Crossroads of Souls

By Charles R. Kuhn

This place of desolation became a window to the past.
A lone caretaker witnessed the metamorphosis. She silently absorbed
the shock, the awe, the inspiration each guest experienced. Each was immersed
in apparitions long ago forgotten or, buried in their soul to soothe their current
existence without encumbrances.
Th

• Language: English
• Publisher: LitFire Publishing
• Release date: Jul 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643988023

Charles R. Kuhn

Mr. Kuhn resides in Citrus Heights California outside of Sacramento with his wife, an elementary school teacher and their many rescued animals, including dogs, cats, guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens, a turtle, parrots and pigeons. Mr. Kuhn has two children, a 27 year old daughter who teaches fourth graders and a 25 year old son completing his college degree in environmental engineering. Mr. Kuhn has had the privilege of traveling through Southeast Asia for work and many spots in Europe with his family.His writing style is largely based on personal experiences and family stories he brings to life in riveting prose and expertise. Mr. Kuhn’s writing skills have developed after many years as a technical writer and project manager as an environmental consultant. Mr. Kuhn has a Bachelors degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a Masters Degree from the University of Nevada at Reno.Later in life, Mr. Kuhn found his voice as a recreational artist and entertainer after being diagnosed with a debilitating disease in mid-life. Though today, he is entrenched within a wheel chair, Mr. Kuhn hand inputs his novels, short stories and poems.As a writer, Mr. Kuhn seeks to convey answers to mysteries we have all innocently encountered in everyday life. It is his hope to make us all question and seek the truth behind life’s surprises. If he can be successful in making just one of his readers ask “Why?”, he deems himself a triumph in making us think a little above and beyond the ordinary.

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Crossroads of Souls

Copyright © 2018 by Charles R. Kuhn

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.

ISBN: 978-1-64398-802-3

Printed in the United States of America

LitFire LLC

1-800-511-9787

www.litfirepublishing.com

[e-mail]

Crossroads of Souls

Charles R. Kuhn

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

The old woman bent slightly forward, each step more a shuffle of her shoe sole than a contraction of the leg. At first glance her shoes would not catch the eye of a bystander. But, if a person should look closer they would see the shoes were an old pair of Addidas. No doubt worn for their comfortable fit, their light weight and the rubber sole that slid easily along the ground, floor or carpeted room. Once they undoubtedly sat proudly upon some retail shelf waiting to be plucked away and delivered to the cashier for checkout. Once they were dark blue with yellow piping, proudly displaying the manufacturers name upon the Achilles cuff of the shoe. Now they were a dingy gray, the yellow piping long ago broken down. The rubber soles had been worn smooth from dragging of feet across the many miles they had covered. They were the woman’s choice of transportation when traveling by foot, which she did exclusively.

A heavy wool, hand knitted sweater covered her sloping shoulders. Her hair was white, not gray, nor intermixed with any streaks of darkness. No indication of an actual shade of color of so many years ago existed. She wore a simple white blouse carefully buttoned to the last buttonhole on the neck. Her skirt was gray plaid, devoid of any bright colors to call attention to the wearer.

A gnarled old hand, absent of jewelry reached out and grasped a peeled old hand rail. Four long steps led to the top of the porch where an elaborately carved wooden door with a cheerful oval window in the center beckoned approaching guests inside. Slow deliberate rise and fall of each foot led the body forward. The last step was accomplished with all the pride and might of ascending the greatest peak. The old woman rested at the top, holding the handrail and rocking ever so slightly, like a brittle dried leaf in a fall breeze.

There were no discernable signs of from where she had come. With one hand gripped to the handrail, the other reached deep into a side pocket of her skirt and slowly brought out a large round key ring of some six inches in diameter with a single key attached. The shoes slowly shuffled towards the front door. Shaking hands pointed the key at the old, ornate brass doorknob standing at attention from the heavy wood door. The old woman bent to eye level with the keyhole. With deliberate care the key found its way into the lock and turned the inner tumblers with fluid ease. The heavy door gently swung inward with the gentlest of pushes from the old woman. She took one step inside, turned in the doorway and only now could a casual passerby make out the frail body silhouetted against the interior behind her. She gazed briefly at the view from her doorway wondering what the crossroads would deliver to her today.

