Fear and kindness

For Linda Medrano, who is apparently
my biggest fan

 

The window was open.  The window was never open.  Moe had an unreasonable fear of smog, pollen, dust from the neighboring fields, insects small enough to fit through the screening, and the Hollywood version of the angel of death.  On any given day, Maris would stop by to check on Moe and find him hermetically sealed in his tiny bungalow at the edge of town.  His encyclopedia of fears prompted him to keep the windows closed all year round, the doors locked whenever he wasn’t actively using them. 

Moe hadn’t always been so fearful.  An inability to understand how he had completely screwed up his own life led to a fear of each thing that had unaccountably (in his mind) caused him to lose a job, a wife, a friend.  Moe’s life was filled with loss. None of it his fault.  With each event that he could ascribe to someone or something else, he collected a new fear.  His collection of fears soon rivaled his childhood collection of marbles.

“Moe? Everything ok?” Maris called from the front porch.  Window open and no response – that couldn’t be good.  “Moe?  I had some fried chicken left over from last night’s dinner – I thought you might like it for lunch.”  It took a minute for her to work up the nerve to try the front door when he didn’t answer. 

The door was unlocked, another aberration.  Maris stepped into the living room and swallowed a gasp.  The floor was littered with papers ripped into tiny pieces, the couch had several small burn holes, and nearly half of a section of wallpaper had been torn from the wall.  Her heart pounding, she stepped into the kitchen slowly, terrified of what she might find.  Cabinet doors were open, dishes ripped out of them and smashed on the floor, a chair lay on its side.  The back door stood wide open.

Maris went to the doorway and searched for signs of forced entry – nothing.  Something caught her attention in the corner of her eye.  Looking up, she watched as Moe stood by the pond in the side yard, tossing bread to the ducks.  Moe was afraid of water.  He was terrified of ducks.

“Moe!”  Maris ran across the yard.  “Moe!  What happened?  Are you ok?”

Moe turned his wrinkled, careworn face toward her, and it lit up when he saw her.  A smile full of sunshine greeted her when she reached him.

“I get it, Maris!  I get it!”

“You get what, Moe?”

“It was all my fault.  I made a total mess of everything.  I didn’t understand until I got the letter.”

“What letter?”

“Julie wrote me to tell me that our grandson was graduating first in his class at Indiana University.  Our granddaughter is engaged to a kind man with a good job.  Julie remarried years ago and is enjoying retirement in Fort Lauderdale.  I haven’t heard from her in 30 years and I thought she was telling me all this to rub my face in her happiness.  To make me jealous that everything she did after I left went well and I have had nothing but hardship.  But you know what she said at the end of the letter?”

“What, Moe?”

“She said she missed me.  She doesn’t hate me, Maris!”  His huge grin was beautiful.

“Oh, Moe…”

“I started thinking about all the things that haven’t gone well in my life, and wondering how many times I thought things were one way, when actually they were very different.  How many things I might have done differently if only I had known.  At first I went nuts, tearing the letter up and trashing the house in frustration, screaming at the top of my lungs how unfair it was that my whole life had been a mess because I made it that way.  But then I realized what a gift I have been given.  I have been absolved.  Now I can die in peace.”

“What on earth do you mean?  You aren’t planning something stupid, are you?”

“I’m done with stupidity.  You should go now, Maris.  Thank you for being a friend to such a cantankerous old man.”

“Wait, Moe, why don’t we go down to that little diner you like and get a sandwich and a Coke.  You can tell me more about this.”

“No, Maris.  You need to go now.  Thank you.”

Maris hesitated, and Moe waved her toward her car.  Reluctantly, she turned and walked back, looking over her shoulder once to see him beaming at the ducks that only yesterday would have made him wet himself if they came so close. 

The next day, as she was preparing to take a loaf of fresh-baked bread to Moe’s house, the mail carrier pulled up to her mailbox.  Pulling the mail out and tossing it on the front seat of her car, she noticed a small envelope addressed to her in a scrawly hand.  Maris snatched it up and opened it with a peculiar dread.

Dear Maris,

You have been such a darling, trying to show kindness to an old man who never deserved it.  I truly believe your kindness will be repaid someday, although it will have to be returned to you through another person. 

I hope you will understand but I ask that you not come over again.  Please give a call to Sheriff Lassiter.  Tell him to come by my house when you receive this, and remember, I have asked you not to come.

Thank you again for your kindness and caring.  If only all of humanity could see the world through your eyes, the world could be a glorious place.

Your friend,
Moe

Moe was found floating in the pond that afternoon.  He must have mailed the letter the previous day, planning his demise in such a way that Maris wouldn’t be the one to discover the body.  It was his last, greatest act of kindness, and Maris would never forget it.

 

Technorati Tags: short story,fiction

 

 

A day on the farm

“She told me she just couldn’t take it anymore.  She’s so distraught she doesn’t know what to do.”  The little hen clucked and preened and pranced, knowing that the dog was fully absorbed in her story.

“Really?”  The dog’s huge eyes watched the hen closely, measuring her posture against her words.  The hen was known for overdramatizing a situation.

“Well I just don’t know how she has managed thus far!”

Two puppies came tearing around the corner of the barn, nipping at each other’s heels and yipping with glee.  The sow rolled over, eyed them carefully, and closed her eyes again, confident that they were headed off in another direction.  “Lordy, someone should take a cane to those pups.  For their own good, of course.  One day they’re going to run right under the tractor.”

