THE BOY WHO BESTED EINSTEIN

History offers that most tantalizing of visions – the unerring view of hindsight. Call it the big What If? Looking back in time, the whims of fate and destiny stand out for all to see, if indeed one chooses to look at them at all. Look hard enough, though, and you're bound to find some good ones.

In researching and writing Einstein: His Life and Universe, a comprehensive biography of Albert Einstein, author Walter Isaacson uncovered one playful little tidbit. In 1895, while enrolled in a college preparatory school in Switzerland, the 16 year-old Einstein was already being recognized as an exceptional student. No surprise there. Yet what scant records survived from that time show that he scored the second highest rank in his class that year.

But, says Isaacson, "Alas, the name of the boy who bested Einstein is lost to history." ¹

So the man whose name and face is to this day synonymous with genius, the man who helped usher in the atomic age and told us how the universe worked, was, at one point in his youth, not the smartest kid in his class. Somebody else was.

Of course a grade point average is a subjective measurement of academic effort, nothing more. And there is no law that says every gifted prodigy must always be at the very top of the class. Still, it tickles the imagination to think of someone beating out one of the greatest thinkers the world has ever known. And then disappearing forever.

This happened before the age of overnight celebrity (although years later Einstein would become the world's first and only science superstar). This happened before the age of mass communication overload. Things were simpler back in 1895, and in at least one way more is the pity.

For if he was alive today, might not the man who once outranked Einstein be the subject of curious, if not intense, scrutiny? What journalist or news editor wouldn't love to expose him to the world, take his picture and ask a few questions? What did you end up doing with your life? What great things can you tell us? Why didn't you end up more like Mister Einstein?

Yes Fate can be cruel, too.

Left alone, this young student probably lived a full and normal life, raising a family and caring little how he had a slight brush with immortality. Again we'll never know.

Which brings us to the question of who, or what, determines greatness? Is it our own individual hard work and free will? The aid and mentoring from others? Or is it the placement from a Higher Order, a touch of Divine Grace that randomly taps the shoulder of one life and not the next?

In his later years Einstein had this to say about it all:

"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control…we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player." ²

He might have been on to something there. Like the mystery of the boy who once bested Einstein, the tune plays on.

 

͠

___________________________

1. Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe, Simon & Schuster, New York, p. 30.

2. Ibid., p. 392.

 

NEIGHBORS

A short story inspired my student days in Chicago.


I'd like to think that old man did it for a good reason. That he moved on of his own free will, leaving behind no regrets and no explanations. Owing nothing to nobody. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all say that about our own lives? The setting was a ground floor apartment in a converted duplex on Chicago's near north side, itself a tired and faded building that had disappeared from prominence years ago. For all I knew the landlord and I were the only ones who knew he lived there. He was my next-door neighbor.

As a grad student new to the city, finding a decent room for rent had become a top priority. With only a few days until the beginning of the fall semester I found the ad for a furnished two-room apartment in the local paper, and as far as I was concerned it couldn't have been a better stroke of luck. Centrally located within the city, close to an El station for easy transportation downtown to school, the place was simple and affordable – two of the best words a student can hear. And as if that wasn't enough, when I first met the landlord I was told I had a very quiet neighbor, an older gentleman who had lived there a long time and always kept to himself.

Perfect.

The first thing I noticed was the name on the man's mailbox, directly below mine at the front of the building. 'P. Stavrakis.' it said in heavy black magic marker on a piece of masking tape. So right away I knew his name. That was easy enough. And doubtless more than I needed to know about the man.

The way I figure it, if you live out in the suburbs you gauge people more on what you see. Here in closer quarters you base things more on what you hear. For instance, the old man must have had some working years left in him because five days a week I would hear him leaving right at 12:30 every afternoon, then coming home again at ten o'clock at night. Not likely an office job of any sort. Tenant parking was available but every time he left I never heard an engine starting up. So I could assume he didn't drive a car. And he had to be a loner. Never once did I hear a guest's voice or a phone ring in that apartment across the hall. The only sounds I ever heard were the occasional muffled sounds of a television game show or the sizzling of meat on the stove.

