Tag: strange

One Penny

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

Another day of work. Another day putting up another wall, wiping away sweat. Rummaging through his toolbox searching for drywall screws, Leo turned up a copper washer.

He regarded the shining thing.

What’s this for? Leo wondered.

The copper suggested plumbing. But he wasn’t sure.

Why had he kept this thing in his toolbox?

Very strangely, the thin washer reminded him of his childhood: the penny placed on railroad tracks that was squashed by a passing train.

Funny that he still remembered.

He had been three or four years old. He had stood near railroad tracks behind his great grandparents’ mountain cabin. Several times a day a huge freight train would rumble past.

Leo couldn’t recall the faces of his great grandparents or the cabin or anything else from that long ago time. All he could remember was the thrill of that moment when, encouraged by his father, he placed an ordinary penny on the rail. Then the sudden mighty roar of the freight train thundering dangerously past.

He remembered leaning over to pick up the transformed coin.

The penny’s one cent value had been obliterated. The copper, squashed paper thin. had become perfectly smooth and shiny. It had turned pure. A child’s penny had become infinitely more valuable.

So many years later, why did Leo still remember that penny and that train?

One was a small thing of little worth. The other, a juggernaut, almost here, quickly gone, was like the swift, inexorable passage of time.

Where was his penny now?

Leo stared at the shining copper washer in his hand.

Chuckling, he dropped it back into his toolbox.

Apology for a Nightmare

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

Grace had a nightmare.

Her nightmare was bizarre, chaotic, irrational, unaccountable, and she did terrible things. Including something to Katherine.

That morning Grace apologized to Katherine.

Katherine was confused. “You’re sorry for what?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Is it something you did?”

“No.”

“But if it’s something you didn’t do, why are you standing there apologizing to me?” Katherine asked, beginning to feel amused.

“I have a very good reason.”

“Which is?”

“It’s something you’ll never know.”

“Now you’re just being Grace.”

“I must be Grace.”

Ghost Wind

~ Richard Schulte ~ 1 Comment

Conner’s hair was flying. “Here come the ghosts.”

The wind increased as it always did in the early afternoon, driving sailboats in tangents across the choppy bay.

Conner tacked the sailboat, seeking a new direction that exploited the rising wind. “There must be several thousand ghosts coming this way,” he announced as he wrestled the rudder. “Look at the sails.”

Eddie, who’d never been sailing before, laughed.

“What’s so funny?” demanded Conner.

Eddie glanced at his crazy work buddy. He turned his eyes back to the shining water. An hour on a rented sailboat before returning home from the West Coast convention might be the best thing he’d done in a long time. The introduction of ghosts was odd. He wondered if Conner, top company sales rep and champion liar, ever meant anything he said.

Eddie concentrated on the invigorating experience. He thought of the seeming freedom of sailing. The wind carressed his face and the spray of cool water made him feel so alive. Every so often the wind would change direction, weaken, strengthen, shift again, as if it were indecisive, as if it were forever lost and wandering.

A sudden gust gave the sailboat a sickening lurch. “Now we’re in for it!” warned Conner.

“Very funny.”

“The funny thing about ghosts,” explained Conner, “is they’re completely ineffective on land. Unless they come as a hurricane. But on the water, they’ll drive you wherever they can. To deal with ghosts effectively a boat needs an engine.”

“That must be why everyone loves sailing and horror movies,” Eddie countered facetiously. “Because it’s thrilling to be chased by monsters.”

“Driven by ghosts,” corrected Conner.

Eddie wanted to see how far his buddy would take it. “So where are all these ghosts going exactly?”

“Straight toward both of us.”

Eddie thought Conner couldn’t be serious. He never was.

But he did wonder why–why the bizarre assertion. He wondered if there were ghosts that drove his companion.

He thought he knew Conner. They’d worked together for well over ten years. He understood how Conner would tell a customer absolutely anything, just to be the winning salesperson. How Conner tossed away money as if he didn’t care. How he was a master joke teller, generous good friend, dedicated gambler, lover of sailing. How he never spoke about the death of his daughter.

