Flash Fiction: Goodbye, Old Friends by Tom Robson

Welcome to the Spot Writers. The prompt for this month is to use in the story “Just breathe and count to ten…” Today’s tale comes to you from Tom Robson, author of Written While I still Remember, A Patchwork Memoir. See if you can guess the identity of the “friends” before you read the last paragraph!

Goodbye, Old Friends!

By Tom Robson

They stand, solid and upright, in a quiet corner, these harbingers of spring and comforting reminders in the cold of winter. Unmoving and unmoved for over a year and a half, these friends, under-appreciated to the point of neglect, bring memories of my younger days.

Though we did not meet their first antecedents until I was in my fifties, I soon became obsessively involved in the sometimes rewarding search for replacements. New friends served me better by times. Those they replaced were handed on. New-found-friends provided more satisfaction and better prepared me to face the ups and downs of life. They promised to help me bypass life’s wrong turns and, if by some mischance I found myself in a hazardous situation, experiencing rough times, one of them was there to offer rescue.

The pockets in their protective cover are full of other comforts and items that I have needed on the picturesque, but oft unnoticed walks through green pastures. brush and water’s edge. In another section of the garage the ‘wheels’ for my companions dwell, unmoving and awaiting solid ground on which to travel. They too, are not inclined to winter use.

Can I finally give up the comforting feel of my thirty year friends manly grip, their resilience, their forgiveness of minor errors and the lessons imparted, but not always learned from major misplays?

Will my life be better if I abandon their discriminatory and wayward  behavior, the inconsistencies, the broken promises, the errant actions and the utter folly in choosing to employ them on an almost daily basis in some summers?

There is also the companionship factor to consider. These are friends for the unarthritic, for those who scorn the closer starting places; a tool for those to whom length still matters. They are companions of an ongoing search for perpetual youthfulness.

They are not for those whose mobility is threatened. They do not belong to those who no longer rant and rave, with expletive ridden venom, at the friends who misguide them on an increasing number of occasions. Once you accept that advancing age allows you to forgive the failures and foibles of the now, garage-bound friends and blame failure on your own advancing years, it is time to let the friends go.

So, just breathe and count to ten. Accept it. Then press that final key that will put those now useless golf clubs up for sale, on Kijiji.

The Spot Writers–our members:

 RC Bonitz: rcbonitz.com

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie:https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Tom Robson: https://robsonswritings.wordpress.com/