Chapter 2 - Sprites, by definition

Sprites are small, wingless woodland creatures that are very nearly impossible to see, for they are gifted with a talent or trait providing them with some form of invisibility or camouflage. Shimmer seems to, well, shimmer – like dappled sunlight beneath a shady tree with a breeze causing the light spots to move and become lighter and dimmer. The illuminated patches seemingly change from green to gray to brown and sometimes only white as the light itself when it is seen piercing the most shadowed spots. Even the dark areas seem lighter and darker by shade and color, reflections alternating randomly.

Shadow could be right next to Shimmer and would appear to be just another shade of dark without standing out. Shadows are especially easy to overlook as the object casting the shadow demands all the attention. In this way, Shadow goes unnoticed because even when a random shadow is seen moving across open ground, our instinct is to look for the object causing the shadow and not at the shadow itself.

Beyond these characteristics, the description of Sprites becomes more difficult – like trying to use words to describe feelings of joy or love. Millions of words could never define feelings to someone who has not fully experienced a particular emotion. Becoming more meaningful once experienced, but still just a reflection of our individual experience. The magic of imagination or the depth of love are not limited to what we believe or expect, but by what we allow ourselves to experience. Only then do we become a reflection of the feelings and emotions that escape definition.

If you have seen sparkles glinting across a pond or mist moving through trees; a shadow moving with a cloud on a summer’s day or something that catches your attention from the corner of your eye. . . but looking, everything appears normal. Just a shrub or a tree, a flower bending to curtsy and dance with the breeze or the wind playing in a meadow as the grass sways and cheers it on. This is where the Sprites are, in the quiet magic of sometimes, where we pay the least attention. Entire worlds and lives and the mythical fulfillment of living pass unnoticed beyond our own distraction as we pursue exactly what we are missing. In a sense, Sprites are trying to help each of us realize the fullness of life by distracting us from our own distractions.

Giving us the opportunity to wait for times where thoughts begin to disappear in moments of uninterrupted silence; that is the well of inspiration, imagination and magic. There is the source of our being, the moments when life is experienced and we become an indescribable force – the greatest reflection of the most wonderful words; because we have felt them.

Fairies may paint the world with magical colors in the spring and fall, etch winter wonderlands from ice and snow and have the natural flow of the seasons to command. Sprites, on the other hand, are our way of being a reflection in the world; something to distract our attention toward natural beauty or introspection, to distract us toward love. Without them, we might as well be a tree in a forest; unmoved as birds nest, come and go, squirrels leaping from branch to branch and seasons passing. We would experience living unmoved, with single determination, and miss out on life.

Building the House

 Working on the backsplash & rock wall

 Downstairs bathroom

 Cabinets and counter tops

Girls bedroom

Outside view

Chapter 1 - A Small Crevasse

There have been four times in this world.

The present, which encompasses contemporary time, looking back to the beginning of the written word; these times we know and study. We can read of trials and prosperity, how others thought and acted and lived.

Before was the time of language. Stories were passed down from generation to generation, where our ancestors told their progeny tales of war and peace, what they believed and achieved and survived. It is supposed that many of these oratories became a part of the written record and brings us a closer connection.

Prior to written history and language, there was a time when man became something more than an animal; the time before man.

Then there are sometimes. Sometimes are gaps, filled with times before, these moments are magic. Times when myth and legend meet reality; most people never experience this because of distractions. This is one of those sometimes.

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A little more than halfway to the top of Kerish Mountain, a fern grotto grows in a gap of rocks – very near the tree line. There is neither road nor path on this side of the mountain and seemingly little reason to ever explore there, this small oasis remains veiled and private.

Looking down from this vantage point, trees and rocks grow from the earth in perfect chaotic arrangement. Deciduous and evergreen, granite, slate and sandstone; meadows carpeted in blue lupines, standing against the lush greenery. The streams, pools and rivulets gurgle and chuckle with the birds.

