Pickett, C. A.

English

SWOSU Digital Commons (Southwestern Oklahoma State University)

Volume 1987 Issue 2 Article 17 7-15-1987 Cosmic Burial C. A. Pickett Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle  Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Pickett, C. A. (1987) "Cosmic Burial," The Mythic Circle: Vol. 1987 : Iss. 2 , Article 17. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle/vol1987/iss2/17 This Fiction is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Mythic Circle by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact phillip.fitzsimmons@swosu.edu. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm This fiction is available in The Mythic Circle: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle/vol1987/iss2/17 111other and began to help her with her things. "I'll show you where you can put your things and we'll leave these men to themselves." My mother followed Catherine down the hall to a room that smelled of old woman; perfumed pouches hid among old clothes in cedar lined drawers, and open medicine bot ties. Clarence sat in his customary chair in the corner. Hy father, who was tired of sitting because of our long journey that day, stood before a window with his back to us. I sat on the couch. I was very happy to discover, at the lime, that my feet re&led comfortably on lhe floor. I was in that between stage when sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't. Clarence owned the house we were in. He had rented out the floor below because he and Catherine did not need the whole house to live in and because the extr-a money proved a welcome aupplement to their retirement income. My father looked across the side yard below lhe window and said, "You ought to sell this old place, Pop. Then you could get away. Come see us in Bermuda. You might even move into one of those new retirement homes, if you wanted.'' "I suppose," Clarence said, slowly, as if he were trying to choose the best answer of a multiple choice question. I thought it was a mark of wisdom to display a little uncertainty about things. "But I never did like all those Army-like old folk's homes. Gel up al a certain time and go to bed when you're told. This has been my home for a long while, and I ain't lookin' forward to goin' any place else.'' For some time, my father had been on his own journey through life. Clarence had hoped that his elde•t •on would attend college and become a professional man. The Depres•ion had •hort- circuited that dream. My father never finished high school. Yet Clarence believed that my father could have done it, if he had wanted to, and Clarence was probably right. Clarence got up and went to ·the kitchen that adjoined the living roorii. The kitchen floor was covered with a lackluster linoleum, and the boards beneath it creaked. The kitchen was furnished with a round wooden table and chairs. I followed Clarence into .lhe kitchen. he look down a large coffee pot from a cabinet above the stove. He filled it with water; he carefully measured coffee into the pot. He put the coffee away: set the lid on the pol, and put the pot on a gas burner. Hy father came into the kitchen and sat down in a chair al the table. I moved a chair that scraped noisily on the kitchen floor and sat down. Clarence sat across from me. Clarence looked at me with curious bird- eyes, soft and shrunken with ag.e. Long ago, he had worked for the railroad. "Colin's hands were big as hams ... " Clarence turned his own hands palms up and looked into them as if he were glancing into an incomprehensible past, denying to himself that his hands had ever measured up, and denouncing them silently for their conspiring against him in his •truggle to get ahead in the world. ne Mrthic Cirde 33 The dirt-drummed thumps on the casket top were the same sound that my shoes made on lhe hollow wooden stairs of Clarence's old house in Akron, that summer that we came to visit. The stairs were lit. by a single bulb that gave little better light than a flickering, dying candle. At the lop of the stairs, throt..:oh the door, we entered Clarence's and Catherine's part of the house. Hy passage through the door gave me the . sensation of rising from a black hole. Freed from the bubble of the sound of the thump, I took a deep breath, of not fresh air bul of the well lived and musty air of the old house. My parents had arranoed for my father's transfer to the Bermuda Islands to come in the summer of that year to allow me to finish school. We could then spend a weekend at Clarence's on our way. Although the trip from the railroad station in Clarence's old car had been a strangely silent one and I felt as if I were among •tranger• in a cab, with only mutual destination in common, I fell that I was among familiar things once I was inside the old houset I had been here before, and the place was one of my earliest memories. Catherine spoke, her voice quavery wilh age, regrets, and uncertainty. "Finally, we get to see you! I was afraid that I'd never see you again. People are so busy these days. They don't seem to make time any more." With luggage strewn on the living room floor, we stood in silence until Catherine turned her moist eyes on me. "My goodness, you have grown. The last time I saw you, you were small enough to fit under my arm. Do you believe that?" I studied the tired and worn rug that covered the wooden floor. "Follow 11141, my dear," Catherine said to my Shirtless, muscular men with long hair bound by thin cloth bands, the solemn Eoyplian grave builders, shoveled dirt into the black hole. The dirt, directed by the emotional field of the black hole, slammed heavily on the casket lop ... thump ... thump. My knees weakened with the vision of being confined in the casket -- the me in him buried alive. Within the bubble of