She rested her hand on the inside of the door and with the gentlest of pushes sent the door to a seamless fit against the door jam, the latch snugly fitting into the door receptacle like it had done a thousand times before. The old door looked like it had been carved from the trunk of a giant oak. Its luster gleamed golden. Not a scratch could be seen on its surface. The outside of the door was intricately carved with caricatures surrounding the oval window composed of people, places, animals, strange symbols, stranger buildings that looked like the most complex of structures carved not from the work of man’s hands, but by the illusions of his fantasies. The inside of the door was beautiful and smooth. No caricatures adorned the inside of the door.

The old woman turned slowly reaching for the electric wall switch flooding the room with incandescent light from a fixture as old as she. Shuffling her way towards the right end of the high counter, she carefully lifted the extension attached to the adjoining plastered wall. She turned as she walked beneath the bridge and lowered the extension carefully back into its resting spot. Behind the counter sat a wooden high chair. Two steps consisting of no more than two strips of wood were attached to each leg. Leather as aged, cracked and wrinkled as the old woman’s face covered the seat and backrest. The old woman approached the chair with a reverence of respect. She had sat in this chair for thousands of hours. She could not count nor remember, the number of souls she had witnessed cross the threshold of the doorway that had never left the same. She had witnessed transformations, metamorphosis so complete, so utterly unexplainable, her tired old eyes sometimes betrayed the moment as surrealistic, as some apparition of truth and faith that could not be explained or understood. She no longer tried to understand, only witness.

She grasped the arms of the chair. Slowly, without looking down, she felt for the first step with her foot, then with the second foot and then repeated the process. She reached the top step, deftly turned herself in midair and dropped herself into the seat. She had perfected this maneuver through many years of practice. She arranged herself, set her arms upon the smooth chair arms and waited for the crossroads to deliver her next guest.

Her memories of coming to this place had dwindled. At times she looked back to find a vision of what had once been. Those memories twinkled on the out skirts of her sanity, blurry and obscured more so on a daily basis. It was as if she watched through a looking glass, the breadth of the view shrinking each passing moment she chose to peer again. She recalled a world she had resided within, not that much different from where you or I live. The dreams had changed her existence. They had started with stark detail. Her remembrances of them were remarkably clear each new day she woke. They became constant and called to her. They could not be ignored and would not disappear. The calling intensified with each passing night sleep. She wondered of her own sanity. The day she succumbed to their pleading stayed clear to her. It could no longer be denied. She acquiesced and left her life of normalcy to find the unknown, to succumb to the calling.

She found the location by accident. It was desolate. It was her dreams come to life. Here is where she belonged. She knew this was her place.

The intersection she found rested in a non-descript endless landscape. This place was more of a moonscape than a landscape. Small prickly bushes, scrub weeds, no trees of any kind grew here. There were no unique landmarks to signal the unwary. No signs. No billboards. No blinking caution lights. Nothing was here, except bare and desolate land and a feeling.

There was a four way stop. Each STOP sign was faded from the hot sun beating on its octagonal body through the passage of time as they stood their lonely guard. The once bright red had faded to a dull brown, not much different from the look of old dried blood seeped from a ragged wound. The signposts pealed whitewash displaying dry, gray splintered wood beneath. It appeared as if any of the posts could blow over and tumble away in the gentlest breeze. But, the posts had stood and witnessed the harrowing events that crossed that isolated corner of the world for years. The stories harbored deep within the tight bonds of their structures were ominous beacons to those that passed by those stogy sentries.

