I sat there for hours, just blowing on that mouth organ, whilst the sweet milky smell of pampas drying in the late noon sun filled the dirt track.

It was almost dark when the saloon car emblazoned with ‘Sherriff’s Department’ came along the track and stopped in front of me. I hadn’t expected this, but the news they gave me didn’t surprise me for some reason.

Poppa had left a note describing where I could be found before he turned the rifle on himself and pulled the trigger a few miles down the road.

Those Deputies were kind and took good care of me back at the Police Station and after they’d fed me and had me ‘looked over’ by a doctor, they questioned me real gently.

I told them where I came from and that Uncle Vester was my only living relative, and I could tell from their faces that I shouldn’t have used the word ‘living’.

I was shocked by how frail and ill he looked, but more shocked by the fact he’d spoken to me, and I never replied. I didn’t even tell him that I wasn’t wearing any shoes or socks, but just followed him to the pick-up with that Harpoon in my hand and Little Birdie perched on my shoulder.

Poppa drove for the longest time in total silence, and the only sound in that cab was Little Birdie chirping over the monotonous drone of that old engine. We passed through two states then finally Poppa turned into a narrow dirt track between towering crops of pampas. I was puzzled but strangely not worried, as he pulled to a halt in the middle of that long track.

“Get out son. Wait for me here. I ain’t gonna be long.” His voice wrote a cheque that his eyes told me he had no intention of cashing, but I just got out of the truck and sat down on that hay-strewn dirt track and watched the truck pull away. I watched that old truck until it disappeared from view.

With that, Uncle Vester was gone, but I swear as he turned to walk back to his truck, he wiped a tear from his eye.

I’d have wiped a tear from my eye too if I’d known that this was the last time I’d ever see Uncle Vester, but I didn’t know, so I just started to blow on that old Harpoon the only tune that he ever taught me – the sad, sad, ‘Red River Valley’.

I must have played that tune over and over for a couple of hours when Poppa suddenly appeared in the house doorway. He was wearing his quilted jacket and carrying his rifle, and he looked like a ghost as he just stared at me and searched my face with his hooded eyes. His voice when he finally spoke was as weak as his emaciated body.

“Come on son, we’re going for a drive.”

As the month’s passed, Poppa barely came out of his room, except to take receipt of another delivery of moonshine which our closest neighbour old Hollister drove over in his battered pick up. Poppa would pay him and carry the crate of bottles into his room without a word, then slam the door shut.

Poppa really stopped talking to me about the same time ‘Little Birdie’ started to sing to me.

Summer was dying, as surely as the neglected alfalfa and corn crops on our little patch, when Uncle Vester called by in the morning. I was on the porch barefoot and playing with Little Birdie, and Uncle Vester got out of his truck and came up to me, and acted real strange. He never asked about Poppa but just looked at me real sad like, then handed me his prized ‘Harpoon’ – the mouth organ he always used to play for Momma before she fell ill. Then he tousled my hair, and said; “This is for you. You’re my sister’s boy, and I love yer son. Always will”.

Poppa found his bottles of moonshine at about the same time I found ‘Little Birdie’, and while I was in my room with my pet for company, he was in his room with his bottles for company.

I swear though, that whilst my room was filled with the sound of birdsong, all I ever heard from Poppa’s room was weeping and the occasional shattering of glass as yet another emptied bottle hit the wall.

When Momma passed I snuck into our living room whilst Poppa was busy out on the porch with Pastor Mills and Uncle Vester, and I just stared at momma for the longest time as she lay in her coffin. Poppa had told me that I couldn’t see momma, because if I did, it would frighten me and give me nightmares for the rest of my life, but all I saw was my Momma looking beautiful – at peace now, - and no longer troubled.

It was Poppa who began to look like a corpse, and though I didn’t know it yet, it was Poppa who would give me nightmares for the rest of my life.

I was a child again, and it was a late summer’s day. Not just any old late summer’s day, but the one I will never forget. .

It had been almost a year since Momma had succumbed to her long illness, leaving me and Poppa alone. Well, neither of us was really alone, because I had had my pet bird, ‘Little Birdie’ for company, and poppa had his bottles of ‘moonshine’.

I had found ‘Little Birdie’ as a fledgling on the veranda just before momma passed away, and he was barely alive. Uncle Vester said it had probably fallen out of a nest in the eaves, and that I should just let it die as it seemed beyond saving, but I took that little thing and I fed it on milk and cornbread and it grew strong and didn’t die – unlike my Momma.

I loved ‘Little Birdie’ from the moment I found him, but I would have used all that milk and cornbread to just feed Momma instead if it would have saved her, but I knew it couldn’t.

I am truly blessed, but I closed my eyes and thought of my beloved Ammi - so distant from me now because of her work - and the thought that she would soon be returning, made my heart beat a little faster, because only with her return would my bliss be truly complete.

I leant forward to pick up my brandy glass from the hearth, and a sudden draught caught the fire, whipping the flames and filling the room with the fragrance of the blazing pine logs. Yet, it wasn’t pine, but more the sweet, milky, odour of newly mown grass – something with which I was so familiar, and an odour which I so dreaded – an odour which would haunt me for the rest of my life.

My past was now calling me, and I knew it was the Wind-Witch, and that she would not let me be tonight, so I let her take my hand, let her lead me back through the cob-webbed alleys of my childhood as surely as the Ghost of Christmas Past had led Scrooge through his.

Beautiful and poignant Ammi – Thank you – But who is he? Where is he? What’s his story? I’ve trotted out a little story for you which is my idea of the answers. Please remember as you read it, that it is spontaneous and not edited – so ‘First Draft’ in a way. Enjoy it or not - let me know what you think? You are inspirational. Lol.

I will need to send this in more than one message because of 'character' restriction, so be patient with me.

A Song For Ammi.

Outside, the Wind-Witch howled and wailed like a banshee. She rattled the soffits of this old house and scratched at the windows with fingernails of sleet, crying to be let in. But tonight I craved no company; for Chopin had blessed my music centre with his Nocturne, God had blessed my hearth with the blazing logs which crackled in the grate, and I was alone in what would soon be paradise.

that blonde is me!!! lol

and ill look at that thread in a bit. someone will say shes a muslim hater, no doubt.

im sure ill agree with you!