Hello Poetry
Submit your work and get some sparkles! Create free account
Words
"thumber" poems
These kinds of stories are hard to find. I posted up in a bar between nowhere and a town named Ida (probably named after some sweetheart, that old southern name), and in the characteristic openness that I can only find during my travels, I decided to say, "hey stranger." It was early in the evening, he was a traveler too, but of the trucking sort, ashen eyes and pale breathy skin, we got talking amid electric neon glow and the pale blue light that shown in through the rain. His name didn't matter, I won't tell you his name, but the truckers know thumbers (there are 5000 or so across the country at any given time), and so he told me of a thumber. This thumber was in the thunder, clothes torn and eyes wide, and with a mind that was, at that point especially, oblivious to the solidity of the dry towel that was set on the solid truck seat, and, what a mess this boy was, so by appearance, I presume, it was easy to ask, "what in the hell happened to you?" It went like this: the thumber turned those wide open eyes (I imagine he was shivering), and told of how he was walking, backpack and all, and of how he smelled a storm approaching, how when he saw the treetops bending, he expected the rain and pulled a waterproof cover over his pack just in time, it started pouring. This time the thumber, he said he knew he had to keep going, he said he didn't like rolling dice, no, he said it was a cheat because if you knew enough about throwing die the die land the same, they land the same enough. So, listen, have you ever walked through heavy rain? You get dizzy, but in some deep part of your mind in the spray, the insurmountable lukewarmness stealing a little with each blow, you lose yourself, and that's what I imagine happened to this thumber. At one point, the thumber knew ground no more, that's all he said. He said he landed one county over, that's all he said. And by the jingling of the die hanging from the truck's rearview mirror, one of the truckers laughed and said ******** as the story of the thumber came around, what in all hell else could you say? And the thumber wiggled his head and gave a queer sneeze. Against the neon glow I peered at the trucker, you can't tell an honest man by his eyes but you can tell it by his breath. I shook my head and said, "that's a kind of story that's hard to find."
0
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 8:00 AM UTC
sean-fitzpatrick
Tornado Alley
These kinds of stories are hard to find. I posted up in a bar between nowhere and a town named Ida (probably named after some sweetheart, that old southern name), and in the characteristic openness that I can only find during my travels, I decided to say, "hey stranger." It was early in the evening, he was a traveler too, but of the trucking sort, ashen eyes and pale breathy skin, we got talking amid electric neon glow and the pale blue light that shown in through the rain. His name didn't matter, I won't tell you his name, but the truckers know thumbers (there are 5000 or so across the country at any given time), and so he told me of a thumber. This thumber was in the thunder, clothes torn and eyes wide, and with a mind that was, at that point especially, oblivious to the solidity of the dry towel that was set on the solid truck seat, and, what a mess this boy was, so by appearance, I presume, it was easy to ask, "what in the hell happened to you?" It went like this: the thumber turned those wide open eyes (I imagine he was shivering), and told of how he was walking, backpack and all, and of how he smelled a storm approaching, how when he saw the treetops bending, he expected the rain and pulled a waterproof cover over his pack just in time, it started pouring. This time the thumber, he said he knew he had to keep going, he said he didn't like rolling dice, no, he said it was a cheat because if you knew enough about throwing die the die land the same, they land the same enough. So, listen, have you ever walked through heavy rain? You get dizzy, but in some deep part of your mind in the spray, the insurmountable lukewarmness stealing a little with each blow, you lose yourself, and that's what I imagine happened to this thumber. At one point, the thumber knew ground no more, that's all he said. He said he landed one county over, that's all he said. And by the jingling of the die hanging from the truck's rearview mirror, one of the truckers laughed and said ******** as the story of the thumber came around, what in all hell else could you say? And the thumber wiggled his head and gave a queer sneeze. Against the neon glow I peered at the trucker, you can't tell an honest man by his eyes but you can tell it by his breath. I shook my head and said, "that's a kind of story that's hard to find."
Continue reading...
94