Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns

As Time Goes By This story happened in this small town to a friend of mine named Futila Ways. The people here are the same as any people in any small middlin town anywhere in America, or the world, for that matter. There's a'many of them. Maybe a little poorer than some, with many things less accessible than in large cities. There are churches galore and a few schools, clothing stores of the cheaper variety. People who happened to have money could afford to go to better places to shop. Womens here have to look out of town for a husband, sometimes, cause you can get sick of the people you grow up with. But, after all, it was a nice, quiet, clean, boring little place. The town must'a had promising beginnings a long time ago. Large landowners had built large proud houses on their land. But, now, over a hundred years or so, their descendants had sold off most of the land to small developers in this part of the town. A few of the large houses remained and several rows of small houses had crept up to them. Futila's family lived in one of the old, but neat little houses sitting in a row on Coulda Street with a younger sister, Willa, an older brother, Eddy Jr., a domestic-working mother, and a father who was a labor-mechanic at a gas station. He just kept the tools in order in the right places, didn't do much mechanic work on cars. He did his work well and kept a job so they had the bare necessities of life. Mr. Ways (he doesn't know where his grandfather got that name from) did not have a sensitive turn of mind so he cut down the big, grand black-oak tree, and another tall beautiful tree I don't know the name of, in the front yard so he wouldn't have to rake leaves, umph umph. Then he covered the ground with cement so he wouldn't have to mow it. Just removed all the beauty and close bird songs. He wanted to do the backyard also, but his wife stopped him; she said she wanted to have a patch of land to plant a kitchen garden. Mrs. Ways was tired and weary. Besides her regular working jobs she took care of her mother, Gramma, who suffered lifelong ills because she had struggled through the struggles. She was old and had even known people who had been slaves. In this house Futila tried to dream about a future, her future, on hot sweaty summer nights as she threw off the damp sheet, or cold wintry nights as she pulled the wash-worn, threadbare blanket high around her neck. She was trying to see in the dark, beyond her here and now, to when and if. Just like most any poor girl anywhere in the world. Her grandmother, sighting her grandchild staring off in some space, always talked about education. "Get that education, child, and be about thinkin your way out of here. Don't, and you gonna end up like me and your mama. Stead'a taken what you want, you gonna have to take what you can get! Where your books?! Get them books and bring em in here and teach me what you learnin in that school. Maybe I can learn somethin and get outta all this misery my own self!" Futila loved her gramma, but didn't think Gramma knew anything about life. She would answer, "Ain't got no books! Just got some little notes I done made when the teacher was talkin." Gramma, sitting in her rocker chair, would hit the floor hard with her knotty cane. "Bring them notes then, girl! Learn me somethin! Your sister, Willa, have books so why don't you? Put somethin in your fool-head sides of them boys!" Gramma knew her grandchild. It was true; Futila dreamed of boys a lot. She was fourteen going on fifteen years old; her body was developing on time as it was supposed to. Had shoulder-length hair she was always fooling with, keeping it neat and near-styled. She had to wash her own clothes when the old washing machine didn't work so her clothes were not dirty, but not clean either. "Oh," she thought, "I just got such a hard time to make my future out of. I aiCooper, J. California is the author of 'Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781400075683 and ISBN 1400075688.