A few days ago I was searching my email account for some document from many years ago. While doing this I came became distracted for a long time with reading old stories from when I was in undergrad writing classes. I figured I'd dust some of them off and put them up here. Some are kinda cringe-worthy, to be sure, but this one, and a few others are post ready right off the shelf.
This one didn't even have a title and appears to be from a character sketch assignment with a single page limit.
Finally, I was able to cross the busy boulevard and continue peddling my fashionable, yet old
steel Bianchi 12 speed road bike down the mature tree lined Side Street. It was not long before
I could see his house at the end of the block. Ernest had lived in this house since he was 20
years old. It was new when he bought it, and he and his wife had raised 5 children in it. Now, he
lives in the four bedroom, one and half bathroom, Tudor style home by himself. Florence had
mercifully passed away many years earlier following a long and painful battle with pancreatic
cancer that eventually moved to her bones. At her funeral, I vividly remember Ernest saying
that his only regret was his selfishness, which he viewed as the primary reason his beloved wife
kept fighting and holding on to her poisonous, mortal shell. I was the only one present when he
spread her ashes in his vegetable garden the following spring.
Often, especially during the hot summer months Ernest would sleep in his basement during
the day and tear through 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzles, usually displaying images of faraway
lands that he has never visited. The local senior center offers a puzzle co-op of sorts, but he had
long since exhausted the limited variance of puzzles the offered. Instead, he had enlisted me to
order puzzles for him over the internet. The new one had been delivered to my house the day
prior. Because Ernest likes to sleep during the day he dislikes having the UPS delivery person
ring the bell during his slumber. Undoubtedly, he will work in a comment saying something to
the effect of: "I know what brown can do for me today, I wanna know what they can do for me
tonight!" Despite the fact his joke was never funny in the first place; I chuckle anyway, knowing
how much Ernest has a hard time making jokes, or, any small talk.
I stashed my bike along the side of his house, where the driveway extends back to the
unattached garage. In my backpack is his newest jigsaw puzzle, it has a picture of what appears
to be a terraced garden, obviously from somewhere in Asia. This may actually be a place
Ernest has been; he survived four years of combat fighting the Japanese in World War II. He
joined the war effort, like many of his peers, before he was 18. He was discharged when he was
20 because of an acute hernia that, in those days, was inoperable. When he does speak of the
past, often it will be in a wistful tone, accompanied by a distant look in his eye, and it is either
about the war or America’s (in his mind, at least) infallibility; which are, of course closely
related. Once, when I was helping him with his ancient roto-tiller, he looked up and told me
that if the hernia had not come along and spared him the rest of his tour of duty that the
dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan would have. He received his discharge papers while in
the military hospital in Hawaii on August first, five days before the “Little Boy” was detonated
over Hiroshima, effectively ending the combat in the Pacific theatre. I just nodded and returned
to the cleaning of the lone spark plug.
My knocking on the front door went unheeded, so I walked around to the back of the house
where I found Ernest sitting beside another person. This was very strange; Ernest did not
have visitors, unless they came bearing new challenges in the form of jigsaw puzzles. Both men
had their back to me and were speaking softly to each other while grasping a saucer in one
hand and the accompanying cup, with the telltale tea bag string dangling over the side. He
provided the Japanese two allowances: their white tea and their Akita Inus, a majestic breed of
dog once owned exclusively by Japanese royalty. I set the puzzle by the back door and pedaled
home.
This one didn't even have a title and appears to be from a character sketch assignment with a single page limit.
Character Sketch
steel Bianchi 12 speed road bike down the mature tree lined Side Street. It was not long before
I could see his house at the end of the block. Ernest had lived in this house since he was 20
years old. It was new when he bought it, and he and his wife had raised 5 children in it. Now, he
lives in the four bedroom, one and half bathroom, Tudor style home by himself. Florence had
mercifully passed away many years earlier following a long and painful battle with pancreatic
cancer that eventually moved to her bones. At her funeral, I vividly remember Ernest saying
that his only regret was his selfishness, which he viewed as the primary reason his beloved wife
kept fighting and holding on to her poisonous, mortal shell. I was the only one present when he
spread her ashes in his vegetable garden the following spring.
Often, especially during the hot summer months Ernest would sleep in his basement during
the day and tear through 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzles, usually displaying images of faraway
lands that he has never visited. The local senior center offers a puzzle co-op of sorts, but he had
long since exhausted the limited variance of puzzles the offered. Instead, he had enlisted me to
order puzzles for him over the internet. The new one had been delivered to my house the day
prior. Because Ernest likes to sleep during the day he dislikes having the UPS delivery person
ring the bell during his slumber. Undoubtedly, he will work in a comment saying something to
the effect of: "I know what brown can do for me today, I wanna know what they can do for me
tonight!" Despite the fact his joke was never funny in the first place; I chuckle anyway, knowing
how much Ernest has a hard time making jokes, or, any small talk.
I stashed my bike along the side of his house, where the driveway extends back to the
unattached garage. In my backpack is his newest jigsaw puzzle, it has a picture of what appears
to be a terraced garden, obviously from somewhere in Asia. This may actually be a place
Ernest has been; he survived four years of combat fighting the Japanese in World War II. He
joined the war effort, like many of his peers, before he was 18. He was discharged when he was
20 because of an acute hernia that, in those days, was inoperable. When he does speak of the
past, often it will be in a wistful tone, accompanied by a distant look in his eye, and it is either
about the war or America’s (in his mind, at least) infallibility; which are, of course closely
related. Once, when I was helping him with his ancient roto-tiller, he looked up and told me
that if the hernia had not come along and spared him the rest of his tour of duty that the
dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan would have. He received his discharge papers while in
the military hospital in Hawaii on August first, five days before the “Little Boy” was detonated
over Hiroshima, effectively ending the combat in the Pacific theatre. I just nodded and returned
to the cleaning of the lone spark plug.
My knocking on the front door went unheeded, so I walked around to the back of the house
where I found Ernest sitting beside another person. This was very strange; Ernest did not
have visitors, unless they came bearing new challenges in the form of jigsaw puzzles. Both men
had their back to me and were speaking softly to each other while grasping a saucer in one
hand and the accompanying cup, with the telltale tea bag string dangling over the side. He
provided the Japanese two allowances: their white tea and their Akita Inus, a majestic breed of
dog once owned exclusively by Japanese royalty. I set the puzzle by the back door and pedaled
home.
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