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Diversion 3 - Momentum Impounded


J Hill

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...despite an obvious lack of any sort of demand, with gratiude in advance, I promise this will be my last topic started here with this subject, for now.

Thanks forever for the indulgence.

A Complete Study On the Design and Construction of Culverts in America

chapter 3

.................STAYED....................

He stays behind. The river was rising. A flood was coming. Other's are leaving. The work had to be done. Hasty and incomplete, certainly, but plans had been made. Made, no less than, by those in Nuham who professed to know best, and were good at sending others to danger while safely out of harm's way. They called his name to take a shovel. Though he was known to shun and was shunned, desperate, an invitation had come now to join the team. The heroes from the rain and the mud and the dangerous cold on the breaking levy, suddenly came longing for his company. And with false graciousness, he invited the deputies to the kitchen where he offered half-old coffee and salted crackers. Carefully speaking no words but nodding and sounding the only thing he could think of to safely say, "Hmmmm..."

Soon, and as all along he had hoped, they grew impatient and threatened to leave. The one named Brad angrily saying "Come now, or be swept away!" and to the three others that had trampled in, splotching his worn floor with their mud and fouling the air with their stench and cigarettes, "Hurry! Take food and whatever cloth you can find. Hurry!" and then Brad's eyes glared back into his own, "When you change your mind, the Second Northern Dyke, that's where we'll be. You'll be lucky to make it half-way there. I'll give you one more chance, come with us now."

The sound of distant alarm bells and whistles blew in on the hissing and howling windy rain through the front door left wide open.

"Hmmmm.." is all he said and nodded more slowly this time. They left the door open still upon departing just moments later. And he stayed behind. He couldn't possibly get ready in time. He didn't know what to bring. He didn't dare abandon his frail and demented responsibilties. He was afraid, and after all, he had always stayed before.

Stayed through worse than this. Much worse. Through greater storms than this. Like the constant snows of winter, 'Seventy-Seven. Some that didn't completly melt until the end of the summer of '77 and a half. Through the Great First Month Ice Storm of 'Eighty-Eight. It's devastation still evident everywhere you looked in the wood and in the village these several years later. And, in spite of much bigger threats. Like the day he watched, incredulous at the age of eleven, as his mother, the one who's own young and un-predicted flood had revealed his life, and who's kindness could be matched only by her resent, walked out of this house and away from his life that day and for each of the nineteen-some-odd years worth of days since.

In a moment so etched, it seemed as a wallpaper upon these confines. He stood there, right here, in this very room. Looking to his drunken, cursing and bloodied father, crumpled and broken upon that long discarded battered davenport, and he didn't know what to say. Couldn't decide the words to speak to get her to stay. He innerly begged and silently plead for his father to say something. Say he was sorry. Say he loved her. Beg her to stay. Say something. Anything. But his father was saying nothing of coherance. While he couldn't decide whether to speak or say nothing. And if he spoke what should he say? And what if he said the wrong thing... then, with a drastic barametric shift, chilly damp autumn air and several clumps of fallen leaves rushed through the threshold suddenly vacated by the old front door.

She turned to him and said... "Coming?"

In a panic, he couldn't at that moment remember where he had left his shoes. And he wasn't wearing a coat. And it was cold and wet outside. And he didn't want to leave his father. And he didn't want his mother to go. But he couldn't think of the right thing to say. And then, she said using that scornfull voice he feared so deeply, "Fine. Stay! Stay here then. Fine!"

He thought she was about to change her mind. He thought she must see what he would be, without her. But there was no patience or offer extended for waiting, so, in stunned silence, he stayed behind.

The hole in their wall, that portal to the wild, dark, dangerous, night, it's very pressure threatening with rumors of winter and other even colder things, the space was replaced violently by that door slamming it's barrior closed. In less than a moment, it seemed, a car's door, her car's door, opened and then banged shut loudly as it's motor obediently cranked to life. Stumbling to the window and watching in dis-belief, his tears rolling over the ridge of his cheekbones like the water from a broken dam, as those taillights blurred down the driveway and diminished in moments to pin pricks of moving light down the road upon the murky night before fading out of sight completely. She drove that car away. And his tears were like a massive river in the spring thaw following a long, long winter. Washing away any vestige from the fanciful diversions of his childhood.

And from that moment through this very day, in waking and in dreams, he thinks often of exactly the right words to say. And exactly the kind of thing he could tell her, would tell her now, to make it better. To make her stay. And he dreams of what he will say when her car does come driving up this road again on some bright and sunny day, bringing her back. That same old dream was all he had of her now. So many long days, and even longer restless nights since, and now, with an un-relenting rain seeking every tiny crack in his weather beaten roof, again he stayed.

tbc

Edited by Guest
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Do those three parts belong together? Because I don't see any coherence, yet you end your chapters with 'tbc'.

I just took them as three different bits altogether, which, with the first two, was rather confusing because you introduced a lot of ideas that in the end didn't seem to go anywhere, but maybe that's just because they were quite complicated and I didn't really understand them very well.

Now this part I like very much - I'd definitely read more, so go on posting, here's your demand :) . The only thing that bothered me was it's/who's instead of its and whose, and so on... sorry, I'm completely unable to ignore stuff like that ;)

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Having been very busy recently, I haven't yet got round to commenting on your previous piece yet, (which I have been intending to do). I would be disappointed if your contributions dry up now, because I am enjoying them, albeit there are one or two jarring grammatical errors (in the first line: gaaaah!) and elements of the writing style which could be improved upon, (in my humble opinion. ;) ) I can see that you're an "ideas man", J. I find these pieces thought-provoking, and would love to discuss them further, if only I had a bit more time on my hands. :(

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Thank You!!!! All your words and feed-back are very much appreciated. And I can relate to the time-squeeze factor. But that's a great thing about the web, super-quick, but often in no big hurry. Today's blog will still be around months from now. I know I have a problem with that whole it's whose>who's thing, I do that all the time and usually catch myself. I am glad to have you point it out. I probably make many more mistakes I'm not even aware of making and I'm trying to learn the difference. So, again, thanx!My grammer and structure, I admit, are needing lot's of work. And if it wasn't for spellcheck, OMG! The 'tbc' is for further chapters currently sketched for these subjects and a few other inhabitants of this common imaginary village and beyond. I am an amateur. I have no special education or training (HS grad) but I have always liked to write and have had the chance to do a little more of it lately. I love music too. Always wanted to play a musical instrument, but never really could (at least not well). Sometimes when I sit down and start to write, I get a feeling similar, I imagine, to what a musician must feel picking up an instrument and just working and riffing away at some melody in his head. I hear a line, and that leads me to another. I imagine a character and it brings me to picture a situation. I have an idea of an overiding theme, but not at all sure really where it's going or how it will connect just now. This must make for a frustrating reading experiance, I understand. But there is a continuation and connection through all of this, even if I can't quite articulate it.

Yet. :bow:

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