But, no one passing through this intersection of destiny took notice. No one could have fathomed the life changing events about to descend upon him or her. No one ever left that intersection unchanged. The sentries had seen them all come and go. For this was the crossroads of life. A place of untold wonders, revelations, dreams and nightmares that few knew existed in the consciousness of their minds. This was a place of discovery.

CHAPTER I

Calvin Johnson wielded his Chevy pickup next to the gas pump bringing the vehicle to a sudden stop in a cloud of dust. He shut the engine off. Dust drifted by his driver’s side window. Calvin leaned forward on the steering wheel his arms crossed, looking out the left side of the truck at the old farmhouse staring back at him.

Probably built in the 20’s he figured. There was a large front porch. Four wide and sagging steps led onto the porch and towards the front door. He assumed the door was as old as the house, but in remarkably good shape. The door had a large oval window set into the recessed middle. Some sort of lacy curtain covered the inside of the door window preventing any visual inspection from outside.

A handmade wooden sign hung from rusted chains attached at the top of the porch. At one time the sign was beautiful, hand carved with love and patience. Now it was cracked, the paint peeling, hanging slightly askew. Calvin could make out the letters, which spelled out CROOSROADS TREASURES. The bottom screw holding the ‘S’ on TREASURES had rusted off or was loose, as the ‘S’ dangled at a strange backward angle swinging into the ‘E’ that preceded it.

Shade enveloped the roof of the building at that time of afternoon. Skeletons of dead rose bushes stood around the perimeter of the front porch. An old horse trough decayed was positioned to the left of the front steps. A rusted out water pipe stood erect and proud at one end of the trough. Now just another testament to the age of the house, this was but one of many old fixtures, once performing admirable service for the inhabitants of this place.

Calvin shook his head in mild disgust. He looked over at his wife, who was staring straight ahead through the windshield. She barely moved. Her hands were folded in her lap and her breaths were short and shallow. There was a vacant look on her face of any emotion. Her face did not appear ignorant, just empty of any feeling, looking straight ahead. She was trained well he thought. Calvin snorted and opened his door, stepping out into the searing heat.

Damn it’s hot he mumbled grumpily as he slammed the door behind him.

Calvin was a big man, standing nearly six foot three inches. His belly was bigger than he wished and his jeans hung lower then he wanted. He wore a ball cap on his head emblazoned with the Confederate flag. His T-shirt was dirty, un-tucked and showed some of his hairy spare tire that encircled his waste.

He walked back to the old gas pump his boot kicking up dust as he stepped. He looked carefully at the price per gallon meter, grunted in dissatisfaction, grabbed the nozzle and hose from its resting place and swung around to fill the tank.

Calvin squeezed the handle on the nozzle and leaned back against the tailgate of the truck. He looked back at the intersection they had just come through. To his right, left and straight-ahead the road stretched across the open valley disappearing up some unknown mountain in the distance. He turned and looked over the top of the truck cab and took in the same view. He laughed a little, shook his head and wondered what genius had picked the site for this reunion. He let his eyes fall to the rear window. His wife sat perfectly still. Calvin’s eyes quickly noted the NRA decal and Confederate flag decal set in opposing corners of the back window. He lowered his head down between his arms and caught site of the bumper sticker reading, AMERICA – LOVE IT OR DIE. He smiled to himself, guessing at the number of people the sticker had scared or just made mad. ‘Hell with them’, he thought.

The gas nozzle clicked off. He pulled out the nozzle, stepped to the tank, shoved the nozzle back to its resting place and replaced the gas cap. He looked at the total price of twenty-three dollars and eighty-nine cents. ‘Damn robbers!’ Calvin stepped to the driver side door, yanked it open and hauled his body into the seat. He started the truck and heaved it into gear with a jerk, accelerating, turned the wheel left and skidding to a stop, crushing one of the still standing rose skeletons in front of the porch.

His wife reached down to unbuckle her seat belt.

What are you doing? Calvin demanded.

