Words By Whittall

  I try not to cry. The funeral was moving, but quiet and scarcely attended. The sun is in my eyes. It reflects and refracts off the water in sparkling waves that seemed like a field of diamonds when I was a child. One spot catches my eye and I can make out the glistening black outline of dozens of old tires Gumpy had hurled into the lake. No sense paying good money to haul it to the recycling place! Saving my money to build a better world for you.   I sit on my favorite rock by, what used to be the edge of my grandfather’s property, wiping tears from my cheek with the back of my hand. I have happy memories of this farm – yet so much of what happened here was ugly under the surface, like submerged, leaching tires. Even murky water sparkles under the sun.   The smell of the house that I once thought was love, is mould from neglect and years of living by the water. The money Gumpy saved by refusing to maintain the house or recycle, is buried somewhere behind the barn in old coffee