l F0CUS l
02-03-2007, 04:39 PM
This is my short story, I do not know if this is where it belongs, but here it goes.
He was fifty-five years old, in great shape, family of six, a wife, and four kids. Two Boys two Girls, very close in age, he had what might call the American Dream, worked hard, came out of a poor family, went to a good college, got a successful career track, and was able to retire early, and live near his oldest son and daughter, who had just gotten married, and they both had his Grandkids on the way.
Anyway, he was hiking up the mountain, something that he had always want to do, stand on top of the world, so to speak, although this wasn't the top, it was pretty high. One of the last athletic feats he planned on doing before he lost the strength of his youth.
This man, climbing, straight up, stumbles and rolls away down the mountain until he is able to come to a complete stop. Not injured in anyway except for his pride, he takes a direct path to get back on the trail again.
Walking he places his foot into a patch of snow, and finds that it goes straight through, starting a mini avalanche of sorts, and sending him down a slippery slope into a cave.
Looking around, he finds their is no exit and no way out, so he looks back up the slippery slope, and attempts to get in position to shoot a flare. To his great dismay, his flare gun was unable to penetrate the amount of snow that was now disturbed and blocking the way which he entered.
So he starts a fire. Prepares his warm place to sleep, and gets his food out and assembles his rations, and fuel that he can burn. Estimating, he can hold out for about a week, which would be more then enough for the authorities in this area to search the mountain, but he wouldn't be able to maintain a fire for that long.
In deep thought and meditation, he takes out his last bit of anything that could be called fuel, his photo album, 136 pages long, 4 Photos on each page, he took it with him everywhere, and was glad to have the extra weight of his families pictures on his shoulders, as he would stare at it, through out those 7 days, in which his food rain out, but he was able to find something to burn.
Knowing he could survive without food, he melts ice, and drinks the water for a while, always holding out hope that someone would find him, and in a last ditch effort attempts the flare again with no success. He decided to burn the last one, in hopes that staying alive and warm just another day, will be enough.
Only now, when he couldn't take his mind of the hunger enough to meditate, he starts looking at this photo album, from start to finish, each of his children, throughout the years. Until he realizes, he needs more fuel. And so with great reluctance and tears in his eyes, he takes all the photos out, and begins to burin the bindings and the pages that made the photo album. The whole time figuring out that chances that with maybe just another day, they would search this slope of the mountain, and hopefully, if a rescue fell down this hole, he wouldn't fall right on me.
The bindings are almost done burning, and he says to himself, "As life ends, it is said our life’s flash before our eyes, I have had to lucky opportunity to die watching and remembering, reflecting and enjoying the days, and the memories instilled in these pictures, and as I burn them, for that one last glimmer that I may live again to see the future, the hope that I will be able to take a picture.... I acknowledge the fact that I am not destroying my past, but using it in a fleeting hope, to build upon my future. No matter what, the memories are still their, and while materially turned to ash, they still burn in my mind, a light for me."
He picks up the first photo, a picture of the day he and his wife met, and places it in the fire, and the next, and the next, chronologically, all in perfect order, he systematically holds each in his mind, forever burning them into his memory, so that he will never forget. He places it into the fire, as soon as the fuel appears to be gone, and picks up the next one, doing the same thing. Until finally, after a time has passed his is one his last photo, and he burns that one too. Picking up his digital camera, he takes photos of everything around him, and his watch, including the date, and records a short video, wraps the memory chip in plastic, sticking it in an obvious place.
In a last ditch effort, he attempts to burn his camera, which explodes in his face, blinding his eyes, his shrieking is heard far away, and rescuers find the hole, and a man falls, right on top of him.
Blind, he was able to get out of the hole with assistance from the rescuers, and back home. His family worried about his mental health, but still ineptly curious asks him what happened, he tells the story and when he is finished he laughed. With this striking realization.
"We live life experiencing and seeing all that is around us, taking pictures, in order to remember the past. But you see as I am blind, I can not see anymore, the future. But I do remember the past, etched clearly in my mind, what each and every one, and everything in this town that I once hated dearly so the idea of growing old and seeing it everyday became more of a reality, but know I will live an adventure! 544 Pictures are my road, my walking stick, and my clothes. In my mind I will see and build my pictures based solely on what I have seen. The happiness which I remember from seeing will continue to be forever, the energy that keeps me going, and keeps me living. Doctors say I can not see, but doctors, don't understand the brain, and the power of the human being, none the less an individual such as I. They will ask, 'Isn't he blind?' I will say, ‘I am merely blind to colors, but never to happiness, you see.’ But truly! You see the greatest gift is sight, and those who don't know how to use it are blind! They are unable to recognize the happiness around them. But I am blind, but yet I can perceive."
