This Day & Age

By Robert C. Huckins

This Day & Age is a collection of short fiction and poetry exploring the various complexities of human relationships and the often complicated and mysterious truths inherent within this dynamic. The title novella delves into the unpredictable circumstances surrounding a relationship between two people seemingly bound to each other in spirit and soul but separated by their own individual realities. The dozen poems and fiction shorts in This Day & Age offer glimpses into the complicated simplicity and unavoidable consequences of living in a real world shaped by factors both within and outside our control.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert C. Huckins
• Release date: Feb 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370884094

Robert C. Huckins

Robert C. Huckins is the author of "This Day & Age", "Two Flags in China", "Flatlander" & "American Dreamland". Huckins owns and manages Chasing Jade Publishing, a company which specializes in publishing independent, creative print and digital content. He graduated from Keene State College with a B.A. in Journalism and Rivier College with an M.A. in Educational Studies. He lives in Milford, New Hampshire.

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THIS DAY & AGE

ROBERT C. HUCKINS

Published by Chasing Jade Publishing

First Edition, February 2017

Copyright © 2017 by Robert C. Huckins

All rights reserved.

Cover concept & design by Robert C. Huckins.

Author photograph by Robert C. Huckins

Book Layout and Design Diane Mulligan

Edited by Allison Alix Spencer

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express permission of the publisher.

For information regarding permission, contact Chasing Jade Publishing at [e-mail]

Contents

This Day & Age

Rivers on Mars

My Daughter’s Sweater

Beautiful Mirage

Death, Belatedly

Everywhere

Lightning

Beaches

Life Marks

The Sentinel

The Bookstore Dream

Intersections

About the Author

DEDICATION

Art Always Survives…

This Day & Age

The End

Jon loved Claire's laugh the most, her hearty, almost manly bellow she unleashed at the most inappropriate times, a laugh which belied her slight build and soft face. She died quickly, he was told, without much fuss, free of any drama or indignities. Claire's funeral was set to begin in a few minutes. People filled the room at the Willard Jacobs Funeral Home, something Jon knew would have made Claire happy and bemused. Jon stood by himself, smiling every so often in common sympathy when someone met his glance, a relative or friend of hers he never met, someone who likely had no idea who he was or what he was doing here. Jon was simply relieved to know Claire even died at all. This was always his fear. Their fear. That one day one of them would die and the other would never know in time for the funeral. Or never know at all. They talked about it more as the years unfolded, the number of tomorrows dwindling in comparison to their yesterdays, a balance which seemed unfair and cruel, a function of the calendar which neither one of them could conquer. Time, they knew, would outlast them both.

So there Jon stood, hands in his pockets, waiting for the funeral to begin, the service honoring the love of his life. He saw a man sitting in a chair on the far end of the room dressed in a blue suit talking softly to a small group of a half dozen people. Jon recognized the man as Claire's husband. He had a young woman named Kelly next to him, Claire's daughter. She was in her thirties by now, Jon figured, a late child Claire swore almost wrecked her marriage altogether. Her two older sons were nearby, both successful men in their own right with families of their own. Good looking, bold men, ready and willing to take on the world and run their father's financial services business, the same one Jon actually contemplated using years ago before he came to his senses and realized it to be a fool's move. He looked at Claire's husband. Thomas was his name. His friends called him Tom. He seemed a perfectly average, pleasant and flawed man. Just like Claire said he was.

A polite middle aged man—probably a few years younger than Jon but already looking weary and tired—explained to Jon how lovely Claire was and how awful this day was for Tom and his kids. Jon nodded and smiled. She was a doll, the man said. A real doll. Great mother and grandmother. Loved everyone. Generous to a fault. The rock of Tom's social calendar. The man chuckled and whispered close to Jon's ear that Claire was likely Tom's secret business advisor, too. The man shook his head, smiling, proud of his minor confession to Jon. Isn't that something? Jon nodded and smiled. Sure is. Really something. Jon wanted to say something to set this droll man in his place, this person who had no idea who Claire was, what she thought, what she loved and did not love about life, her favorite shows, what books she regretted never reading, her most embarrassing sexual encounter or worst date. Jon knew all these things and wanted to say them all to this man, prove to him he really didn't know a damn thing at all about Claire or anything else. But he nodded and smiled, laughing politely when the man told him about the time Tom surprised Claire with a huge fortieth birthday weekend in the Florida Keys, a gift which cost a lot of money and ended up being the time of her life. This is what the man told Jon. This trip, Jon knew, was a disaster, one where Claire nearly left her husband for good. A trip where Tom got so drunk he nearly fell off the deck of their rented condo onto the concrete walkway. A trip where Claire and Tom got into an argument about some forgettable topic but important enough to Tom to cause him to take a chair to the wall, breaking the chair and putting a hole in the wall. He paid for everything the next day, even going to a local IKEA in a lame attempt to replace the chair even though management said they had their own furniture supplier. He could return the IKEA chair or take it home with him. It was on this trip Tom admitted he once slept with a woman from the weekend conference he attended in Dallas. Is this the trip you're talking about? Jon wanted to ask the man this question. Is this the wonderful weekend Tom bought for his wife? Jon did not ask these questions. He smiled. And again laughed softly, nodding his head in admiration for Claire and her devoted husband. He shook the man's hand when the ceremony was about to begin and took a seat in the back, right off a main aisle set aside for easy passage at the end of the service when people would pay their personal respects at the open coffin.

