams frozen there's no more running water so no generation. We were spoilt!"

“We all were," agreed his father. "Now it's only the wind generators that put out anything worthwhile, though you will have plenty of solar off down south, right?" His son had tuned him out and responded with a non sequitur.

"Deb said you'd be allowed to live with us in the barracks. She checked."

"Well that's great, son, but I'd be a burden to you as I became less able to take care of myself. Your family will be restricted enough as it is living in those crowded camps facing thousands of people camped like ants all over the countryside and looking for shelter and food. I couldn't face that. Only the strong will survive down there; we've seen that here already when the refugees from Norway came through. Apparently they were at each other's throats as soon as they started south.

"I sure understand what you mean, Dad. If I were on my own I would stay here too." 

"Not at your age, son. You have too much vigor to face a slow death through cold and hunger." 

“What about the fish? You said yourself there was a good run of salmon this fall." 

"There was, indeed. But that was because we had more rain than snow this year and the river is

running fuIl. It won't last; we all know that. When the headwaters freeze, the river will dry up and the salmon will stop coming. It's just a matter of time. Remember what it was like three years ago? That was a lean time." There was a frown between the old man's eyebrows as he paused in thought.

“Dad, I hate the thought of you being unable to bring in enough wood for the stove and freezing to death in bed, or slipping on the ice and breaking a hip. And even if these things don't happen, even if a neighbor comes to help after a fall, you'll eventually starve to death." There was pain in his son's voice and the sort of quiet intensity you hear when a friend is trying to persuade an ill person to agree to some radical and dubious procedure.

"All probabilities," admitted his father with a rueful smile. '”But would I rather be trampled by a mob in an over-crowded valley where the authorities have to store the sewage in lakes because they haven't been able to build treatment plants fast enough to meet the influx of people fleeing the cold and where armed men and dogs guard electrified fences around anything containing food? I don't think so."

“But Dad, climatologists are saying the weather might get warm again like it did this year."

"Son, I've tried to explain it to you: any warming will be a temporary and maybe a local event bucking the trend. We might have mini-warming or further cooling periods in which the temperature rises or falls by a few degrees like the global warming we went through at the beginning of the century, which of course, was man-made. But the overall change is toward a cooler climate and that's what we're seeing happen. You know as well as I that it only takes a world-wide, average temperature drop of six degrees to plunge us into another ice age. That's where we're headed. The greenhouse effect stalled it for a while but it couldn't hold back the inevitable." He paused and leaned back in his chair. "A number of brave climatologists warned us some years back not to get our hopes up about warming as a permanent phenomenon. And here we are." He looked at his son with sad, resigned eyes. "We have to make the best of it, which is what we've all been doing, right?"

EDITOR'S NOTE:  Chapter Four will be published: January 31, 2014

Michael James-Mined in England. There thrown on the wheel for impress of first hands.

Turned and shaped in Berkeley.

Fired and painted by students of Tamalpais district which he left in 1993. 

Writes essays, stories, and poetry. 

1906

Nellie Goodloe, my grandmother, thought she would never live to see the day when one of her paintings would place third in the 1916 San Francisco Exposition.

One night in April, then years before the exposition, in the year 1906, she was awakened by the sound of her daughter screaming and her husband pounding up the stairs to her daughter’s bedroom. Her bedroom floor was heaving and there was a piercing sound of cracking as the building swayed back and forth.

Shaking with fear, Nellie managed to crawl through the enveloping darkness to the front hall where she found her husband, Paul and her teenage daughter Clarascott.

Paul said, as they heard a crashing sound of bricks tumbling down the roof and saw them flying past the window to the street, “we have to get out of here now, this is one hell of an earthquake.”

The trembling threesome slid down the shaking stairs leading to the front door on their behinds. Fortunately the door was not jammed so they could continue their sliding process down the outside stairs to the sidewalk.

Paul said, “We need open space, let’s head down the street to the Chinese vegetable garden.”

