Henry's Bucket
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A stoep is a little step and a koppie a little hill in my local adaptation of English.
Henry’s Rust Bucket
He had managed the steep rise from a valley to his home and sat on the small
stoep. Another koppie towering ahead, he looked straight forward and counted
his blessings. One, by one he wrote a list of thanksgivings, carefully folded the
scraps of paper, then crumbled them up and darted them into a corroded pail of
collection. Always a good shot, it filled. A little water still in the bucket, ink
smudged and ran its course as thoughts nudged each other and the sludge pot
thickened. Soon it was far more full than half empty, the cache of paper-mache
almost burst from its seams. When memos and ‘done it’ notes oozed through a
hole at the bottom, scraped through and lifted his mood and the bucket, Henry
the cooper hardly kept up with the fill. The tub rose and time passed so slowly
that it turned in rebuttal, as the container had been really a scuttle for carbon
and coal, a near enough copy to hold passion and fire. So, elevated and so
imposing it became that it shaded the koppie. ‘Enough is enough’, I must move
on and rise to occasions. Remember the past and the present.’ Thus, he changed
perspective and stood on the bucket. It still had a hole and his steps had gone
rusty, but now he could touch the mountains again. Henry had so much to be
grateful for, even with a half empty bucket, that just one or two ‘post it’s’ would
have surely sufficed. ‘Never late than not ever’ he exclaimed, ‘I must fix the hole
in my bucket, gratitude list will only get me so far’.
Contest New Year 2018 A Better Production
Sponsor Kim Rodriques
Copyright © Kai Michael Neumann | Year Posted 2017
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