Something (Part 1)

On his way home from grad school, Avery, a twenty-something literature major with no significant height or weight, was taking his usually trek down Thimble St., its various novelty shops and bookstores lining the three-lane road between them, when he saw a penny lying on the sidewalk like a speck of shimmery orange paint on the pavement. He took notice of the one cent piece partially because he was a poor broke student of academia, and partially because its metallic hide palely reflected the light of the afternoon sun, causing a glint that had caught the edge of his green eyes. Hesitating only briefly, he slung his tan cloth carrier bag further over his shoulder so that it would lie across his back, and he slowly bent down to fetch the coin, gripping it between his right thumb and index finger. He raised it to his face and let its image reflect off of his glasses. The coin’s surface was grainy with dirt that had lodged into its crevices, and the image of Lincoln was curiously outlined by a dark rim of grit. As he let it roll around in the palm of his hand, he began to wonder what random person dropped it and why? Pennies are so easy to lose; if one could collect all of the lost ones, one would quickly become a millionaire. He chuckled at such an imaginative statistic, his dimples etching lines across his boyish face, and it was at that moment of humored contemplation that the explosion happened.
The only thing Avery’s senses could recall was a loud yet brief noise that sounded like a “pop” followed by a moment of an intense and heavy ringing in the ears that drowned out every other noise. His eyes watched the world turn momentarily white, as though everything had become luminescent; then, when his vision quickly returned, the only thing he saw was his own legs as he went flying through the air and crashed through the large window of a pastry store that he had been standing next to. He didn’t feel the impact of the glass or hear its shattering, though he did see its numerous fragments flying away from him and glow in the light of the explosion like red and yellow sparks. Nor did he feel the impact of the ground as he slammed into the store’s checkered tile floor and skid across it into a dessert display case, subsequently causing him to be buried beneath a landslide of various chocolate coatings and raspberry fillings. There he came to rest, and for a short time he simply laid quite still, his body sprawled out under the cover of sweetness, until at last the ringing faded away, and he could hear the distant rumbling of a raging fire, the shrieks of numerous car alarms, and what sounded like many voices: some crying, others shouting, all quite terrified.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Who Killed the Groundskeeper? (Part 1)

Nestled on the southeastern tip of the emerald hills of the Appalachian Mountains, somewhere between Williamsburg, Kentucky and Bristol, Tennessee, a small local church’s Sunday service is in crisis, for the high-pitched whine of a weed-eater is echoing off the stone and oak walls of the sanctuary without pause or pity. Apparently, some ambitious grounds keeper had taken upon themselves the humble task of trimming the weeds and crab-grass that often beset the roses and lilies of the church flower-beds. As his noble yet misguided efforts sounded forth within the sanctuary, the congregation was busy pulling up from the wells of righteous indignation all that the bucket of their souls could handle, all the while vigorously trying to maintaining the ethics of modern civility: silence and indifference. Miss Doublecrass, a 70-year-old widow with blood red lips and white hair puffed out like a dandelion, sat in a front-right pew where she clasped an afghan around her shoulders with one withered hand and fanned herself with the other. Every time the weed-eater’s hungry whine echoed in the sanctuary, she would tighten her grip on the afghan more and fan herself faster, all the while letting her head sink lower and lower into her lilac blouse like a turtle retreating into its shell. Across the sanctuary in a front-left pew sat Maximus Archibald Walker, a used car salesman by trade and a staunch Calvinist by choice. Dressed in a death black suit with hair slicked back so far that it threatened to peel his scalp, he was caught in the awful conundrum of whether or not it was God’s will for him to address the intruding whine of the weed-eater that rose and fell like cascading waves. He shuffled nervously in his seat and shot his cold green eyes back and forth. In the back-middle, Mr. Avery Wainshot was heroically trying to cover the noise either with an occasional hefty cough or a heartfelt “Amen” that necessity required him to blurt out at inappropriate places. Each time he exclaimed a shout of affirmation to a Sunday School attendance report or a missionary’s letter describing genocide, he occasioned many awkward side-glances, and would quickly grab the thick knot of his pink tie and shake it back and forth, causing the collar of his blue shirt to rub his neck to the point of burning. Reverend Backforth approached the pulpit like it was the executioner’s block and was furiously glancing across the pews’ front rows from deacon to deacon, hoping that one of them would capture the intimate communication that only a deacon can register from their pastor. The choir was to sing their special next, and the reverend was well learned in the fact that choirs are notorious for despising all things that distract from their performance. One deacon finally caught the desperate telepathy of the reverend: a Mr. Gary Hardwick, a man whose eyes always sat in widened bewilderment, and whose nostrils, by some inscrutable birth defect, sat just one-quarter of a centimeter too wide in each direction. His well done yet muted attire suggested that it was something that his wife had picked out for him, and thus revealed a man who was used to following orders and had mastered the art of receiving and deciphering hidden messages. In capturing the correct combination of a wink and a nod and a raised eyebrow and a tap of the shoe from the reverend, Gary stood up and bent over in that style of walking and ducking that only the religious have been able to perform without falling over or passing out. Gary walked out of the church without incident and rounded the circular sanctuary to where the sound of the weed-eater relentlessly roared from the front flower-beds. He flared his nostrils and cleared his throat while tightening his tie, all of which mark the ceremonial preparations one undertakes when they are about to be politely rude to a subordinate. Upon rounding around to the front flower-beds, he found occasion to pause when he noticed the dead body of the offending grounds keeper lying on its side and sprawled out lengthwise along the edge of the flower-bed. His skin was tanned by the constant kiss of the sun, while small shards of green grass lay lazily across his upturned cheek and neck. The weed-eater was being held by his right hand, which had clasped the machine’s trigger in the death grip of rigor mortis. The weed-eater, sprawled out across the flower-bed, was wailing loudly for the three roses and two lilies it had unintentionally beheaded, all the while being mocked by a lone stalk of field grass that stood defiantly just outside of its reach. The trembling machine caused the man’s hand to shake; other than that, the corpse was quite still.
Gary had been witness to enough church cantatas and programs in his lifetime to have all sense of joy and sorrow, and the beauty latent in each, sucked right out of his soul through his over-blown nostrils. Needless to say, he stood eyeing the deceased more out of solemn curiosity than silent horror. He approached the body slowly and kicked its leg with the edge of his black wing-tips. When there was no response, he turned to go back inside, lingered for one moment at the edge of the flower-bed, turned around, bent over the whining weed-eater, and with a sharp pull of its handle and the man’s wrist, he freed it from the grip of death. Its motor kicked out one last lone complaint before the machine lay as silent and as still as its owner. Satisfied, Gary turned to go inside and tell the reverend.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Echoes of Heaven: Old Man of the Hills