Clad only in their night clothes Paul, Nellie and Clarascott, clutching each other, walked cautiously the 200 yards towards the vegetable garden. They were able to stand upright as the ground had stopped heaving and shaking. 

There was an eerie silence in the neighborhood, punctuated by the shrill shriek of sirens in the distance. The acrid smell of smoke wafted towards them as they pushed open the garage door behind which lay the vegetable garden.

Nellie:  “Paul is the city burning?”

Paul:  “Nellie, I know as much as you do. It certainly sounds and smells like it. We are better off here until we find out. God save us and our property.”

Nellie, Paul and Clarascott, huddled shivering together, in the midst of tall stalks, zucchini, cauliflower, and tomato plants in the tennis court size garden (which it eventually became) for what seemed hours.

Finally, hearing sounds of activity on the street, the three ventured outside. There were people crowding a truck delivering tents for those made homeless by the earthquake.

Paul grabbed a tent although their large shingled building look intact except for the chimney bricks scattered around.

It was decided that Paul and Nellie would venture into their apartment separately for their clothes and some supplies as they didn’t want to both die if it collapsed and leave Clarascott an orphan.

Paul noticed the front outside stairs were slightly askew but the front door opened and the inside stairs to the front hall seemed intact. There were large cracks around the fireplace in the living room to the left of the hall.

Paul recalled that when he had the four unit two story building constructed in 1902 the entire building was attached to the brick fireplaces in each unit. Although the chimneys had collapsed the brick fireplaces seemed intact but he decided they couldn’t risk it. The smell of burning buildings seemed to be getting stronger.

Paul collected supplies and clothes for himself and Clarascott for a camp-out in the vegetable garden.

When Nellie gingerly entered their apartment hastily collecting clothes and some family keep sakes, she was dismayed to see her artwork and china scattered across the floor.

As the family moved into the vegetable garden ashes and a cloud of smoke puffed around them, wafted from the house fires burning on the other side of Vanness Avenue.

Paul immediately set to work setting up camp while Nellie brewed some coffee over an open fire. The aroma of morning coffee brought some sense of normalcy to the bizarre setting.

Paul, ever positive, said, “At least we will have vegetarian diet and I brought enough butter to last a week.  Hopefully the fire won’t cross Vanness and we will soon be able to repair Filbert Street.”

The four unit Filbert Street building, a short distance from the Palace of Fine Arts, location of the 1916 Exposition stands intact to this day. Nellie’s oil painting of their Cupertino ranch won third prize at the Exposition. 

Winter 2

Chapter Two    

"But Dad, there's something I wanted to tell you, though not over the air 'cause of the snoopers. It's really good news. Our whole constabulary has been offered jobs by the Displaced Persons Authority in Algiers to help supervise the British camp outside Tobruk.

"So that's where Di has gone!" exclaimed Gordon, smiling. "And that's where you're headed."

"DPA figured since our men had worked together they'd hire us as a team. One of our guys who has been keeping up with climate changes for years worked it out in advance as soon as he saw which way the chips would fall. They want us to come down and join their guys with whatever of our equipment we can bring. Everyone's on his own, but they sent us rail passes that include our bikes. All the heavy stuff is there already, and the women and small children. We're going to bivouac with the DPA at the army museum where they keep the relics of Rommel's and Monty's armies from WW II, which is still fenced. It's been in the hands of their National Guard for years. Now they've been telling our people the old barracks have been repaired and converted to family housing. They are almost ready for us now. We're going to live and work right out of them."

"D'you know what they're like?"

"Di showed them to me as if she was just panning the local scenery, then dipped her phone over the one we'll be in. It's three stories high, concrete block with small windows and well inside the fence." 

His father whistled. "You're landing on your feet again! And of course, Tobruk's on the railroad, if I remember. Across the railroad is a highway, then the sand dunes and the beach. How did you say you fell into that one?"

