Cobble Creek
short stories and poetry based on the human experience
short stories and poetry based on the human experience
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Today, I walked knee-deep
in a cobble creek moving slowly on unseen stones to keep from hurting my tender feet. And learned my calm to keep for my aging dad and his slow, cautious feet. copyright 2002 and 2009 by Robert M. Weir illustrations by Marlene (Miller) Weir published 2002 and 2009 by Press On Publishing, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA ISBN 0-9717491-0-8 $9.95 US + $5.00 shipping & handling Click here to purchase ______________________________________ The boy often went to his room early, before bedtime, because he wanted to be alone, to invent games he could play only in his head.
He had built the blue-gray wooden model of a PT boat that stood on its cradle on a small wooden box in which he kept his underwear. The boat was almost two feet long, just right for his 12-year-old hands. he would pull out two D-cell batteries that he kept in the box, lift the deck to expose the insides, and set the batteries in their twin slots. Then he would flip the switch, watch the prop spin, hear it whisper whir, and pretend he was JFK winning the war in the Pacific. Sometimes, he would lie on his back on the bed. With his left hand, he would touch the blue-and-orange Detroit Tiger pennant that hung on the wall. He would hold a baseball in his right hand, turning it slowly, running his fingertips along the seams, and imagine he was Al Kaline, throwing a runner out at the plate or driving in the winning run with two out in the bottom of the ninth. He would lie there, smelling -- almost tasting -- the dust that collected in featherweight clusters on the barren hardwood floor under his bed and which, sometimes, made him sneeze. He was aware of his weight on the mattress and knew that if he moved too much the springs would squeak and others would wonder what he was up to. So he would lie motionless and look around the room, painted in baby boy blue and barely large enough for the length and width of the twin bed. He would look at the boat on his right, at the pennant on his left, and beyond his feet at the small closet, not built into the wall but a construction afterthought with no clothes bar and no hangers. His clothes were inside -- a jacket, two white T-shirts, and an extra pair of blue jeans -- hanging on three nails, one on each wall. He couldn't see them, but they were there, waiting behind a faded cotton cloth that hung from a straightened hanger stretched between two more nails across the top of the closet opening. With his eyes, he would follow the dark wire back and forth, a wavy, imperfect pattern, like a road that goes from there to here. He would reach his hands above his head, wrap his fingers around the stiles of the iron headboard, and believe that, if given half a chance, he would come up with something better. And that's when he would move to the corner of the bed, where the headboard partially blocked access to the only window in the room. He would curl his knees and sit on his haunches. He would raise the frame, prop it open with a cribbage board made from a mill scab of tree bark, and feel the northern breeze stir across his knees, up his legs, and under his shirttail. He would look through the glass and screen and dust and dirt at two highways that crossed each other on the other side of an open field a half mile away. He would hear cars and semis and see lights flashing above the intersection, yellow and red. On which road would five -- or fifty -- cars go straight through the intersection first? He would keep track on his fingers, bending them inward so the tips touched his palms: left hand for the north-south road, right hand for the east-west. Which road would have more eighteen-wheelers while he counted slowly to one thousand? Which would have the first convertible in which he could hitch a ride? And which way would it take him? |
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