Changed the intro a little, added some more. I've been too busy to really write much, plus I procrastinate. But I've got a dead line, so I've gotta press on.
By quarter past five most of Jack's relatives had gone; the few that remained milled about the kitchen with red, disposable cups in hand, talking sporadically about events not related to their gathering. To Jack, their faces had become as interchangeable as their austere attire; simply lumps of tepid, liver spot ridden flesh piloting graying suits and dust imbued church dresses. The smell of homemade food leaked out from beneath tinfoil sealed Tupperware, mingled with the odor of mold and Lysol, and seeped, inescapably, into his clothing. He sat on a couch in the living room, away from the noise, and scratched at the fabric with his fingernail. The sun was setting and light shone through the venetian blinds, illuminating strips of decaying floral print wallpaper. He hadn't known the octogenarian whose passing brought him here, at the behest of his mother; nor did he know the vestigial branches of the extended family tree which gathered in apathetic mourning. He hated them; their creased and graying flesh crept, like fungus, into his mind. He saw himself become like them, all life and opportunity slowly decaying, flesh and time melting away.
“I'm going for a walk.” Jack called toward the kitchen.
They said nothing back, and he slipped out the side door and into the early evening. The sun hung on a pastel horizon, and leafless trees stretched darkened arms outward, jagged black fractures in the peach colored sky. Rain soaked leaves blanketed the yards along the road, their damp, rotten smell mingling with the sweet smoke of some far off, unseen chimney. He walked toward a great shadow on the horizon: the silhouette of (still needs a name) elementary. The cracked sidewalk, dandelions bursting from its fissures (as they always had), was familiar to him, as was all that surrounded it. Everything around him resonated with a time now quite distant, washed in an amber haze of childhood mysticism, their past incarnations growing ever grander as time progressed.
Half way up the street was the Clark's tree house, a ramshackle thing of warped wood and scavenged nails, which had played host to childhood fantasy in his early years and surreptitious rendezvous with Michelle Clark in the latter. He remembered its creation only vaguely, a series of uncertain images of wood and nails, sensations vertigo, and the acrid smell of carpenter’s glue, all suspended in the syrup thick heat of an august week. At first occupied only by himself and Michelle, it's membership quickly swelled to include Michelle's brother Jim, Tommy Malone from down the street, and Michael Brooks from two blocks over.
It became a place of escapism, a haven from parents, siblings and school, where the opium of untainted imagination could be used without interruption. Worlds were crafted and destroyed on a daily basis; a simple wooden box became the decks of a pirate's galleon, the innards of a submarine, the cockpit of a chrome starship, the cramped confines of a ball-gunner's chair, or anything else which they deemed fit. But they grew older, and the world grew ever more concrete, they succumbed to cruder drugs: comic books and magazines gathered in the corners, and a used, black and white, portable, crank powered television took an honored place on a plastic crate throne. Drive throughs, drive-ins, living room sofas and after school clubs took their toll, until only he and Michelle remained. They spent their last childhood nights there, trying to rekindle the remnant magic of that place; but wood was wood, and it could be nothing else anymore.
He could see the Clark's tree down the street. It was smaller then he remembered, its lower limbs only a few feet from the ground; he wondered how he could have been afraid of those heights. Its branches were nearly empty, only a few graying planks and rusted nails remained cradled in its boughs. It was a different place now, far removed from the grandeur of his memories. The life it once had, the familiarity that used to seep from every board, was gone. The pleasant phantoms of his past no longer played amongst its branches; the tree wasn't his anymore.
He passed the tree without stopping and continued down the road toward the end of the cul-de-sac. He shivered, it was colder then he remembered, and his rented suit did nothing to protect him. He cursed whatever cheap synthetic had been used to make it and breathed into his hands before rubbing feeling back into the skin.
At the end of the street was Tommy's house, a two story construct of pseudo-Victorian inspiration,which exuded an air less of old world sophistication and more of artistic bankruptcy. The interior --as he remembered it--was much the same. Despite their relative poverty, Tommy's mother always tired to maintain an aura of affluence: the rugs, banisters, and mantlepiece were adorned with complex, interwoven designs, the chandeliers and lamps dripped with plastic crystal, oil paintings of amateur creation coated the walls, and cabinets and armoires, crafted from a plasticine facsimile of wood and stained an opaque formaldehyde brown, huddled in the corners of every room. It seemed an ill-conceived film set, a collection of props hastily assembled to create a paper thin feeling of sophistication. Miss Malone had always glared him with barely contained anxiety, chirping “You mustn’t touch, dear” as his eyes wandered across the pristinely false contents of her home.
The backyard was unfenced and open to the woods beyond it; every spring, when the weather got warm, they'd pitch a tent and spend their nights at the treeline, eating uncooked s'mores –Miss Malone wouldn't let them make a fire – and listening to the crickets. Tommy said it was his father's tent, that he'd gotten it in Vietnam and given it to Tommy before he'd left again. Jack knew Miss Malone had bought it from a camping store in town, but he never said anything. While there was still sunlight, they'd play in the woods with Michelle, Jim, and Michael; tag, hide and seek—Jim would hide in the trees and be too afraid to climb down—mock wars with stick rifles and dirt clod grenades. At night, they'd huddle in glow of an upturned maglight and make fantasy addled predictions about what the future held. During those nights, the world was infinitely mutable: becoming an astronaut, or policeman, or fireman, or soldier, or doctor, or a teacher, or football player, or even the President, was easy; endless opportunity, devoid of challenge or setbacks. There was a certainty in it, they would become what they wanted, because they wanted it. Nothing could be simpler.
He stopped outside Tommy's house—It was white now, it used to be blue—and stared up at the second story windows. Miss Malone used to watched them from those windows, a back lit silhouette against frosted glass, before she left to work at night. The windows were dark. A fence enclosed the backyard and severed it from the woods. He felt guilty, in a way, as though he has perpetrated some sort of great betrayal. He wasn't a doctor, or an astronaut, or soldier, or any of the things they'd promised to be; being those things was hard now and there was no certainty left.
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Topic: I need some feedback on something. (Read 930 times)