"One of our deputies who had actually been down there as a sort of premature task force heard about the riots in Marseilles and got hold of his contact again. DPA jumped at the idea of acquiring a whole department of trained personnel as a functioning unit with a command structure and years of field experience."

“And how about the town? Is there still a military base as well as a museum?" asked Gordon.

Dan was reassuring. "Yes. They're next to each other. You have to go through the base to get to the museum and there's only one way into the base. It's gated and guarded. The base perimeter fence is patrolled twenty-four seven. I think it's going to be headquarters and living quarters for the Guard as well as DPA law enforcement."  They both understood the need for security given the floods of refugees from the north and the mountains. Logistics were already nightmarish: totally insufficient housing, transport, food, water, and sewage.

The children had been listening in the doorway to their bedroom, and the older boy, Nicky, a serious fourteen year old, addressed his father. "Dad, Tobruk sounds like some sort of prison. I mean, living in barracks inside an old army base, guards day and night? For real? Will we be allowed out?" 

Quietly his father answered him, 'Nicky, you may not want to go beyond the fence when you know what's out there. You saw those vigilantes we passed on the way down. If there'd been fewer families in our caravan d'you think they would have let us go by without trying something? They surely knew someone in such a large group would be armed. And those guys were tame compared to what's going to be prowling around outside the fence in Tobruk.

"So we're going to a war zone?" the boy asked.

"From what I can find out probably something like that though those kinds of people will be outnumbered. There will be officers like me keeping the peace." His father looked him straight in the eyes, nodding his head slightly. "The hard thing is going to be getting there. I've a feeling we have a difficult road ahead unless we're lucky enough to be allowed on the train when it gets to Tobruk.”

“Why wouldn't we?' asked Tom, his other son. "'We have passes."

"I imagine, so do hundreds of others," answered his father. "And even if we get on, will they let the bikes on too? If they don't, how will we get around at the other end? We just don't know. You saw how it was for your mom with all those people milling around when she was trying to get from the train depot to the Fort and held her phone above her head. But you heard her. Didn't she sound relieved that we'd be getting a safe place to live?"

His sons both nodded while Nicky looked quickly from his father to his grand dad. The adults wore expressions that gave nothing away. 

"Let's go in and have a bite to eat" urged Gordon breaking the silence. Your lot must be hungry and there's delicious smoked salmon and mashed potatoes and carrot and chard waiting for us. The stove's roaring and it'll only take ten minutes for dinner to be ready." The old man shepherded the family toward the dining room knowing that the fresh food would be a treat for them all.

There was not much to stand between a full belly and a bed for the saddle-sore, weary children and they were out cold before the dishes were washed. Father and son would have a little time to share.

EDITOR'S NOTE:  Chapter Three will be published:  January 24, 2014; Chapter Four: January 31, 2014

Michael James-Mined in England. There thrown on the wheel for impress of first hands.

Turned and shaped in Berkeley.

Fired and painted by students of Tamalpais district which he left in 1993. 

Writes essays, stories, and poetry. 

Rules

The Rules – that’s what my daughter told me she liked best after her first day of kindergarten. I stared at her blankly and repeated, “The Rules – what rules?” And I can honestly say I didn’t know what she was talking about.

Caroline was an “afternoon kid,” so she didn’t arrive home until nearly 3 o’clock. She had been apprehensive at noon as she waited for the bus; her dad waited with her to allay her newly developed fear of the neighborhood dogs. She looked like Heidi that day with her blond pig tails and, though she might be getting off to a shaky start, I knew this was a child who was going to love school. She had already mastered her numbers and letters and was hoping to learn to read as she set off that first day.

As she bounded from the bus with her sheaf of papers in hand and a grin on her face, I knew I wasn’t wrong. And, then, with her sister waiting anxiously to hear, I asked my question: What had she liked best about school? I had thought it might be the walk-in doll house that we had seen at kindergarten round-up. Or maybe it was the puzzle-like dinosaurs that were displayed on the bookshelves. No, it was none of those things. What she had liked best about school was:  THE RULES.