Jon wondered why Claire had not been cremated. She always said her ashes should be spread out over the land near where she grew up in upstate New York, near the Great Lakes. Her favorite place on the planet. That's where I should be, Jon. She told him this more than once. I should be there, part of the land where I played and was free. Really free, she said. Now there she was, in a coffin. Jon was not sure he could look at Claire in the coffin. He was ashamed of this fear for it would have made Claire mock him, maybe even make fun of his delicate sensibilities and squeamishness. God, Jon. Be a man. She would have told him that with a deep and quick laugh, enough to let him know she knew he was a man. Her man. He would always be her man, she said. No matter what happened.

Tom and his kids walked in and sat in the front row, flanked by close family members, including Claire's grandchildren and younger sister. Friends and ancillary family members filled in the rows in front of where Jon sat, barely glancing in his direction as they took their seats. Why should they? He figured some people pegged him as a funeral crasher or some sympathy nut who looked up funeral notices online just to attend. He knew there were people who did this. Real people who felt the uncontrollable urge to attend funerals of people they didn't even know just to bathe in the wave of emotion, the seductive urge to wallow in the temporary connectedness events such as these create. Jon was not one of those people. He would mourn alone, in anonymity, walking out of this funeral home today with the full knowledge his life would never mean the same thing again, would never possess the hope, however distant and remote, that all would be right with the world one day, that balance would be restored to his life, even as his future grew narrower with each passing year.

Jon listened to the minister carry out the pleasant and completely appropriate memorial service. He watched people cry and place hands on the shoulders of those seated next to them. He saw Tom take his arm and put it around Kelly's shoulders and pull her close, just for a moment, before releasing her and settling back to his slouched posture. Even though he had gained weight in the years since their wedding day, Tom seemed smaller to Jon now, a hunched, little man. The minister asked if anyone wished to speak on Claire's behalf today. He waited for a full minute. The room was silent except for sniffles and an occasional nose blow. Jon wanted to speak but never considered it for one second. He had so much to say, so much to get off his chest and to a world he knew never understood Claire as he did, a whole world that never really knew this magnificent woman at all. But he would keep those things to himself. Let others speak about her. He knew, in that very moment, that he was now alone. His eyes welled with tears and he reached into his pocket for the handkerchief he brought but figured he would not need. He could see Claire in her coffin. He wiped his eyes again. Yes, Claire would have had a good and hearty laugh over all this.

ONE

Claire couldn't remember the first time she spoke to Jon. She just remembered seeing him each day for weeks on end during her summer working at the mailroom on campus. He worked at the school doing mostly outdoor work, mowing lawns and moving furniture around, even helping with the mail delivery when the volume was heavy, something rare in the lazy summer weeks on a college campus where very little happened anyway. Claire ate lunch once a week at the cafe, a treat only because it cost her money, cash which was an oasis of freedom considering the vast share of her earnings was quickly snatched up by her mother and deposited into an account set aside for school expenses.

Jon was a couple of years younger than her and she liked to look at him. She enjoyed hearing him speak. He smiled and listened, even if it was just in response to a single sentence. She couldn't remember when he started eating at the cafe. He just started showing up. The two ate at a large table, several seats apart at first, perhaps under the guise of both showing up at the same time. She remembered Jon sat closer within a couple of weeks, until finally sitting across from her by the third week. They talked easily, about everything and nothing all at once, seamlessly. There was a month of summer left before she went back to school. He was headed to a school in Maine, where he would play baseball and maybe major in something interesting. He talked about maybe learning how to ski but admitted this would probably not happen. They laughed a lot. Easily, over all kinds of things. Years later, Claire knew that was the first time she knew she loved him, in the cafe, talking and laughing together with ease, without reservation, as though the veil of coolness and detachment all strangers put up around themselves finally fell to show each of them as who they really were.

It was the perfect summer without fanfare or complications, a time Claire would never forget even though nothing happened in particular. She