One Tiny Window

9 Responses

1. Si, Vero!

2. Tutti giorni che rimaste sono troppo breve per rimpianti…

3. I will happily be merciful. My thought is that encouragement is a far better learning environment that long lists of what one is doing wrong. Plan to enjoy yourself.

   I am grieving. I always thought John and I would reconnect someday. Life is short.

4. Ann,
   The last time I was there he reminded me that we had set up a pool in Shimer on who was going to be the first to go – something I vaguely do remember. He told me he had my name and it looked like he was going to lose. Since we couldn’t choose our own name, by process of elimination I owe Larry a case of beer.

   Sorry to tell you this way. He would have wanted you to know.

   Thanks for the comment on my writing – I have enrolled in your Beginners Class starting in mid-July. Be merciful – the last time I took a class from a friend (Tennis at Shimer) Larry flunked me.

   Take care,

   Ken M.

5. Hello Ken,
   Fine writing! It’s full of emotion and thoughts and grief. Do tell me if this is someone we both knew. The part about the beer gave me a turn. Damn, we’re getting old. Your friend, Ann

6. I have a little window in my room. It opens on to the back corner of our yard. Like a streaming TV, it displays the progression of my days. Sunrise, sunset, spring, fall, rain, sun, and snow follow in sequence. But it can’t rewind. I can’t watch this morning’s sunrise when I oversleep, nor can I see see the how the yard looked last week or last year or before I lived here.

   I have another little window for that. It’s the viewfinder of an ancient camera. In that window I can frame the moment, focus it to clarity and, with the touch of a button, mechanically capture it for all eternity on a strip of plastic. It becomes a special window into the past – a window I can use to revisit moments seen through it whenever I choose.

   It was a cloudy, cool, early spring day. The woods said it was winter but the camera’s little window captured green in the grass and the trees dusted with the promise of leaves. I was there for just three days. On the last day he took me to a spot – a unnamed sharp waterfall on the Little Garlic River just beyond the edge of his property. He told me it was his favorite spot. He had rigged a bench there – just a board precariously balanced on two rocks overlooking the steepest drop. Even with his cane he was nimble getting out there. Too shaky a seat for me, I took out my camera and began wandering, freezing moments in that space in my little window.

   We all knew he was going to die, he shared that with us as casually as discussing the weather. But it wasn’t going to be soon they said – maybe 12 months, maybe 24. There was another visit planned and maybe another beyond that. In any case I already had dozens of frozen moments of him captured over almost fifty years. But I wanted one more picture, somehow knowing, unconsciously, that it would be the last. I focused on him in my little window two or three times, but each time, just as I pushed the shutter release, he’d pick up his beer and take a long draw on it. It was like he knew my photographic rhythm.

   I finally gave up and sat next to him on the bench. I told him I’d been trying to get a picture of him but all I got each time was him drinking his beer. He leaned over to me and, in the hoarse whisper that was now his voice, he said “I know – that was the picture I wanted you to get…”.

   He died two weeks later.

   The window in my room is indifferent to passings. It maintains its regular rhythm as it will, I’m sure, long after I am gone. But in my little photographic window he will forever be frozen in time just how he wanted to be remembered– at his favorite spot in the woods on a cool spring day, with friends, his family safe at home, drinking an ice cold beer.

7. Saved at last! Looks like you’re still in good form, Peanut. I’m glad to hear it. Always good to read your stuff.

8. very funny, peanutberanski.:))

9. Many hours had passed since Ramon had heard any sign of life outside the silo, therefore his hopes of being rescued continued to dwindle. Although the occasional swig of the malt scotch did manage to keep his thirst somewhat at bay, the medicinal properties of the elixir were failing in light of the challenge. His thoughts turned to all the dastardly deeds he had committed in his ill spent youth; the women he chased, the card games where he was less than honest, and the many times that he broke his sainted mother’s heart. If he only had a chance at redemption, Ramon knew he could make something of his pointless life.

   A loud scraping and pecking noise at the tiny window jarred Ramon from his deep sleep. Could it be possible? Had someone discovered that he was trapped inside and was coming to his rescue? Who on earth could this lifesaver be? Ramon climbed on a box under the tiny window and saw the outline of two men, who were working to open the portal.

   They worked on the stubborn paint and crusty sashes for almost an hour until finally it opened. Ramon was overjoyed at their presence and the prospect of being set free until he heard their greeting.

   “Hi my name is John and this is my brother James. We are from the Church of Jesus Christ of The Latter Day Saints and we want to know if you have been saved? Can we come in and talk to you awhile?”