Below is a writing exercise that I had too much fun writing not to share it.  

If Eustace wasn’t known as a fool, he certainly was known as a clutz. All of his life he had mucked up everything: elementary school homework, scripture memorization, and even his first job milking cows. His mother still will not speak of the cow episode.

The day he proposed to Magge was spent furiously hunting for the ring in his baggy pant pockets and in his ramshackle dwelling. It was by the narrowest of margins that he convinced bare-fingered Maggie to throw her lot in with him.

All of this to say, Eustace finally ran out of his pitifully bad luck. Here’s how it happened. He was slogging through the mud along Juniper Stream one gray fall day tracking down Nicki, his belligereant (if not bellicose) horse who was impervious to bit and bridle. Why he kept her around was a mystery to the entire town.

Be that as it may, he came accross two cavalry soldiers with their backs to him. Being a man who liked to make a buck on the sly, Eustace didn’t feel the need to be chummy. He settled down into a nearby bush, the mud keeping his clumsy trodging to a faint squish.

He overheard the soldiers speaking of an execution, finishing off a savage chief. Ten paces away from the soldiers lay a gray-haired man with tan skin and deep, carved out features. Rough old ropes dug into his wrists and ankles. Though the soliders never caught a glimpse of Eustace, the indian looked at him with despairing eyes. If he was praying for deliverance, he should have also been praying for a return policy: Eustace would surely be little more help than a croaking bull frog.

But here is where the legend begins. An unexplainable rage settled on Eustace. This execution business smelled something rotten to him. Why, tying up a man didn’t make it a fair fight.

Whooping menacingly, he clasped a fallen tree limb, crashed down into the soldiers, and sent a blow to the head of the trooper nearest his hiding place. While he collapsed into a quivering heap, the other began to run for his gun. Realizing that he had just made the most colosal mistake of his life, Eustace ran for cover directly behind the Indian man. The Indian, who by now was writhing like a lost worm, was red-faced now, pleading at the knife in his leg pouch. Eustace removed the knife and cut him free, but quickly returned to cringing behind the large indian man while he finished off the other trooper. And the rest is history.

The turning point for my family was the day my long-gone relative, Eustace Grimly, saved Chief Crouching Beaver. The small wooden beaver that has adorned the family mantle for 150 years was the least significant of the valuable gifts rained down on Eustace from the grateful tribe. Eustace never had to work again. Nevertheless, to this day my grandparents refuse to divulge the reason why we only have a wooden beaver as a token of Eustace’s wealth.

Stacked in rows of lonely crates, the black disc s press together in a jumbled mass. The box edges were a blurry bunch, never revealing where one gegan and the other ended. Cold wet rocks frowned upon the stack of black discs, condemning them to warps, mold, and eventual disintegration.

On a dusty old picnic table crouched a small brown box with a black lid. Somehow the large discs were spun inside or upon the box, producing the faintest whisper of rasping music. Wires weaved out of the brown box to an antiquated set of speakers that captured and projected the sound.

Those old, dusty crates were hauled out of the basement years ago to the chorus of grunts and groans. Such a concentration of discs created an immense weight. Many years ago my grandmother loved buying the discs at yard salves and Goodwill stores. Since a quarter could cover the cost of these discs, it’s easy to see why her collection become enormous over time.

While listening to my itunes, all music is digital now, I can browse the internet and find many similar pictures of these discs, or records, as they were once called. My grandmother’s phot of the exiled record collection and player in her dank and creepy basement is a gentle reminder that things have not always been as they are. Much of what is now will soon never be.

Life continues to spin. Over time we wobble, fall apart, and become useless. And yet someone will find value in the broken, clumsy, and unweildy. That is the day we all long for.