Return to SherwoodA Story by Crowley The first half of a story I am trying to finish now...I figured if I posted this part again it might motivate me. Return to Sherwood
By Corey Rowley Herman Acerniak’s breathing was irregular,
coming in the sort of half hitches of a dying man searching for release from
the burden of physical existence.
Herman was in the final stages of a devastating bout with pancreatic
cancer, the breathing just one of a long line of indicators that the end was
very near. Instead of being surrounded by the usual host of loved ones weeping
and praying for a swift and peaceful ending, the only living loved one he had
left, his son Craig, was fast asleep on the living room couch, emotionally and
physically spent from caring for his father seven days a week. His breathing slowed, gasps of air being drawn into
his body once every ten seconds. His facial features were slack and sallow, the
shape of his mouth and the gray-blue color of his skin reminiscent of the face of
the figure in Moncks’s Scream. Occasionally a limb or facial muscle would
twitch giving the scene a surreal quality as if at any minute his eyes were
going to fly open and he would sit up and call for a glass of water. But, there would be no more water for
Herman. The curtains in the
dingy gray bedroom were closed. The only light filtering in came from around
the edges of the once white curtains, giving the room a quality of light and
feeling of oppression rivaled only by the atmosphere usually attributed to
Russian political novels. The
small nightstand next to the bed was stereotypical of a nightstand of a dying
person. Besides the thirty or
forty bottles of pills, there were ointments, salves, syringes, bed pans,
plastic drinking cups, tubes, and a copy of the King James version of the New
Testament, Craig’s contribution, insisting that Herman become a Christian prior
to passing because, you know…..what if. Herman would often
remark to his son that he should move the stuff on the night stand somewhere
else, some place where he wouldn’t be reminded every second of every waking
day, that he was a sickly and
dying old man. “Put some pictures or
some flowers there, liven it up a little, it’s so dreary.” Craig somewhat
resentful about his nursing duties would dismiss Herman’s pleas and tell him
that it was just easier for him if everything was within reach. Herman didn’t think
that Craig was a bad boy. He actually
understood his resentment. All
kinds of resentments seem to come to the surface when a loved one is
dying. The resentment of spending
every waking moment waiting on them hand and foot. The resentment that they
would be gone soon leaving you to hold down the fort. The resentment of the
fact that you were never going to see or talk to them again. In Craig’s case,
the resentment that he was the last. There would be no family to console him,
no mother, no brother or sister there to lend an ear or a shoulder. No one to
soak up his weakness when it poured into a puddle in the middle of the kitchen
floor. Added pressure would fill his mind that if he didn’t get married and
have kids, the lineage stopped. The clan would simply cease to exist, blink out
like a dying star. Herman had watched
his mother take care of his sister when she was dying from heart problems when
he was a boy. He had observed the
resentments first hand. The sense of duty always kicked into full gear,
replacing the sense of loving and caring.
Duty was paramount. Only through duty could we physically prove our love
for our family, or more likely, prove that we pulled our fair share of the
burden when the time came. We
would be the good kid, the good brother or the good parent. Although from the
outside, there appeared to be a battle to hang on to the last remnants of life,
a war waged and lost months earlier, the scene inside the battleground,
Herman’s mind, was different. In
his mind, the dreams of dying, the overwhelming and panicky feeling that he
always seemed to have, telling him that he needed to get up and milk the cows
or get to work, all faded and disappeared with an audible buzz. The only thing that Herman could see now
was a gray-yellow mist billowing up around his arms, shoulders and head. The mist was pleasantly warm, the
constant coldness in his arms and legs was suddenly gone. It was almost like the sickening sweet
warm feeling of peeing in the cold pool as a boy, knowing full well it was
disgusting, but enjoying the momentary warm rush of urine inside your swimming
trunks. Herman was
floating. He was heading in one
direction, which direction he didn’t know, but, he had the distinct feeling
that he was moving with purpose.
Up until that point, he saw only the mist and enjoyed no other sensory
perceptions, no smell, no sound.
Then he heard it. A muffled shout, barely audible and not understandable, but familiar just the same. He was floating toward it, and the
shout became louder, taking on a wispy, willowy quality, like he was dreaming
only he was pretty sure that this was not a dream. As the sound became louder, he seemed to speed up and he
grew closer until he could finally make out what was being shouted. The voice was shouting the word “Ace.” Herman knew the voice well, it was that of his
childhood friend Dean “Dino” Patrelli.
It was at this point that the thought first entered Herman’s head that
he was dying. He thought that this
must be the bright light thing and the loved ones helping you into heaven and
all that jazz that he had always considered a little too mystical to his
liking. “Ace…….atta boy
Ace, I’ve been right here waiting
buddy,” Dino was saying over and over again excitedly, his voice crystal clear
now and sounded exactly as Herman had remembered. Dino had been killed in a farm accident when he was
nineteen, when a wooden plank that he had been standing on over a grain silo
gave way and he was buried alive by several thousand tons of feed. It took workers two solid days to dig
out his body after they figured out what had happened. But, even as Herman was
hearing Dino’s voice again, he sounded like he was still twelve years old. The mist lifted instantaneously and Herman
found himself standing at the edge of a thick stand of oak and cottonwood trees
that he recognized as the small forest located about a half-mile south and east
of the house that he had lived in all his life. The woods were what his parents
called “The Stand” but, to Dino and Herman, that stand of trees was enchanted,
allowing two boys to explore a multitude of fabulous worlds from medieval
castles, to starship exploration and probably best of all as they had gotten
older, a place to take Amanda and Sarah Gelman, the Gelman twins, to experiment
in the matters of the flesh. So fond were they of the magic of the stand of
woods, Dino and Herman named it Sherwood after the tales of Robin Hood and the
Merry Men, a game that they had enjoyed well over a hundred times in the span
of his childhood. Herman stood staring
at the woods, a smile automatically lighting on his face before he was even
able to realize it. He was stunned
and felt a deep longing and nostalgia for his childhood. Just minutes before he
was a sickly and dying old man in a dingy bedroom on the west side of
Manchester, and now he felt like he was twelve again. The sun was warm on his face, it was the first time he had
felt it in nearly six months, with the exception of twice being wheeled into an
ambulance and whisked to the hospital because of complications or reactions to
new medications. But here he was, standing firmly on his own two feet, no sign
of the demon cancer, his strength like that of a strapping forty year old
man. He looked at his hands, they
were his, wrinkles and all, a plain gold wedding ring on his left hand glinted
in the sunlight. He looked at his
house in the distance and then back at Sherwood. He heard the birds and the
soft rustle of the wind as it blew through the trees. His heart was full and
aching and he felt a wave of nostalgia overtake him. He turned his face toward the sky again, squinted his eyes,
felt the wind and the warmth and a tear trickled down his cheek. © 2010 CrowleyAuthor's Note
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Added on December 8, 2010Last Updated on December 8, 2010 Author
CrowleyPhoenix, AZAboutLike to hang out with other writers and see what's what. Have met a lot of good people on this and other sites through the years. Decided to come back and do a little posting and reading. Hit me up i.. more..Writing
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