A Passage Written in the spirit of Nella Larsen and William Faulkner.

The time came for swift change in property and financial division. Robert’s father, Mr. Edward, had passed away and was buried not three days ago, when feuds over his wealthy funds began. Edward was a tobacco farmer and had accumulated a great wealth. He had a great home where he lived with his large family. He was married to Elizabeth, the daughter of another tobacco grower, and they had four children. Bernard is twenty five years old and is the second youngest of the family. He lost his left leg in a carriage accident on the way to New York City for a theater job. His older sister, Mary, was with him at the time. She is twenty seven years old and lives with her husband, David. They live just a few miles down from where Edward had built his estate. Mary was a mother of three and often brought them to their grandparents to keep them entertained. When Elizabeth died of pneumonia, Edward secluded himself from his children but always welcomed his grand-children with open arms and a joyful attitude. He seemed bothered by the aging relatives around him.
Wilson, Mary’s twin brother, had died at the age of seventeen at a small gathering at the nearby lake. He drowned while trying to swim across it, after drinking a staggering amount. Mary had felt his demise and was not herself for many weeks after the incident. She refused to go near water of any kind and was often reluctant to bathe. When she met David, a beer brewer, she did not like him at all. He made a living off of what inhibited her brother from crossing that lake and she silently blamed him. When the benefits of marrying and bearing children with him opened her eyes a bit, she took the opportunity, and has been medicating herself since. Samantha, the middle child, enjoyed spending most of her time at the town library and came home only to sleep and eat. She aspired to be a great scholar and never turned down an opportunity to read a story. She read Edward’s will aloud at the ceremony, and the words she said had upset them all. All, except my dear friend Robert. Robert was deaf and had little contact with the people outside of the estate.
The first time I noticed that Robert took an interest to me was an uncomfortable feeling. I’ve been cleaning Mr. Edward’s home for the better part of six years, and in those years we’ve rarely had any disagreements. It was always “Yes, Mr. Edwards” or “No, Mr. Edwards”. When Elizabeth passed away, I worked a little longer times trying to keep the home steady and pleasant. I’d run errands for Mr. Edwards and take him into town, and tend to his grand-children when he grew too tired to play with them. I was coming back from a trip to town when I saw Mr. Edward and Robert writing on sheets of paper and passing them to one another. Mr. Edwards wrote something down, and as Robert read the scripture, he quickly turned toward my direction and waved with a smile. He couldn’t possibly have heard me; I was still many paces away, so it was clear that Mr. Edward had told him. I dutifully waved back to Robert and he jotted something down before running over to help me carry in the food goods from the marketplace. I attempted to wave him off, but Robert insisted, so I reluctantly handed him a basket of fruits and signaled that that was all. One must appreciate the gesture, Robert is a true gentleman. I still eyed Mr. Edwards, who briefly caught my glare, and smiled as he drew them away toward a galloping Robert.
I never gave it another thought, not until Mr. Edwards had passed away. Robert was the first person to figure this out. I was downstairs sweeping away the remnants of the previous night’s child’s play when I heard moans and sobs come from Mr. Edward’s room. I slowly went up to investigate so as not to embarrass anyone when I stumbled inside. I saw Mr. Edwards had passed away in his sleep. He passed on quietly and without pain it seemed. No matter how peaceful you can imagine a death for someone, there will be always be others who will give their soul to have them still around. It sure seemed that this is what Robert was trying to do. He was sitting against the opposite end of the bed, vocalizing his pain in incoherent attempts of calling for “papa”. He hadn’t seen me, so I had time to rationalize an approach. A task that was easier said than done. I was stricken with the death of Mr. Edwards. My future came into my thoughts and I wondered where I would end up. I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to console Robert for the time being.
The only times I ever heard Robert make any sounds was when he’d laugh. His laughter was in itself humorous as it sounded offbeat and completely original. My regret was that he could not hear hit. This time he spoke for the sake of anxiety and loss. His attempts of conversation by pen and paper went poorly. He couldn’t manage to write anything down without slanting into a depressive state and often wrote a word down that missed vowels and key consonants. After calming down, I brought him downstairs, where we waited for Samantha to come home from the library. In the meantime, we passed notes.
