A temporary Permenance

A man walks out of his house, stretches his eager arms, and gazes out over his domain. He could see his entire property; it wasn't very grand. His domicile is the center of his plot, surrounded by nearly half an acre of grass. A hand-dug gravel driveway makes it easier for his car to cross from the civilian dependency of roads to the independence that purchased land allows. A single oak tree, much older than either him or the house, stands tall front and center before his front door. He sees all of this, surveying his small but suitable kingdom, and it's not until his second look around that he notices a small area of yard off the side of his driveway not much larger than the average swimming pool. Something simultaneously halts and clicks into action in his head. An idea has taken root, and it germinates into a prediction, blossoms into an agenda. The man nods and feels the weight of a plan under his chin.
"I know just the thing to do with this."


It takes months of tedious budgeting, countless aggravating trips to numerous hardware stores and lumber yards, and an exhausting labor of time to finally erect what the man had envisioned: a separate driveway, concrete, large enough to fit the boat that he was now saving up to buy and canopied by a pavilion half as tall as the tree. The morning after its creation is completed, the man looks at his work and feels swollen with an exhilarating mix of triumph and accomplishment. It's enough to be happy with himself. He goes back inside.


The boat didn't stay too long; the hull bore a crack in it. In the spot where the wheels of a trailer used to rest is now a clutter of family belongings, boxes stacked high, collapsed and sunken, soggy from rain damage. The man looks at his creation now with a hint of mature appreciation, but he can't help but remember the glorious image that once was, the image of a monument built by man in the name of man, used with anticipation and equally revered.


Rust flakes off of the support beams that hold up the pavilion, and the tin roof has turned a dull gray and brown. No more boxes remain, and neither does the man who built it; they both left the property long ago, leaving behind the permanent print of construction with which people so often mark their territory. Now the foundations of the monument to man's power over nature sag into the soil, as if kneeling in surrender to the very forces it was meant to defy.


Only the concrete, the ugliest and deepest scar, remains of what the man built with the care and vigor of a new constitution. Weeds grow over the shores of solid gray, weave and wilt and wander into the cracks that riddle the body of the slab. Nature, it seems, takes longer to mark its territory.


Another man walks out of his house, stretches his eager arms, and gazes out over his domain. He could see his entire property; it wasn't very grand. His domicile is the center of his plot, surrounded by nearly half an acre of grass. A newly-renovated gravel driveway makes it easier for his car to cross from the civilian dependency of roads to the independence that purchased land allows. A single oak tree, much, much older than either him or the house, stands tall front and center before his front door. He sees all of this, surveying his small but suitable kingdom, and it's not until his second look around that he notices the unattractive slab of collapsing concrete that attracts the eye in the same manner an atrocity does. Something simultaneously halts and clicks into action in his head. An idea has taken root, and it germinates into a prediction, blossoms into an agenda. The man nods and feels the weight of a plan under his chin.
"I know just the thing to do with this."