To be fair, in those days I kept to myself too. I didn't know anyone in the city and I kept my concentration on my schoolwork, allowing myself few distractions. It just so happened that one of those distractions became that old man next door.

I caught my first glimpse of him late one morning when I was home studying. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone coming down the alley carrying a bag of groceries. I stepped closer to the window and peaked around the ugly blue curtains. With his stooped shoulders, traces of white hair and his soft, careful gait he gave all the appearance of a man who didn't want to be noticed. I say traces of white hair because he wore a brown baseball cap low across his forehead, resting atop thick black-framed glasses that further hid his features. Call it urban camouflage.

I watched him until he slipped out of view. Seconds later I heard the creaking of floorboards coming down the hall, followed by the jingling of keys, and the gentle opening and closing of his door. Finally the sliding of the lock. That was him, all right. That was P. Stavrakis.

The next clue came a few nights later when I first heard the music. It was late on a Saturday night. I was lying on my couch reading when the faint streams of a melody slipped out from behind his door. It was a wistful, melancholy mix of strings and mandolins scratching out from what must have been an old phonograph player. Strange music. Music from the old country. No lyrics. Just the melody. I strained to hear more. And as I did an image came to mind: the man sitting there in a straight-backed chair, in his pants and white undershirt, maybe a drink in his hand, listening and remembering happier times, times long gone. And the only reason I could think of that a man would play music like that – a woman. Definitely a woman. Who was she and what happened to her? To know her story would be to know a big part of his.

I tried to resume my reading but after hearing that sad music it was hopeless. I put my book down, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, and turned out the lamp. There in the soft glow of the city lights I leaned back and we listened to the music together.

A few days later I was coming home from class; it was raining so I was moving fast between the El station and my apartment. I quickly grabbed my mail and brought it inside, throwing down what there was of it without looking at it right away. When I did get around to going through it I noticed a cream-colored letter addressed in a woman's fine hand to Mr. Pietr Stavrakis. The letter was postmarked five days ago from Albania of all places, with some funky-looking stamps commemorating that country and the sovereign reign of King Konstantin. No return name or address given. Seeing the obvious mistake my first thought was to run back outside and put it in his mailbox. What the hell business was it of mine?

But holding that parchment-like envelope in my hand did get my imagination going. What if it was a love letter? Long ago lost but recently found? Was this from the woman behind the sad music? Or maybe it was from a distant relative with impending news. Bad news. A daughter maybe? Whatever it was it had to be something important. After all, it came all the way from Albania.

Instead of putting it back in his mailbox I could just as easily go out into the hall and slip the letter under his door. He might appreciate that. A neighborly gesture. Then again, he might wonder who was handling his personal mail. Either way I had to do something. It was late afternoon and he usually wasn't home yet. I decided to slip it under the door.

Of course the floorboards in front of his door creaked louder than ever before when I stepped on them. What if he was home? What if he heard me and suddenly opened the door? What would I say? Should I knock? I leaned my ear up to the door. Not a sound. I could smell something, a sour cabbage smell that seemed to saturate the wood. Last night's dinner? More like every dinner from every night of the last how many years.

I tucked the letter halfway under his door and hurried back to my room.

That night, ten o'clock as always, I heard him coming down the hall, then the keys and the opening and closing of his door. When I cracked open my door and peered out I could see that the letter was gone. All was quiet over there until five minutes later when I heard glass shattering on the floor. It was enough to make me jump. My initial thought was to run over to see if he was all right. But something held me back. Then I heard the music again. Maybe it was just me but somehow it sounded sadder than before. And that night he played it over and over again.

