Welcome
to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to use the following
words or images in a story: whirlwind of leaves, wizened old man,
lonely call of an owl, crackling fire.
Today’s
post is written by Phil Yeats. Last December, Phil (using his Alan
Kemister pen name) published his most recent novel. Tilting
at Windmills,
the second in the Barrettsport
Mysteries
series of soft-boiled police detective stories set in an imaginary
Nova Scotia coastal community is available on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Tilting-Windmills-Barrettsport-Mysteries-Book-ebook/dp/B07L5WR948/
Werner’s
Syndrome
by Phil
Yeats
The
wizened old man gazed, as he did most mornings, at the world outside
his woodland cabin. A whirlwind of colourful autumn leaves swirled
past his window, and his trusty friend, an old owl, stared as
immobile as a statue from a nearby tree limb.
He’d
learned when only thirteen that he would never be normal. Stunted
growth, arthritis, and cataracts already dominated his life.
Operations to replace the cataracts with plastic lenses improved his
vision, but the other signs of aging marched on relentlessly. His
life expectancy at thirty-two was measured in years, not decades.
After
breakfast, he split logs for his evening fire. His only strenuous
activity; he had to accomplish it in the morning when his strength
was greatest.
Half
an hour later, he set the chunks of split firewood and kindling
beside his hearth and positioned his easel in the brightest part of
his woodland cabin. Drawing was his life, his only
solace from the cruel fate nature bestowed on him.
He
spent the morning generating illustrations for a children’s book.
At noon, he set them aside and turned his attention to his private
drawings, therapeutic ones that kept him sane.
The
young woman from the publishing house arrived in mid-afternoon. She
studied each of the drawings he’d set aside. “Perfect,” she
said when she arrived at the last one. “We never reject any. You
wouldn’t believe the fights we have with our other illustrators.”
He
picked up the manuscript she’d given him when he received the
commission. “Don’t see what’s so difficult. You read the book
and draw the images it generates.”
She
smiled as she strolled to his easel. “What have we here?”
“Images
from my imaginary life.”
She
shook her head. “A naked woman like a model from a figure drawing
class and two tykes dressed like they could be from that book.”
He
took the sheet, tore it from top to bottom, and handed her the
pieces. “There you go, two separate drawings.”
She
handed them back. “I must go, get your drawings to the office
before quitting time. New manuscript that’ll be perfect for you
arrived this week. I’ll get it to you once the editor decides.”
She smiled, nodding toward the drawings in his hand. “In the
meantime, I’d pay for a drawing of me in a pose like that one.”
“I’d
need photos to work from.”
She
skipped out. “Watch your inbox. I might do it.”
Darkness
fell upon his woodland glade as he prepared his evening meal.
Afterwards, he lit the fire he’d laid that morning. When it was
crackling nicely, the lonely call of an owl, perhaps the one he’d
seen perched in his tree, pierced the quiet night. He shredded his
therapeutic drawings and fed the fragments into the fire.
The
Spot Writers—Our Members:
Val
Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/
Catherine
A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/
Phil
Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com
Chiara
De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/
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