Posts Tagged ‘Obituary’

The windup chick hopped its way over the edge of the table to be caught in a gnarled hand as a small new stumpy hand tried to grasp at it before it fell. The old man’s hand was far quicker and it held up that fuzzy yellow fake chick in front of his face. His old eyes smiled down at the young boy, as the little clockwork toy popped its legs around until the spring had done its final sprung. The wide eyed child stared in awe as the miraculous toy slowly fell asleep in the leathery hand of his grandpa.

“Do it again,” the young boy shrilled.

Placing his index finger upon the plastic feet of the wind up toy he turned the key to the sounds of clicks and springs growing tight with tension. The young child’s eyes grew quite large in rapt attention as his grandfather placed the little fake bird in the center of the table again.
It hopped and bounced, little fluffy feathers molting from it as it wobbled its way across the table.

As it reached the edge of the table again it stopped itself just in time before it would have committed a reenactment of nose diving bankers on black Tuesday. The boy’s grandfather had been prepared to catch it as he had done before, and smiled down at the young boy as they both reached for the toy again.

Instead of picking up the toy he slung the child into his waiting lap and encouraged him to get the small chick.

“I think you are big enough to give it a whirl,” He said grandly.

With awe the young child reached out and with both hands he pulled it to himself with enthusiasm. His pudgy little hand found its way to the over sized key and remembering how his grandfather had braced the legs of the little bird before he wound the key, he did the same.

Ever so gently he turned the key for a single click of the springs within and set it upon the old mahogany table and set the little chick down to watch it do its dance. It barely bobbed once before it had stopped completely exactly where it had started.

The young boy looked quizzically at his grandfather and said,” It’s broken”.

“No it isn’t, you just didn’t give it enough turns of the key,” the grandfather said through labored breath, “ keep on turning that key until it doesn’t budge and then little that little chicken go.”

The young boy grabbed the chicken off the table and proceeded to do as his grandfather had instructed.

His little hands had trouble keeping the feet braced as his grandpa had done and once during the turning of the key he had lost his grip upon the plastic feet and sure enough the little toy sprung to life in his hands as he tried to wind it up.
It popped right out of his hands and bounced across the floor under the table.

The little boy scampered under the table after the toy as quickly as he could, picked it up and jumped back into his grandfather’s lap with such force that grandpa let out a small gasp of air. He held on tightly to the toy as he rewound it and with the final turn of the key he set it upon the table and watched the little chicken do its dance.

“Grampaw… look it… look it,” he screamed as he jumped up and down in his grandpa’s lap while pointing at the toy as it danced all over the table. The toy headed straight for the edge of that old mahogany table and when grandpa’s hand should have been there to catch it as he had done so many times before… Grandpa did not move.

The little chicken bounded off of the table and tumbled to the floor with its little legs kicking out as it toppled. It landed with a crash and the old springs within came springing from their tightly wound encasement with a symphonic sound of gears and coils resounding about the room. The threadbare yellow feathers cascaded down through the air while the gears and cogs rolled all over the hardwood floors, bouncing off of the fireplace bricks and rebounding back to the floor.

With tears in the little boy’s eyes he climbed down from his grandfather’s lap and tried to gather up all the broken pieces and loose feathers that had accumulated around it. His little hands overflowing with the broken pieces he tottered back to his grandfather’s lap and laid the pieces in front of him on the table.

“I broke it Grampaw, I sorry”, he said through his tear stained eyes.
“Fix it”, he cried out impatiently to the unmoving man.

He jumped up and down on his bottom trying to get some kind of response out of the old man, but his grandfather did not move.

“Grampaw?” he asked as he turned himself about to look at the old man.

Turning about quickly until he was standing on his grandfather’s lap, he grabbed the sides of the old man’s face and looked deeply into his cold lifeless eyes. His mouth was still upturned in a soft grin, and his right hand casually lay across the table.

“Grampaw… GRAMPAW!!!” the child screamed as he shook his grandpa with all his might.

Like the little chicken, the little boy realized his grandpa had stopped moving as well. Perhaps he too was broken.
The little boy grasped the old man’s left ear and tried to turn it like the key on the now broken wind up toy, but it wouldn’t budge. He tried to turn his right ear in the same manner, but it too wouldn’t budge.

“Grammy… Grammy,” the little boy cried. “The chicken’s broken… and I think Grampaw is too.”

The little boy’s grandmother found her husband sitting there with the little boy standing in his lap over the broken chicken trying desperately to put the clockwork toy back together again, but it was pointless. He would get one spring back under the wing of the little toy bird only to watch the little yellow head fly off due to the pressure of the springs.

“After I get done wif this, I’ll fix Grampaw next.” He said exasperatedly while his grandmother cried over her husband’s still form.