PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

The boy walked up the path. He was careful, he didn't want to trip over any stones. He didn't want to explain to his mother why he had a bloody nose.

The house looked old. More a shack than a house, it had cracked paint, bleached wood and dirty windows. He did not remember it being like this. The door stood open. Inside he saw papers, rags, dishes, leaves and dead bugs scattered everywhere. Dust covered everything. The bed still had a mattress, the sheets pulled away as if someone had just woken up.

He was five years old the first time he came here. The old man found him at the foot of the hill digging a hole with his hands. He had come to bury his pet mouse, the neighbor's cat had gotten to it. The old man asked the mouse's name. The boy said Alma. The old man said he had a nicer place to bury Alma, at the top of the hill, at the base of a sprouting tree. The boy followed the old man up the hill, his house was nicer back then. New paint, brown wood, clean windows. The old man got a trowel from inside and showed the tree to the boy. The boy said that it was a perfect place for Alma. The old man dug a hole close to the tree, big enough for a mouse. After the hole was full of dirt, the old man asked the boy why he had come  all this way to bury Alma. The boy said he didn't want the neighbour's cat to get her again. The old man agreed with that.

When the boy was six or seven he went to see the old man. He wanted to show the old man a fishing rod that he had built himself. The old man was working in his garden pulling out weeds. When the boy showed him his fishing rod, the old man went inside his house. Some time later came out with his own fishing tackle. The old man and the boy went to a pond closeby, they took turns with each other's fishing rod. By afternoon they had caught several fish, big and small. The old man made a fire close to his home and cooked two fish. He got some bread and made two sandwiches for each of them. Later, when the boy was about to leave, the old man offered the rest of the fish to the boy. The boy told the old man that he could keep them.The boy went down the hill and the old man was whistling.

The boy was eight or nine when he went to visit the old man. The man was not outside, so he knocked on the door and the old man opened it and let him in. The old man asked the boy if he wanted water, the boy said yes. On a table there was an open notebook with writing in it. On one of the pages there was a picture of a man, a woman and baby. The boy leafed through the pages and saw more pictures.  The old man pushed the boy away, knocking him down. He closed the notebook and placed it on a shelf too high for the boy to reach. The old man was silent. Then he told the boy that it wasn't his any of his business. The boy left the house and ran down the hill, he almost fell many times. The old man sat down outside, next to his garden.

Now the boy was fifteen or sixteen. He looked through the old man's house to see if anything remained. Under the bed, stuck between one of the legs and the wall was an envelope. The boy opened it and saw many pictures of a man, a woman and a little boy. Some had only the man and woman, some had only the woman and little boy. The boy went outside. The garden was overrun with weeds. A large tomato vine had grown and spread onto several stakes. The boy went to see the tree where he and the old man buried Alma. It was green and healthy, it was much taller than him now. The boy put the envelope in one of his pockets and started to go down the hill. As he was going down he remembered something and started whistling.