The next morning, a Friday, was bright, cool and clear – a first taste of autumn in the air. I was on my way to catch the El when I looked up and saw coming toward me on the sidewalk none other than Pietr Stavrakis. He was wearing the baseball cap again and his hands were buried in the pockets of his well-worn overcoat. Did he recognize me? Should I say something? Did he even know I was his next door neighbor?

Right as we passed one another our eyes briefly met. Neither of us said a word. As I reached the end of the street, about to turn the corner, I stole a quick glance back at him but he was already gone.

I went back home that weekend and when I returned Monday morning I grabbed my mail, looking it over carefully this time to see that it was indeed my mail, and entered the building. I was coming down the hall when I saw his door wide open. That was strange. I slowed down, a little afraid of what I might see. Inside was nothing but bare cupboards and blank walls. A curtain fluttered at the open window. I cautiously stepped over the linoleum threshold to get a closer look. The old appliances and furniture were still in place, but in essence the place was as empty and lifeless as a midnight bus stop. Despite the open window and the fresh scent of air freshener I could still catch that peculiar smell – probably the only thing he did leave behind.

The landlord startled me when he came in with a mop and pail. I asked him what happened and he shrugged, saying matter-of-factly that the old man left him a note last week that he was leaving, along with enough cash to cover the last two weeks of the month. He said he never had a lease and always paid in cash. Every month for the past eleven years. And now, just like that, old Mister Stavrakis was gone. I asked the landlord if he knew why and he simply shook his head and walked into the bedroom with his mop.

I wanted to scour the place for any clue he may have left behind – anything that would somehow wrap things up or at least tell me something about who this man was. But that wasn't going to happen. Like I said, he didn't owe anyone any explanations, least of all me.

Now it's just a strange memory of an old man who, by fate or happenstance, once lived under the same roof as me. A man who moved in, stayed for a while, then slipped out with no one giving it a second thought.

Well, almost no one.


-end-

Ode to a Really Old Book

With a little help from a search engine on my computer I can safely say that the book I hold in my hands is older than the Statue of Liberty and the statehood of Nebraska. No big deal you say? Okay, try this. Halfway through what would turn out to be his only term in office, Abraham Lincoln might have been interested in reading this book when it first came out.

Published in 1862, The Great Rebellion; A History of the Civil War in the United States, Volume I is today 149 years old. The author, a historian by the name of J.T. Headley, died over a century ago.

Still not impressed? This book proclaims to tell the history of the origins of the Civil War, with the promise to readers that Volume II will come out "within six months after the close of the war." Let me repeat that: it's a written history of the Civil War that couldn't be completed in one volume because the author didn't yet know who was going to win the war.

Damn, now that's old.

For being as old as it is, however, this particular copy is in remarkable shape. The engraved hard cover is worn but strong, the binding solid. The 506 pages remain gilded gold and hold every word clearly and legibly. All in all it's held up pretty well for being a century and a half old.

I inherited it from my late father, himself an avid student of the Civil War. It was part of his personal library, but unfortunately I have no idea how he came to own this book. I don't know where it came from, how he found it. Nothing. It was just sitting there on a bookshelf in his basement, next to two volumes of a three-volume biography of George Washington published in 1860.And now these very books, dusted in mystery, are part of my own book collection.

That's the amazing thing about books. They last. Books can outlast the vagaries of time and technology. But don't paintings, sculptures, even furniture have the same power to endure antiquity? Indeed they do. There's just something about an old book that, to me, is a little mystical. To think that someone long gone and forgotten once held this very same book in their hands, read it and hopefully enjoyed it, is a true testament to how a writer's thoughts and ideas can outdistance mortal life itself.

Will I ever take the time to read this entire book? To be honest, probably not. But like any other book I can always read it should I choose to do so. In the mean time I will take good care of it. Then maybe years from now someone else might look at it and say, "Wow, check out this old book. I wonder who else held it in their hands?"

