The Marlene Stottsberry Award Winner for 2010:
Ralph V. Warth for the Wrath of Ages
The Stottsberry Award honors a former Guild president, an inspiring and generous writer, who is remembered with affection. Guidelines are fiction, 2000 words or less. Open to all.
For the video recording of the reading by the author of this award click on this link.
The Wrath of Ages
By Ralph V. Warth
Freddy Brown awoke with a slight headache. The sands of sleep drifted slowly from his eyes. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. “Let’s see,” he thought to himself. “I am in my bed, there’s my TV. There’s the door to my bath, there’s the sun streaming through the louvered window. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that last glass of Morgan David last night. Or did I have any wine last night?”
“Okay!” he thought…”I got it now.” Fully awake he hurled the plain white sheet off his slender body and bounded from the white enameled metal bed. The coiled springs sang a ringing melody of promise. A generous smile parted his thin lips. “Today is the day,” he thought! He was twenty-five, in the prime of his young life, ready to kindle the planet. It was the spring of the year and the spring of his young life.
His brain hummed with excitement as he remembered that today was the day he would ask Betty Lou to be his bride. After years of working and going to college full-time, he had finally gotten his degree in Civil Engineering from Akron University and he was ready to embark with his fair young maiden on the sea of life. Oh! What a life he had planned. Yesterday, he remembered, he received the letter notifying him that he was accepted to a position in a large construction firm in Hawaii. He was ready to help design and build the many hotels and custom luxury homes that were blossoming on the dark rocky shores of the Big Island. A dream job in a dream location and he was going to share it with his dream girl. He looked in his one closet and noted the few clothes he owned. Oh well that, he knew, would change once he began making the big bucks of a civil engineer with a premier company. He rapidly dressed in his pale yellow trousers and donned a matching yellow Hawaiian shirt he had saved for the occasion; at least he hoped it would pass as Hawaiian. His brown deck shoes resembled slippers but they felt comfortable and light.
He left his stark bachelor room and swept past the other boarders who were just awakening. With two hands he burst through the glass double doors with power and grace. He heard a strident alarm bell sound. In his excitement, he thought, he must have gone out the emergency exit by mistake. The lady at the desk called loudly after him but he didn’t have time to discuss exits or rent or whatever.
No time for breakfast. He scanned the parking lot and finally located what he thought was his car, but these days most cars looked a lot alike. Now, he realized, he must have left without his car keys. Oh well, what the heck, he could walk the half mile to Betty Lou’s house. He had to look down to see if his feet were touching the ground. He hadn’t felt this grand since the Japanese surrendered. His shirt flapped brazenly against his thin torso.
The morning sun was already raising globs of perspiration on his wrinkled brow. The unrelenting sun was beginning to pain his eyes; he had to walk directly into the eastern fire. He wished he had taken the time to put on his Ray-Ban sunglasses. People were looking at him oddly. Hadn’t they ever seen a young man in love? Frantic horn blowing alerted him to the danger of not paying attention to traffic. He had to watch for the walking signal to cross the street, better not get run over on the happiest day of his young life.
He took the four steps to Betty Lou’s porch in two strides. He pushed the familiar brass door bell. He was hoping his doll would answer the door; it was answered by a teenager about four years younger than his girl, but he resembled her. Maybe she was the younger sister who had been away at Boston College, he thought. He called out, “Hey! Sweetheart, are you related to Betty Lou?”
“Yesssss”, she answered tentatively. She had an odd expression and backed uncertainly into the parlor.
“Well, Baby cakes I’m Betty Lou’s beau, glad to meet you, kiddo. Will you tell her I’m here and reporting for duty?”
The girl started edging backward toward the stairway. He figured he had come on too strong and was scaring her, but he just couldn’t contain himself. He felt higher than the Hindenburg.
The girl called plaintively up the stairs, cupping her hand near her mouth seemingly so he couldn’t hear her. “Motherrr…can you come down here right now? Grandpa’s here. It’s worse than the last time he walked away from the Alzenheimer home. Now he thinks grandma is still alive.”
He sank to his knees…and then to the floor. He grasped his skinny knees with his mottled arms. His frail body convulsed and heaved. His unbuttoned yellow pajama top parted showing ribs straining to burst through his pale blotchy skin. From deep within his shrunken body…an animal-like moan began…increasing in volume…ricocheting from the walls…and up the stairs…and into the ears of his horrified daughter.