Archie
Archie lived in the woods, back in the hills where nobody visited or hunted or thought much about. He liked it that way, Archie did. They said his mother died giving him birth and his daddy never recovered from the loss and blamed the child until the day he, himself died in a most peculiar way.
So Archie lived alone with a coon dog and a one eyed cat and a raccoon that came up and begged for stuff every two weeks or so. He tried to make that little one room shack a home and it sufficed for he had few needs.
On Saturdays, he went fishing and the raccoon helped reel in the fish and washed them up with his little black hands while the dog napped in the shade and the cat sat ready to pounce upon the undeserved treasure the first chance he got.
That rarely happened but when it did, there was hell to pay afterwards but boy, was it exciting for a few minutes at that secluded creek! And secretly, Archie loved to see the cat run off triumphantly with the fish and then peek fearfully around a boulder to look at him with his big pitiful eye as he licked his paws and face of all trace of the catch.
Archie was a gentle man and he had a big heart that longed to love but was terrified at the thought of being loved. For his father had scarred his heart and his face in his unforgiving rage and told him that nobody would ever, by God, love his sorry ass and Archie believed him. He was all Archie had and he had no choice.
When the boy was five, the coon dog came along one hot June morning and adopted him and no matter how hard the old man tried to run him away or scald him with hot water or shoot him with buckshot, the dog stayed by Archie's side just like a guardian angel. And every time his father lifted his hand to Archie or swore at him or threw a stone or stick, the dog took note of it and growled.
One cold day in December as Archie slept, the old man stood on the side of the hill and screamed his rage into the sky and shook his fist into God's face as he often did after a night of drinking and for some mysterious reason he decided to throw himself off that hill and into a swamp that was full of quicksand and there he vanished still screaming out his rage at an innocent child. And the only eye witness was the dog. But from that day forward, the dog was happy. And so was Archie.
© By Voo
June 30, 07