-end-

Writer Wanted

"In my experience, nothing is harder for the developing writer than overcoming his [or her] anxiety that he is fooling himself and cheating or embarrassing his family and friends."
-John Gardner, novelist and literary critic

How true. In fact, I have privately faced that question many times - am I fooling myself? Am I really a writer? Okay, I'm writing these words, so in that meager context alone I do qualify. Broadening it out a bit I have written stories and articles in my time and been paid for doing it (Never enough to quit a day job, that's for damn sure.). I even wrote an unpublished novel manuscript that deserves to remain unpublished. But still…a writer? Me?

It's not like I go around telling everyone I'm a writer. And I certainly don't delude myself by thinking that people are clamoring to read every inspired word I put down. Hardly. (Though to be totally honest what writer doesn't, by the very nature of what he or she does, namely committing words to paper, secretly crave just a little immortality?)

So when does one who writes become A WRITER?

Novelist James Michener once said something to the effect that a good writer should only be published after he's written a million words. A dramatic way of saying one has to put considerable time and effort into his craft in order to call himself a writer. No argument there. I have no idea how many words I've written in my lifetime, but by that measure I'd have to start copying the dictionary cover to cover just to get up to speed. (Right now the word count on this piece stands at about 225, so let's see – 1 million divided by 225 equals – never mind.)

Like it or not, in this age of social media and the internet it doesn't require a gifted skill set to see one's words in print. Not that that's always a bad thing. There's easy access for everyone like never before. I simply choose not to define a writing vocation by including tweets and Facebook postings.

I earned a Masters Degree in Creative Writing. Does that give me honest claim to calling myself a writer? By itself I would have to say no. Just as someone who gets a degree in Philosophy shouldn't go around telling everyone they're a Philosopher by trade. Have you seen the want ads lately? Now that's a tough field to break into.

Do you have to write every day to be a writer? Probably wouldn't hurt. But I don't. Sorry, e-mails and shopping lists don't count.

Do you have to have a book out there with your name on the cover? Do you have to have a literary agent? Your own website? A thick portfolio of published articles?

Or can you just be someone who can put decent sentences together in order to get a point across, every now and then nailing it with a touch of clarity and color?

I'll go with that last one for now. So, yes, I am a writer. Really.

WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE…

(This one isn't fiction.)


A football.
That's right. When I grow up I want to be a football. It says so right there in black and white, in the shaky hand of a third-grade student who happened to be me a long time ago. It's part of an irreplaceable chronicle called "My School Years," in which are archived the class pictures, report cards and various statistics of my grade school years. And there on the back page of the third-grade section I declared to the world what it was I wanted to be when I grow up. Not a fireman. Not a policeman. Not even a cowboy, astronaut or soldier. Nope. I marked the box with the blank line and wrote down the word 'football' in fat, uneven letters.

Now it doesn't take a genius or child psychologist to figure out that what I was really trying to say back then was I wanted to be a football player. I simply ran out of room to fit in the other key word. (God, I hope that really was what happened.) Nothing unusual about a young boy dreaming of being a football star. All I needed to work on was my throwing arm and/or my penmanship a little more.

Anyway, I came across this forgotten footnote recently and it got me to thinking: Why is it that some people know early on what they want to do with their life – or at least have a pretty good idea, while others struggle for years to find their 'calling'? Indeed many never find it at all. What triggers that light bulb to turn on for some and not for others? Is it Divine Intervention? Destiny? The way our particular molecules of DNA happen to wrap around each other? Or something more mundane like good education or plain old good luck? I know hard work fits in there somewhere, too, but doesn't that come after the fact?

That's not to say that anyone has an easier road just because they know what they want to do. We all have our struggles, our highs and lows, our dead ends. No free passes when it comes to that. Nor should there be. And certainly not everyone needs that 'aha' moment in order to lead a productive and fulfilling life. It just stands to reason that much like someone taking a long vacation trip, those who know ahead of time where they want to go have an advantage over those who just get in the car and start driving.