Conner was staring back at him with a sly smile.

The ghosts were particularly indecisive that afternoon. They blew southwest, then shifted north, then east. As thousands of ghosts gathered in the white sails the taut ropes that resisted them vibrated. Held.

At the marina Conner and Eddie took one last look at slowly moving sails scattered across the water. Tilting toward hazy horizons.

The two jumped into their rented car and steered down lined asphalt to the airport, where ghosts gathered at the runway’s end would lift them home.

Night Walking

~ Richard Schulte ~ 3 Comments

The house had eyes.

The porch was a chin. The front door, a mouth.

Eli arrived home late, exhausted after another day’s work.

He parked on the driveway, locked his car, crossed stepping stones and climbed to the porch. The porch was a chin. He entered the mouth.

Late that night, after Eli had turned off all the lights and wrapped himself in warm blankets, the dark windows of the house blinked awake. Starlight filled eyes.

Rising from the ground, the house began to walk.

It walked past a row of gray lawns and sleeping houses and turned at Elm Street.

It walked past the dark gas station and the dark liquor store.

It turned onto Main Street and walked past the post office, bank, supermarket. It walked through the black shadows of the junkyard.

The eyes of the house twinkled right and left as they searched the night.

The house passed a cat prowling through an empty lot. It passed under a bat fluttering into the night from under a bridge. It walked past a row of black cedar trees and a lifted finger that was a church steeple. It moved beside pale nightshades that tumbled from inside the iron fence of the cemetery. It observed the hands of the town clock grasping eternity.

Under remote stars the house roamed.

A strange dream moved it. An impossible dream that was wrapped behind its eyes. A dream that was brighter than the stars, that turned gray shadows to certainties and the solemn dark to a thousand brilliant colors.

Walking through the night, the house at last found what it sought.

Eli woke as the sun rose above the horizon.

He looked out at the familiar street from his bedroom window, at the newly mown lawn and bed of cheerful yellow gardenias.

He was ready for another day.

Their Dream

~ Richard Schulte ~ 1 Comment

A retired firefighter named Gil had always wanted to be an astronaut. So one day he finally got started.

After examining old photographs of the NASA moon landings, he built a perfect lunar rover in his garage.

Then he fashioned a perfect space suit. Helmet, pressure garment, suit assembly, EVA backpack, gloves and all.

And on a Saturday he drove his lunar rover down the state highway to the sand dunes, donned his shining space suit and went for a bouncing ride.

A twenty-three year old artist named Allan lived with his girlfriend in a rusted trailer. He played guitar. He wrote poetry. He built sculptures around the trailer out of hubcaps and glass bottles. His face, neck and arms were tattooed green.

As the sun rose each morning, Allan, in a brilliant green robe, would walk alone for miles and miles, sit down upon a rock in a vast place and listen to the wind. He wanted to understand the world.

One day Allan sat in that place and watched as an astronaut in a bright space suit drove a lunar rover toward him.

That’s impossible, he thought. I must be dreaming.

Gil, driving his lunar rover, saw a shining green man sitting alone in the desert.

That’s impossible, he thought. I must be dreaming.

The astronaut passed the little green man.

From their dream neither woke.

The Recovered Artifact

~ Richard Schulte ~ 1 Comment

Do you remember those storms we had fifteen or twenty years ago? When dozens of houses were destroyed by mudslides? And the highway south of town was closed for a week?

I still remember how, exhausted from shoveling the mud on our driveway, I collapsed and sat on a slimy spot of curb gazing down the street. Several houses near the dead end were buried.

After a weeks of pouring rain the mud flows had become unstoppable. It seemed the hills around our neighborhood had been whipped by a gigantic blender and the earth reduced to brown rivers. I realize people overuse the word surreal, but the world I saw was surreal. The familiar street had been smothered by a relentless plain of mud. Ruthless mud that was primordial. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

As my tired eyes searched for the vanished street, or anything that might be recognizable, I wondered if our neighborhood could ever return to normal. That’s when I noticed a small object lying on the mud several feet from where I sat. I got up. I trudged over to pick the thing up.