Above the tops of clouds that move like mist through the trees; passing through like a tourist from heaven, leaving everything it touched wet with damp kisses. All the flowers with cheerily upturned faces kissing the bottom of the sky like a long lost lover – returned.

The spring source flows from an abutment, where the cool air and the warm sun meet in a swirl of epiphany before beginning their day. A gap in the rock spills water into a pool below. Mist and fog rising off the pool creates its own atmosphere and the perfect environment for the lush ferns and moss clinging to the rock faces. A wonderland where time passes without the realization that anytime has gone by at all.

The pool beneath the rocks is a perfect basin carved by centuries of water, surrounded by moss and ferns above, lily pads festooned with flowers floating and giant tadpoles and mottled goldfish swimming below. The water is so clear that the depth is difficult to judge and it has a luminescence at night that reflects back up onto the grotto making everything feel as if it is under water and a giant goldfish swimming above during slumber wouldn’t be a surprise. Morning glories in the undergrowth follow the retreating shadows, until the restraint of their stems stretch taut. The base of each petal rolling into one another to sleep in the shade of the pines; resting until the evening breezes blow through the trees, waking reluctantly to dusk. Upside-down umbrellas, catching evening showers and the morning dew.

In a small crevasse, warmed by the constant temperature of the water on one side and cooled by the mist and moisture on the other, carpeted by a lush moss, there live two sprites, Shimmer and Shadow.

We all have one of those people at work

I have always worked the night shift. Mostly by choice. As it turns out, there are not any supervisors around during the late hours and early mornings. So, I could be one of those people at work that others may talk about. But, considering the source, I wouldn't put much faith in it.

There are just a few that really stick with me. It is said that the two emotions you can not fake are admiration and contempt. It is either the joyous moments or those that make your skin crawl that you tend to remember. So, contemptuous skin crawling it is. I do not recall a time that sustained any real joy and being at work in the same time frame, unless you can make someone else feel the way you do. Those can be some rather awesome times and let's face it, how much time do you spend with your friends from work - in your real life? Too many people get confused and identify with their work persona. You may be a manager, a lawyer or a doctor but it does not define you as a person. If you do, it could lead to abject loneliness on the other side. That and your Facebook friends might get you a cup of coffee, but I doubt that.

Anyhow, I was given the choice of nemesis on more than one occasion. But one abject failure of personality, cogent expression and dare I say, personal hygiene seemed to be my weight to bear. For this story, let's call her Betty - mostly because that was her name. Betty came highly recommended and I soon learned why, after a couple of days I was ready to recommend that she work anywhere else too.

Betty worked the day shift, when she bothered to show up. I felt some amount of responsibility because of this, as she was generally the person that relieved me. So, do you let work pile up and hope that she shows, off-load the responsibility onto someone else and just go home... or work through it until she showed up. I thought... this can not go on, surely enough late clock-ins would get the attention of someone higher up the food chain. After a month or so, that plan was not working out. No one seemed to notice at all. Then I found that she was never late at all, always clocked in on time and found something more interesting to do, like staring intently into a cup of coffee or playing with her phone.

One morning I walked into the break room hoping to get a quick drink of tea, as I rounded the corner I stopped dead in my tracks - there sat Betty. She looked up and started to say something, but I put up my finger in an effort to stop her utterance and said, "Hold on, I think I hear something." Then I ran out of the break room as quickly as I could. I never saw her again that day. I could say that I never saw her again, but that wouldn't be the truth. I did find that her avoidance of work gave me some amount of freedom and our occasional meetings where passing in nature, which relieved quite a bit of stress when it came to "waiting" for her to relieve me. I just waited somewhere else.

One night, as I was headed to my work station, I noticed a peculiar note stuck on the bulletin board. It had the flowery scrawl of which only the feminine hand can scribe, full of heart dotted I's and looped cartography. The note read: FOUND - SOMETHING VALUABLE IN THE STOCKROOM. PLEASE CONTACT BETTY, TO DESCRIBE AND HAVE IT RETURNED.

