"TALES FROM THE ASHES ARCHIVES"

Volume One...Issue Seven...September 1, 2000

Published by "The Wizard of Odd"

-REVERIES FROM A PARK BENCH-

(-All items are the sole property of Wayne Brown. Use of my properties without my express written consent, is against the law!-)

"NAVIGATION BUTTONS"

POETRY.....GAMES.....SPONSORS.....COPYRIGHT INDICIA

"TIS A QUIET DAY IN THE PARK"

by Wayne Brown October 1984

(Copyright Š1984)

The leaves, brown and orange, yellow and gold and yes, some still slightly tinged with the faintest kiss of green...parched and curled and brittle with a dying thirst, yet not quite ready to enjoin the dust. Some maple, some oak, some elm, or birch, or locust...some ash and beech and poplar...all lying helplessly beneath the essence of their respective lives. A cold, impenitent wind plays havoc with their vain attempts toward survival. They rustle aimlessly across near-frozen earth, falling with nearly imperceptible sound. I watch their dying colors. I feel no regret, no remorse...nothing, except the cold sting of the wind upon my weathered cheek. Why should I?...They'll be back in the Spring.

A drop of mucous escapes my nose. I swipe it away with the worn, woolen scarf, which protects my neck. It suddenly occurs to me that I haven't shaved in at least four days...or was it five? A sniffle, and then another; I can smell the fresh decay of late October. To my left a vision snares my eye...

...Glynnis DelCiento. I haven't seen her in years. When first I had met her, I was besieged by her incredible lust for life. It seemed that no experience, no experiment was beyond her curious bravado. Perhaps that was why she had jumped so willingly into our relationship. She was the first woman I had ever made love with. Oh, I wasn't actually a virgin, but Glynnis made you feel like you were starting all over again. Yeah, she was a beauty, too. Long, dark-brown tresses as straight and glistening as flowing spring water. Eyes as bright and penetrating as the full moon on a clear summers' eve, and lips as lush and succulent as a ripened peach. She had an incredible vivacity...and it was contagious. I treasure her memory. Before I had met Glynnis, I had never felt so complete, so alive...so real. Our relationship affected me deeply. With her help, I was able to climb from the pits of depression, place a ninety proof bottle of bourbon into its proper perspective, and begin writing again. She was the love of my life and I would never forget her. Sadly, my jealous nature and tremendous dependency upon her, eventually led to a tumultuous break-up. The last I had heard of her caused me great grief. She had been a passenger on an ill-fated 707. The plane had been lost somewhere in the Canadian Rockies, apparently as a result of some fanatical terrorist organization's bid to secure attention. There were no survivors.

I see her now walking briskly through the scattering leaves. She looks much as she did when last I saw her. Her hair billows in the wind, joined by her flapping scarf and skirt. She does not see me as I sit here with incredulous gratification. As much as I would like to, I do not call out to her. She is a closed chapter in my life, and I cannot bear to re-read it. She continues to walk, unconscious of my presence, until she is once again beyond my vision.

I sit casually upon the wooden park bench with it's hand-carved graffiti and testaments of love, slowly fading from the erosion of the seasons and their respective weatherings. I drum my fingers in an abandoned staccato against chipped and graying paint, staring off into the oblivion of the moment. A sneeze begins to well within me. The demons escape and mingle with the air. Gesundheit! I wipe the spittle from reddened, chapped lips upon my tattered sleeve. From the corner of my eye, I see another walking figure. He is almost immediately as familiar as the first...

...Charles Arthur Brown...my father. I seldom saw him as a child. He was always working. While the other kids were going to ball games and eating steaming frankfurters smothered in dark-brown mustard, with fathers who had the good fortune of normal nine-to-five, Monday through Friday vocations...My father would be putting in extra hours at the dude ranch (He was the General Manager.), in order to convince himself that those dreams he held for his two sons would become reality. There were times that my brother and I would not see him for as long as two, or three weeks. Our mother soon fell out of love with him and her unhappiness frequently came to bear upon her relationship with my brother and I.