Then, in response to my puzzled look and, as if giving directions to a small child, she began to explain: “Oh, Mom,” she said, “It’s so wonderful; they have rules about everything: Where to hang your coat; where to put your shoes when they are wet, and where to put them when they are dry; where to put papers to take home and where to put the ones you are still working on.”

In response to her obvious delight, I asked: “And, don’t we have any rules around here?”

She never hesitated. “Oh, no, Mom,” she said, “we don’t have any rules.” And I expected her to go on, but it was not for her little mind to tell me why we didn’t have rules or what rules we didn’t have. She only knew rules when she saw them, and it was apparent she hadn’t been exposed to such rules before that first day of kindergarten. I could see it gave her a whole new sense of well-being. I could have cried.

Here was a child who had lived for five years in a house run by the mad hatter – looking everywhere for a rule to hang on to, and there were none to be found.

When I eventually picked myself up from my failed first five years of motherhood, which had passed before my eyes in the flash of this beaming face, I sought to correct my error immediately. I asked her if we should make up rules for our house – and she jumped at the chance and involved her three year old sister, as well.

“So,” I asked, “what kind of rules should there be.” Using her model from school, Caroline started with physical things: like where to put toys; rules for cleaning up rooms and not bringing sand in the house, etc. Then, she hesitated: there were the different rules and her mind struggled to give these a name. She described them: “Rules about sharing some toys (and putting away those you didn’t want to share); and “No ‘ha-ha-ing’ when somebody does something wrong.” She and her sister agreed in unison on this last one.

They also agreed they didn’t really want to have to tell their friends the rules when they came over. We finally decided on “house rules” - an important part being that they were not to be directed at a person but were said as: “In our house there is no ha-ha ing”; “In our house there is no pushing off the swings”, etc. Like the rules were parts of the structure. We may all have thought that if they became part of the house, there would be a sense of permanence to them. That was to be most important for me if I were to be the enforcer of the rules.

As I looked back on it, I grew up in a house without many rules: no curfews, no allowances, no attention paid to report cards. Living with seven other people, however, we were frequently reminded to be good citizens but there were few actual rules. So, it wasn’t surprising that I hadn’t instituted many rules in my own house. My father had actually described me as someone who thought rules were meant to be broken; now I was dealing with a small child who was delighted by rules.

Though I always felt bad that my oldest daughter had had to grow up with someone who didn’t play by the rules, we’ve made our adjustments. Now Caroline and I talk openly about our different styles and how my lack of attention to detail drives her crazy. When I tell a story and I mention driving through a Burger King and she knows it was a McDonalds, she is beside herself. She wants me to pay her to keep my checkbook and I want to do it. In our complementary positions, we’ve come to a working relationship. When she babysits for my sisters, they often tell us how much alike we are, and we’re both pleased. She’s learned to take the things she can live with, meticulously enter them on her internal balance sheet, and make rules of her own.

Maureen Bruce -Maureen is the newest member of the SONOMA WRITER'S ALLIANCE and you will be seeing more of her work.

WINTER

To the old man in the rocking chair under a down comforter, the profound silence of the fading afternoon brought back memories of a time at the other end of his life when only the wealthy could afford the cost of quiet and peaceful retreats. Others had to put up with the noises of consumers, arrogant in the assumption that their wasteful lifestyles could continue indefinitely.

Today there was no sound other than the susurration of the sea breeze, tame on this clear day in early October, containing few scents, and carrying a chill it had rarely borne during the first decade of twenty-first century global warming. However, as traumatic as it had proved to be, the rapid warming had been short-lived in this part of the world. Everyone in England had been surprised by the speed of its fading, particularly the people who had studied in school the history of the glacial periods and of variations in earth's climate. There had been rapid climate changes in the past such as those that occurred 11,000 years ago, but nothing like the changes that had brought on the prolonged warm period, then suddenly ended it in Northern Europe.