Now, describing something that you might not even know is missing or even being cognizant that something was missing at all, when no one had any idea what it was that she had found but she required that the person describe said artifact to have it returned - just really struck me the wrong way somehow. It felt like high school, I didn't care much then and upon further consideration, I realized that I cared less now. So, I wrote neatly at the bottom of the note that I had indeed lost my virginity in the stock room and furthermore, I didn't expect that I would ever be getting those two minutes back.

The note disappeared the next day and I heard that it was a button or some other insignificant thing she had found. Boy, did I feel silly.

Discrimination

If there is a word to describe you... it is discriminatory.

If you make up a word to describe yourself... you are.

He Rode Into the Sunset

Jon Long was a man who wished things were different. There was plenty of blame to go around, very little seemed to find its way back to him - that is just the way it was.

I met Jon late in his life, I imagine he was in his late sixties. I wasn't interested in the seasons that had passed and I think that was why we got along. We did share a similar ideology when it came to how the government should be ran, which amounted to - ran out of town. He genuinely took a liking to my kids, like old people trying to get into heaven often do. The kids, having lost their Papa recently, adopted Papa Jon... and that is what he became to friends and acquaintances alike.

Somewhere in these twilight years, Papa Jon decided that he needed to get out of the big city and hatched a plan to escape to an isolated mountain-top. He remembered a cave, found scouting for gold and a stream that ran year around. While this piqued interest in a devil-may-care, romantic sense, I couldn't support this abandonment of civilization entirely. Not at his age. I had property in the Eastern side of the state, not too far removed from the world and there is even a country store eight miles down the hill. Now, I had suffered some loss from pilfering while I was away from the property and he was in need of a place to be away from it all. This was his life-long dream and we came to an agreement right then that he would be there to keep opportunists away and be in a safer environment than his original plan.

We had plenty of disagreements, found our differences of opinion and learned to keep those to ourselves. Compromise and cooperation formed a workable relationship and he became comfortable enough to pursue his individualism and self-imposed feeling of isolation - he was living his dream. I marked off a space and told him - This is Papa Jon's corner, you may do with it as you like until you decide to move on or die. There were many times that I would offer suggestions, but didn't want to intrude into the rugged individualism he was fostering in his mind. Sometimes, you build the dignity you see in others. Sometimes you go buy them a fireplace so they do not freeze to death in the Winter. It is a tough line to walk, but somehow he absorbed the changes just like it was his idea and would even comment on the poor quality of wood I purchased... and never forgot to let me know when the wood pile was running low.

He often spoke of the years he had dreamed of finding a piece of property, scratching out a homestead and having his piece of heaven, but somehow life got in the way. He appreciated having this place, Papa Jon's corner - just like he had done it all along and it was the most natural thing that could have ever occurred. He always wanted to help out, when he could, moving concrete blocks or feeding the animals, getting the mail. I only recently collected my mail for the first time in four years.

Age and infirmity walked side by side during those years until Papa Jon could no longer participate in most of these tasks but watched from the comfort of a chair when he could. Recently, he suffered from kidney stones, one of which required surgery and the placement of an in-dwelling catheter. That was the slide that he got on, the last denial that all things are permanent. He returned home from the hospital, not allowing anyone to drive him there or home, to recover and rest.

A few weeks passed and I would notice his truck being started at three in the morning and then hear it driving off. Usually, after returning from the bus stop, his truck would be sitting outside his cabin, like it had never left. This continued, off and on, for a week and then one evening he didn't come home at all. The next morning I received a call from Papa Jon, he needed a jump for his truck. He said that he was down by Bo's old property, had fallen asleep with the lights on and the battery was dead. I drove the road, looking down each crossroad as I neared the property and then the next few beyond without any sight of Papa Jon or his truck. My son thought we should check on Bo's property, which we did and found Papa Jon down the driveway and hidden from the road. I jump started his truck, cleaned the battery terminals and suggested that he get the battery looked at because of the corrosion.

