A quote: “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” ~~ Plato
I’ll start with a story …
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“There’ll be trick-or-treaters?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Kids today just seem too sophisticated for it anymore.”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is jaded.”
“Oh. That. It’s just not like the old days.”
“Dearheart, today is never like the old days. That’s why they’re called The Old Days.”
“Hummph …”
“Look! A smile! Now don’t shake that shaggy grey head at me …”
“Sweetheart, you know me … way too well.”
“As luck would have it, there’s a gorgeous harvest moon tonight.”
They dropped to all fours and bounded out the door, his heart swelling with how much he loved her.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, Adobe Stock, standard license
Cameron says: I stopped at the end of the driveway and shook the kids awake. “Come on; we’re here.”
My daughter came out first, sullen expression in place. “Why did we come out to BF Nowhere?”
I understood her frustration. It was a long drive and I hadn’t stopped for food. “Bunny, we came out here for two reasons. First the view-” She followed my arm and her mouth gaped open despite herself.
“And the other reason?”
We could just hear the explosions in the distance. “Because that was where we lived. Get your brother inside and I’ll get the heat going.”
Fletch says: That fence marks the line. When I was a boy there were no fence, but there’s always been the line. For as long as I can remember there’s been a line.
Raise your muskets boys. Protect the homeland. Nothing comes across. Keep ready, keep vigilant, do your duty.
Some of them are small, the size of a mouse in the grass. Some of them are large, like a hill walking, and all of them are wild magic that seeps into your skin to change you from the inside out. When I was a boy one got through, filled a whole village with madness.
Watch the line boys. Be vigilant. Do your duty.
BlogDog says: “It’s always the Sunken Lane that grips memory without surcease.” he said with a slight shake of his head. “Can you imagine the dead and dying then as you look at this fence line Here you’ve never seen before? Or is it just the angle of the late October evening sun that fills your spirit?”
He was so close to right that I could hardly credit my own father, author of my childhood and lord of my learning, as being so damnably poetic when I knew he was at the point of the unraveling of the skein of his life. “Dad” I said, “all I can think of is late roses filled with early snow.”
The old man coughed. “…so I discovered the three keys to controlling society. First: a platform. Second, a vision. Third, fear. Fear: the glue that binds society, makes it manipulable.”
The truck bounced, my prisoner’s leg irons rattled.
“I had one, two. But the climate tribunals of ’23 revealed my mistake. We’d supposed fear was universal. The outrage over the denialists’ fate… the revolt after the power cuts. Unanticipated.”
I smiled.
“Even you are not fearful. I was powerful. But did you fear me even then? Did I ever really have power?”
The truck halted.
“Arrived, eh? Let’s finish it.”
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