Gordon Heatherton had been making kindling wood by splitting short pieces of fir. He could peel off pieces one growth ring thick like a chef making celery sticks for very small people, his cleaver rising and falling in rapid succession that told of his still firm grip and his concentration. Now he wanted to bask in what was left of the sun's rays and let his eyes rest on the distant undulating landscape as it fell gently towards the sea that formed the horizon, stretched across his vision in a more or less straight line.

The river, winding through the folded land, glinted here and there where the westering sun was reflected as if someone had struck arcs for tiny lamps. And as the sun moved the lights winked out then came on further downstream. On clear days he loved seeing the red orb slide into the sea and sometimes couldn't help wondering if parents still told their curious children how the light was extinguished by the water only to be miraculously rekindled the following morning. But he suspected few watched sunsets any longer, and fewer thought in terms of miracles. However, something in the order of a miracle was going to be needed if his son and his two boys were going arrive safely in Marseille for the trip to the warm lands across the Mediterranean.

In Gordon's boyhood in the village, down a thread of a road as remote as anything could be in Dorset there used to be very few seconds of silence between man-made sounds that intruded themselves into one's consciousness all day long. The beep of a video-phone, the whir of wind generators, children’s voices in play or argument were part of the normal background. Now he waited in silence in the afternoon sun for the crunch of rubber tires forcing little rocks against each other to announce the arrival of his son and two grandchildren.

At last the excited voices of children, then the repeated ringing of their bells announced their presence before Gordon could see them pedaling slowly up the path, each bike with its trailer of precious possessions in tow. He'd been expecting them any day now and was eager to see them. He threw off the comforter and stood up.a little stiffly, using the handrail to negotiate the porch steps. It wasn’t only his infirmity that kept Gordon from striding down the steps; his level of energy was not as high as it used to be when there were more calories in his diet.

The two youngsters, who had sprinted along the flat before the house, dismounted gingerly, stretching their legs, and rubbing sore backsides. The younger was full of information and chatter. “It’s warmer here than at home, Grandpa" said Tom, as he squatted to ease his muscles. “Can we go fishing tomorrow?"  When he rose he hugged his grandfather quickly; his brother gave the old man a longer hug in silence, a slightly rueful look on his face. Though he smiled, he was obviously in pain.

"There's hot water ready for you two," offered Gordon to his grandsons. Then, “Go soak those sore legs!"  As they hobbled into the house, he watched his son get out of his bike and close the plastic canopy. The younger man shook out his legs as if they were trousers, and pulled his father to him with wide open arms.  Both were watery eyed while his son patted the old man's back reassuringly.

"Have a good trip?" enquired Gordon stretching his arms so he could look into his son’s eyes.

"Pretty good, Dad," he replied. "Couldn't find much to eat on the last leg of the trip, though. Sure hope you've got enough here!”

"I do, Son. The fish have been plentiful, and people have left crops and cattle in the fields. How were things looking in the Midlands when you went through?”

"Empty," was the single word reply. His son paused. "There's a big difference since I came last May. Junk all over the place; not much sign of people working; very few places to eat  and those only carrying local harvest food. No long haulers. There were farm tractors on the roads, a few motorcycles and of course, bicycles. What did you think of that long line of  bikes I showed you yesterday on the phone?”

“They looked pretty ragged. Must have been on the road for weeks.” Gordon paused.

“Son, it would have been a tough winter for you this year up north. Who’s running the show now that the department is closed down?”

“A bad lot of vigilante hoodlums!” answered Dan disgustedly. “They have no more idea of how to run a country than I’d know how to run a school. It’s all over up there.” His father nodded gravely.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story will be published in FOUR CHAPTERS. Chapter Two: January 17 2014;  

                             Chapter Three: January 24 2014;  Chapter Four: January 31, 2014   

Michael James-Mined in England. There thrown on the wheel for impress of first hands.

