Countenance of Man (Intro)

I peered over the edge to look down,

Rocks and branches coated as with fine powder,

Just beyond the reach of my fingers.

Water chilling my arms,

I swirled my extended hand ‘round

Expecting to disturb the sediment of everything under

But, finding no impact to linger,

Leaving the dusty blanket without harm.

I reached in farther to touch a stone

Seeking to retrieve this for personal collection,

To feel the cool, smooth surface,

Only to find that rock farther than expected.

Failing to reach is not my problem alone

For the shallow was only a perception.

So, my stone remained beyond purchase

My understanding of depth corrected.

Chapter 1

It had been a long time since my memory had been jogged back to my early days in Fort Collins.  I can remember my dad banging down the hallway, hollering “time to get up” to start each day.  On weekends, I would roll over, bury my head under the pillow, and hope that just this once he would let me sleep in …but, just like a snooze alarm, five to ten minutes later, here he’d come again.  Persistence really should have been his name.  He would not give up until I would swing my feet out of bed onto the cold wood floor and shuffle off to the bathroom.

Back then I thought his waking me early was his personal way of joking with me; while gently instilling a personal habit even though it wasn’t as if I really had anything important I had to do on Saturday mornings.  After all, I was too young to find a job and too old to watch Saturday morning cartoons on the television.  All I would do on a normal sunny, summer Saturday would be mow our small lawn and then run down to the park to play baseball with my friends.  Dad knew this aggressive schedule really didn’t require me to be up at seven in the morning, but he took great pleasure in getting me going early.

All in all, I have to admit it was probably a good thing my paternal alarm clock worked so diligently.  It was nice to have my limited chores done before the sun had reached its apex in the sky.  My friends and I pretty much had the day to ourselves; to exercise our independence, to enjoy our day with the only requirement of being home in time for dinner.  It was a simple time; a time when our major daily concern had been whether we or not would have enough kids show up at the park to field two teams for weekly baseball games.

Looking at Dad now made me long for those days.  Gone was the mischievous smile and vibrant eyes.  They were now replaced with mouth that had somehow shrunken and pulled back tightly against the few teeth he had left.  There was no hint of movement from his lips when I had walked in; it had remained slightly agape … and so dry it hurt me to look at it.  His eyes… well there had been that brief moment of recognition and brightness when I first saw him, but it had faded as quickly as it had come.  They had returned to a place that only he knew, certainly not this room. 

I had not been back to Fort Collins very often to see Dad these past few years.  Certainly, not as much as I would have wished; it’s funny how quickly time flies.  I can remember my wife suggesting that we needed to make time to visit since it had been so long since we had made the 1,100-mile journey from San Diego to reconnect.  Weeks turned into months.  Months turned into years. Maybe, I’m not such a great son.  This time, however, it had really only been a few weeks since our last visit, but the change had been so sudden that I was shocked. 

The bedroom no longer resembled the place my wife and I had stayed in the few times we had visited.  The four-poster, double bed that we had spent years joking about how hard and uncomfortable it was had been temporarily dismantled and leaned against the far wall to make room for an adjustable hospital variety. 

This new bed may not have been torturing its occupant; even so, the occupant appeared more tortured than any soul I have ever seen.  The bed stand was cluttered with items that should have been foreign to this previously homey room.  They were the items necessary for preparing for death, not life.  There were the sanitary wipes, the antibiotic cream, the towels, and the pain medication, a small bottle of liquid opiate administered drop by drop.  Dad’s pain became evident anytime he was moved; it was the only time his face broke with emotion.  Paul Simmons was dying.

His hands held a beaten, dark blue, leather-bound book; its covers cracked with age and use.  The pages had become bent over the years to a point that it no longer closed completely without the assistance of a heavy rubber band binding it closed; just as Dad’s mind had become.  Mom said she thought it was a journal of some sort, but really could not be sure since Dad had kept the contents to himself over the years.  As far as she knew, no one other than Dad had ever seen the pages. 

Chapter 2

What a day this would be.  Paul had much to do before heading off to school; he had set his clock to ring at 4:00 am.  He had promised his father he would set up the shop for the awning production this morning.  A batch of new material had arrived yesterday and he should have dropped by after school to unbox and log it into stock.  He had had so much schoolwork to get to, he had to put off the family work that should have been done yesterday until now. 

Slipping out from underneath his woolen blanket, Paul could feel the cold grip of the Colorado morning take his breath away.  He sat on the edge of his bed, shivering, trying to motivate himself to stand up and start the day.  He could hear the bustling noises of a fully awakened household two flights of stairs below him; Mother was already up making him breakfast and a sandwich for his school lunch.  Paul could not remember a time that he had not awoken to that noise; sometimes he wondered if she ever slept.  Paul rocked out of bed shaking the sleep from his eyes and began to shuffle to the steps and down to the bathroom.  His thin arms wrapped around his body bare torso to keep warm and to try in vain to control his shivering.

He had loved the idea of moving up from the second floor to the finished attic last summer.  It provided him a room all to himself; something that neither he nor his younger brother, William, had ever experienced.  The room was absolutely great that first summer; the windows looked out both the front and the back the house and, when opened, provided for a fresh breeze keeping the space cool and comfortable.  The space was huge, representing an entire floor of the house.  The high-pitched ceiling had only added to the uniqueness of the room.  Of course, there were some downsides to the move; first his brother wanted to continuously encroach on his privacy, secondly, he ended up sharing the space with Mom’s seasonal decoration storage, and lastly, it got really cold on winter mornings. This morning was one of those cold winter mornings; the bare wood floor chilling his feet as he made his way to a hot shower that seemed to promise the only hope of defeating his shivering. 

In the bathroom, he completed his morning ritual.  He rubbed his face to feel the imaginary beard stubble growing.  This year Paul had begun shaving once a week even though his facial hair was more akin to the fine fuzz you expected to see on a grandmother’s face than the face of an adult male … but in Paul’s mind these were whiskers; as rough and vibrant as any man’s.  Perhaps the whiskers would turn dark… next year.  He rubbed his face once again and decided it wasn’t