The RaVAN

The next day, as the sun slowly rose over the piney tree tops. The fingers that pressed upon the letters of the keyboard creeked with an all too familiar sound. The sound of age and pain to finger cuts from the labor of the prior day, made the reach for the higher letters more daunting. If only I could communicate with asdf gh jkl; (the gh are a stretch-literally). The task which was accomplished on the day before was successful. The fruit bore in the startling sound of the motor cranking. Still, the air grew denser with each moment of glee. As if glee was a spray of the finest parfume before the masculine remains deposited in the l'eau de toilette overtook it, glee in all her glory was short lived. Celebration turned to misery as the olfactory stimulation caused brief periods of dyspnea. Some say, that in the midst of malodorous haunting of milk long past, that you can still here the sounds of its host. The beast whose sacrifice provided for the element of flavor that one fateful day. I paused, I heard it, distant, but clear, "oooooo". Then, louder and with an eerie familiar sound "eeooooou", and louder still, as a duet, "eeeoooou" and finally, a trio as my sons disgust added to guttural responses "eeeeoooouuu" of my daughter and the cousin Hannah. They crescendoed until at last I fled. Then, haunted, frightful, repugnant and shamed - I watched as my children and my niece were possessed by the sounds of the beast that certainly was now passed. Shame, you ask? Yes, for I have known this haunting and was possessed as they are. The demonic scent lingered in my nostrils as if sulfur from Hades. As it does in theirs now. Yet, as aged limburger cheese, I have witnessed worse. My shame soon faded as their novice disgust strengthened my limburgered nostrils. My age and experience became evident, evoking memories of the dead. Kimchi, blood sausage, sardines and the like. I returned to the helm of my vessel, smiling, wondering, sharing no thoughts a father should ever share, ‘til now the wrinkles on my face disgraced repugnance. "What odour causes you to flee, do you not know that I have fared well in rougher swells." Then, they sensed my common tale to come and fled even faster and further. Left alone in the sweltering heat of the fermented enclosure, my salvation lay in the oscillating hopes of cold blowing air. Pretending the brave moment, I witnessed my hand, slowed in a cinematic movement, turning that circular button for which I placed my hopes. The rest I will never share, neither will anyone know the true nature of the most unnatural. Suffice it to say that I too fear the tale I can now tell. So, that is my story. The ardent embellishment of a moment in time, or was it? The van ne'er again started, still is sitting, still is sitting at the end of the driveway not driven, near the curb. And the smell from out that chamber that lies floating in the air, Shall be lifted - nevermore!