RDP Thursday: Fixer Upper

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.

 

 

 

Puttin My Feet in the Dirt Prompt#2 BORING AND BLAND

My Aunt Ketti was boring.

She never said much. She never went anywhere. She always wore the same pink hat when it was cold and the same plastic  red trimmed rain bonnet when it drizzled or it was windy.

When she walked she had a little limp. If she wasn’t careful and her foot dragged even a little she would lurch forward and stumble. She never fell. She’d just straighten up and start walking and you could hear her count 1-2-3.

Then she said, ” lift, down 1-2-3.”

Who has user’s instructions for how to use her own leg?

My Aunt Ketti, that’s who.

 

Aunt Ketti’s house was always neat.

There was no dust on her shelves. The pictures on her walls were portraits of flowers and rivers and her couches and chairs were never out of place. Their pillows were always plumped.

She always had fresh cut flowers in a crystal vase on her dining room table and Jade plants in her windows.

Everything in Aunt Ketti’s house was exactly where you would expect to find magazines or books or her knitting. Her lace doilies were always white and always laid perfectly flat on her table tops. They never puckered and the edges never curled up.

” Don’t mind us ” Aunt Ketti’s house seemed to say. ” There’s nothing to see here and what you will see won’t exactly knock your socks off”.

 

Once when Aunt Ketti and I were playing cards ( Old Maid because those were the card games  adults played with 8 year olds back then ) Aunt Ketti looked down at her hand and when she looked back up at me she was smiling.

But Aunt Ketti’s eyes were still looking down and I heard her say under her breath, ” Oh bother “.

I pretended to look the other way because I was curious about what could bother Aunt Ketti.

When she seemed convinced my attention had wandered away from our card game, Aunt Ketti touched her finger to her eyeball and I saw her push one and then her other eye back up. Now she was looking right at me.

I smiled.

She remembered to blink.

 

Years and years later when Aunt Ketti was very old and I was about the age she had been at our card game when I was eight I was visiting Aunt Ketti.

We had been shopping when we got back she put her things away and went to her chair by the window and she took her knitting out of it’s bag that she kept under the little side table.

She invited me to take a seat and I did.

Just as I made myself comfortable, I saw Aunt Ketti look down at her left hand and whisper to it.

It flexed.

I liked Aunt Ketti and as she was getting on in years I wanted her to know that her little eccentricities didn’t matter too me. In fact, over the years I had come to find them curious and intriguing.

Then I had a brain wave. I thought of a way to bring up Aunt Ketti’s many little quirks.

” My Mom says, ” I told Aunt Ketti ” that it’s really hard for some people to be comfortable in their own skin. She said you seem to have it harder then most.”

Aunt Ketti  looked relieved.  Then she sighed. ” It is Cupcake. Especially when it’s not your own skin to begin with. ”