The rabbit watched the hen and dog from his cage, hopping from side to side, anxious to contribute something to the discussion, but aware that he had absolutely nothing to say.  So he danced, hopped, and scratched, hoping to draw attention to himself and divert the conversation.

The donkey ambled into the barnyard and cast a doleful look around.   “Just as I thought.  No one has anything worthwhile to say.  Always talking about other animals.”  He turned and wandered off in the direction of the pasture, content to spend his time alone there rather than suffer fools.

The cat lounged in the shadow of a bench beside the barn unnoticed, taking in all the theatrics and confusion.    Her day would be spent napping, visiting the cows and catching mice, as had all her days since before she could remember.  That was a good life, she mused.  No need to tell the others how to live, or report on the perils and misdeeds of others.  Her whiskers twitched as she caught a quick movement nearby.  From her languid posture to a full pounce in a second, she snared the mouse and crossed the barnyard to deposit it on the farmer’s doorstep.  Her satisfaction with a job well done was evident.

“Isn’t that just like her.  She parades around the farm with dead things in her mouth, like it’s some sort of badge of honor!” clucked the hen.  “It’s so disgusting, and she behaves as if she’s so much better than we are.   And that stupid farmer!  He praises her and gives her a saucer of milk!  And here I feed his family and never a word!  It’s just not right!  I deserve better!”

The farmer’s wife stepped out of the kitchen door of the farmhouse and headed to the barnyard.  She strode straight over to the hen and grabbed her by the neck, swinging her once around her head, snapping her neck instantly.  Off she went back to the farmhouse, to prepare dinner for her guests that evening.

The sow opened one eye, and remarked “I told her she ought not make such a fuss or she’d be the next one in the pot.” 

The dog trotted off to find the puppies, intent on quieting them down lest they be next.

Technorati Tags: short story,fiction

The essence of nothing

The list of things leaking out of my life grows longer.  It is a simplification process – or do I rationalize? 

Am I resisting because I am too connected to the material, because my spirit isn’t properly enlightened?

Or is it because I’m afraid that after the distillation process, when I am reduced to my essence, I will find that there is nothing left?

Fingerprints

Clara was too young to comprehend.  Daddy’s little girl with the platinum blond curls and omnipresent smile stood at the attic window swimming in utter confusion as she watched her father walk away from the house, get into his car and drive away.  Once again she tried the attic door – why would he lock it?  Clara had never been locked inside a room before.  At only 4 years old, she had never been left alone in a house before. 

Her gaze swept around the attic of the old house, stuffing the cracks in her soul with the shadows and cobwebs, trying desperately to prevent the tears that might leak out.  The chill of the attic seeped into her, threatening to drown her, suffocate her, to break the thin thread that tethers existence to sanity.  A creeping panic arose deep inside her that she quickly squashed, feeling more fearful of the panic than of the circumstances. 

Something scurried in the far corner and Clara crept over to investigate.  She had never shied away from wild things, and subconsciously needed the company now.  Whatever she had heard was much less interested in her than she was in it – there was nothing to be found amongst the debris in the corner.

Throwing herself down on a dusty, moldering sofa she began to cry – no sobbing, only quiet tears streaming down her cheeks.  The feelings of abandonment and betrayal consumed every ounce of energy that might have been used for a good cleansing tantrum. 

Years hence, and for the rest of her life, she will wonder whether that really happened, or whether it was a vivid nightmare, indistinguishable in a young child’s mind from reality.  Each fall the emotions of abandonment and betrayal will hang over her like a pall whenever she sees an attic window in an old house.  By early December the feelings will have evaporated – drops of water on the wood-burning stove – the memory of the incident (or was it a nightmare?) gone again for another year.

But the years of her life will be marked indelibly with this annual anguish – the literal and figurative chill of that betrayal.   And she will often wonder if the fingerprints of that experience can be found over all the aspects of her life.  Waiting invisibly for someone to dust for them, explain them, and then wipe them away.  Wishing she knew how to do it herself. 

Technorati Tags: fiction,short story,flash fiction

The rock stacker

The decisions to be made are pounding on the door, demanding an audience.  Possibilities are endless, true enough, but making a choice is such a heavy burden.  There is so very much riding on each choice. 

The level of concentration required of me has me chewing the inside of my lower lip to shreds.  A nervous habit I can’t break. 

Some day, before too long, I will sleep through the night.  I will listen to classical music again.  I will eat a meal without indigestion.  I will hear the phone ring without feeling sick.

In the meantime, I will stack rocks, one on top of another.  I will focus on the balance, the beauty, the patience of the practice.  I will imagine the rocks taking a yogic breath as they struggle to maintain their positions. 

And when they fall, I will stack them again.  And again.  And again, ad infinitum.  Until I am no longer needed as a rock stacker.  Until I am needed elsewhere.

Technorati Tags: non-fiction,essay

Brevity

Brevity is the soul of wit. 

And of pleasant house guests.

And hugs with smelly cousin David.

And sermons.

Amen.

Technorati Tags: essay,non-fiction,Shakespeare

The old linden

The old tree suffered a difficult summer.  Weeks without rain, record high temperatures, and hurricane remnants ravaged it and left it looking tattered.  The leaves at the end of the branches are withered and brown.  Ragged stumps remain where gracious limbs once swayed in the breeze. 

But there is a small, timid creek that flows beneath it.  The slanting morning sun reflects off the water and onto the underside of the leaves.  The effect is breathtaking.

This cool September morning I recognize the strength of that metaphor – sometimes the true beauty is underneath.