Within the fog-cloaked hills of the Appalachians, just about ten miles north of Williamsburg, Kentucky, there walks a lone old man, thin and sturdy, like a withered tree. He walks a path worn and torn by many years of his endless, relentless trodding. In his right hand he holds a sapling; in his left hand he wields a shovel. His balding head is covered by a grey fedora, his back and shoulders by a thick, grey coat, and his hands and feet smell of earth. There is a wiry smile on his face, and a slow, comfortable stride to his step, the heels and soles of his feet caressing the ground with a familiarity that has been well earned. The farther up he went, the further the fog clothed him in an odd robe of splendor, single-colored, a fitting addition to the man as the man was to it. As he walked, it was as though he slowly and silently gave himself up to the fog, to the hills, to the earth, all the while holding a tree in one hand and wielding a shovel in the other. Unperceivable to the naked eye was that strange and holy fellowship between man and nature in which all the trees are his brothers and a walk through the hills is the communion of saints.
His walks into the hills are a might matter of legend to the people of Williamsburg. Many stories hover about in regards to the secret meaning behind his monthly trek into the hills, a tree held in one hand, a shovel wielded in the other. Some said that he was merely keeping a tradition, and others said that it was in remembrance of something or someone. Others said that it was merely a cover to go into the woods and smoke or drink without his wife knowing. Still others said that there was no secret meaning to whole thing, that he was just planting trees. Others still (the occasional ignorant passerby) denied that there even was a man who climbed into the hills, a tree held in one hand, a shovel wielded in the other.
The children, however, had the most interesting stories. One boy said he buried treasure where he planted trees; he always talked about going up there and finding some of it. Another said that he buried the dead bodies of victims he had ceremoniously axed to death; he said he’d write a story about it some day. One little girl said that the man had lived forever and had planted the trees on all the hills, that he kept the hills alive. Whatever the story (or lack thereof), however, no one ever thought to simply ask the man what he was doing, or (even better) follow him up that hill, along that worn path, and see for themselves what things he hath done. That no one asks is sad; the stories are becoming fewer and fewer, the children more and more indifferent. The fog recedes higher into the hills these days; the old man must walk farther every year, but he is not weary. His stride is ever faithful, his face ever friendly, his grip ever firm as he holds a tree in one hand, and wields a shovel in the other.