Turned and shaped in Berkeley.

Fired and painted by students of Tamalpais district which he left in 1993. 

Writes essays, stories, and poetry. 

It's About Time

by JEAN WONG

This is the tale of a man named Jim

who lived alone in pleasure and sin.

The pleasure was the house he lived

with all the trappings only his.

His stark and simple black and whites,

his multi electronics quite

the latest in expense and taste,

his high security systems placed,

his world intact and insulated,

his life insured and triple rated.

His sin was pride and self-absorption.

His plate was full and all the portions

belonged to him, never his brother,

neighbor, family or any other.

Wives he’d had and girl friends too

like bowling pins lined up in queue,

he threw the ball and knocked them all,

scattered, left, bereft, and bruised.

Jim had a cat named Sebastian,

a beautiful Siamese exquisitely fashioned.

Jim fed Sebastian that is true,

but other than that the separate two

with one another had nothing to do,

not even a meow or a howdy-do.

They were unburdened with feeling or care,

the convenient arrangement, the exquisite pair.

One afternoon, Jim went for a walk,

and cat happened to follow him up the block.

They walked up a hill and saw a sign

that said, Magic Mountain--it’s About Time.

“What nonsense,” Jim thought as he turned around,

“someone’s been reading Thomas Mann.

This isn’t a mountain it’s just a hill.

These kids should find work and do something real.”

But as he went down his familiar way,

something felt strange and slightly fey.

There seemed less houses and few trees,

sidewalks were gone and so was the breeze.

Familiar landmarks had disappeared,

no horn nor motor could he hear,

only a slight ringing of various tones

like Sirens in Ulysses’ poem.

He simply couldn't get his bearings,

lost he was, his house un-nearing.

And darkness fell and covered the land,

not the darkness most of us understand,

no tiny gleams of electric lights

or beams from stars that make things bright.

The darkness was black, he was blind as a bat,

but still he could hear the dim pad of his cat.

For hours and hours he went every which way,

but each step took him further astray.

Finally exhausted, he collapsed in a heap,

cold and hungry he fell asleep.

His dreams were haunting, disturbing, and grim.

What in the world was happening to him?

This was a nightmare--was there no escape?

Suddenly he felt a comforting weight.

Sebastian had silently climbed on his chest.

Jim finally was able to take a deep breath.

He felt the warmth and the weight and the fur,

the steady heart beating, the occasional purr.

His panic subsided, he endured the night,

finally the morning brought back the light.

Jim made it home and from that day on,

once in a while a routine was born.

For there would be times on a cold, crisp night,

Sebastian by Jim would softly alight,

together they slept in deep embrace.

You’d think Jim joined the human race.

Did he become a more caring man?

Did he share and trouble to give others a chance?

Did he smile and laugh and tell a joke,

and sing and open his heart out to folks?

No, not at all, I’m sorry to tell

Jim died just as cranky and selfish as hell.

But please don’t feel disappointed in Jim.

His story’s the same for you and for him.

For each life that’s lived grows like a tree.

Some grow tall and just beautifully.

Some turn bent, or die prematurely.

The sum is measured not by the distance,

but what goes on in every instance.

Jim had a heart covered up good.

He kept people out as much as he could.

But something connected and something healed,

when his hand through Sebastian’s fur he could feel,

another heart beating a being like him,

and that was a breakthrough for unlikely Jim.

For once in a while, a moment or two,

the magic though short, and quite minuscule,

gave Jim a chance, though he didn’t know,

just for an inch, Jim managed to grow.

2912

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

Jean was born in the mid-Pacific

And is a hell of a writer -to be specific

She has recently published a book

And even the cover merits a look

"Sleeping with the Gods" is the title to seek

Order  ISBN 978-9-9892384-0-3

Check with her blog, or wait an Amazon week.