Remember Summer - A desolate, poetic short story (1100 words)

REMEMBER SUMMER   PDF File Link
By Cetan Copeland

     Pencil pitched, plotted patience playing out. Summer sits silently in the window, golden hair filtering the dust by sunlight. A golden breath, like a gentle fog in the morning's window, dewing with frozen crunches. Summer gazes and grazes the blades of grass unfrosting by the meandering view. Summer stirs, an uncomfort that forces movement, the dress drifts dream-like, Summer sits and waits. Innocent eyes crack at the thin foam film, frothing in anticipation from window to window, spying the silent glade, a shard of glass reflecting serenity.
    With slow placement, the old man whisks his brush, back and forth, the stolid fissure forming on the canvas is aching through the sketches. Viscous colors poignant in contrast, everything in gruesome agony. The old man's hat tips from the passage of time, the views, crusting with oversight. His monocle strung down, missing the ear for a mustache, one perfect trim, like a caterpillar, stuck in time, curling around the tips, to point at his closing vision. The canvas crips and cries a sigh of silence to the taut frame; the brush streaks to a rest. The tire glowing under his eyes, reflecting inwards like the monocle. His feet staggered in approach, teeter towards the sloven bed. Its unkempt, slung sidewards, pillowless contractions, and dark incursions hide the turmoiled circles of rest. His push into the unfolds, delicious to the palette of sleep. The old aches stretch into relaxations as Summer looks up from the canvas.
    A nut-brown drop blinks for innocent eyes, a careful foot escapes the bounded lines. Summer smiles like a child in a sundress, springing from swing to sky. Summer basks in the bright cascading moon milk, bleeding like the milkweed from a caterpillar's bite, dancing from the wined four-legged stool, straying by the wind with a phantom breeze. Summer races the silence through the halls, the hands of time working the grandfather clock, in which Summer becomes bemused, sitting in a cloud of dust to watch the timeless tick. The pendulum swings, striking out again and again. But Summer still pitches the baked summer gloves and the skinning baseball roll in restless fever. Summer's smile breaks from the tight-lipped grin into beaming enjoyment, standing to leave the grandfather's shadow; Summer darts from wall to wall, touching and searching each plaster for flakes, the dust browning the floor, dripping like a cave ceiling’s dirt. Each hand in synchronous works. Summer cups the age like a pool of youth, discarded as Summer's fancy changes. Through the moonlight halls, Summer finds the sleeping body cracking in archaic pain, sheets strained, ripping, the cloak of slumber is thin, a blanket of missing misery. Summer prods the shadow, the touch piercing with angelic poise, hands reaching deep into the old soul. Summer grasps the thin beating silence, a frown of concentration, a grimace from the pinprick of life. Summer withdraws a tiny bird blue, shivering in the newborn cold. Its eyes wide in adolescence, its head tweaks in and out of understanding, questioning the new hand, holding its feathered beak. It plucks at the silence, a scatter of warmth flutters into the night sky.
    The boy awoke in a strange disheveled world, coughing in the burning dust. Dirt drifted upwards like a waltzing flame. He rubs his eyes, trying to clean the sand that sits on each corner, spinning in place as the woven woodwork jitters into movement. Everything crashes in action, like methodical destruction. He stumbles to his feet and catches sight, a distant figure, with golden hair, like the chains of a pocket watch stowed in a pocket, the picture of pure happy love. They spin, a sundress flaring in a medium of solar brilliance, as a wave of a suntanned hand waits by the door. The eyes, a bright brown, cherry-picked from the old tree behind the house, its walnuts thudding with vibrant life, working to stay in the ground. The boy walks, crawling from the bed, a slumber disturbed, in poetic steps, each frolicking from the peace of mind lost behind him.
    As feet take to, his body grows, hair springing down his back, legs thickening in vigor; he breaks forward, reaching slowly out, pushing the white tarped objects strewn in his path. He brushes one aside, releasing its memories, a piano with black keys stained in fire, strings frayed from use, the ambient notes play out again. A young boy sits and plays triumphantly, endearing the shadow guests around him, his body wracked with sweat and effort, tossing the electric spark from hand to hand. The boy, now turned man, pitches forward as the ground splits behind him, shafting into the darkness below. He reaches out again, grasping onto a cane, a limp forming in his once complete legs. Each step jars with pain, but forward-moving angst fuels him onwards. Each step, his legs fail him. The waves become cloudy from tears raining down his limbs. A giant tree, cross breached, punctured through the disintegrating house, its hewn limbs massive and swelling in absolute power. The ladder nailed into the wood, now pointless, as its mighty bows touch the forsaken ground, one that feet failed to stray from. A group of children dances along the fringe of leafless strength. They examine each other in impish glee, swinging stick swords, and brandishing fake wounds. Now aged into a wrinkled prune, the man forces his way over but is lost in desolation. Doors shifting and blocking in every direction. The woodwork fails, with rafters tumbling down. A roof laughs in punishment as each step carries on. The doorframe is barred from the other side; he leans close, grasping for breath, straining his lungs against the smokey air. Voices scream, disappointment, anger, and betrayal rain down across the frame. Blow upon blow, like tempered metal from the hammer, the blade now forged strikes out, a gurgle, before everything breaks. The house shatters, a rush from the door, the darkness enters into shadow lit by the moon.
    An empty glade of trees linger tall and brimming from springs energy, sunning in power as the day waits beyond the mountains. A young boy lays prone in a field of changeless rule, the tall grass wet with satisfaction from the ongoing clouds. Summer, steps, like stones across a river ford, with grace lighter than a butterfly, balancing on the strands and fronds, its golden hair and frayed dress laughter to echo from peak to peak. The boy does not stir as Summer reaches daintily to close his wide dust-filled eyes. 

The End
© 2020 Cetan Copeland