In our conversation, I managed to find out how he stumbled upon Mr. Edward. In the previous night Mr. Edward had written Robert a long note and told him to read it before going to bed. He dodged my attempts at finding out what the note was about. He simply wrote me, “Now I cannot give him my answer, so he will never know.” He crumbled after writing the double u. This was when Samantha walked in, surprised to hear her brother vocalizing. None of us heard anything from Robert, just his original chuckles and squeals. She came up to me and asked what was happening. I told her.
The next couple of days were busy with moving and preparations for the funeral. I spent a large amount of time cooking the funeral meals and cleaning up afterwards. When the ceremony began, I stepped away to weep. I cried for my future, I cried for poor Robert, and I cried for dear Mr. Edward. I was interrupted by a hand on my shoulder, it was Robert. He had a smile on his face and passed me a note. The note brightened my mood and made me uneasy all at the same time. He said, “It seems he had most faith in me. I don’t know what they’re arguing for inside. I don’t care. I want you to stay with me. Will you stay?” I stood up and made my way into the house. In the doorway I received shouts and insults from Robert’s siblings. Roars of disapproval resonated in my head and still haunt me today. Mary said, “You ain’t even family whore! Why do you deserve a share while I get nothing?” Bernard said, “Damn nigger! At least you got both your damn legs! You better run from here, y’hear?” Samantha said, “I’m not sure what was going through my Daddy’s head when he wrote this mess down but he better be damned sure about this!”
Robert interrupted the cacophony of noises by holding up a note he had written moments ago. They stopped and read the note. Their faces melted into glares of disappointment, but the comments stopped. They could have spoken under their breath toward Robert, but all had gone silent. He then turned to me and smiled; I couldn’t help but smile back. I never knew what he had said to them, he ripped the note up shortly afterward, but I’m sure glad he said something. It was the loudest moment of his life, and he didn’t hear a thing.
After that, the family came by frequently and eventually treated me better as well as their deaf sibling. He grew into a handsome young man and ran the business with me as his assistant. He shunned all adverse behavior and only dealt with the ones who he quoted as “civil”. As for my future and road in life, it appears that Robert had inherited the entire estate that Mr. Edwards accumulated and maintained. It was some time before Robert gained the courage to ask me in marriage, but when he did, it was the quietest ceremony in the entire world.
Afterword
This hybrid of Faulkner’s country racism and Nella’s Female African American struggle is an unlikely situation to happen anywhere in the US but if it were, this would be an accurate description of that. Nella often told her stories from a first person point of view, which I adopted and introduced into the racist and awkward style of Faulkner’s “country” fellows. I had great challenge trying to keep things in their time zones, as far as language and technology. The end result is a story about a boy deaf to ignorant ears who falls for the housekeeper. When this is seen by a very rich and powerful, and noble fellow, the unthinkable happens. I like these situations for their dramatic quality and real-world probability. I hope you have as well.

The Ill: A short story about the Flu epidemic of the 1900's

My Father had been gone for three days when Mother started feeling the symptoms of the flu. We lived a short while from the city where we made a living with our small plot of land and neighboring stream. I was out on the stream, seated on a massive boulder. My pole, the one that Father had carved me for my birthday, was bobbing slightly as the running water tugged on the line. I hadn’t caught anything out of that stream since that new factory opened up down the road. I was just about to throw the useless tool into the water when Anton, my brother, came to me with tears in his eyes. He had a great deal of trouble trying to tell me what was wrong. He was 7 years old at the time. He often refused to wear a top and strode around in just his trousers. He has a scar under his left eye where he fell from the rock I was fishing on. He’s quite clumsy and quiet but this time, he was awash with emotion. He stood at the bottom of the behemoth stone and was barely able to call my name between heaving breaths. He was choking on his sorrow and I immediately thought the worst. When I landed near him he stammered through quivering lips and steamy breaths. Mother had the sickness. The sickness had been through the city the year before but this year was supposed to be better.