He was fifty-five years old, in great shape, family of six, a wife, and four kids. Two Boys two Girls, very close in age, he had what might call the American Dream, worked hard, came out of a poor family, went to a good college, got a successful career track, and was able to retire early, and live near his oldest son and daughter, who had just gotten married, and they both had his Grandkids on the way.
Anyway, he was hiking up the mountain, something that he had always want to do, stand on top of the world, so to speak, although this wasn't the top, it was pretty high. One of the last athletic feats he planned on doing before he lost the strength of his youth.
This man, climbing, straight up, stumbles and rolls away down the mountain until he is able to come to a complete stop. Not injured in anyway except for his pride, he takes a direct path to get back on the trail again.
Walking he places his foot into a patch of snow, and finds that it goes straight through, starting a mini avalanche of sorts, and sending him down a slippery slope into a cave.
Looking around, he finds their is no exit and no way out, so he looks back up the slippery slope, and attempts to get in position to shoot a flare. To his great dismay, his flare gun was unable to penetrate the amount of snow that was now disturbed and blocking the way which he entered.
So he starts a fire. Prepares his warm place to sleep, and gets his food out and assembles his rations, and fuel that he can burn. Estimating, he can hold out for about a week, which would be more then enough for the authorities in this area to search the mountain, but he wouldn't be able to maintain a fire for that long.
In deep thought and meditation, he takes out his last bit of anything that could be called fuel, his photo album, 136 pages long, 4 Photos on each page, he took it with him everywhere, and was glad to have the extra weight of his families pictures on his shoulders, as he would stare at it, through out those 7 days, in which his food rain out, but he was able to find something to burn.
Knowing he could survive without food, he melts ice, and drinks the water for a while, always holding out hope that someone would find him, and in a last ditch effort attempts the flare again with no success. He decided to burn the last one, in hopes that staying alive and warm just another day, will be enough.
Only now, when he couldn't take his mind of the hunger enough to meditate, he starts looking at this photo album, from start to finish, each of his children, throughout the years. Until he realizes, he needs more fuel. And so with great reluctance and tears in his eyes, he takes all the photos out, and begins to burin the bindings and the pages that made the photo album. The whole time figuring out that chances that with maybe just another day, they would search this slope of the mountain, and hopefully, if a rescue fell down this hole, he wouldn't fall right on me.
The bindings are almost done burning, and he says to himself, "As life ends, it is said our life’s flash before our eyes, I have had to lucky opportunity to die watching and remembering, reflecting and enjoying the days, and the memories instilled in these pictures, and as I burn them, for that one last glimmer that I may live again to see the future, the hope that I will be able to take a picture.... I acknowledge the fact that I am not destroying my past, but using it in a fleeting hope, to build upon my future. No matter what, the memories are still their, and while materially turned to ash, they still burn in my mind, a light for me."
He picks up the first photo, a picture of the day he and his wife met, and places it in the fire, and the next, and the next, chronologically, all in perfect order, he systematically holds each in his mind, forever burning them into his memory, so that he will never forget. He places it into the fire, as soon as the fuel appears to be gone, and picks up the next one, doing the same thing. Until finally, after a time has passed his is one his last photo, and he burns that one too. Picking up his digital camera, he takes photos of everything around him, and his watch, including the date, and records a short video, wraps the memory chip in plastic, sticking it in an obvious place.
In a last ditch effort, he attempts to burn his camera, which explodes in his face, blinding his eyes, his shrieking is heard far away, and rescuers find the hole, and a man falls, right on top of him.
Blind, he was able to get out of the hole with assistance from the rescuers, and back home. His family worried about his mental health, but still ineptly curious asks him what happened, he tells the story and when he is finished he laughed. With this striking realization.
"We live life experiencing and seeing all that is around us, taking pictures, in order to remember the past. But you see as I am blind, I can not see anymore, the future. But I do remember the past, etched clearly in my mind, what each and every one, and everything in this town that I once hated dearly so the idea of growing old and seeing it everyday became more of a reality, but know I will live an adventure! 544 Pictures are my road, my walking stick, and my clothes. In my mind I will see and build my pictures based solely on what I have seen. The happiness which I remember from seeing will continue to be forever, the energy that keeps me going, and keeps me living. Doctors say I can not see, but doctors, don't understand the brain, and the power of the human being, none the less an individual such as I. They will ask, 'Isn't he blind?' I will say, ‘I am merely blind to colors, but never to happiness, you see.’ But truly! You see the greatest gift is sight, and those who don't know how to use it are blind! They are unable to recognize the happiness around them. But I am blind, but yet I can perceive."