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Show Ashes to ashes BY PHILL HARDING Special to the Chronicle The sun hadn't set yet. The long shadows of the early evening ; we re strung across the openness of the field. Clover sprang "dfloumhed between the larger holly and lilac bushes. Down stones a small stream bubbled and rolled, forming a small pool where skaterbugs and I tadpoles lived. On the far side of the meadow a family of squirrels burrowed their home, but today even they were not to be seem Around the lilac blooms one lonely hummingbird darted in and out. Sis wings blurred by speed, were beating, but only slightly faster than his heart. Standing like the backdrop of a stage, tall poplars grew, marshalled in a long row beside the dirt road that wandered along the hill. Early snows stood out on the tops of the mountains rising steeply into the clear sky. Sitting half slumped against a blooming lilac bush a dead man continued reading the paper crumpled beneath his hand. The wind, more chilly as the night drew near, rustled the pages, but he no longer felt the wind. A sparrow sitting on the ground spied the man and thought it strange to find him here. The man would have thought the whole thing strange if he had been thinking at all. In his face were the , lines of age, the marks of wisdom, the ribbons and medals of victory and defeat. His hair and beard, full as youth, but white, hid his real age somewhat. His eyes reflected the bitterness of the battle and the despairing of a victory, but it was not the bitterness that was on his mind just now, it was his dream, the dream he had carried since his youth: "It was a new world from the ashes of the old. The Phoenix springing as a miracle of life from death when night is turned to day. That great bird perched atop the greatest of all nations; right, clutched the olive, and left, the cluster of death. E PLURIBUS UNUM. It is a world of gleaming lights and steeled heights, rising out of the misery and the toil, to the dignity of liberty. It is a world that is free, where destiny is man 's right to flee. Great armies and great navies stretch from sea to sea, not with the iron grasp of tyranny, but the right of peace to send it and until the death defend. A justice without end, to every man, though rich or poor, though great or small, his injuries and wounds to mend. Wide thoughfares and narrow streets unmarred by human fears, unwashed by human tears. " But buried deep within his dream, another sun had not yet set. Yet there was no sun upon the street. Only where the sun was high, between ten and maybe two, did the sun shine down the tall apartment houses to the street. But even when the sun did shine it looked like a hazy, orange ball hanging in the sky to the people who walked the street. Overhead the whine of a grey shrouded ghost filled the sky, its swept wings and rounded body seemed somehow unreal against the sky. The same grey that was in the sky also settled to the earth and on the buildings of the street and turned them grey. The sky grey fell with the rains and rolled down the gutters and into the storm sewers but was never really gone. Atop the houses of the steel antennas focused on the beams that brought the funny little people in the boxes. And all waited in the tube. Today was Monday and so the rows of garbage cans stood in front of the apartment houses, steel-ribbed and handled. In them the left-overs, the reminders of the living and the dead were stored, enshrined. Before one door on the street sat a redman. Around him he saw the tombstones of the order he was born and he smiled to think that would see it coming to an end. Across the street a child watched the smile on his lips and wondered what would make the redman smile while reading a book. He held a thin, blue book, his Bible, close in hand and read it with great care: "Owing to the use of machinery and to division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character. A worried look appeared across his face and held him quiet, thoughtful for a while, then he continued reading. Locked from without and within his mind resounded of the symphonies and rhetoric of great logics he had read and heard. With careful motions in his mind, one was made to stand, a spokesman for them all, and speak their reasons and defense. When all was heard, he would rise, the champion of his class, to answer and accuse. He would lay all their motives bare and tell them of his dream: " is a new tomorrow from the ashes of today. It is a world united in brotherhood and hope, rising from the tyranny of the Capitalistic way. The freedom of the man is to have his own reward and not to struggle endlessly to provide the bare necessity, when one man works and another gains And when the strife of struggle with the servant and the lord is finally lost in harmony and peace, and when the farmer's plowshare has been beaten from the sword, then shall all the world know joy and the oneness of accord There is a brotherhood of workers standing side by side and hand in hand, to build a new tomorrow, a world devoid of sorrow I where one can have according to his needs and produce the I best he may. But no one eats who will not work, a man must I work his way. And when the tyranny of monopoly and money I meets its end, then freedom justice and liberty will finally have I a say. No parasites to bleed the earth or mankind of its worth, 1,'c but now a new society rising swiftly from the old, with purity t, of purpose and a dignity untold. " I But hidden deep within his dream a rising sun was setting. The long j fingers of light streaked from the tops of the buildings at the west end I- of the square across the ridered stallion rearing up. Across the flank the I glag still flapped as if to urge him to move those bronze muscles and I come down from his pedestal and lead the charge as of old. The stains I of sweat and blood ingraved upon his side were met today by new ones, I once red now turned dark, but never to be forgotten. Across the square, I faced as if to meet the charging horseman, stood the red starred tanks, I darkly menacing in the shadows of dusk. They came proclaiming I brotherhood and killed it. The barrels had cooled and the smoke had I drifted away, but minds are not so quickly cooled and the scars not so lM easily washed away. And there were outward scars on the faces of the I buildings and on the faces of the people who walk the streets around t 11 the dquare and stood in lines before the shops. I4 ' Working behind the counter a breadman quietly wrapped up a large I. loaf and handed it to the man. He took the coins and dropped them in F ' the drawer, and thanked him again. Today the world was almost back I to normal. There were bread in the shops and milk in the dairies, and 1 even the street cars were begining to run again. The factories were open Lj again although many had been open three days already. Across the river 1 to the north the steady streams of smoke rose again to block the sun. I The great excitement was over and now there was nothing left to do L but keep on living and make the best of what had happened. Already he I was worrying more about the rent than the tanks. The young people K had made a big fuss about the tanks coming but they came anyway ly' dispite it all and they said if they stayed they would fight to the death I and they said it was the end of everything, but life goes on despite that I too. He was about ready to lock up his shop and climb on his bicycle I II and go home. Every night he rode home by way of the river and I watched the setting sun reflected off the surface. In the old days the 1 1' river had been a deep bluish-green, and the Sunday lovers had come 1 1 Y from all over the city to walk along its banks in the shade of the trees. 1 I But that was before the factories and the terrible smell. That was before 1 1 the trees were torn out and an asphalt street was layed in their place. 1 1, But he remembered how it used to be, and dreamed it could be again. It 1 1 was a half memory, half vision that often caught him unaware. 1 1 "It was the old world from the ashes of the new. It was the I J sun upon the openness of a field and clover growing all around 1 1 and little steam come trickling down and skaterbugs enjoying I I the sound, and hummingbirds are flower bound, and squirrels 1 1 j scamper on the ground. The mountain rise to meet the sky m I . no one has to question why birds have wings and want tow- II Against a half slumped lilac bush the man of dreams is am II and dreaming of his love. II II B I s |
