Pendragon
01-13-2007, 10:37 AM
Dust
I remember the car crash very clearly. Ricky did all he could do but the road was just too wet and the curve too sharp. We hit that old oak tree doing in excess of sixty miles per hour. Then there was an agonizing pain—then: total blackness.
I woke up this morning with that feeling of not being certain where I was. I sat up and looked around me. I was sitting on my old beanbag chair, the one we’d put up in the attic last fall—Hey! This was the attic! All around me were boxes and furniture covered with cloth and spider-webs. How’d I get up here?
I walked over to the door to the downstairs, sneezing in the dust. I ambled down the stairs and into an empty house. “Mom! Dad! David! Carol! Grandpa Buck!” The words echoed off the barren walls. I went outside. There was a “for sale” sign in the front yard. There was no sign of my family anywhere. Even my dog, Rex’s doghouse was missing. This was strange. I called again. There was no answer. I pulled the sign out of the ground, noting that it was for a local real estate firm, and took it with me.
I walked back into the house and went upstairs to the attic. I began poking around in the dust for answers. Strange, all of the things in the attic seemed to be mine. There was my in-line skates, my skateboard, my computer games, my books. Even my bed and dresser was there underneath cobwebs, cloth, and dust. Something had happened, something bad. What was it? Why couldn’t I remember? And why had my family disappeared, leaving me behind like this?
I needed to think and I think best when I’m doing something, so I grabbed up my skateboard and headed out. I felt strangely light on my feet, so for my first trick I tried sliding the steel stair rail that ran down our steep front walk to the street. Yes! I nailed it the first time! I spun to a stop in the road, nimbly avoiding the oncoming traffic. Odd, they didn’t seem to see me. I was bursting with pride, all questions forgotten. I rode until the darkness began to fall, then made my way back to the attic. It occurred to me that I needed something to eat, but somehow I wasn’t hungry. I feel asleep on my beanbag and had nightmares about a skull-faced guy with a scythe—(come on, Freddy Kruger was better, scared the crap out of me!)—and a tight, confined tube full of roaring fire.
The next day I was back at my tricks again. Since there was no one to make me attend school, I sneered at the school bus from my attic window. Funny, I still wasn’t hungry—just full of energy. I found my old trick bike up in the attic and used it to slide the rail. Something was happening on the block now, though, because some snitch called the law four times on me. I hid behind the garage and I’d swear the cops looked right at me.
The one with the Sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve said, “Well, there’s the bike, right enough, but no kid. And that bike hasn’t been ridden in years, see how dusty the seat is?”
His fellow cop replied, “Well, old Larson drinks a lot. Maybe he was having the DTs or something. Let’s go.”
What did they mean dust on my beautiful bike? Hadn’t I just dropped it and dived into the lilac bushes? Maybe old Larson isn’t the only one who drinks. Huh, and these dudes are supposed to uphold the law! Go figure.
The next day I woke up to a lot of noise. I looked out my window. Someone was moving in—moving in to my house!
I yelled from the top of the stairs. “Hey! Get outa here! This is my house, not rental property! Ya see any sign that read “Vacancy”, besides the ones in your brains? Get going!”
They didn’t seem to hear. Worse, the man and a woman I recognized from that real estate agency in town came toward the stairs leading up to the attic.
“What’s up there?” asked the man.
“I’m not certain.” She replied. “I think a lot of their son’s things.”
“Their son! I’m right here, and I said SHOVE OFF!” I howled right in her ear.
She brushed at it absently, stirring up the dust. The man was poking around in my boxes of books.
“Hey, he had nice paperbacks here, and they’re in mint condition. They are a lot of older series, popular with quite a few people, many very hard to find in complete sets. He also had old radio programs on cassette tape and CD. They’d be worth a fortune on e-bay.”
E-bay? He was going to sell my things, the ones I worked so hard to collect on e-bay, and without as much as a “by-your-leave”? And he hadn’t even found my sports cards and comics yet. This was too much. I yanked up a lead vase, wondering briefly what it was doing there, and cracked him over the head. He tumbled into the dust and she screamed and fainted dead away.
The top of the vase popped off, and rolled across the floor. But I was frozen in time, for I was reading the writing on the lead container: “Sacred to the memory of our son Robert William “Billy” Johnson, killed in an auto accident June 16, 1999. This vase holds his mortal remains. Missed by his loving parents Authur and Elizabeth, his brother David, his sister Carol, his Grandpa Buck, and his dog, Rex. Amen”
And as I faded into nothingness, the leaden jar upset, and my ashes scattered into the dust upon the floor…
I remember the car crash very clearly. Ricky did all he could do but the road was just too wet and the curve too sharp. We hit that old oak tree doing in excess of sixty miles per hour. Then there was an agonizing pain—then: total blackness.
