Author Mike OConnor: Small scraps

Author Mike OConnor: Small scraps: Small scraps of paper lay strewn across my desk each a thought dismissed. A story started but no end, a poem without love. It goes this ...

Small scraps

Small scraps of paper lay strewn across my desk each a thought dismissed. A story started but no end, a poem without love. It goes this way sometimes, the words trying to join together and find some meaning. Then there are the times when words barely have a chance as they spue out in a waterfall of sentences and something worth telling.

   The soft glow of a candle lights my words as they dance across the pages to a beautiful melody. It becomes a place of make-believe where words collide with words and paragraphs jump out at your hungry eyes filling you with strange and marvelous tales.

   Oh and the characters who are born in front of me running and skipping across the pages each growing with every passing chapter. Some live while others die but each buried deep in my mind for all eternity.

   Writing is a circus, a broadway show, or a school musical. It is the impossible becoming so, and it is beauty, love, and sorrow all wrapped up in my mind shouting to be set free. Writing is laughter and surprises with twists and turns that carry you away and even into sleep. And when you awake you realize it wasn’t a dream but a book that lays open on your blanket.

   To write is the most magical, thrilling thing a person could ever do and for those of you who never put pen to paper, well, try it sometime. Open your mind and dream, imagine, and dream.

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Author Mike OConnor: Just walking

Author Mike OConnor: Just walking:    The forests were his sanctuary, his peace, and the only place on earth where the voices and defining noise didn’t exist. He had no wo...

Just walking

   The forests were his sanctuary, his peace, and the only place on earth where the voices and defining noise didn’t exist. He had no worldly possessions, not anymore. He had rid himself of everything the day he walked away. Nature and his skills would provide him with what mattered, nothing more.

   He walked the walk of a man trying never to get anywhere but his mind needed for him to walk, just walk, and so he did. From the first light of day until the sunset he stepped lightly and without a sound except when an occasional fallen branch met the soul of his boot causing him to stop abruptly listening but only hearing the birds frightened right alongside him.

   He came back a different man someone he didn’t know or understand — someone who couldn’t fit in anymore although he tried so very hard to do so. His family prayed for him, wept for him, and tried to understand why he just walked away one day. It was the last time they would ever see him.

   The forest to him was like a dream where he was the only person invited in to roam and become as one with all it could offer him. He lost track of time as months turned to years as he kept walking and trying to silence the voices and the noises that buried themselves into his very soul.

   No one understood how he survived the harsh winters and the relentless rain and storms, and no one except me ever looked for him. He was a memory to those he left behind — a story at the supper table shedding tears onto food. I tried to find him spending weekends walking deep into the forest looking for signs he had passed through one way or another, but my efforts became less and less as time past and eventually I made peace with myself and let him go.

   I think about him often and wonder if he's still out there waiting to find himself or giving in to the realization he is who he became and will never walk out of the trees that protect him from his life he can't forget. I pray he is free from the pain, and he has become one with the silence.

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Author Mike OConnor: My back yard

Author Mike OConnor: My back yard:    Yesterday comes back to me when dreams are awakened. I'm six years old, and I move without direction, only curiosity.    My worl...

My back yard

   Yesterday comes back to me when dreams are awakened. I'm six years old, and I move without direction, only curiosity.

   My world is a patch of green sprinkled with fruit trees onto which I climb and reach for the sweet food above.

   Across the street and high above the trains speed by but never disturbs my quest. There are small animals in the trees and sitting on the wires that cross my patch. Some I've seen in storybooks while others leave me puzzled.

   I've ventured from the back door to the end of my patch only to be stopped by something I can't see through. Quite the milestone, I believe. Yet even at this distance, I hear my moms' voice calling me in for supper.

   I will begin my journey again tomorrow, and tonight, I will dream about new discoveries and endless moments in my back yard.

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Author Mike OConnor: Salted breath

Author Mike OConnor: Salted breath:                                                                                                                                      ...

Salted breath

                                                       

                                                       

                                                       

   In a side-ally bar in a no-name port sat an old sailor of the seas. He perched himself on a wooden stool, same stool sailors before him sat and spun their yarns.

   Looking out of a porthole window, he looked upon the row of landlocked vessels resting in wooden cradles. All but forgotten now except for the sailors who sailed them. He served on several of these once fine ladies whose colors are faded and planks doomed to rot.