the sound of the thump, struggled for air. now. The emotional pull of lhe immense black hole of Clarence's grave curved my thought toward il, even though I directed my will lo concentrate on lhe minister's eulogy. No more lrue words would be spoken; no more real things would be done. Clarence's genetic disposition would only survive in me. Like a phoeni>< suspended on a string, the preacher, who spread his gigantic wings above his head, to span the heavens, and whose bony wrists protruded from the while fringe of his sharl cuffs, e1<pressed my loss incompletely: "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die ... " And I wondered what lime it was by C.A. Pickett BURIAL C:: 0 S ""'1 I C:: Clarence ••ked a que•tion that I did not hear, so I guessed. "I don't know yet what I want to be." They always want to know the same thing as if not to be something, a doctor or a lawyer, is to be nothing. "I don't know what I'm going to be," I said a little louder the second time. I hoped I wasn't answering the wrong question. "That'• all right." I could tell he was disappointed, so I made •omething up. "Maybe I'll go to West Point· and be an Army officer." "That's the spirit." I was happy that he was pleased. He was attentive again. "I worry a lot about what people think of me. I don't want to disappoint my parents." "Rubbish! No sense worrying about that. When all's said and done, the only person' that's goin' to care about what you did is you." All that now remains is a vision of a vast sea and a lonely shore. I look across the calm sea, a huge mirror that reflects all the starry moments of time and space, forever exploding and ranging through the Heavens, a vast congregation of wary non-seeing eyes. Just off shore, in a small boat, is the hooded Charon, who eternally sets sail on watery time. Clarence stands next lo him. "I'll throw you a rope, grandfather." "No, go back. It's too dangerous. Too late. I am not afraid." "Then let me come, too.'' "No, boy, you must stay. Wait your time. There's nothinq to fear. Unhappiness is just the vibration of the poorly constructed housing of your soul. You'll be rid of it soon enough. Look! The seven light-clad maids rise in the east. Together they form the Orphic harp. Unless 'soul clap its hands and sing,' you know?" I could see the seven maids, but not as stars. They were seven suns. I hoped that eternity would prove a better friend than time had ever been, as Clarence and the shadowy fiqure vanished. " ••• and each of us 1s in His hands." I tried again to concentrate on the minister's words; my willful mind recalled how much Clarence hated all ceremonies and formalities. Above all he hated church services. Yet Sundays weren't all bad because there was a big newspaper that he could leisurely read as he. sat in his favorite chair. He could not avoid hearing Catherine moving about in the ne1el room. She was dreaslng. Every Sunday •h• taught the adult Bible class and attended the wor•hip service. After a moment before the mirror above her bureau, to adjust the belt that bound a loose- f1tting, flowery dress to her bulky frame, she came out of her room lo stand by Clar1mce's chair. She stood as close to his chair as she could without making it loo obvious she was begging a compliment, that, for his own reasons, Clarence never gave. Always she asked Clarence to come to church with her; just as invariably, he said no. "No" is what I wanted to say lo the service and lhe preacher who did nol know how to end his eulogy, 'Abruptly, the preacher just slopped. And the men began lo lower the casket. I thought of lhe attic of the old house again, a half way place between Heaven and earth, which served as Clarence's bedroom. Once Clarence let me spend lhe night there in some blankets spread on the floor. I was then remote in lime and space, that feeling I gel when the outer l!dge of my body seems to tingle in accord with the risk that I am taking; what I am doing and what I have done are real, but the actions are another's and I dream. The aroma of tobacco from Clarence's pipe was intoxicating. The smoke wove a leafy crown about Clarence's head. He sat on the edge of the bed as on a huge throne. The purple spread hung to the floor. The arms of the throne rose to large golden orbs atop which his hands lay. His eyes too dreamed. I closed my eyes tightly to hold the vision and fend off time. When I opened my eyes, only dark smoke and the attic as it really was remained. I was as full of sadness as the volumes of romance and crime stories encased in the wooden shelves in the attic corner. The attic was where Clarence and Catherine had placed everything that was too old to use anymore. The worn rug that I sat on had been removed from the livinq room. Except for the remnant of a corner, its once eleqanlly knotted fringe was lost now to decay. Clarence perched on the edge of the bed; the brass, head and foot, in the smoke, was leaden. Clarence's skin sacked his brittle bones. ne Mrtiic UrcJe 34 The coffee was ready. Clarence aet three cups on the table and poured the coffee. He set the pot on a low burner and sat down again. Clarence continued his remembrance of an Irish railroad detective with whom he had once worked. "When I knew him, Colin's face was big and round, all scarred up for a title shot. I don't know. He was working aame as me then, keepin' those hobos out of boxcars. He sipped his coffee. His voice rose as he ended the story, "Drank too much, though. Micks always do. Finally killed him. If only I'd had those hands." 

\u3ci\u3eCosmic Burial\u3c/i\u3e

https://dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1561&amp;context=mcircle

\u3ci\u3eCosmic Burial\u3c/i\u3e

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

SWOSU Digital Commons (Southwestern Oklahoma State University)