Stories, Childhood Dreams and Role Models

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The cicadas
were particularly noisy in the evenings,

Overpowering
the cricket songs and croaks of frogs,

I would listen carefully, trying to locate the sounds,

But the
sounds were distorted by trees or logs,

 

As evening
fell scissortails and bats swooped low,

Vying for
the hordes of insects that filled the air,

And close
nearby an owl’s who-o-o joined in,

Sending shivers
up my spine and giving me a scare,

 

“Tell me a scary
story, Dad,” I would plead,

As the stars
commenced popping out of the blue-black sky,

Dad would
begin and my brothers and sisters would gather,

Jostling for position, not willing to let one word slip by,

 

“Once,” he
began, “I was walking past a graveyard,

And I heard
two deep voices in the dead of night,”

“You take
one and I’ll take one,” Dad said dramatically,

“This was
serious business so I kept just out of sight,”

 

“You take one and I’ll take one,” the counting began again,

Impatient, I
interrupted with questions, I wanted a clue,

“What was
being sorted?” I asked. “Was it coins, dollars,

Or was it
bodies?  And the counting was done by
who?”

 

“Too many
questions,” Dad replied, “and it’s bedtime,

Tomorrow I’ll
tell you some more of the story,”

Dad would
not divulge what would happen next,

All I could
do was wait and hope it was gory,

 

Yet in my
dreams the story continued on,

The characters
and setting changed a time or two,

As I
hammered out a version that I liked,

It was the
wee hours before my version was through,

 

It became a spirited
contest between Lucifer and God,

“You take one
and I’ll take one,” had a deeper meaning than gold,

I became an
auctioneer controlling the bidding,

And when a
soul was purchased I would call out “Sold!”

 

My night was
troubled and I had a fitful sleep,

I awoke sweaty, groggy and tired to the bone,

The day
passed slowly as I awaited Dad’s story,

Biding my
time for a chance to compare my own.

 

Related articles

• Childhood (nazrami.wordpress.com)
• My Kind of Girl by Buddhadeva Bose, translated by Arunava Sinha – review (guardian.co.uk)
• Misty Blue Foster Took a Giant Step Backwards to Reach Her Dream but Stayed Strong (uromed.wordpress.com)
• The memory of rain (year-struck.com)

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