It was a cast iron horse, about two inches in length.

Imagine my surprise.

I stared into my hand at the unexpected thing.

Buried in the hills of our neighborhood are centuries of history. From time to time bits of that history surface: an arrowhead, a shard of broken pottery, a disintegrating coin.

I wondered if this was an artifact from an age long past unburied by the rains and revealed again to living eyes. I turned the tiny cast iron horse over in my hand, removing the mud, and examined it closely. It was a very simple thing. Neither the head nor mane showed much detail. The legs were galloping. It had probably been a plaything of a child.

The more I stared at this mysterious artifact, and the more I wondered where it might have originated, the more primitive it appeared.

Archaeology has always fascinated me. To such an extent that I’ve taken several college courses.

I’ve seen galloping horses on the coins of Carthage and Ancient Corinth. I’ve seen the Bronze Running Horse from a 2nd century tomb in China. I have marveled at those friezes of Greek horses charging into battle with arching heads and curling manes, or taking flight on Pegasus wings. To my mind, this small horse appeared even more ancient. It seemed to have flown from a stone age cave painting directly into my hand.

The simple shape of the cast iron horse was timeless. The bounding figure possessed a carefree quality that spoke of unbreakable freedom. In that small thing I saw a symbol of life’s adamant tenacity. It was a thing that devouring forces could not destroy.

As I stood in the mud admiring a mysterious artifact that had emerged from the Earth, I became aware someone was standing near me.

“You found my horsey!” a child suddenly cried, hurrying forward, hands outstretched.

Soul to Soul

~ Richard Schulte ~ 1 Comment

Rudy and I stood talking at the end of the line as we waited for a concert. Rudy calls himself a philosopher, but don’t ask me whether he is.

“You know,” Rudy was expounding, “if existence is defined as the opposite of nonexistence, and nonexistence is something that doesn’t exist, your existence is defined by something that doesn’t exist.”

“That sounds profound,” I said.

“Don’t you realize your very existence is in question? Doesn’t that bother you?” inquired Rudy.

“Not really.”

A strange someone sauntered up to the end of the line. The guy wore rainbow sunglasses, a green bow tie, flower trunks, and a cascade of gold chains that couldn’t possibly be real. His t-shirt was emblazoned with a photograph of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue.

“Peace to you fellow Earthlings!” the strange someone proclaimed.

“Peace to you!” replied Rudy with his usual wry smile. He eyed Einstein up and down.

“Brave the unity and go soul to soul!” Einstein said. “The transcendent antenna beyond the multiverse electrifies, intensifies, rectifies! Be the incorruptible hunger that skewers the night and opens shutters to the Light! In that galaxy and time far, far away, enigmas await so fire up your starship! Let your rocket burn! Embrace the One like collisions of hot ectoplasm! We are the Alpha and the Omega and a billion furnaces roaring! We are the Omega Men!”

“Wow,” exclaimed Rudy. “That was completely rational.”

I corrected Rudy. “That was poetry.”

“That was one toke too many,” commented Rudy.

“That was something truly profound that you couldn’t possibly understand,” I replied.

Einstein stared at me through his rainbow sunglasses. He actually seemed to be surprised. “Yeah man, like he said.”

Spinning the Earth

~ Richard Schulte ~ 2 Comments

As he balanced precariously atop a stray basketball, Jack had a revelation. Because he could walk on the basketball and spin it backward, he could also spin the Earth.

Jack tapped Jill’s shoulder and told her to watch. He ran from the playground to the edge of the basketball courts then thrust his arms skyward in triumph. He had spun the Earth backward.

“I can spin the Earth even faster!” Jill insisted.

“No you can’t.”

“Yes I can. I’m faster than you!”

To prove the truth of her assertion, Jill sprinted away, causing Jack, who stood watching, to recede like the rest of the planet’s surface behind her.

“Let’s race!” Jack challenged.

The two crouched behind a straight shadow cast by the swings, just the way real racers do, getting ready . . . set . . . GO!

The Earth spun beneath their feet faster than ever.