The truth is I'm still looking for some road signs.

I write these words not as a former football star, but rather as a man of steadily growing years who is still learning, still searching, still wondering: What do I want to be when I grow up? And again I am trusting that my vision can reach a little higher than wanting to be a fully inflated genuine leather pigskin.

By the way, according to my fourth-grade entry my focus had shifted to wanting to be a scientist. Yeah, that one turned out real good, too.

A Resting Place

In the end, I guess it all comes down to how you look at things. First time I laid eyes on that place the words wisped out of my mouth without my even thinking.
"What the hell?"
It was the last thing I expected to find hiking through lush green woods near my late brother's land, miles away from the nearest town or church. The closest landmark was a dirt road that didn't even have a name. I had walked through these woods with my brother before, but this was my first time back since…well, since he was gone. Somewhere along the line I must have taken a wrong turn. No signs gave warning, no fences or paths marked the spot. Set in a small clearing it had all the looks of a place lost in time and not meant to be found again.
Yet there I was, looking at a gathering of tombstones.
Seven in all. Choked off from the rest of the world by tall trees and untamed grass. Not one of them stood straight. Some were cracked, one cleanly broken in two.

The dirty white slabs appeared at first glance to have no markings on them. Though it was a late summer afternoon with not a cloud in the sky, the light and warmth of that
God-given day hardly seemed to reach in here. Maybe that explained the slightest of chills that crawled up the back of my neck like an evil whisper as I stared at those stones. What were these things doing out here?
Right away I caught a whiff of something sour in the air. Maybe a dead rabbit. Maybe some wild mustard weed growing nearby. Whatever. What struck me next was the noise – there was none. Was it just my imagination or was there nothing of what you'd expect to hear in the woods this time of year? No birds or insects buzzing, no rustling of leaves in the trees. All replaced by a quiet that went from subtle to eerie in the space of two or three hushed breaths. The spell was soon broken by something over to my right. Moving down there in the—
Son of a bitch.
A long thin snake, black as oil with no markings, slid its way slowly over the broken stone and a bare spot of ground. I watched it stop for a moment, lift its head up briefly, then continue on and disappear in the tall grass.
Of all the crazy things…a snake?
My body tingled as though I'd just touched a live wire. I held my breath waiting to see if it might reappear. When finally I felt it safe enough I did move carefully, treading as lightly as I could over the hard ground toward the nearest markers. The chiseled letters on the tombstones were speckled with moss and so weather-worn as to be almost invisible unless you were right on top of them.

Mathias Petersen Hans Petersen
Fodt 27 Sept 1862 Fodt 27 Sept 1862
Dodt 12 April 1869 Dodt 13 April 1869

Fodt? Dodt? What the hell kind of old world language was that? Then those dates. Eighteen Sixty-nine.
Damn.
Only with a second look did I catch other peculiarities. Twins – born on the same day and dying at a tragically young age. Buried one day apart.
A tepid breeze blew out of the north, and I might have been relieved to feel it were it not for something else, a strange noise it carried. It was faint and seemed to swirl in the wind, but for a few seconds I swore I heard it: horse's hooves. It could have been coming from any direction, or none at all. I'd heard tell of an Amish settlement a few miles west of here, so the idea of a horse and carriage traveling down the nearby road wasn't so far-fetched. No sooner had I begun to wrap my thoughts around that idea than the breeze died down and any sound of a trotting horse, if ever it was really there, vanished as well.
Silence returned.
I shook my head and stepped toward the next two tombstones. Same last name. Same date of death.


Johanna Petersen Engebret Petersen
Fodt 10 June 1849 Fodt 6 Mar 1846
Dodt 19 April 1869 Dodt 19 April 1869

I looked over at the next two.

