Friday Fiction: Timmy (Part Five?)

The next ten minutes were taken up with what Dad called hauling and hoisting. He was visibly tired by the end and definitely less enthusiastic but still amused by Timmy’s excitement. He paused before he left the room, eying the six clunky bins hunched in the corner of the room.

“Remember, kiddo, your Mom wants you done going through this stuff within the month, and she tells me there’s a lot more coming. It might be good if you could at least get a start on this batch before tomorrow. We’ll be wanting the garage back too, eventually.”

“Sure, Dad.” Timmy cracked open the lid of one battered bin; it was the same one he had peeked into before. He’d made sure that that one had remained at hand, close to the top. “Thanks.” He already seemed a little distant, preoccupied with his new hoard. Dad lingered for a moment as the boy began unpacking the contents, gazing curiously at what he had allowed to be unleashed in their home.

“Wow,” he said eventually as he stirred to leave. “This reminds me of when I was a kid.”

“What do you mean, Dad?” Timmy was distracted, making sure that books that were obviously part of a series remained together as he unpacked.

“Well, there were a lot more books around back then, though my Dad was already saying they were thinning out. And there was a lot more fantasy and crap around, in movies and things.” He shook his head. “It’s not so popular anymore.”

Timmy looked up. It wasn’t often that Dad talked about when he was a kid.

“Why do you think that is?” he asked.

Dad laughed a little nervously.

“Oh, I don’t know. There were the troubles there in the late Twenties, and then the Little War, and suddenly dreaming was out and Real Life was in. I don’t know. I’m no historian; I’m no pop blogger either. Alls I know is, dragons were gone, and survival was everywhere. Ultra-competent adventurers adapting to everything that came their way by facing facts and making tough decisions.” He chuckled. “I heard Roy at work say it’s just as imaginary, but with a lot less Metamucil to make it go down.”

Timmy was puzzled.

“Metamucil?”

“Or some word like that. Metaphoric? Mutagenic?  Anyway, you have fun.” He waved vaguely good night, gesturing at the bins. “I’m gonna have a beer and hit the hay. Back to the grind tomorrow, you know.”

“Night, Dad. And thanks again.”

“Sure thing, kiddo. Good night.”

Notes

The word Dad is trying to remember is metaphysics. ‘Roy at Work’ is obviously a pop blogger, or at least a wannabe, in his own right.

Uncle Samuel, ere he passed, would no doubt have told you that the eclipse of Fantasy was a good thing, even an expected thing. It helped eliminate the undergrowth that has been growing like barnacles on the hull of Fantasy, to mix a metaphor: writers who have been churning out product with the perceived trappings of Fantasy because it is a genre that’s made a lot of money, especially in the wake of J. K. Rowling’s success.

Such eclipses happened in the wake of both World Wars, when generations faced the horrors of conflict and material hardship, both times resulting in a rejection of what were seen as dangerously airy-fairy visions of patriotism or romance or daydreaming, resulting in the backlash of the ‘Ash Can School’ or ‘Kitchen Sink Realism’. During eras of peace and prosperity Fantasy flourishes unchecked, as adventure and meaning must be sought in ever attenuated realms of thought. Between such times, a real balance between ‘Materialism’ and the ‘Metaphysical’ can be approached.

As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in A Psalm to Life:

 

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

   Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

   And things are not what they seem.

 

Life is real! Life is earnest!

   And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

   Was not spoken of the soul.

 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

   Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

   Find us farther than to-day.

 

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

   And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

   Funeral marches to the grave.

 

In the world’s broad field of battle,

   In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

   Be a hero in the strife!

 

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

   Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,— act in the living Present!

   Heart within, and God o’erhead!

 

Lives of great men all remind us

   We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

   Footprints on the sands of time;

 

Footprints, that perhaps another,

   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

   Seeing, shall take heart again.

 

Let us, then, be up and doing,

   With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

   Learn to labor and to wait.

Or to quote Herman Munster, “Life is real,/ Life is earnest;/ If you’re cold/ Turn up the furnace.”