Glenn and I grew quickly and firmly with a perhaps too strong penchant for independence, and a multitude of emotional scars, which in later years festered and surfaced as various forms of anxiety and instability. We did however, survive those tempestuous years and eventually grew to accept and cherish our misbegotten parents despite their fallacies. In those later years, my father and I grew particularly close. I was filled with curiosity about his past and wanted desperately to understand this man, whom I barely knew. Time was of the essence, however. My father was slowly trying to kill himself with excessive drinking, smoking, and a total disregard for his general health and nutrition. Oh, he had seemed all right at first, but soon the constant binges and enforced starvation began to tell on him. The mind was the first part of him to sink into decadence. The tales of his adolescent heroics that had made him seem larger than life, soon began to dwindle into myths and biblical fables. His inability to cope with those things present soon began to drift him into the world of his distorted past, and soon the father whom I felt I had only recently found, became lost to me once more.

Now, here he was again...as big as life...walking dejectedly amongst the dying leaves. Sullen, graying, emaciated...a walking dead man...as he should be. My brother and I had buried him over two months ago...

...(Where am I?...What's happening to me?...Why are these people coming back to haunt me?...Who am I?...What am I?)...

...Clinton Avery Winston II. My God, it seems a century since I last saw him. He still looks much the same. The large Roman nose (...always his most prominent physical characteristic, and the subject of many good-natured jibes...), the disheveled auburn hair and beard (...Nordic in its ferocity and myth...), and the ever-present cynicism expressed by his very manner. Even his stride seems to exude the vehement sarcasm of the man. Fortunately for "Clint", this has never been a negative characteristic. He is, as always, a mammoth of a man. At times in our friendship, he seemed like a god to me. Other times, he was my elder brother and still later, my confidant...and I was his. I idolized him...his strength, his charm, his insight and his tolerance. He was the man I'd always wished to be. Creative, intelligent, roguish, he was always the center of attraction. When last I had seen him (...after an absence on my part of several years...), he had been subdued, quiet, reserved...conquered by the tenets of complacency. He had entered the world of adulthood and juvenile deception with the strength of a bull. Armed and ready to conquer the beast with his individuality, but met instead by an incalculable foe, far beyond his wildest speculations...and nightmares. When last we had spoke, I felt pity for him. He was no longer the god that I had loved and admired...and he knew it.

Once again he walks before me, at least partially the god I remembered. Perhaps it is because he now walks with them. The rock of cancer did finally become more than even good Sisyphus could bear...

...He goes the way of the others. Wandering aimlessly through this long-forgotten netherworld, shuffling through the soft crackle of brittle leaves. No glance in my direction, no glimmer, no recognition, nor recollection...Memory is forgotten...

...The sun though bright, does little to warm the caress of the relentless wind. Her rays do little to inhibit the tickle, tease and jostle of the impenitent gusts, save accent the fading colors of the rustling, crumbling leaves. The tall, majestic sentinels peer down at their now-lost keep with minimal regret. Their denuded arms reach starward in a gesture of futility. No remorse...Afterall, they'll be back in the spring...

...A child comes up to me, kicking playfully at the many-colored leaves. He is of that age when it is difficult to tell whether he is seven, or eleven. He smiles at me with curious and loving eyes. It suddenly occurs to me that he looks like the pictures, my mother had of me when I was that age. Strangely enough, he is even wearing my old sweatshirt with the Batman insignia silk-screened slightly off-center on the chest. The shirt has started to fade from too many washings with too much bleach. Of course, maybe I just wore it too much...

"Hiya, Pops! Whatcha doin'?" He speaks brightly with the careless bravado of the young.

I look at him bemused and with fondness. He is me. Full of curiosity and wonder...unafraid of a potentially dangerous world...untainted by the paranoia of adulthood...unsullied by the guilt and sins prefabricated by our traditions, and indoctrinated into us throughout our short adolescence.