Mother goes to the city much of the time to sell the vegetables and bread we produce on our land. I am supposed to eventually take over Father’s job of finding buyers and other financial supporters. On the way back from selling her full batch of items, Mother told me about a sick man lying in the street, confusing the horses. She said that there was a group of people who looked at the man but made no effort to pull the dazed fellow to the side. She took it upon herself to help the man over to the building wall of the post office. She was at first angry with the man. She assumed he was incredibly drunk and had decided to nap in the middle of the horse paths. It was my mother’s irritated ego that drove her to move the man, not her compassion or good Samaritan ideal. My Mother was a tough woman that married my father when she was pregnant with my eldest sister, Moira. She brought our product to whomever Father found, and took great pride in her work.
A few days after she told us about the man in the road, she decided to send Moira to the city the sell the product. She wasn’t feeling all that well, but assured us it was nothing to worry about. I brought her water and her books until Moira came back from the city, after that I would go to the stream or complete any chores I hadn’t finished. The days passed and Mother was still not getting better. That’s when Father left to go find a real doctor. The doctors in town were professional but Mother didn’t trust any of them. She said she saw Dr. Rush peek through his office window across the street to the Big Town hotel. She called him a pervert and refused to be treated by him if she ever fell ill. Father took us to him anyway, and made us swear to not tell Mother. He’d take us out for two days to convince Mother that we’d been out and about looking for the correct treatment. After the first visit, which took a mere 30 minutes or so, Father took us out to the circus. We’d spend the whole day there and come back feeling no longer ill. Father had the right type of treatment for us. When it came to Mother, however, his treatment was met with full hostility. He later came that day with a small board that carried a pile of poop. He placed the board next to Mother’s side of the bed and told her that breathing the stink off of the poop would make her flu go away. I asked him where he heard that and found out that it was a popular rumor in the city. Anytime someone got sick, they sniffed the aromas of shit to make themselves feel better. I never understood the reason for it, but the treatment still hadn’t worked. This is what Anton was telling me.
As Anton and I made our way back home, we saw a horse we didn’t recognize and figured it was a doctor that father had sent here. We got inside and found Moira sitting across from a man in dark colors and he was holding a hat in his lap. The hat told me who he was and what he was doing here. My Father had died while looking for a doctor, he had succumbed to the illness that was being seen running rampant in the city. I asked about Mother and Moira stood up and hugged me. That was when I knew. The illness had taken away my hardworking Mother and my Father. I ran to Mother’s room and found the shit pile sitting next to a mound of blanket. The mound had the same eerie shape of the boulder by the stream, and this image immediately sank me to my knees, where I began to cry. I cried a torrent of tears and was unashamed about the whole thing. I never got to see the face of my dead Mother, and I didn’t want to.
When the man was done giving Moira helpful information about the flu, I asked him where they had found my Father. He told me that he had collapsed in the middle of the road a couple of towns away and was left lying in the road. Bystanders didn’t help him up and everyone had assumed the worst. There was a bank robbery the same day and the people who fled the scene had trampled on Father’s body with their kidney bruised horses. It was only because the officers had been trailing the men, when they pulled him to the side of the road for inspection. They assure me he was dead before the horses but I refused to believe it.
That was nearly three weeks ago and I decided to say something now because I am not feeling so well. I walked over to the stream again, but decided not to come home that night. I felt oddly at peace sitting by the boulder. I never made attempts to climb up to the top again. It felt wrong to try and I shooed away any birds that happened to land there, trying to call my attention with victory chants and calls, proclaiming themselves as king of the stream hill stone. I never threw stones but instead made great threatening gestures that were sure to frighten anything on top of Mother’s head. Moira has been stuck with both of their jobs and has spent little time with Anton and me. I told Anton of my secret plan to visit the circus but he told me that it had shut down. I never found out how he knew that, but for some strange reason, I believed him.