During the next couple of weeks, I would find Papa Jon parked on the side of the road at various places. I always stopped and he was always fine, just resting. Then, He stopped coming home altogether. While going about the daily routine, I would find Papa Jon parked again on the side of the road. He said that he wasn't able to sleep much, but was doing OK. I thought he should see his doctor, possibly get something to help him sleep. It sounded like a good idea and he promised to think about just that. The next evening, I would find him in a different location and he thought he would go see a doctor the next day. It went along like that for a few days, I suggested he see someone and him thinking that was a good idea. I found him once sleeping and didn't wake him.

One Thursday, as I was getting ready to leave town for the weekend. Having bought a dog feeder and locating my own key to the mailbox, I had tied up all the loose ends between Papa Jon and myself. I was at peace and hoping that he would be too. To my surprise, he drove down the driveway and parked in front of his cabin. He said that he was feeling much better, more rested than he had been and was doing better. I called a neighbor and asked him to check on Papa Jon if he saw him sitting on the side of the road, or if he was driving by to stop in at the cabin.

MONDAY

On Monday morning, I found Papa Jon's truck parked down at the bus stop. No Papa Jon.

Waiting for the bus, I called Bo and asked if he had seen Papa Jon over the weekend, he said that he had not. I informed him that Papa Jon's truck was at the bus stop. He said, "Is that his truck? Yeah, I saw that parked there on Saturday." Then he asked what I intended to do, which was go to the hospital and check to see if he was there. Bo said he would ride down with me to check. The hospital did not have Papa Jon registered as a patient. Driving back home, Bo wondered what to do next. I thought I would check around his truck and the surrounding wilderness to see if he had wandered away from his truck and was under a tree. Still no Papa Jon. Bo then thought I should call the Sheriff and report a missing person. I wasn't so sure of that, the police fill out paperwork - sure, someone enters the information into a computer, but that is the extent of their job. I felt I was better prepared to actually investigate this a little further.

My next stop was to the country store. That rural gossip and information hub for most small towns across the nation. Something that is missing when your corner store is a Circle K and no one knows you. I asked the proprietor if he had recently seen Papa Jon. He had not, however, he had received a call from Papa Jon on Saturday saying that he felt he was in trouble. The store owner called the local fire / paramedics to check on Papa Jon. He had an email from the state adult protective service, that Papa Jon had been taken first to the local hospital and then transferred to a hospital in Phoenix. I was relieved that he was in good hands, figured that he was probably not going to be coming back and was back at peace about the whole matter.

TUESDAY

Tuesday morning, Payton asked if she could walk to the library after school instead of riding the bus home, since Sterling would be staying at school late that day. I told her that would be fine and that since I was working on the gas lines at home, I may not be at the library until it was closer to the time I picked up Sterling and Afton. Around mid-afternoon, I received a call from Rich of the local fire / paramedics asking if I had heard from Papa Jon and that the state was looking for him or couldn't locate him. I told him that I would get back to him as soon as I found out anything. I ran into town to get the final parts to finish the gas line and was headed back when a voice told me to stop at the bus stop. Now, Payton is very responsible and would have called if there had been a change in her plans, so I was not expecting anyone to be on the bus that I needed to pick up. Being more inclined to listen to my inner voice, I went to the bus stop and sat waiting for the bus to arrive.


A group of mothers picking up their children were gathered and talking, I paid little attention. But as the bus turned off the main road, I noticed they were pointing toward Papa Jon's truck. Two of the women and a younger man walked back and talked to another neighbor parked behind me. As the bus was pulling up, the group headed to my window. The older lady asked if I knew Jon Long, she was his daughter and informed me that Papa Jon had passed the day before. She also wanted to know where he lived. I let her know that she could follow me as soon as the bus left, I would lead her up to the property, get her a light and that I would be picking up my kids. I left her my number and left them to sort through Papa Jon's effects.

After picking up the kids, we headed to the local pizza place - not quite open yet, but willing to cook us a couple of pizzas. I called Rich and informed him that Papa Jon had passed the day before. He said he would let the state know.

PRESENT

It may not have been like riding off into the sunset, leaving behind a tearful admirer or a handful of proud folks... but it never is.