Albert Skaarsgard Greta Halvorsen
Fodt 25 June 1848 Fodt 17 Oct 1847
Dodt 19 April 1869 Dodt 19 April 1869

The final marker, the broken one, lay face down in the dirt, and visions of that snake crawling over it moments earlier kept me from reaching down and lifting it up to read the name inscribed.
It struck me that I was standing on hallowed ground. A final resting place for seven souls long ago departed. Just because it didn't look like your typical manicured cemetery didn't make it any less a final resting place. But why then was there not so much as a single crucifix or peaceful symbol carved anywhere in this place? Why not even a word of grace. No hint of anything holy here. And then there was that god-awful snake, coiling back and forth over the ground like some devilish sentry guarding its post. Add it all up and, well, what if this place was different? What if this place was somehow unnatural and these people were meant to be forgotten? What if—?
Oh, for Christ sake, get a hold of yourself.

Obviously someone thought enough to make these headstones; maybe that was how they did it back then. Just names and dates. No big deal.
I stared again at the names of the twins. Then it came to me – the image of two grinning boys wearing scruffy trousers, dirty cotton shirts and wide-brimmed hats. These immigrants to a new land. Happy despite the hardships and too young to know any better. Walking down a dirt road or through a tall cornfield on a hot summer day, laughing and playing the way all kids should. That quaint little snapshot lingered for a moment until I started thinking about what could have happened to them – to all of them – to make them end up here.
I heard something: a whispered, chattering sound coming from beyond the trees. I looked all around me but saw nothing. A few seconds went by before I heard it again – this time longer and louder. That's when I realized what I was hearing wasn't a bird, it wasn't an animal, and it sure as hell wasn't the wind. It was the unmistakable sound of children giggling.
My heart was pounding in my chest like a tiny fist as I now had the inescapable feeling I was being watched. My mind said no, that's not possible, but the hot tingling on my skin said otherwise. I wasn't alone. Then something fell into the grass near my feet. An acorn maybe, or a small pebble. Almost like it was being thrown at me.
What the fuck?
"Who's there?"
The laughing stopped.
"Come on, who's there?"

Another object skipped on the ground and bounced off one of the headstones. I didn't have to wait long before it started up again. This time it was coming from those trees over to my right. Children laughing. Swear to God.
I should have run while I had the chance.
"You looking for something?"
I jumped when I heard his voice. I didn't know who he was or how he got there. Suddenly he was just there, standing behind me at the edge of the clearing, a thin old man with stringy white hair and an unruly beard.
I put a hand to my chest and waited for my breath to come back. "Jesus Christ."
As soon as I said that I thought I caught an angry glint flash in his eyes. Like fire. Then it passed just as quickly.
The bib overalls and red plaid shirt were as smooth and worn down as an old saddle. And cradled in his right arm, pointed to the ground but menacing nonetheless, was a shotgun. The damn thing looked positively antique.
"This is private land," he said calmly, like so many around here a man of few words. A trace of Scandinavian accent hung in his voice.
I thought about going up and offering my hand, introducing myself, but the unblinking stare – not to mention the gun at his side – held me back.
"I'm sorry if…I was just hiking through the woods. My brother's place is…was over that way. Guess I got lost."
"You best get on back then."
"Wait a minute. Hold on. You're the owner here?"
His answer was slow in coming. "You might say that."
"So what do you know about these headstones?"
"Why?"
"No reason, just curious. My brother never said anything to me about a cemetery back here."
"Don't figure many folks knew about it."
"How come?"
"Happened a long time ago."
Tell me, damn it.
"Please, I'd like to hear about it."
Another long pause before he answered. "Story is a family of Norwegian homesteaders passed through this way once, looking for good farm land to set up stakes. God-fearing people. Never caused nobody trouble. But then the whooping cough come around and the two boys took sick to it. Weren't no doctors or nobody to help. The young ones died real fast. Father had to dig the graves and lay them down with his own two hands. After that he got tore up with anger. Cursed God for taking his boys."
His bony hands tightened around that shotgun.
"Some say he lost his mind. Others say he made a pact with the devil himself to get his boys back. Believe what you will. But one night while the rest of the family was sleeping he loaded up his gun and put the barrel to each and every one. Saved himself for last."

