A small, cloud of cement dust swirled about his callused feet as he shuffled along the road towards McKerner, a sleepy little town deep in the piney-woods of Middle Nowheres county - slowly plodding along, alone, on his way to meet his mates at the hardware store...
In McKerner, the cold, February wind whispered outside the corner hardware store where the town's idlers, hugging the wood burning stove, were whittling corn cobs while they discussed the ills of the world and how they would solve them in a couple commonsensical ways.
The penny nails heaped haphazardly in their bins were slowly rusting away as none of the old timers had the agility to climb ladders or the strength to hold a heavy hammer and drive home a nail any more. The labels on the paint cans had half fallen off when the glue that held them on the once shiny can dried and turned brittle. Cobwebs and dust covered most of the screws, bolts, nuts, odd bits of plumbing and ends of lumber that laid jumbled on the warped shelves.
An unused NCR cash register with buttons showing dollar and cent amounts entered in by combination showed the last sale had been $1.29 - rung up by a once eager clerk cranking the handle long, long ago - sat in the gloom gathering soot from the stove around itself like a blanket.
The clutter and the dust gave the old guys comfort, they still knew exactly where on the shelves one could find a left-handed toilet brush with one and half inch bristles - if anyone should ever need one. They were shrunken ghosts of their younger days and had no family left to care for them or what they did in their waking hours - their wrinkled skin tearing with every careless brush against the rough wood frame of the doorway - one with a useless hand, another with a twisted leg, and a couple of them with the endless dribbling cracked lower lip - they waited, not knowing if time had claimed their friend -
A hour, two... three... passed as the minute hand of the clock swept relentlessly around and around and around the dusty old ex-school room clock with the cracked glass face...
As steady and slowly as the hands of clock moved - the spirits of those that waited wilted and sagged - knowing time does not offer anyone mercy and eventually takes even the hardiest of creatures - when slowly the front door of the hardware store creaked open on unoiled hinges... and their long awaited mate appeared at last. They heard him sputter, angry words scratching their way from his parched throat...
The Ol' Timer
"Them damn youngsters runnin' things down at the county road maintenance got the whole damn road torn up for miles - never seen so many damn Orange Conehead whipper snappers... I damn near gave up trying to get here today."
Photograph courtesy of Photojournalist LadyStyx - many thanks!
6 comments:
LOL....has someone been around here lately? with the road paving work going on and miles of OCHA sitting in the center of the road keeping watch??
By the way, would you believe that when I first worked at the feed mill, we used one of those old cash registers...on a daily basis? LOL (the good ole days, eh?)
*lafffz* Great story iggy. Well worth the award you were given by Tori. You got another one via email, I hope that's whay you had in mind...
LOL! Great story, Iggy. :)
roflmao iggy! You got me! I was actually getting sentimental about the mercantiles of old... and then BOOM!
I was trying to figure out where the story was leading, never thinking of THAT! LOL
started out good...made me remember a time when I was about 9 and we stopped in this town in Oklahoma...All that was in the town was one store/postoffice together. Had one lightbulb..a 25 watter LOL dust was everywhere!
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