I woke up this morning with that feeling of not being certain where I was. I sat up and looked around me. I was sitting on my old beanbag chair, the one we’d put up in the attic last fall—Hey! This was the attic! All around me were boxes and furniture covered with cloth and spider-webs. How’d I get up here?
I walked over to the door to the downstairs, sneezing in the dust. I ambled down the stairs and into an empty house. “Mom! Dad! David! Carol! Grandpa Buck!” The words echoed off the barren walls. I went outside. There was a “for sale” sign in the front yard. There was no sign of my family anywhere. Even my dog, Rex’s doghouse was missing. This was strange. I called again. There was no answer. I pulled the sign out of the ground, noting that it was for a local real estate firm, and took it with me.
I walked back into the house and went upstairs to the attic. I began poking around in the dust for answers. Strange, all of the things in the attic seemed to be mine. There was my in-line skates, my skateboard, my computer games, my books. Even my bed and dresser was there underneath cobwebs, cloth, and dust. Something had happened, something bad. What was it? Why couldn’t I remember? And why had my family disappeared, leaving me behind like this?
I needed to think and I think best when I’m doing something, so I grabbed up my skateboard and headed out. I felt strangely light on my feet, so for my first trick I tried sliding the steel stair rail that ran down our steep front walk to the street. Yes! I nailed it the first time! I spun to a stop in the road, nimbly avoiding the oncoming traffic. Odd, they didn’t seem to see me. I was bursting with pride, all questions forgotten. I rode until the darkness began to fall, then made my way back to the attic. It occurred to me that I needed something to eat, but somehow I wasn’t hungry. I feel asleep on my beanbag and had nightmares about a skull-faced guy with a scythe—(come on, Freddy Kruger was better, scared the crap out of me!)—and a tight, confined tube full of roaring fire.
The next day I was back at my tricks again. Since there was no one to make me attend school, I sneered at the school bus from my attic window. Funny, I still wasn’t hungry—just full of energy. I found my old trick bike up in the attic and used it to slide the rail. Something was happening on the block now, though, because some snitch called the law four times on me. I hid behind the garage and I’d swear the cops looked right at me.
The one with the Sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve said, “Well, there’s the bike, right enough, but no kid. And that bike hasn’t been ridden in years, see how dusty the seat is?”
His fellow cop replied, “Well, old Larson drinks a lot. Maybe he was having the DTs or something. Let’s go.”
What did they mean dust on my beautiful bike? Hadn’t I just dropped it and dived into the lilac bushes? Maybe old Larson isn’t the only one who drinks. Huh, and these dudes are supposed to uphold the law! Go figure.
The next day I woke up to a lot of noise. I looked out my window. Someone was moving in—moving in to my house!
I yelled from the top of the stairs. “Hey! Get outa here! This is my house, not rental property! Ya see any sign that read “Vacancy”, besides the ones in your brains? Get going!”
They didn’t seem to hear. Worse, the man and a woman I recognized from that real estate agency in town came toward the stairs leading up to the attic.
“What’s up there?” asked the man.
“I’m not certain.” She replied. “I think a lot of their son’s things.”
“Their son! I’m right here, and I said SHOVE OFF!” I howled right in her ear.
She brushed at it absently, stirring up the dust. The man was poking around in my boxes of books.
“Hey, he had nice paperbacks here, and they’re in mint condition. They are a lot of older series, popular with quite a few people, many very hard to find in complete sets. He also had old radio programs on cassette tape and CD. They’d be worth a fortune on e-bay.”
E-bay? He was going to sell my things, the ones I worked so hard to collect on e-bay, and without as much as a “by-your-leave”? And he hadn’t even found my sports cards and comics yet. This was too much. I yanked up a lead vase, wondering briefly what it was doing there, and cracked him over the head. He tumbled into the dust and she screamed and fainted dead away.
The top of the vase popped off, and rolled across the floor. But I was frozen in time, for I was reading the writing on the lead container: “Sacred to the memory of our son Robert William “Billy” Johnson, killed in an auto accident June 16, 1999. This vase holds his mortal remains. Missed by his loving parents Authur and Elizabeth, his brother David, his sister Carol, his Grandpa Buck, and his dog, Rex. Amen”
And as I faded into nothingness, the leaden jar upset, and my ashes scattered into the dust upon the floor…