Years Past

Years Past

While I coax myself to write a rendition of years past, I sit staring at the blank sheet on my computer. I hit the tab key and start typing.  I turn up the heat of the furnace while reminiscing about the days I spent chopping wood and sawing it into neat woodstove size chunks.  Our faces are rosy. I rub my hip because one of the logs grazed me while my dad was throwing it in the back of the van. The rig had a long trailer attached to it. A trailer designed from the back of an old pick up. The hubs covering the tires were still a part of this splendid contrivance.  Atop of this contraption was a handmade roof shaped like a top of an ark. We worked liked mules as we prepared for winter. 

After these wood gathering ventures I would climb into a tub filled with scents of lavender to sooth my sore muscles.  My skin was still tan from the sun of the summer. I remember reading a story about man who lived in a hut by a subtropical bay.  He rolled the dice with his comrades as he gambled.   He noticed his cat scratching at her ear. Feeling his loses he stumbled, after a night of drinking, to his medicine cabinet to retrieve the cotton swabs. He checked his cat’s ears for mites by digging the tip of a cotton swab into her ear.  The cotton swab was inserted too far, the cat meowed loudly. The man was a sleuth and his cat was his mentor.

My mother returned from a shopping trip that day carrying less money than she departed with to cook up a wonderful stir fry and brown rice.  My dad asked, “Did you buy out the store?”  Mom laughs, waters the fern, and serves dinner.  After eating the fatted calf we would resign to a night of watching jeopardy. 

During the evening hours after a long hardy day of labor we often made a hearty cup of hot chocolate topped off with a sprig of mint to ward off the germs of the season.  We would indulge in chips with French onion dip, our favorite. 

                My father died in January 2005 leaving my mother to spend her time in their home wrestling with loneliness.  I recently visited with her reminiscing of pass remembrances.

By Sharon Brunner

Note:  This story was written by using the words that were derived from playing an UP Words game (a game similar to scrabble).  Play scrabble and use the words to write a short story. I challenge anyone reading this short story to do so.