Saturday, August 22, 2009

Bathroom Monologue: This Was How He Said Goodbye

Grandfather wanted him to be a Baptist, but the boy was one of experiences and emotions, not study, and certainly not pews. Grandfather threw the book at him, he ran from reading, and the two didn’t speak until the old man only had a few months left.

Their only conversation ran short, even though the boy said he’d recently started reading and liked Huck Finn. The dying old man barked that he needed a Bible, and Shakespeare, and Hemingway, and more and more until the boy simply walked out in tears.

Upon returning home, Grandfather disappeared into his basement, hunched over in pain, hunched over a plane, to produce an inheritance. It arrived at the boy’s apartment without explanation, a bookshelf with no books on it.

1 comment:

  1. I love he's given the opportunity to place any book he wants on that bookshelf he's inherited.

    BTW, the word verification was "pactingo." Sounds like something you would write about.

    ReplyDelete

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