A Wilpurian Short Story
At times, I get this indescribable feeling of creative energy. As I'm completely useless with music or visual arts, I like to write.
This following piece was born in such a moment of creativity. It was written in c.10-15 minutes, so don't be too harsh. 
Abandoned by the future - a short story by wilpuri
Grass growing in between cracks. Reaching for light from beneath the concrete playground. Not in my day, he thought, as that old sense of duty lifted its head within him for a brief moment, only to be brushed aside a fraction of a second later by rational reasoning. For a short instant he could almost feel the broom in his hands again and just as quickly the feeling escaped his finger tips. He continued walking, short steps, his feet barely lifting off the ground, rubbing against it as he walked. Accompanied by the dull rhythm of his steps, he walked, slightly hunched, with his arms behind his back, his right hand holding the wrist of his left. His grey eyes sought comfort from familiar surroundings, his tongue licked his dry lips. An old and tired man on his Sunday walk. A cold gale blew in his face with enough ferocity for the old man to stop and slightly lean into the wind. When it passed, he continued walking. Short steps.
As the Sun was released from the clouds, it shone brightly on the abandoned school. The old man could almost hear the shrieks of laughter that had accompanied him everyday during his time as the caretaker of the school. He glimpsed into the woods where he had felled trees and made firewood for the winter, to keep the classrooms warm. He inspected the rotting wooden walls of the main building with his gaze. They needed re-painting, he noted to himself.
The school had been shut down years ago, shortly after the old man had retired. It was so empty and hollow, not at all like he remembered it. It was then that he realized that there was nothing familiar about the building. It was the life it housed that he remembered and now sought in vain in the dead structure. All the people are gone, he muttered his thoughts as his pace slowed even further. His mouth and brow wrinkled into a puzzled pose. The people are leaving for the cities, the young men of the town are unemployed. They have two options in this life: to leave their homes and head south, or to slowly destroy themselves with alcohol and depression as they watch their homes decay and die before their very eyes. He was about to pass the old bakery - it too was shut down, and the premises had remained unoccupied since. He remembered how he had used to scold the children who would run off to buy sweets and cakes with their small allowance. The town had been very proud of their bakery, for it was old and had local peculiarities of fame. Now it, too, was empty and void of the life that had formerly given the brick building substance.
The world has changed so much so fast. The old man had a son in the south, a successful man by all accounts with his own children. Their relations had always been slightly distant, as was the habit in the old days. But the enstrangement had grown even greater with the physical distance between them, and the old man did not understand his son and his son did not understand him. The old man wished his son well and was glad that he was successful - but still. It felt very strange, all this. He had not noticed how the world had slowly changed. Only now, on his sunday walks, did he start to put the pieces together in his own way. He observed and made mental notes of his observations. Death would come soon, he thought suddenly. Yes, he did not have many years left. He had led a humble life as his father before him, nothing out of the ordinary and yet so full of the small joys and sorrows one encounters on that long path. He buried his wife last winter, and he had felt the urge to join her in the afterlife - but decided to let nature take its course. Yes, soon death would come to him as it had come to the town. He would embrace death, for this world was not for him, and the world he had lived in was now dead. He was like an ancient ruin, like the large burial mounds next to the new high way. Had the heaps of stones had feelings, they could've related to the old man's state of mind.
The common culture of a tribe is a sign of its inner cohesion. But tribes are vanishing from the modern world, as are all forms of traditional society. Customs, practices, festivals, rituals and beliefs have acquired a flut and half-hearted quality which reflects our nomadic and rootless existence, predicated as we are on the global air-waves.
ROGER SCRUTON, Modern Culture
"What do I feel when I kill my enemy?"
Originally Posted by Town Watch
Whadda ya want? a shortstory analysis or something?
