A Rocky Beginning (Master Class 2014)

Master Class 2014 - 2014-02-07

Professor SAM put out a line that Kelly Garriot Waite chose from the novel The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner. It's easy to spot in the following short. This is my first time in this Master Class as a writer, most of the time in class I spend as a voyeur. ;-)

Stolen from Professor SAM's Blog

 

A Rocky Beginning

Snow fell like fluffy feathers, their refulgence added to the surrealistic scene that surrounded him. Though it was near fourteen degrees, it felt warm where he stood. He wanted to dance, and would have if he thought it would not wake the dead. He watched, with intensity as he realized that the rules that had been drilled into his head by the sandpapered hands of his father faded quickly against the seclusion of a wintery background.

He was supposed to be sad, everything about the day told him that it was what was expected of him, to be sad; instead, he felt lighter this morning, like the wings of an angel had grown from the blades in his shoulder to lift him from the dreary scene his mortal body recognized, to another place.

Obligations were like boulders that rolled over his smile. He had signed up for this, pressed his name into the pages of time that demanded he oblige them.

He was the only one left to fulfill that contract and try to justify the labor and the harshness and the mistakes of his parent's lives, and that responsibility was so clearly his, was so great an obligation, that it made unimportant and unreal the sight of the motley collection of pall-bearers staggering under the weight of his father’s body, and the back door of the hearse closing quietly upon the casket and the flowers (Wallace Stegner).

If they could hear what he was thinking, they would stone him on the spot. There was no remorse within him, no pain to reconcile, no guilt.  Freedom had replaced the undeniable expectations with a new design. He set the paintbrush down on a long wooden bench and stood back to examine the work he had created.

"Permanent ink could have done no better with the details," he said aloud, as the quiet motor of his cat, Gracy, got louder beneath the stroke of his hand.

His life shifted, and he was certain the skies would open and thunder would shake him senseless; instead, a small ray of sunlight crossed the path outside his window, shimmering with a promise for a thaw, soon.

Images used in this blog are either mine or come from Morguefiles unless indicated otherwise.