The old man let out a sigh and lowered his head. "Does terrible things to a man when he has to bury his only two sons."
Two giggling little boys in wide-brimmed hats?
"So who buried them here? I mean, if the whole family was dead..."
He looked up but all he did was shrug his shoulders. His sad gray eyes wouldn't leave me alone as we stood facing each other, me in the sun, he in the shade. Finally I had to look away.
"That's quite a story," was all I could think to say.
The old man stood there, saying nothing, doing nothing. That unnerved me as much as that shotgun he was holding. Yet at the same time I could almost feel the hurt leaking out from that old man. A feeling to which I could relate.
"My brother he…uh…owned land back there," I said, pointing quickly over my shoulder. "Maybe you knew him – Josh Barton?"
The man shook his head. "I'm too old. Don't much know people around here no more."
"Well, he…he passed away two months ago. Heart attack. Kind of thing you never see it coming. But then, who does?"
"You miss him?"
What the hell kind of question…?
"Sure I do. I mean, yeah. In fact, it's still hard to believe he's gone."
"You got family?" he asked.
The question jolted me a little. "I'm divorced. Got a four year-old girl. Light of my life."
"Good. A man's gotta stay close to family. Don't you worry, won't be long you'll see your brother again."
What in the world is this guy talking about?
Next thing I know he's lifting the gun barrel a little higher, his right hand sliding toward the trigger.
"Now you ought not be here," he said softly.
"Look, I don't know what you're talking about. What is it about this place, anyway?"
"Said it yourself, you only found it 'cause you was lost. Be on your way. You don't belong here."
"Who are you?"
He nodded toward the ground behind me and I followed his gaze to the tombstones. Right away I focused on the broken one lying facedown in the dirt. The one name I hadn't read.
"I'm what you might call the caretaker," he said. "See to it nobody disturbs these graves."
Caretaker? Damn, either this guy's crazy or—
Just then my mouth went dry and a chill ran straight through me.
"That's what you're doing here – staying close to them?"
He hesitated for a second, then nodded.
"You mean all this time, all these years—"
"Each of us got burdens to carry. Some heavier than others is all."
My God, this can't be happening.
I stepped back quickly, almost stumbling over my own feet.
When he spoke next his voice seemed to carry an echo, like it was coming from deep inside a tunnel. "Like I said, this here is private land and you're trespassing. Now you best get going."
All at once a gentle breeze began to blow and I could hear the trees and bushes rustling. That was enough for me. Too stunned to say or do anything else, I kept back-peddling. After taking one last look into his eyes I turned around and started walking away. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until I was running like a scared little kid. When finally I did find my way back to the familiar trail I was sweating and nearly out of breath, though I didn't stop. Not until I was safely across the property line. Back where I belonged.
Only then did I look back at those lush green woods, now alive with birds. And the faintest sound of children giggling.



-end-

A Few More Good Ones

"Sir, if you were my husband I would poison your drink."
                                  - Lady Astor to Winston Churchill
"Madam, if you were my wife I would drink it."
                                   - his reply


"When I read about the evils of drinking I gave up reading."
                                   - Henny Youngman


"My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met."
                                   - Rodney Dangerfield


"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."
                                    -Humphrey Bogart


"I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me."
                                     -Anonymous


"Some people ask for the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
                                      -Henny Youngman

And finally...

This exchange between Groucho Marx and a female contestant on his television show You Bet Your Life:

Groucho: "You have twenty-two children! Why do you have so many children? That's a big responsibility and a big burden."

Woman: "Well, because I love children, and I think that's our purpose here on earth, and I love my husband."

Groucho: "I love my cigar too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while."