Rag and Bone (Story Idea/Draft)
My great-grand parents arrived in America in the 1920's, just in time to witness a number changes in its fabric, to see the her frayed ends, the poor who lost every thing they invested in a country that promised so much, and those parts decorated lavishly, with extravagant and gaudy, the rich which hid behind the thick doors of huge mansions where alcohol, though illegal, flowed freely, and where the only occupation practiced was leisure and its practitioners perfected their craft in ennui.
My great-grandparents had not only brought with them the very few possessions, mostly clothing, a few knickknacks holding special meaning, seasoned into the very fiber of the momento, a Bible floating down the generations carefully inscribed with name after name of each baby born, whether they survived the years or not, a doll made from spared rags, with buttoned eyes, one hanging on, literally, by a thread, but had brought with them the stories of the old-country, stuffed in vast compartment of their mind.
The lore had been passed down generation after generation until told to my great-grandparents who then passed it along to my grandparents who then transmitted it along to my father, a kind of virus which infected the very being of those who heard it.
I remember, growing up, my father threatening me with revealing the tale, a kind of teasing, hinting at the existence of a history that extended past the shores of America. He would breach such subject in times of silent thought, when he and I were driving in his old K car, a company car, or sitting in the den of our home, when he pipe in hand had just finished tinkering with a computer program and realized that I was sitting too close to the television set.
And for a long time, that's all that came of it, a kind of teasing, the constant reminder that I didn't want to hear of it, because it was just too frightening, that in its telling, the lore and its monsters would come to life, renewed, refreshed, to haunt a new generation. But he had spread the fever to me, the first signs of its symptom of the sickness.
My father held on to the stories closely, like a family heirloom, waiting for the proper time to give it to me. I waited patiently, attempting to persuade him that I was prepared to receive the knowledge he was to impart, that I had sufficient maturity to hear the terrific tale, that its secrets were safe we me.
And then one day, when the pleading became too much for him, during a lull in television programming, when my father grew tired of programming the computer, he revealed to me a scrap of a story, a tiny piece for me to work with, the wandering rag and bone woman.
...
My great-grandparents had not only brought with them the very few possessions, mostly clothing, a few knickknacks holding special meaning, seasoned into the very fiber of the momento, a Bible floating down the generations carefully inscribed with name after name of each baby born, whether they survived the years or not, a doll made from spared rags, with buttoned eyes, one hanging on, literally, by a thread, but had brought with them the stories of the old-country, stuffed in vast compartment of their mind.
The lore had been passed down generation after generation until told to my great-grandparents who then passed it along to my grandparents who then transmitted it along to my father, a kind of virus which infected the very being of those who heard it.
I remember, growing up, my father threatening me with revealing the tale, a kind of teasing, hinting at the existence of a history that extended past the shores of America. He would breach such subject in times of silent thought, when he and I were driving in his old K car, a company car, or sitting in the den of our home, when he pipe in hand had just finished tinkering with a computer program and realized that I was sitting too close to the television set.
And for a long time, that's all that came of it, a kind of teasing, the constant reminder that I didn't want to hear of it, because it was just too frightening, that in its telling, the lore and its monsters would come to life, renewed, refreshed, to haunt a new generation. But he had spread the fever to me, the first signs of its symptom of the sickness.
My father held on to the stories closely, like a family heirloom, waiting for the proper time to give it to me. I waited patiently, attempting to persuade him that I was prepared to receive the knowledge he was to impart, that I had sufficient maturity to hear the terrific tale, that its secrets were safe we me.
And then one day, when the pleading became too much for him, during a lull in television programming, when my father grew tired of programming the computer, he revealed to me a scrap of a story, a tiny piece for me to work with, the wandering rag and bone woman.
...
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