SELECTED SHORT WORKS

AuthorHouse

Contents

"EMBERS" A short paper about the life of my maternal Grandfather, Edward M. Robbins, who died at the age of 94 in his little tin house on the Blackwater river in Milton, Florida. Written in about 1960......................................................................................................................1"THE REUNION" A short story about the sweetness of young romance, it's loss, and the dream to recover it. Written in about 1983...............................................................................................................................................................................................4A BRIEF RETURN Simple, perhaps poetic little thoughts on childhood lost. Written in about 1960................................................................................................................................................................................................................................16TALE OF THE HUMMINGOPOTOMUS short-story, although a long one, and a comical approach to adult fantasy. Written in June, 1989..................................................................................................................................................................................................17SPECULATION A single philosophical verse on the meaning of life. About 1959...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................18"THE CONDITIONING" A short story of philosophical science fiction. Based on a dream I had when I attended the University of West Florida. It was turned in for an assignment in Creative Writing. Written in about 1971.......................................................................................................19SUCH FOOLISHNESS TO LIVE IN PAIN This is a Shakesperian sonnet which won considerable attention from the professor who demanded it of me. It was written to satisfy one of the requirements of an English Literature course taken during my sophomore year, Pensacola Junior College, approximately 1961......................29

Chapter One

The old man was alone. His white hair amber in the orange glow of burning oak, shadows dancing across the wrinkles of his face, he seemed almost young again. His gray, limpid eyes gazed into the threads of fire crawling like worms among the coals, but he was seeing only the past. The past was his present now. The future now was only a cold challange for the young. Now, for the old man, there was only remembering and waiting. As he rocked back and forth on the naked concrete floor with slow subtle movement, the methodical creaking of his wooden chair joined the tapping of his shoes to create a curious rhythm.

"Tap, creak, tap, creak, tap, creak", went the rhythm like the pendulum of a clock. It was not a cold night. He might have simply worn a wrap for his comfort, but the fire was his warmth and his company.

"Tap, creak, tap creak." Hypnotically away before the busy, popping fire, his mind shuttered back through time nearly ninety years to the place of his childhood home in Alabama. Burning logs in the fireplace were transformed into his father's barn, set ablaze by Sherman's troops while their rifles felled the livestock. Crops, in frantic wind chocked with smoke, burned to the dirt. And confused and frightened slaves suddenly found themselves free.

"Tap, creak, tap, creak, tap, creak", and time flickered forward. Once again he saw himself bouncing on the seat of the chuck wagon under a merciless sun, following a herd of horses across the endless plains of West Texas. Dusk was as welcome as a cool drink of spring water. The oncoming shadows dried sweaty shirts, and soothed tempers, and calmed restless herds, and gave pause to the discordant rhythms of men and horses and beef-cattle. But the men gathering at the open camp fire expected to be fed. They must be fed. Their harsh survival gave no favor to one who could not perform. No time could be spared for a man to heal from whatever it was that had struck him. No one could attend him. No one could care. A young man then, he had worked through his fever, slept wit his gun, survived by his will to live and was comforted only by the wail of a distant coyote and the strings of a lonely man's guitar.

"Tap, creak, tap creak", and time moved on.

A Comanche bow creaked softly, drawn by the tall sun-browned man. The arrow was away, the prey down, and pleased braves sent up a cheer from behind. This white man whom they had rescued from near death, whom they had taught their ways, had earned his place among them. He had liked it there. The two Indian children, a boy and a girl who had been at his side all the while, walked along behind as he rode out of their camp for the last time. He could still see their mute and tearless faces ... still feel what he had felt when he looked over his shoulder at the two tiny silhouettes standing together on the hill top.

"Tap, creak, tap, creak".

Suddenly shooting sparks in the fireplace came from the exhausts of mechanical haste. Carriages became sleek, cushioned, metallic things which needed no horses. Horses became internal combustion engines, birds became airplanes, buildings of wood became brick and concrete and steel which grew taller than the trees they replaced. Planets drew nearer, parts of the moon were put on display. The Earth nearer, parts of the moon were put on display. The Earth grew smaller, and people's lives became fabricated and devised. A simple man could no longer live form his land. One who had always survived by the strength of his character and the skill of his hands, must suddenly punch clocks and compete for green pieces of paper with which to feed his children and to clothe them and to educate them ... so that they too could punch clocks and compete.

"Tap, creak, tap ... creak ... tap...." Time rushed on for an old man who had become discarded, obsolete. Memories grew pointless and vague, as the plans and wastelands of the past slipped away becoming once again only a concrete floor. His wagon became a rocking chair. His bow and arrow became kindling. Sounds of the past were now lost in the hard rain which had come suddenly upon his tin roof. The fires of ten thousand nights were reduced to flickering shadows across a tired face. The "tap" of his shoes fell silent then, as his chair yielded a final sighing creak ... and an old man's head rested on his chest.

"THE REUNION" BY T. CAMMEL HILL

It was both strange and wonderful to be home. It had been a long time since my toes had felt the warm, soft sand of a nearly forgotten trail in the woods where breezes chuckled in dense mulberry leaves overhead and whispered among the brush. It had been too long since I had heard the chatter of mockingbirds, or the cawing of suspicious crows, or the shuffle in the leaves as a snake moved quickly into hiding.

It was too hot for such a long walk wearing a business suit and carrying a suitcase, but having no choice in the matter I wore my shoes slung over my shoulder tied together with their own strings, and carried my...