A Workman's Dream--A Story Snippet (Remixed a Little)

    I am told that not too long ago that people told each other stories. Now, not everyone was good at it, but I have also heard that there were many who could do it so well that they could suck you right out of the present and have you breathing 50 year old air in less than a sentence. I am sad that no one does much of this anymore. I've seen advertisements for story-telling competitions and folk festivals that feature it here and there, but have heard that it is more about trying to keep alive whatever is left of an oral tradition in America. But its been a long time since I've heard a good story and can't say I know a good teller.

   Now, I don't claim to be one of those tale-tellers for I haven't heard many good stories that deserve to be retold. In fact, adding to them would make them worse than they already are. I think most of the real good stories are gone forever. We've dressed them so much that we've forgotten that the story is inside there real deep. We've forgotten its true color. I have no idea how to see it. There aren't any teachers out there anymore. We are all students with no real teacher. In fact, I think we've lost more than just good stories or story-tellers these days, but we've lost our imaginations. I'm not sure I'd even be able to recognize a 50 year old breeze blowing through what little hair I have left; much less be able to imagine breathing it. I know I've already said it makes me sad and I don't believe much sadness needs to be spoken of twice, but sometimes thoughts like we are losing our imaginations drives me out into the night for long, lonely walks when all the sounds that I notice are the solitary humming I hear from the street lights. Sometimes, I feel as if this is where I always am. I am always the young boy walking underneath the streetlights. It is as if these lamps are where my story begins and ends. The humming is all I really hear within my ears, swirling, twirling, decibel upon decibel, constant wave upon wave of sound filling me up and then leaving as if my ears were my lungs. I wonder if I will forever be walking towards the next streetlight and hoping that it at last is my journey's end and I have finally come to an answer that will be sufficient and let me rest, but after 30 years, I feel that there just may not be this final answer and that I will always be out there somewhere between awake and asleep, walking, wandering, yearning to get to that next streetlamp and rest for a short while beneath its soft and precious fluorescent glow. It is as if I am an ill-contented moth and will never find happiness in one streetlamp alone.

  I say all of this because I would like to try and tell you a story. It's not too good and I am not a true teller. I haven't let the tales I know sit in my head and fester long enough to earn some meaning, but I'm trying. Like I mentioned, I've neither good stories to retell nor a great imagination. It's sadly been dulled quite a bit. The only real story I know or have is my own. So if you have time for a story, I'd like to start at the very beginning.

 And if, I'm gonna tell you about everything like I think you want me to, then you'd better know some things about me first. I work at Sears.....

Hope you enjoy. It will be continued someday. Or should it?
  David