Tag: #amwriting

Posted in Challenges

The World Went Black

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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“You boys can take any of those stumps back there behind the corn crib,” Jake said to his friends. “They will make good firewood this winter.”

Jake’s friends walked behind the corn crib and saw all the tree stumps. One turned and asked Jake where he got them. Jake said he cut trees on his property and sold them to a company that makes hardwood floors.

“Jake, you live in the Daniel Boone National Forest. How are you cutting trees, man?”

Jake told them that the trees were at the back of his property. He said no one would know. One of the men in the group stepped forward and told Jake he should not be cutting young trees in the woods to sell. That it was not environmentally conscious. The man went on to say that someone should turn Jake in to the authorities. He turned to walk off.

Boom!! The world went black. That was the last thing the man knew for several hours.

Posted in Non-fiction

The Day in the Porch Swing

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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It was about 1980. I was a grownup. Married. Living life on my own. But with regard to some things, I think you always stay a child. This was one of those things. I was at my grandparent’s house with my mother and my aunt and uncle. They were helping get my grandmother ready to leave her home and live with one of her daughters. It was a hard day.

My grandfather had passed away several years before. The family had tried to leave my grandmother in her home by providing help for her, but that just hadn’t worked out. It was time to do something else. She was quite elderly, almost 90 years of age. Young for her age, however. I remember how beautiful she still was. Still smart, savvy. She was a tough Eastern Kentucky lady. It hadn’t been many years since she was squirrel hunting. I was always a little scared of her, but I admired her.

I remember that I tried to help but, typically, my mother wouldn’t let me. I spent most of that day sitting on the old porch swing. Many homes in my part of the world, back in those days, had wide front porches that went the full length of the house, where family and neighbors gathered in the evenings for fun and fellowship. There was always a porch swing. It was my favorite place to sit at my grandparent’s house and, I suppose, in the back of my mind, I knew this would be the last time.

As I looked around, it occurred to me what a beautiful place it was there in the eastern part of Kentucky. My grandparents farm was in a bowl-shaped valley, surrounded by hills rich with valuable hardwood timber. Not only did the residents of the valley farm, but fossil fuels lay beneath the surface and there was drilling for oil and natural gas. A beautiful, rich place. I’d taken it for granted growing up. I didn’t anymore.

My uncle had passed away a year before my grandfather. As I sat there in the porch swing, I had thoughts of those who had gone before me on that patch of ground, especially my beloved grandfather and uncle. I could see my uncle pull in the driveway in his postal service car. At that point, I heard the sound of tires on gravel and I looked around. The car in the driveway looked like my Uncle’s car. I thought to myself that it wasn’t possible. He had been gone for a while now. I felt like I just blinked my eyes and I saw my Uncle leaning against his car as he so typically did, grinning at me. I wanted to call for my mother, but there wasn’t time. The next thing I knew, he was walking up the road with his back to me, but he seemed just to be a shadow. I watched him walk. As he walked away, he slowly disappeared.

I just sat there, in that old swing, for a few moments. There was, indeed, a car in the drive but it wasn’t my Uncle’s. I knew that I had seen him. I had never had such an experience before. It somehow gave me peace, not only about my Uncle but about my grandmother leaving home. I don’t know how to explain that further. It was a bit of a spiritual journey for me. The day in the porch swing.

Posted in Challenges, Uncategorized

The Sanatorium

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Mabel and Anne sat at Table 19, waiting for their families, in their long, white, day gowns. It was visiting day and the two twenty-something girls were anxious to see their parents and others who would perhaps come with them. They were residents of the East Lake Tuberculosis Sanatorium in a town in Virginia. It was 1906.

Both girls had been diagnosed with a medium level tuberculosis. They expected to die in the sanatorium.

Visits from family were allowed only one day per month. The first Wednesday of every month and were limited to 15 minutes. Family members had to wear some sort of gauze over their mouths as tuberculosis was thought to be quite contagious.

There they were! They couldn’t hug and it was so hard, but at least they could talk for a few minutes.

Being a tuberculosis patient in the early 1900s  was like being an inmate in a prison. Mabel and Anne were lucky. They got better and got out. Most patients did not.

 

Posted in Challenges, Uncategorized

New Zealand and the Clown

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Casey was finally able to visit New Zealand when she graduated from college. Her mother was a native New Zealander, but she died when Casey was only seven years old.

There was a tour she wanted to take in Christchurch. The sights she would see were the result of the earthquakes Christchurch had experienced. It was called the graffiti tour.  Christchurch graffiti was special. It was beautiful paintings, painted on the backs of buildings, that were the way Christchurch residents dealt with the pain and devastation of the recent earthquakes.

