RDP Thursday: Fixer Upper

Andrew Wyeth

My eyes are old and tired and they don’t work as well as they used to. I’m never sure if what I’m seeing is really there or if my mind is just filling in the blanks for me- and my mind if we are going to be perfectly honest-  doesn’t work as well as it used to.

So when I saw that pile of bones sprout of of the ground over night I had to take  moment and tell myself- slow down there Oran Fields, don’t get excited.

Those might not be bones at all.

True enough they’re white like bones should be, there isn’t any skin or color to them and even though they look like they’re still sturdy like bones should be, they might not be bones at all.

They were partially covered with dirt and dust and bindweed. They could be anything.

So are you sure, I asked myself, did they really pop up out of nowhere? Maybe they’ve been there all along and your poor dusty brains and cloudy old eyes didn’t notice them.

Also, I could be wrong, I thought to myself. Those might not be bones at all.

I could be wrong.

The days became weeks and the weeks turned into months and in that time the bones weren’t sort of laying out in the little grassy area where Mrs Glasby’s barn cats used to sun themselves and watch the little critters they caught race around in circles before they put them out of their misery. Now those bones were standing out in plain sight and there was not mistaking what they were.

I felt like I should say something, what was there to be afraid of?

It was settled I told myself. I was going to do something about those bones that came up out of nowhere.

But it turned out, I didn’t have to.

There were voices drifting down from Mrs Glasby’s sideyard.

” He’s been out there the entire time? In the barn? ”

” Well parts of him. Something dug parts of him up recently. Probably dogs. Maybe foxes? It wouldn’t have taken much work. He wasn’t buried very deep.”

” Anyway. It looks like he was buried just inside of the doorway. Poor bastard. They rented him a room and then robbed him of his disability checks and then did him in. We all knew it. They went down for that. And twenty years later they still would not give up his bones. It going to give me the creeps for the rest of my life to think about his head staring up at this house for God knows how long his skull’s been out here.

” Poor old Oran Fields. Well at least we can give him   into a proper grave.”

I looked up at the weathered bones of Mrs Glasby’s empty and lifeless house and I must say.

Getting away from here sounded good to me.