On a recent road trip, I passed through the little town that I grew up in and it had stopped being. The soda fountain where we ate while laughing and talking about school, the general store filled with every tool a man would need to do his work, the barber shop where I got my first haircut and the train depot that brought goods from every corner of the country and took what we grew to market, all had stopped being. They were gone never to return. The sidewalks dirty with trash and things abandoned with no one to sweep them, and the stores were all boarded up hiding the empty shell inside.
Ghosts roamed the streets just out of sight and feral dogs hungry and alone ran the streets in packs looking for the meager food that maybe someone threw out. It is a town that stopped being, what was is no more. All that is left is an empty haunting feeling. It is like looking into another dominion or dimension where only shadows remain. Who was the last person to leave and at what time did this world stop being?
What was once a safe place to live is now filled with lawlessness now that the high sheriff drove off past the city limit sign throwing his hat out the window. It is a town that stopped being what it was, a light of the community. It seems the older I get many things just stop being, gone like the morning mist. I strive to live for this moment, yet as in a dream, I see the things that have stopped.
Point Of View
Often memories do not live on; they move to a twilight realm often familiar but truly just shadows that we can no longer touch.
A world we lived in that was so vibrant and full of joy often makes us feel sad and we know in the end we too will stop.
Forgive the darkness in my story as my twilight is full of tenderness, love and the joy of a life still fulfilling and meaningful. I love the sunrise and the morning dew, the songs of the morning birds and the love of a devoted family. I have a house full of recue dogs and cats, wonderful children and grandchildren and I love drinking coffee with my wife; as yet, another sunrise takes our breath away. I need no more than that.
I’ve often wondered why the things that once filled our world with light eventually grow dim and then move into darkness. Then I realized that it truly isn’t darkness but rather growth in an unseen universe we have yet to imagine and in depriving those who follow the same would cease eternity and the beauty of new beginnings.
Your writing is truly inspiring. Your wordsmithing magical.
Thank you Johnny you also are a wordsmith building a story from words and imagination
Great felt article, thank you
Thank you Lynn