"That's  a silly story, Grandpa!"

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Proposed Story Series

Last Stop Garage

It was just before closing time at the Last Stop Garage. A biting wind snatched a fresh handful of the day’s snowfall from a drift that had been building outside the front door and whirled it around as a wheezy old car slid to a stop.  About four steps later, Frank Murphy blew himself into the waiting room, accompanied by a gust of fresh winter and a torrent of complaints, some of which were unprintable.

“Daggone car!  You’d think it would bust itself up on a Wednesday instead of Friday, and here I am set to take the grandkid to college and now this – can you help me, Bub?”  (Frank called everybody Bub and wasn’t shy about expressing his frustrations.)

“What’s wrong this time, Frank,” Buck asked, without glancing up from inside the Mercedes he was about to hook up to the ignition analyzer.   

“It’s going ‘PSSSST’ and it smells like stink -- I hate cars,” the man said almost in one breath.

“They’re OK if you take care of ‘em,” Buck pronounced as he lifted the Mercedes’ hood.  “Have a seat over there by the stove.” 

Frank didn’t sit, choosing instead to shuffle around in front of the stove.  Buck hoped that by the time Will got back the old wood burner that helped keep the Last Stop toasty from 'round about mid-October ‘til the dregs of March would have warmed Frank's chilly disposition a bit. 

Frank had frequented the garage since before automatic transmissions were invented – at least it seemed that way, and despite his lengthy driving experience, cars were of little concern.  They were like wheeled appliances to the old man, conveniences to be driven until something breaks.  But today something apparently was broke, and Frank was venting about it.
 
“Got to be in Cap City tomorrow, in the A-yem for second semester – my granddaughter.  And this old car, too, so whadya think, eh Bub?” he intoned, bouncing from one foot to the other.

Buck pried himself away from the Mercedes, grabbed the keys from his customer’s hand and launched himself into the brisk wind that still battered the building.  The car, a 40-year-old in-line six cylinder Chevy Malibu, was about as old as the garage, Buck thought, as he coaxed the cranky automobile into Bay 2 and the big door clanked down behind it.

“Sounds about right, Frank,” Buck proclaimed, lifting the hood amid a rising plume of steam and a hissing sound that gradually died away after the ignition was turned off.  A small puddle of dank water formed beneath the car and trickled onto the shop floor ...    (continued)
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© 2013 by Brian E. Faulkner

                                           A Children's Story

 The Wizard of Odd

Once there was a wizard. He lived deep in the forest, the perfect place to be alone with his thoughts -- and to work on his dream.
He had no interest in hanging around with other wizards or working on magic potions. Our wizard had chosen a different path. He wanted to fly. Not in a plane or a helicopter, but alone. To figure out how to do that, he first had to figure out how birds fly.

Then he could figure out how to fly himself.

Our wizard had come to wizarding later in life. He hadn’t been a boy wizard like Harry Potter but a super-smart kid named Albert who always had the answer to just about any question anyone could ask, which amazed his teachers, puzzled his parents and annoyed his friends. He was so smart that people thought he might become a world-famous scientist or doctor when he grew up -- or maybe a game show host. Instead, he became an insurance salesman. As it turned out, Albert was strangely successful at selling insurance because he knew what people were going to say about not wanting to buy insurance before they said it.

This put him a step ahead.

Then, one night Albert had a dream that would change his life. He was standing at the top of a very tall oak, something he’d never, ever considered doing outside of a dream. A strong breeze was blowing, which made the tree sway back and forth. The swaying didn’t bother him at all -- in fact, he found it stimulating.

“Perfect flying weather!” Albert observed in his dream. And that was odd, because up until then he hadn’t given a single thought to flying, except when he had a plane to catch and was running late to the airport.

Then he did something totally unexpected: let go of the tree, stretched his arms out, stood on his tiptoes and launched himself into space. Down he went, twisting and tumbling, falling toward the earth at what seemed like 200 miles an hour! But the tree in his dream was taller than a redwood -- even taller than Mt. Everest. So, he had plenty of time to figure out what to do before he hit the ground. Thinking clearly and acting deliberately, he moved his arms and legs like a chimney swift does to catch insects on the wing. This gave him the control -- and the confidence -- to not only not crash but even perform a few clever aerobatic maneuvers on the way to a perfect landing!

In short, he flew -- soared might be a better way to describe our dreamer’s flight: diving toward the earth and then swooping back up at the last second and climbing into (and above) the clouds, heading toward the sun with the blue sky wrapped around him. 

​It was if he had been born to this ...   (continued)

© 2021 by Brian E. Faulkner

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