The Sparkling Of Dust

Mischief this morning — I awoke to find that some mountain goblin had ridden through the valley during the night and spread ground-up diamond dust across all things. Every surface was covered in silver glitter, from the tin barn roofs to the needles of grass to the leathery dead leaves strewn like bats across the meadow. It all moved like a tide as the sun crawled up the eastern slope of the sky, and it seemed unlikely to ever melt or change. But even now, it is changing. It is less mysterious than it was at first light.

Still, I would like to have seen the goblin as he went about his hijinx. What small beast did he ride? I suspect it may have been the possum I watched last night just after it went full dark.

He was beneath one of the hanging plates I fill with sunflower seeds for the songbirds. The birds usually spill a fair amount of food as they jostle one another for position on the plates, and the possum was feeding on the spillage. His sharp nose was in the grass, his posture intent. Every few seconds he lifted his snout, and it tickled me to see the workmanlike motion of his jaw as he chewed. Unaware of my presence, he seemed as content as it’s possible for a creature to be, considering that his dining room light was a slice of moon as cold as the frost enroute to the mountains. After he finished the seeds, he waddled off to his den beneath the downed fir that acts as abatis and sanctuary for the little living things on this smallholding.

I like to think of a mountain goblin, just a foot high, with pointy nose and ears like batwings, dressed in a green vest and tweed breeches, wearing high boots. I like to envision him coming to the possum beneath the tree and asking for his assistance. I like to think of the possum standing patiently while the goblin tosses a saddle across his flanks, cinches it tight, and climbs on. And then off they go, the possum more fleet of foot in the secret night than he is when human eyes can spy him from behind a window. They gallop — if possums may gallop — across the ridges and down the draws of the valley, the goblin holding the soft reins in his yellow teeth as he dips both hands into a sack of crushed diamonds and flings them into the air, where the glittering dust settles onto the countryside. And where does the dust come from —? Does the goblin make his own, with an anvil of pewter, pounding diamonds and quartz into powder with a titanium hammer? Or does he have a supplier, a distributor in another goblin kingdom who ships it to him and sends along invoices scrawled in pokeberry juice on the backs of maple leaves —?  I like to think of the two of them returning to the shelter of the tree, exhausted but exhilarated, and perhaps sharing a piece of cheese and a sip of muscadine juice before bidding each other good-night.

And now their night’s work has seeped down into the warming earth and disappeared. But I will ensure that there are seeds in the feeder today, and I will hope for signs of a wild ride in the morning. To help things along, I may even put some of my wife’s chicken spaghetti near the downed fir beneath which the possum makes his home.

***

Yesterday at work, I looked at the appointments for the afternoon and saw a name that made me wince. I’ll call him Mr. Brady for you, dear reader. Mr. Brady has been coming to the clinic for many years now, and in all that time, he has never spoken a kind word to me or responded to any of my attempts at friendliness. Over the stretch of time in which we’ve encountered each other, I have learned not to expend any extra effort in trying to win him over.

When the receptionist told me that Mr. Brady had arrived, I prepared the exam room, sighed, and went to get him from the waiting room. Once inside the room, I asked him the standard questions and reviewed his medications with him. He watched me with his flat, guarded expression as I entered the data in the computer. When I was finished, I turned to him and was surprised to see him looking full into my face with an expression of –what? –weariness?

“Are you feeling alright, Mr. Brady?” I asked.

He blinked, leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, looked up at me. “I was just watching you on that computer. I don’t know the first thing about them things.”

I smiled and started to say something self-deprecating, but he went on. “I don’t know the first thing about a lot of things. I was a bad ‘un when I was growin’ up. Got in trouble all the time in school. By the time I was in high school, it got so bad the principal called me to his office. Looked me square in the eye and told me that he didn’t care if I quit or moved away or dropped out or what I did, but he wanted me out of his school. I didn’t even know what to say.” He looked at the floor, and his eyes filled. He wiped them with his hand and continued, his voice quieter.

“I just looked at him, and he told me he wasn’t kiddin’ around. Said he wanted me outta there. Said he didn’t have any idea how to handle a wild one like me, and that I was bad for the other kids. I walked out of his office and went home. My daddy was no-account, and I didn’t tell him right away ‘cos I thought he’d just knock me around. But by the time it got dark that night, I was mad. Mad at the principal. He’d embarrassed me, and I thought, ‘Well, he can have his old school. I don’t wanna go back, anyways.’ So I never did.

“I ended up having to work the coal mines. Lordy, it was hard work. Crawlin’ around on my belly. In water. In cold. In dark. Every day, sometimes six days a week. It broke me, boy, I’ll tell ya. It broke me. Now I got the arthur-itis, and the black lung, and I’m payin’ for not goin’ and gettin’ my education. Had to work ten times harder than I would have if I’da stayed in school. Pride. That’s what ruined my life. Pride.”

He sat up straight, slapped his thighs with his palms. He managed a thin smile and said, “But…I’ve done the best I could. Married a good woman. Kids never gave me no trouble, and they never got on that dope. That dope is killing this part of the country. But the good Lord spared me and my kids from that mess. I guess I’ve done all right.”

He paused for a long moment, and I watched him, noticing for the first time the beauty of his white hair and the swollen knuckles on his hands. He looked up at me and smiled again. “I wisht I’da stayed in school, though. Too proud to buckle down and do right. I had to learn the hard way.” He gestured at the computer on the counter. “I’ll never learn them things, though.”

As I left the room, I told him the doctor would be in shortly. And instinctively, I patted his shoulder on the way out. Mr. Brady reached up and held my hand against his shoulder for a second.

“Good talkin’ to you, sir,” he said

I hope I see him again. If I do, my reaction to his name on the day’s appointment list will be very different than it was yesterday. How quickly things can change. How instantly our perceptions can be altered. Like the sprinkling of gem-dust across a moonlit valley. Unreal and yet so terribly, terribly important.

Perhaps someday I’ll tell you about how I ruined my own life in a way quite similar to Mr. Brady’s story. We’ll see.

~ S.K. Orr