Elements of Time: The Chimney

By Craig: Sometimes it is the simple things in life that are remembered. They might exist in the distant past... hazy, foggy images, perhaps distorted somewhat by the passage of time that sit on the periphery of a persons mind. They are impressed there like stone...or in one of my cases, bricks. It is a chimney, perhaps 70 feet tall. I am 7 years old, and I am lying on my back on the grass looking up at the blue sky. I am at my grandfather's house. My brother is with me and we roll down the hill like logs until we get to the bottom of the hill. There are grass stains on my knees, but I don't care and neither does my brother. We climb back to the top of the small hill and repeat the process, until we are tired and merely lie there looking up at the clouds. I see a face with a bulbous nose, and a pursed mouth and watch it become distorted so that it resembles something else entirely. Why does it change? Why do things have to go away never to return? I see a great castle with a knight and a raised sword. It too eventually dissipates into nothingness. I tilt my head back and see the world upside down including the giant smokestack across the street that was built for the boilers that operated the hospital. It stands there towering up into the sky and seems to reach for heaven. Indeed, nothing on the planet could be taller than this chimney. If I could somehow get to the top I would be high enough to see God...If I stare at it long enough in relation to the clouds I can see it moving...falling! I get dizzy and sit up. My mother is calling from the house. She will not be pleased with the grass stains. My uncle leaps down from the steps on the front porch...A porch that no longer exists...he snaps his fingers at us as he hops in his car...a car that no longer exists...except in the guise of a distant memory...from a time that continues to recede farther and farther into the past.