#162 Ashes- D.R MacDonald
Roderick John is dying. He’s not sick but he can feel it. He
lives on his family land, pat of it a least. He sold most of it to a rich man
years ago that promised not to destroy its beauty. He also promised that if he
remained as caretaker, he could be buried in a spot by the water.
“He did not love that place exactly, that was not what he
would say if he were to tell someone about it. Love was too careful a word.”
One day a big yellow bulldozer shows up, and the feeling of
death appears. Yellow is the color of autumn, of decay, of warning…of the giant
iron bulldozers come to change the land. The dozer comes like the reaper.
Roderick even remembers the scythe he used to clear the land.
Death becomes something different for him when he earns that
in order to be buried on private land, you have to be cremated first. He was
ready to be buried face up with arms crossed over his chest, a relic to be
uncovered years later. But, ashes; ashes are a new thought, ashes are cold and
impersonal.
“I’m not afraid of it. I just thought if they could put me
under a piece of my own ground, I’d get over the tough part, the surprises.”
The story is a nice, somber elegy, maybe a bit long for what
it is.
Notable Passage: “Everything gets bad if you live long
enough.”
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