One Day to Go

     Tomorrow I begin a re-read of the Markie and Emil story.  Give it some thought then start a re-write.  Guess tomorrow is the start of re-  time.  I'm hoping for a beginning, middle and an end.  Some humor, a dash of meaning and insight.  With luck, something of a new angle or two.  Mostly I'm hoping for a good time sweating it through to a finished product.

Emil Spouts Off

     The two of us were walking down a township road.  Sand and gravel between muddy, plowed and unplanted fields.  Last year's brown grasses, cat tails and burdock in the ditches.  We were talking about nothing of importance when I brought up the story I had written about an adventure from many years in the past.  Had Emil read it?

     "Of course I have.  Hard not to seein' as how I was peekin' over your shoulder the whole time.  Now and then I'd throw in an idea or two.  Most of 'em you didn't hear.  Guess you were too wrapped up in what you thought was important.  Had you listened up you'd have written a much better story.  No doubt about that.  And sometimes you were just too damned dull.  Cut and dried as Sister Eleanor Marie used to say.  You've got more in you than that.  Relax.  Let it flow.  And, damn it, listen to me more than once in a while."

     He went on, "Some of me you got right.  But not all.  Hell, let me rant a bit.  I was human wasn't I?"
     "No Uncle Emil, you never were.  Maybe I made you up, maybe not.  But you never toted flesh on your bones."
     "So, mister high and mighty, just 'cause you can fart and it stinks doesn't mean you're better than me.  Maybe if your fingers had fleshed me out a tad more in the story I wrote with your hands you'd think differently.  The idea is to dig deeper, flesh me out.  Do the same for yourself.  And move the year to 1961.  That's a good number and it'd make you fourteen.  No way a twelve year old city kid could tote a forty pound pack through a mile and a half of blowdown then go back for a second."
     "Also figure out a way to make me grow up without a father without killin' him off.  That way you and me could relate on another level.  You see, the general story you've got has been told a thousand times.  Ain't nothin' new so you've gotta make it personal.  And, before I forget, come up with a coupla tales to spark the humor.  Maybe gallows humor like the Winnie the Pooh thing.  Now that was funny.  Last of all, wait out the month.  You set yourself a goal, stick to it."
     As usual I didn't have much to say in response.  Emil was right.  Pissed me off a little but that was my problem.  Over in the fields a flock of starlings did a couple of zig-zags then settled in an unplowed wetland.
     "By the way, leave me alone till you're ready to start it up again."