I’d like to look inside was her timid response. Calvin shot her a disgusted look and jumped down from the truck slamming the door behind him. It was too hot to fight. Let her have some fun he thought.

Hannah Johnson softly opened her door and stepped out of the cab. She was a pretty woman, tall with good posture. She was casually dressed in a flowery sundress, flat shoes and wore no makeup. Her brunette hair was short and showing gray. Her eyes were tired and sad and her face showed little signs of laughter. She walked timidly around the back of the truck. Her husband clambered up the steps, grabbed the doorknob and pushed the door open. A gentle ring of bells sounded. Hannah smiled to herself. By opening the door, the big redneck had generated the sweetest sound she had heard in a long time. The door swung gently back to the door jam, the latch finding its home with a silent click. Hannah’s steps stopped. She lifted her head and looked at the door, studying the details of the heavy oak, the leaded glass window and the oddly shaped doorknob.

The knob appeared to be a face, a smiling face, a face that could not be read, never be characterized and never be explained. She looked closer, bending and staring from the first step. She saw tiny wrinkles on the forehead of the face. The face looked like the wicked witch of the east, but it was softened with a smile and looked almost amused at the hands that reached out to envelope its’ existence and cover it from the world for just a moment. Or was it the other way around? After all, it was the face of the crossroads.

Calvin stepped into the foyer and stopped. The room was dark, even with the lace curtains covering the door glass and other windows inside. There was an oversized counter standing nearly five feet high directly in front of him. He saw an old push button cash register sitting on one end of the counter. The buttons were polished and bright. Beneath his feet was a worn large rug. At one time it had adorned the entry with beauty and grace. Now, even the fringe on both ends was worn away leaving a yellowing edge where the threads had once been attached.

There were shelves everywhere, holding an incredible array of goods. China, books, crystal of every shape and size, trophies, paintings, jewelry, picture frames, arrows, bottles, rocks, pots, pans, clocks, watches and more. Dust covered every item, except the ones recently picked up and examined by visitors. There was no real organization to how the items were placed on the shelves. Everything appeared to be in disarray. In the high corners of the room, Calvin could make out dust covered spider webs.

There was a modern cooler to the right of the counter filled with sodas, fruit drinks, bottled water and 6-packs of beer. Archways to the right and the left of the foyer must have led to the inner sanctums of what would have been the living quarters at one time. Calvin moved toward the cooler to grab himself a 6-pack of beer. Sudden rustling behind the counter caught him by surprise and he froze. He had not seen or anticipated anyone or anything in the room. Calvin looked closer, squinting to see through the murkiness.

An old woman materialized from the shadows in the room like a stealthy mirage cast from the desert. Her hair was as white as snowcapped peaks first appearing at dawn’s early glory. Wrinkles surrounded each eye like macabre spider webs enticingly beckoning to unwary victims. Her body was bent like an ancient cedar on wind swept slopes. The eyes watched Calvin with penetrating amusement. An uncharacteristic shudder ran up Calvin’s spine. He shrugged his large shoulders, never taking his eyes from the steady gaze that searched his face. The eyes seemed to suck him into some sort of inescapable chasm of never ending depth. A feeling of nausea swept through Calvin, as if he was spinning out of control into the deep recesses of a power vacuum of no beginning and no end. He whipped his head to one side as the small bells over the entrance door suddenly chimed and his wife stepped through the door. She stopped quickly, backing up a step, as the intensity of Calvin’s look and swift turn startled her. She asked in a soft demur voice.

Are you alright? Calvin turned abruptly away from her, glancing at the old woman and moving towards the inner archway on his left. Hannah was startled. Not by his intensity but, by his lack of reaching out and striking.

Hannah smiled at the old woman. Her mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners. There was a kindness in her expression. Hannah felt an immediate understanding as if she were looking into the eyes of her mother.