"Well son, I'm just enjoying the scenery!" I chuckle and smile and reach for his shoulder, but before I can catch him, he runs off skipping and whistling. He is gone in the merest blink of an eye. I look sadly at the ground. I would have liked to have known him better. A solitary tear trickles down my cheek.

The afternoon flows on with the wind. Trickling, and tickling rays of sunlight, stirring memories of now and forever-lost summer days. The hard, wooden park bench carves dull aches and cramps into my chilled muscles. Yet still I maintain my vigil...there is something else...

...Singing...Coming from the direction in which my other visitors have departed. I can't quite place the tune and the singer has trouble keeping the notes in harmony. I can't quite see the source of the music for her visage is obscured by a slight grove of saplings, but somehow I know that she is beautiful, and doesn't fit into this day's scenario. I watch for her with anticipation...

...She is utterly breathtaking! She glides seductively towards me on clouds of sable. Her singing metamorphs into velvet tones from a golden harp. She is a vision...She is Dame Siren...She is Aphrodite. Although she floats effortlessly against the wind, her hair and sheer garments billow before her, as if the wind comes from the other way. Her voice enchants me...Her beauty petrifies me...I have seen her before.

She is gifted with long golden tresses and equally long and voluptuous legs, exposed intermittently by the wafting of her diaphanous gown. She taunts me with brief glimpses of her finely tanned skin...Plump, firm breasts tipped with rose petals tease me with unfulfilled promise. Her volcanic sensuality elicits lust from my mouth and loins. She beckons to me with pursed, moist lips and flickering tongue, but as she does in all of my dreams, she keeps her distance. I am tempted to follow her, but I find myself frozen on the bench. Struggle as I may, I cannot move. My frustration mounts, my anger increases, but still I have no recourse.

I sit helplessly as the temptress glides further beyond my vision, and out of my presence. As my eyes lose touch with her, the singing again becomes crude and disjointed, until finally fading completely into the droning of the wind. I am suddenly released from my paralysis, and I wonder if perhaps it was not self-induced.

I sit puzzled on the bench, a cold sweat beading upon my wrinkled brow. I ask myself again, "What is happening to me?...Where am I?...Why?"

The day is slowly coming to an end. I can feel it. I can smell it. I can taste it. The sounds of the leaves rustling, begins to abate with the encroaching dusk. The sun's rays now dim and dull. Their faltering refractions change orange, yellow, red, and green into browns, and ochers, and grays. The sheen is going...No more sparkle, no more shine...

...A final figure crawls from whence Aphrodite departed. He struggles pathetically through the leaves, and across the cold earth. He does make way, slowly, relentlessly with grave determination. Inch by inch, foot by foot, year by year, he slides, gropes, claws, and crawls for every precious yard. I can see by his weather-worn face that he is weary and sore. Yet, still he struggles.

He has progressed halfway across my panorama, and I wonder at his persistence. I didn't recognize him at first, but now I know him for who, and what he is. I turn my head and lay down slowly on the bench with a slight chuckle and a smile. I pull the rain-soaked pages of the voluminous Sunday paper over my wind-chilled body, shifting my aching bones and muscles to find optimum comfort. I close my weary eyes. The crawler, the struggling man, is no longer important to me. I know he'll never reach the other side. I know it for a fact. He'll be dead on Tuesday at 2:14 AM and there's nothing he can do about it...

...Snowflakes dance lightly upon discarded, brittle leaves. The first drops melt with the touch of faltering warmth, but soon the encompassing onslaught, the infinite combinations of flakes all striving for recognition, finally, totally envelope and drown what remains of the yellow, orange, red, and green...Setting forth decay and oblivion...breaking down the once-life into rot...Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...tearing the beauty, the grace, the breath from dying life...Leaving nothing for testimonial, no epitaph...nothing but infinity...But why regret?...Why remorse?...They'll be back in the Spring...

-The End-

(I have made some minor grammatical changes to the original MS. -Wayne Brown)