Last year I had a short story published in The Stand, ISBN: 978-1-926925-60-8, a collection of stories written exclusively by Canadian authors. This collection was put together by a small Canadian publisher, Polar Expression Publishing, who largely, if not exclusively, runs a contest nationwide every summer since 2006.
While I didn’t win the contest, I made it to the second round and that guaranteed me a spot in the collection. I had made this story available at one time, but have since taken it down. I now offer it to you again, for your consideration and enjoyment.
If reading isn’t your thing, I have also included a link to Maple City Pipecast, in which I read the story.
The Pipe Smoker’s Lament
Great-grandpa sits at his kitchen table in the small farmhouse that has been his home for his entire life. He was running a pipe cleaner through his favourite pipe, enjoying the smell of spent pipe tobacco, and pondering the events of his life as he looks at the small child sitting there watching what he is doing.
I wonder what he will be like in the years after I am gone? I wonder if he will carry on some of the traditions of the family with his children? he ponders silently as the boy continues to watch him work meticulously on the stem of his pipe with a pipe cleaner.
His great-grandson is just watching, apparently fascinated with what is going on, but not asking the questions you would expect a seven-year-old to ask. There was no why are you doing that, or how do you know that the pipe is clean? He just sits and watches.
“Grandpa, you put it together crooked. The pieces don’t line up.” said the boy.
Great-grandpa looked down at his pipe. The bulldog’s bowl was attached to a diamond shank that came up to meet the stem. Sure enough, the stem was ever so slightly off centre. Amused he responded to the lad.
“Don’t worry about it, it will still work.”
“Okay.” came the response. That was it. No more questions, no more observations, just acceptance of the fact that great-grandpa knew what he was doing. It was refreshing.
Sooner than he figured, great-grandpa passed away. His years went up in smoke, a good life lived with plenty of family to see him off at the end. The boy was there, a few years older, but didn’t quite understand what was happening.
His dad had told him that great-grandpa was dead and this was the last time he would see him, that they were here to say their goodbyes. The boy understood the words, but the concept of life and death eluded his young mind for the moment. He passed the time with his older cousins, who helped him draw pictures, and kept him busy when time allowed.
Then, the time of mourning was passed, and the family went about their lives. Years passed almost like weeks, and one day that boy, now a man went to his grandma’s house and asked a question.
“Do you have any of great-grandpa’s old pipes around?”
“Why, yes I do,” she replied. “Why do you ask?”
He explained that a friend of his had introduced him to pipe smoking and that he wanted to borrow a couple of them to clean up and use. Grandma looked and him for a moment, she thought a bit, and finally answered.
“I consider those pipes to be your father’s, but I know my dad would have lent them to you if you asked. So, if your dad says it’s okay, you can.” Of course, his dad said yes.
He took the pipes home and began to clean and restore those pipes to usable condition. He got to one pipe in particular, the same bulldog that he had sat and watched his great-grandpa clean so many years ago. As he cleaned the pipe, enjoying the smell of the spent tobacco from bygone years, flashes of memory came in loud and clear. He saw from the point of view of a six- or seven-year-old, he remembered watching his great-grandpa slowly and meticulously clean out the various parts of the pipe with a pipe cleaner.
He remembered pointing out how the pipe was not put together properly and getting the response “It will still work.”
He sat at his kitchen table in his two-bedroom apartment, which in size was not unlike the kitchen of the farmhouse he sat in decades before. He sat cleaning that same pipe with a pipe cleaner, with the smells of another time around him and thinking about the small child sleeping in the bedroom closest to him. He listened to his son on the monitor for a few moments and smiled at the thought that he may have been thinking some of the same thoughts that his great-grandpa had while cleaning this pipe.
A few short years later, that same little boy, now a man sat down and typed. “Great-grandpa sat at his kitchen table…..”
The Pipe Smoker’s Lament from Maple City Pipecast, on Anchor.