RustA Story by TomPrologue He was born on a Tuesday by
emergency caesarian and by all accounts was lucky to have survived. Later when he struggled with his purpose and
his right to the imagined prosperity he dreamed of he would recall the story of
his entry into the world with a realization that he was an accident of nature,
one of the weak that society has nurtured through advancements and progress. He would ponder the great attempt of
civilization to preserve life irrespective of state as the root of society’s
malign tumor, the fortunate cancers that suckered at diminishing resources and stole
from those who had not tricked evolution with timing or place of birth. The commodity he had been gifted when born
into the world would be close to exhaustion before the sheen of youth was gone,
crumbled so as each oxidized scale that flaked from the mirage of life left a
scar that itched for what he once thought true.
He would remember the naivety of youth that held truths to him that were
true because they could not be anything else and he would anger at the
knowledge he now possessed, the awareness that brought no respite from the
acuteness of his malevolence against himself. He knew that it was a difficult thing to
recall youth, people reimagine and do not remember objectively but he was sure
of one thing, that as a young boy he believed many things, yet as time progressed
on a relentless course he found these beliefs diminishing in potency and
number, until so worn were the memories of his childhood faiths he could no
longer believe, even in that which was presented with truth and clarity. Chapter 1 He would often ride his bike far
from the home where he grew up, out into the countryside that lay adjacent to
the middle class housing development they had built on an old tree nursery and maintained
evidence of a charmed past with roads lined with hundred year old Oaks, giant Horse
Chestnuts and powdery ant mounds rising at every crook and crevice in the roads. Stag beetles still appeared in May with their
majestic pincers and barbed feet that would prick the surface of his skin like
a needle attempting to remove a splinter and would cause grievance against any
young girl unfortunate to find this clumsy pilot flying into their hair. Once entangled the frantic flapping and
attempt at removal would result in the inevitable action of cutting the beetle
free with a pair of scissors along with a sizeable clump of hair as they would
sob in trauma at the experience they had suffered. He always found it amusing to see the
exaggerated roar of distress that would come from the local children in fear of
this grand insect and never felt a semblance of the same emotion. His curiosity for this animal was no more and
no less than it was for the myriad of other creatures that lived in the fields
and woodlands, or swam in the lake or canals that bounded his territory of
youth. He was a boy of great inquisition
and enjoyed hours of exploration until he knew every nook and cranny, every
hidden and unhidden path, the shortcuts from one place to another, the best
spots for fishing or newt catching, the place to build the best camps or where
a fire could be lit and enjoyed without the constant fear of an interfering
adult. His world was small enough that
he could reach the four corners with time to return for tea, but large enough
to free him of the clinically clean home that shackled his adventure. He would sit in the gentle heat of summer
waiting patiently for fish that would never come; he would hunt through the
broad Horse Chestnut leaves foraging for autumn conkers until the only course
of action was to lob branches and sticks into the boughs in the hope the tree
would give up more fruit; in winter he would ride around the tracks of the
common land mired and wet until hunger and dimming light brought him home; and
in spring he would spend hours searching the reed banks of the canals for
clumps of jellied frog eggs that he would take back to the tank he kept in the
musty shed, carefully replicating a habitat and watching with eagerness as the
tadpoles would slowly morph into miniature frogs, always careful to remove
those that had perished. He was intrigued
by the carnivorous nature he witnessed, the perfection of these miniature replicas
removed by those that struggled with limbs missing from a sibling’s feast. On
days when he would return sodden and filthy from a long excursion his mother
who loved him from a distance confounded by her own troubles would make him
strip to his underwear in the back garden and would provide a bowl of tepid
water and a flannel for him to clean the spattered mud from his legs, arms and
face and he would dance as the cold would bite against the soles of his feet,
though he didn’t mind this, he was well accustomed, he abhorred her obsession
with cleanliness and her determination to maintain a house that looked like one
in the catalogues or magazines that lay neatly piled in a newspaper rack in the
living room. He would stand under the
hot shower and pain would massage the inside of his fingers and toes as his body
imagined a greater heat against the cold than there was. He would sit at the fold out table in the
kitchen with one side collapsed against the wall and would eat the food his
mother had prepared. He was not a fastidious
eater and he found great pleasure in not just the flavor but the sensation of swallowing
and filling an empty stomach, however he maintained peculiarities like only
eating the heads of broccoli and not the stalk, or washing down food less
enjoyable with large gulps of squash diluted with water, he rarely chewed as
much as he should and several times nearly choked on hard bacon fat he was too
eager to swallow. On one occasion in a
defiant mood and not prepared to eat a tart ratatouille, his Father after much
berating from his Mother threatened to feed him. The resulting experience of a spoon being
hastily shoved down his throat ensured he would avoid confrontations of the
gastric variety for the entirety of his youth. He
held his Father in high esteem and enjoyed a friendly relationship and an
affinity that he never enjoyed with his Mother. He was a man who had worked hard, was smart
and astute and had achieved a degree of prosperity that was comfortable but not
excessive, he was also a man that enjoyed the adoration of William who saw him
through the youthful lenses of life that polish an individual bright and mask
the depth of character that reveals all its glory and wretched flaws. He was not a strict man but had a pressure
cooker temper that would explode in a riot of fury when pushed beyond his
limits of patience without the accompanying whistle to warn of impending danger
and many times William would use his scrambling momentum climbing the stairs of
the house to lessen the blow of his Father’s boot. © 2012 TomAuthor's Note
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4 Reviews Added on October 2, 2012 Last Updated on October 2, 2012 Author
TomBarcelona, SpainAboutI am an eternal procrastinator, who has fallen from one place to another and every time landed upon the soles of my feet, albeit with a few collisions against the rock face on the way down. I am an E.. more..Writing
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