“But what happens if I run one way and you run the other?” wondered Jill. “The Earth would have to spin in two different directions.”

“Maybe we can rip it in half!” Jack said enthusiastically.

“Let’s try!”

Ready . . . set . . . GO!

Two pairs of unstoppable feet raced in opposite directions, but there was no earthquake, no splitting of granite, no cataclysm of any kind, except that two people had drawn far apart.

Jill shouted: “Let’s run toward each other and see what happens!”

They nearly collided.

And lo and behold, the Earth remained solid, and steady, and in orbit around the bright distant sun, and reliably beneath their feet.

They stood eye to eye grinning.

Unheard Words

~ Richard Schulte ~ 2 Comments

The streetcar came out of its barn every Sunday. Like a relic from an era long forgotten, it ding-ding-rattled down the center of Transverse Street near City Park. The restored streetcar lurched, jerked, impeded impatient cars as it moved through the shadows of high modern towers. It halted long and inconveniently. Few people rode it.

A traveling businessman who needed to be at the convention center in no more than twenty minutes stepped aboard.

The streetcar driver was waving his arms while he waited for the traffic light to turn. He was engaged in a conversation.

“Who’re you talking to?” asked the anxious businessman, sitting down in one of the empty seats near the driver.

“That’s Edmund,” explained the driver.

“What?”

“That’s Edmund. He used to manage a cannery north of the pier where the aquarium is these days, but that was well over a century ago,” explained the driver, smiling up at the businessman’s reflection in the rear view mirror.

“What are you talking about? I don’t see anybody.”

“That’s because Edmund has been dead for over a hundred years. He likes to ride through the city and remember those old days. He tells me stories that everyone else has forgotten.”

The businessman stared at the back of the driver’s head. “Are you crazy?”

“No, I’m not. What’s that? Edith says I’m crazy. No, Edith, everyone in the car thinks the only crazy one here is you.”

The businessman rapidly turned about and observed rows of narrow, empty seats. He wondered if the ramblings of this apparently deranged driver would make him late. He looked out an antique green-tinted window at rush hour traffic and people hurrying down the sidewalk and decided it would be smart to remain quiet.

The traffic light finally changed. The driver started the streetcar with a sudden jerk. Waving his arms, he resumed his former conversation.

“You’re right, Edmund. It’s exactly like those old days leading up to the war. Everyone getting ready for the future. People coming and going, worrying how to survive should the worst happen. Nothing ever seems to change. He’s probably going somewhere important. No, I’m sure the man thinks his trip is very important. Can’t you tell by the way he’s dressed? There’s no point saying that. He can’t see or hear you, Edmund–you know perfectly well that you’re nothing but a sad, used-up ghost. So why do you keep trying to talk to the living? What’s that Stanley? What did you say?”

The streetcar driver looked up at his rear view mirror and addressed the increasingly annoyed businessman: “Stanley sees you live in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Which is an amazing coincidence. That’s where his grandchildren live.”

The businessman jerked his head back, startled. “What the hell? Who told you that?” His intense aggravation with the driver turned to angry suspicion.

“Stanley was born in Brookfield many years ago,” explained the smiling driver. “He was raised there, in a farmhouse a few miles from Al Capone’s distillery. Then he moved here to the city and died from a series of strokes two years later. He has an important message for you. He wants you to inform his grandchildren who still live in Brookfield that he loves them.”

The streetcar bell dinged as it pulled into a station. The doors flapped open. The businessman bolted from his seat and fled. Not a living soul boarded.

The driver pulled a handle to shut the door. He started the slow streetcar again with another jerk.

“No, Stanley, that man is gone. All of this talking scared him away. I’m sorry. You know I have no control over the actions of people. No, I can’t go after him–who would drive? You say you would? A ghost? Someone with two hands has to drive!

“I realize you tried your best but you couldn’t reach him. I’m really sorry. You love your grandchildren. You love them with all your heart. You want Seth and Marge to know you still think of them. You want them to know you still love them.

“Eventually somebody else who still lives in your small town will take a ride with us. Be patient. Somebody will.”