In Silence and Solitude
In a small town, in northern California, an old man lived a quiet lonely life. He lived alone, as his wife had died a few years ago. He lived in a small brown house deep in the hills and away from the rush of the city. He only had one bedroom, one bathroom, a small T.V. room, and a kitchen, leaving not much room for visitors. As he was now in his late eighties it was hard for him to travel, even into the nearby town, and he was the last of his family alive and had close to no friends. He had, had a few older brothers but they sadly had died a few years before his wife, and he had gotten in a tragic accident earlier in his life which cost him his only child’s life. Therefore he spent his life in silence and solitude.
Each morning he would open his eyes to the same plain wall in front of him. Much like him his room was empty. He had a small dresser, a single nightstand with a lamp on it, which was the only light source for the whole room, and an old rocking chair where his wife used to sit and read. His bed was the largest thing in the room as it was still the king sized bed he shared with his wife, resulting in the second thing he saw every morning being the empty gap next to him where his wife used to lie. There was not a single window on any of the barren walls making it a very gloom place. In fact there was only one window in the whole house and that was over the sink, although you could hardly ever tell as there was always dirty dishes piled high over it. Waking up in this drab environment every morning made getting up even harder. Being well into his eighties he never had anything to do during the day and therefore no real reason to get out of bed. However, each morning he would slowly make his way out of bed, slip his beat up old slippers onto his feet, grab his raggedy torn old robe off the bed post, and make his way into the kitchen. Once there he would prepare a pot of coffee, and then sit at his rickety old table and read the paper. The kitchen was not much better than his bedroom, in fact it was worse. While he sat and read the paper, which usually was not that day’s issue, he was surrounded by old broken and dusty appliances, dirty dishes and tearing wallpaper. Needless to say this wasn’t the highlight of his day. He would then make his way out to the front porch where he would sit with his pipe in one hand and shotgun in the other and threaten the life of any living thing that stepped foot on his property. No, not really, but not far from it. After his morning coffee he would move his reading to his couch where he could sit for hours. After he was done with his paper, depending on his mood, he would either hobble in the shower and get dressed, or continue to sit on the couch and have a chat with his wife, who is still dead and he knows that, but he finds comfort in hearing himself talk so he just imagines she is listening. If it is a good day and he decides to get dressed, not much changes. He might decide to go sit outside and watch the birds, or sit inside where he would find solace in the tune of one of his old, crackly records. This would bring him to about one o’clock in the afternoon. At this point, once again depending on his mood, he would either choose to skip lunch or not. If he ate lunch it would consist of something pretty boring and simple, like a bologna sandwich accompanied by a coke. From here on it was all pretty much the same he would either go for a long quiet walk or continue his lazy day by taking his very worn seat on the couch or even going to sleep. Believe it or not, going to sleep was his favorite choice, as after over fifty years of living in the same place nothing was new to him, but in his sleep he could go anywhere.
In fact, the majority of his life he spent sleeping. When he slept he would dream and in his dreams he could go anywhere and do anything he wanted. He had adventures deep into the forest, and when that got old he ventured into space. In his space world he traveled from planet to planet with his wife, in the little spaceship he built himself. They went to a planet where the whole thing was just one big island beach resort. He and his wife would lie on the beach all day getting as tan as a piece of toast left in the toaster for just a little too long. Then, the next night they would hop in their little space ship once more and fly off to yet another world of his creation. Sadly, each dream ended abruptly with the coming of the morning and he would start his dreary life once more. Now back to his silent, sad, and solitary reality, the only thing that got him through the day was the knowledge that he got to return to his dream world at the end of each day. Upon his much awaited return to his bed, he would happily put his head on his pillow and let his heavy eyelids fall over his eyes bringing with them his dreams. He would experience different layers of dreams and as he went deeper into the dream the higher the risk of him not returning, as he could slip away into limbo. Once again, no. Although some days were better than others, as he wouldn’t be reunited with his wife in every dream and would be left alone to experience a world once again alone. He lived through this cycle day after day unaffected by the rest of the world. Until one day, he was rudely awakened by a faint rumble in the distance.
Although this was just a faint rumble in the distance, when you are used to silence any new sound can be quite the nuisance. For the next couple of days, he could not dream as that tiny little rumble in the distance was consuming his mind. However, time went on and as this was only a slight hum he got used to it pretty quickly and returned to sleeping peacefully. This peace turned out to be short lived as the rumble had been getting louder and louder over the course of the next couple of weeks. Now three months after he had first heard that faint, distant rumble it emerged from the forest in a big boom and sounded as if it was right on the other side of his wall. He was furious. He had just been having a nice dream, not nearly as nice as the ones he had had before the rumbling started, but it was nice. However that dream was short lived as he was rudely awakened by that rumble shaking his whole house as it emerged from the nearby wood. He jumped out of bed put on his slippers grabbed his robe and rushed outside. As soon as he opened the door he was stopped in his tracks as he was now staring up at a fleet of about a hundred twenty foot tall bulldozers, that had just flattened seventy-five percent of the forest. Now, the only thing standing between this enormous fleet of machines and the rest of the forest was him and his tiny little house. It turned out the government had purchased the land and was developing it. They now handed him a little slip of paper stating he had thirty days to pack his things and move, along with a government check for seventy-five thousand dollars. He was outraged! For the next twenty-nine days he slept, no longer dreaming only remembering all of the times he and his wife shared in this house, all the while surrounded by the army of equipment that would destroy all those memories. On the last day when they came for his house he unleashed thousands of balloons that were attached to his house and flew off to his childhood paradise. Sadly, once again that is not true. On the thirtieth day, his final day in his house, he made his final cup of coffee tucked his paper under his arm and walked into the section of forest that still remained never to be seen again.