The tour was fascinating. The graffiti artists had poured all the city’s pain into their work. They rounded the corner of the last building on the tour and Casey turned toward it and screamed. It was a painting of a clown. She had been holding her toy clown when she found out her mother had died.

 

Posted in Challenges, Uncategorized

Burned

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Russ and Mary stood looking at the smoldering ruin of their home. The fire had started last night in the chimney. There wasn’t much left. It had just been a small frame house. They were in shock and didn’t quite know what to do.

They heard a vehicle on the road and turned around. It was the wood man pulling a cart full of wood. He stopped in front of the burned house and walked up to them.

Russ asked him where he got his wood and he told him. He asked him if he could get better wood to help him rebuild his house. The wood man said that he could.

The wood man asked, “Do you need help rebuilding?” The man whose house burned answered that he did.

The wood man haltingly said that he used to be in construction but there had been no jobs recently and he would be glad to help.

Russ and Mary looked at him and each other. Everything would be fine.

 

Posted in Challenges

A Way Out

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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She sat at the table, looking at the bottle of poison left for her there. Her friend, Colin, supplied it. She had been so miserable. Her husband had tormented her for years. Years of subtle, and not so subtle, mental and emotional abuse. She had always confided in Colin. He knew she was about to crack, that she could not take it anymore. That she had come to this place. That she was really considering poisoning her husband, shocked her. She couldn’t wait to do it.

Her mind wandered back to all the years before. She had been ambitious at one time. He had nipped that in the bud. He wanted her home, where he watched her. Monitor every phone call. Every visitor. He had broken her spirit. She hated him.

Now, she had to figure out how to do this. Colin said the poison was tasteless and colorless. Undetectable to the police. Tonight, she would make vegetable soup. She would put just enough in his bowl. That thought made her heart beat fast. She was shaking.

She started to get up from the table. Thoughts poured through her head. She turned, picked up the bottle, and drank it herself.

Posted in Challenges

Hassan

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Hassan watched the soldiers as they went through their drills near the house in which he and his mother were staying. He remembered another house. He was with his mother, father, and baby sister in that house. Now his father was a soldier and seldom came home. As for his baby sister, she was just gone. When Hassan asked where she was, his mother just cried. Hassan was seven years old. He lived in Aleppo, Syria.

All Hassan knew was that his ears hurt. He wished for quiet. It was never quiet where he lived. Hassan was also hungry, but he tried not to cry.

One day his father came home and told them to get ready. They were going to escape. They left the house and ran into the country, hiding all the way. His father said they had to get to the border. Hassan was so tired, so his father carried him. Suddenly, there were bright lights and men with guns. When Hassan woke up, he was on a cot with his mother smiling over him. They were safe now, she said.

Hassan knew she was right. It was quiet now.

Posted in Challenges

The River Chamo

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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They had spent three days camping by a lazy section of the Rio Chamo in New Mexico below Taos. Leslie and Bill had brought their raft with them. After much reading, they decided that this section of river was suitable for novices. After getting the raft ready and in the river, along with their gear, they climbed aboard.

It was smooth going at first. They knew how to paddle. As the river took a turn, the water got rougher. Bill yelled his concern to Leslie but she wanted to keep going.

They saw the rocky dropoff ahead, but it was too late. The raft flew up in the air and so did Leslie and Bill. They both landed on the bank, unharmed. As they sat up, trembling with shock, Bill quietly told Leslie to turn around slowly.

There sat a large black bear staring at them.

Posted in Fiction

The Old Man by the Sea

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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The old man stood on the pier. He was there at high tide. He was there at low tide. He particularly liked to be there at sunset. He seemed to know everyone and everyone seemed to know him. If you walked by him on the pier, you wouldn’t have found anything particularly physically special about this man. He was more than middle-aged. Animated in his physical movements. Tall in stature. He seemed to make an effort to meet most people who frequented the pier.

Joy began to talk to him about the manatees in the water. He heard her mention them and pointed out the spot to her where she might see them. He was amusing and both she and Glen enjoyed talking with him. She felt like he was doing stand-up comedy. Finally, Glen went off to talk with one of the fishermen on the pier. Joy enjoyed speaking to the old man. She sought out intellectual conversations whenever the opportunity arose. He certainly fulfilled that need for her. At first, she snapped pictures of the beautiful sunset as they talked.

He was the kind of person you felt like you had known forever. You wished you had known him forever. He was wise. Kind. One of Joy’s first impressions was that his eyes seemed to look right through her, right to her heart and soul. She found that interesting, but disconcerting. They talked a bit about their work and each downplayed what they had done in their past life, before retirement. She still did not know exactly what the old man did in his former life. He learned a bit more about her, but not specifics. Somehow, those things didn’t seem important when they were talking. They talked about deeper things, although they kept it lighthearted in tone.