Is there a bathroom, I could use? asked Hannah quietly. The old woman nodded in the direction of the archway to the right lifting a knarled hand thick with arthritis in that direction. Hannah uttered a quiet thank you as the old woman nodded a soft acknowledgement as Hannah disappeared into the hollows of the hallway.

Calvin moved rapidly through the first room of an un-imaginable menagerie of items, none of which caught his interest, or generated his slightest acknowledgement of their existence. ‘Bunch of useless old crap’ he thought to himself as he entered another room. It felt just as bleak, cramped and moldy as the room he had just left. However, this room struck Calvin as different. It was darker still. Shades were drawn to a fraction above the old windowsills. Heavy burgundy velvet drapes hung from ornate curtain rods. The ceiling was raised, at least ten feet high and adorned with old ceiling tiles, some missing, some broken, most in a state of disrepair. The walls were covered with an old wooden wains coating about four feet off the floor. Heavy Persian rugs covered the floorboards muffling Calvin’s footsteps and his respiration as he crossed the floor. An ornate heavy round walnut table stood directly in the middle of the room. The table was laden with numerous goods. Books, bottles, keys, hair braids, letter openers, none of them arranged in any order, or with any reason. As if whoever set up the table stood two feet back, threw all the items in the air over the table and where they landed, they stayed.

A high amour made from thick oak stood silent guard against one wall. Inside its’ glass doors rested heavy crystal goblets and what appeared to be fine English bone china and bookends made of some heavy wood blocks encased in thinly pounded copper. A rusty old frame of a toy tractor rested on the floor next to the table. Calvin was drawn to the old toy. He stared down at the toy frame, having come to a silent stop, unaware that he had stopped. The toy frame beckoned him even closer, but he stood without moving. There was something about the toy that stirred childhood memories. He wasn’t sure why. Calvin felt a desire to touch the toy frame, to feel the rough edges of its once shiny veneer. He watched as if in a dream, the right-toe of his boot reached out and nudged the front blade of the toy metal bulldozer. The frame slightly moved to the left and rocked back to its former position. He knew he must touch it, to feel its durable long ago glossy frame. He bent low to look closer. He took in every detail and saw surprisingly his right hand stretching out to grab the frame and gently lift it to his eye level. Then the moment vaporized.

Surprised, Calvin looked at the toy dozer in his hand. It was brightly finished and shiny. He laid the toy down in the sand beneath him with reverence. He gently started to push the toy through the sand clearing a path, his small hand resting on the cab firmly pressing the vehicle forward so that sand fell to each side of the blade just like a real bulldozer pushing earth at a construction site. There was a gentle humming noise of pride that came from him, a monotone like birds chirping busily in the trees overhead. The tractor was shiny, painted yellow, black block letters proudly displaying the manufacturers name across the rear. The rubber toy tracks moved easily just like a real piece of heavy equipment. Under his steady direction a carefully managed course of gentle curves, followed by longer straight away that would rival the Daytona speedway were being carved in the sand.

Back and forth the tractor was directed, smoothing out the ruts, carving perfect sloping curves, creating an illusion of perfection in the sand box. The experience was relaxed, not rushed, and nearly sedentary in its simplicity. Carefully measured strokes of perfection were creating the ultimate racetrack. He couldn’t wait to direct his cars! Man, he was excited. He could feel the bubble of anticipation rising from his stomach. This was going to be great!

Suddenly one of the perfect sloping curves disintegrated in a mass of flying sand. It flew in his face, his eyes, his hair and teeth covering him with a cloud of the gritty earth. Oh no! This couldn’t be happening. It had been almost perfect. A scream filled the air, followed by a howling laugh. Calvin didn’t realize it was his scream.

Look at the little sissy! a voice gleefully proclaimed. What a little priss! the voice disgustedly laughed. Calvin jumped to his feet his eyes squinted tightly shut, his hand madly rubbing at his face and eyes. The pain in his eyes was excruciating! A pair of rough hands hit him hard on the shoulders knocking