-no name yet-

A Story by Francis Patch

the main purpose of my writing is to share as many my ideas with you as possible.

It was the beginning of December and the whole Vermont was gently covered with snow by tender winter. The house on a hill was hardly standing out. The inexpressible silence of eternity was only being broken by unhurried man’s walk going up this hill.

His footsteps were painting a quaint pattern skirting ancient massive oak-trees on just-fallen snow. It was not long ago after noon and the sun was slightly covered in heavy and monotonous winter clouds but was still shining and casting leggy shadows on virgin snow. Everything around him was sleepy, barely awake after a long and bleak night. His mood was quite the same, bored and tired of walking, he was damning his rash predawn decision to stroll down the hill, breathing that weightless fresh air.

The house he was approaching was fifty meters away. It was a solid oak building that had surely seen better times. Only brand new window frames, a smoking chimney and the entrance, cleared of snow showed that the house was still inhabited.

He finally stepped in. Warm air blew welcoming him and he shut the door next second. The light room was small and cozy with a half-curtained window letting the sun in. There was another room further and the door leading there was closed.

There was a letter, one of many letters he received, generally advertisements. This tasteless one was the same, the only thing that was personal in this letter was his name typed after mendacious “Dear”: Robert Ripley. He escaped from unbearable reality here, where he had thought anybody would reach him neither by phone nor by writing. But they managed, they always managed to interfere in his life. He couldn't blame them this of course. And just after that thought he calmed down and made tea for himself, helping himself with grotesquely big sandwiches that he had prepared before.

The weather was calm and the sky had cleared by that time already and looking through the window at this brave world he unwittingly remembered his childhood Christmases spent here, when Grandparents were alive and he was too, alive. He remembered his own laughter and his saying “Granyyy” when he wanted something from her and his grandfather’s stories of “Old Bright America” obviously too boring for little Robert and mint tea which scent would spread widely and soon filled the house, recalling summer nights.

These old Christmas nights with their presents, that were getting more and more boring and predictable had imprinted in his memory greatly. He stopped visiting his grandparents when he was fourteen, though his father Kane and mother Gloria tried to insist on him continuing wasting all his Christmas holidays at his grandparents’. In the depth of his heart Robert may have wanted the same as his parents but the cruel society of “youth” was against. The society itself doesn't like people expressing their feelings, doesn't like to hear the truth of life one day, scared to hear. But first things first.

His first memory was a dog. He remembered friendly damp spring leaves that caressed him tenderly as he was following the outer wood path. He was with his mother then. Suddenly in this infinitely silent world of nature waking up from a deep winter repose Robert noticed a dog that was staring at him with its innocent frightened big eyes. He approached and reached out to the dog. At first it leaned back but then let him pet it. They were so pure, so untouched by the dirty world, so naïve and so wonderful in it naivety. But then it was time to go, and time to leave the dog, and time to face the first injustice in his life. This episode had etched in his memory forever, even then standing at the house by the window 32 years later he could almost smell those spring leaves.

to be continued...