The sun set and the old man told her about some of the creatures of the night that came to the pier. The night heron who tried to steal the fisherman’s catch. The great egret who stood at the far end of the pier and watched the action. The manatees. The dolphins. Joy felt that he had so much more to share with her that they could talk forever.

The old man introduced her to many people who came to the pier and told her about them. What they did, who they were, how they fit in his life. She had never really met anyone like him. Joy’s career had been almost exclusively male-dominated. She had not only worked mostly with men, but had male friends, all her life. She enjoyed the company of men, often more than women. She was comfortable.

Joy found herself drawn to this man of the sea, drawn to his interesting observations about life. She liked to listen to him and would have liked to talk with him more, but there was no opportunity.

One day she went to the pier at high tide. Her worst fear had come true. The old man  wasn’t there. She went back at low tide, then at sunset. No sign of him. She repeated that pattern for many days. She felt a deep sense of loss. Maybe someday he’ll be back, she thought.

It had been a long time since Joy had let anyone close in any way. The old man of the sea had touched her soul. She didn’t even know his name.

Copyright Rosemary Carlson 2017

*Photo Credit to Last Door Down the Hall Blog

Posted in Fiction

Poverty or Plenty

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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It was important to Rita that she have a career. More important than anything. She married, but neither she nor her husband wanted children. She wanted her offspring to be the lives she touched as a professional woman. It was the late 1970s.

Rita decided on a career path. One that was going to be difficult because it was typically a man’s world. She didn’t buy that. If she studied hard, worked harder, she knew that she could do it. She could compete with men. She could certainly work with men. She was up for that challenge. Not only would this career path be fulfilling for her as a professional, but it would provide her with financial security. Financial security was important to Rita. She had never had much of that growing up.

Rita went to college, then to graduate school. She succeeded in obtaining the credentials she needed to pursue her desired career. She went after a job. She was highly sought after because she was a woman. It was now the early 1980s and companies were seeking diversity in their workforce.

Rita worked very hard, accomplishing as much as two men. Companies still discriminated back then. She was never paid as much as men doing comparable jobs. She stil worked hard. She was able to have a home, cars, clothes, travel, and all the things she thought she wanted. Best of all, she was able to buy them with money she had earned. She didn’t have to depend on any one else.

She didn’t regret her decision regarding not having children. She’d never been taught domestic skills growing up. Never been encouraged to be a mother. She wouldn’t have known how. Outside of her work, she developed many other interests and a plethora of friends. She had a lot of skills, both in her vocation and as avocations.

As Rita got older and started thinking about retirement, she realized that she didn’t really want to retire. After all, what would she do with no family? She had already traveled around a big part of the world, at least the part she wanted to see. She had known for some time that her home didn’t really give her pleasure. Rita had been taught to take pleasure in “things.” Beautiful, expensive things, but they were still just things. She had a house full of these beautiful and expensive things that meant nothing to her. They carried sad memories. Memories of loved ones who were long gone. She hated looking at these things. They simply signified the loss of the family she had loved.

Rita had “plenty.” But, plenty of what? Material things? Sadness?

Then Rita experienced a crisis in her life. A traumatic experience that made her question everything about her life. Her home reminded her of that crisis. She felt that she needed time away from it. She decided to take another trip, this time to a place she had always loved but where she had not visited in some time. A very different place from her home. Somewhere she felt she could recover from the traumatic event that had occurred in her life.

Something happened while Rita was on her trip to the place where she felt she could recover from her tragedy. Rita realized what she needed in her life and it was not the “plenty” she had at her home. It wasn’t the big house, the nice cars, the beautiful clothes, and all the largesse that goes with it. She realized those things were causing a poverty of her spirit. Putting her energy into taking care of such things was the wrong thing for Rita to do. Instead, she needed time to live simply, in a simple place, with like-minded people. After that revelation came to her, she didn’t care about her home again.

Rita realized she couldn’t live any longer with the poverty her spirit felt. She had to leave the people and places that made her feel inadequate and stressed. She had to leave the house where she had plenty, but where she really lived in poverty, and the house that stole her time. She had to run, as fast and hard as she could, toward the place and the people who made her feel young again, strong again, smart again. She had to do it quickly because she was in the last quarter, the last quarter of her life.

She would take with her the people from the “before” life who she loved and who loved her and who made her feel strong. She would leave all the others behind. She would embrace the new place, the magical place. She would make this last quarter of  her life the quarter of “plenty,” not poverty of spirit, and finally be happy.