   He takes a final swallow of swill then a slow, unsteady walk down the alley into the shadows of his destiny. To a place among the giants of yesterday where he will draw his final salted breath.

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Author Mike OConnor: Graveyard shift

Author Mike OConnor: Graveyard shift:    He worked the midnight shift at the box factory, has for nineteen years. The world to him was different, quieter, and almost at times...

Graveyard shift

   He worked the midnight shift at the box factory, has for nineteen years. The world to him was different, quieter, and almost at times like a haven from the darkness around him. He listened to the news on his shift a seemingly endless stream of violence and death that he hid from within the confines of thick walls.

   He lived alone in a small apartment over a hardware store his day beginning around six pm eating breakfast when most were preparing dinner and settling into the night. He had a bit below average IQ but prided himself on keeping up to date on current affairs that were often the talk in the break room.

   He didn’t own a car, never did see the need when the factory was only six blocks from his apartment and he shopped for anything he may need at Wallmart just five blocks away. At three blocks was a small bar/pool hall that he frequented on payday to cash his checks and have just enough to drink that he found himself smiling on his walk home.

   His was a simple life, a lonely life living in his self inflicted prison of six city blocks and working the graveyard shift.

   I worked third shift at a box factory when I was discharged from the service. I was twenty-two years young and discovered that life was only partly there because the rest of the world was fast asleep while I tried to carve out a living. It was lonely and felt like a punishment, not a job. I didn’t last very long at that factory and went on to secure employment in the sunlight.

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Author Mike OConnor: The cabin

Author Mike OConnor: The cabin:      The first and second fingers of his right hand were stained yellow from the many cigarettes he smoked over his lifetime. He had some ...

The cabin

     The first and second fingers of his right hand were stained yellow from the many cigarettes he smoked over his lifetime. He had some store-bought teeth, but he only put them in on occasions like a funeral which was about all his social life consisted of. He had been alone for so long he couldn’t remember when he wasn’t.

   He lived in the mountains in a small hunting cabin he and his son built some thirty years ago. After his beloved Beth passed on, he didn’t see any reason to wander the halls of the house they shared for decades. He sold it, giving the proceeds to their son but keeping just enough to outfit his cabin, so he'd never have to come down off the mountain.

   He now spent his days walking in the forest setting traps for rabbit, fox sometimes mink. He sold the pelts, and if it was edible, he kept the meat in his freezer for those long winters. His cupboards were filled with canned goods, and a ten-pound bag of coffee kept him satisfied for a long time.

   He loved the place he called home. The quiet and solitude became a dream come true after years of city noises and the ever-increasing sounds of first responders. He had heard enough and seen enough of hatred and unrest. There was no television or radio out there, no internet of wi-fi he had banished all of it in return for peace and memories.

   On frigid winter days, he drank coffee, smoked cigarettes and stared into the fireplace going back in time to pieces of his life that brought him great joy and happiness.No need for pictures hanging on the walls no reason for knickknacks cluttering the place. All he had to do was invite the quiet and sink back into time where he saw the faces of those he loved and those he didn’t.

   His son found him one spring day. He had a feeling the older man was gone just one of those gut-wrenching feelings you sometimes get when you know.He found the cabin door open, and the fireplace had long since burned out. A tin plate stacked high with cigarettes and an empty cup was all that was on the table.

   His heavy coat and boots were on the hook, and his dad's favorite rifle was gone. There was a note nailed on the wall that read…Probably you son who will read this hoped you would have found your way back here for a visit, but it's of no matter now. A few weeks back a damn trap got me and chewed up my ankle pretty bad. I got my self home and doctored it the best I could, but it got the gangrene, and I pretty much knew what was next.

   I made my peace with my maker and brewed a hot pot of Joe grabbed my rifle and headed out to my favorite spot on the mountain; you know the place. I will try to hold on for a bit in the hope that you might show up but if you don’t, know I love you, and I'm with your mother now in eternal peace.

   He came across that particular place and stopped in his tracks as he made out the shape of a man slumped against a tall pine. His rifle stood beside him, and a pile of cigarettes was carefully crushed out beneath his boots. It was in this exact spot many years ago he listened to the old man tell him how one day they would build a cabin and come there often together. He began to cry, realizing how few those times were.

   He comes to the small cabin with his son now. They hunt and fish, and he tells him about his grandpa and how he loved this place. Every so often they go to their special place where a rusted rifle leans against a tree, and the memories fill the quiet of the mountain

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