Verbal photo #2

Here's another verbal photo. I'm trying my hand at writing by creating photos with words, painting pictures that form in my mind. It's a little nerve-wracking posting these for public scrutiny. So take it for what it is, amateur writing. Actually.. an attempt at amateur writing!

The moving truck

The moving truck sat on the side of the road, sighing into the chilly night. If you didn't know better you'd say it was bored. A thousand families moved, a thousand nights just like this one, sitting under a lone street lamp, while a family loads its worldly possessions into a 14' x 10' canister.

The air inside the dark compartment of the truck held a hint of history. The dust that had collected on the floor wanted to tell you interesting stories about the families that had left it behind. However they weren't well remembered, these families. The truck remembered them only as a sequence. And tonight would be no different. Tonight's family was number eleven hundred and fourteen. There was nothing special about the house it sat in front of, or the contents now tucked neatly in it's cavernous belly. Nothing particularly noteworthy at all, for the truck.

It was quite a different story for the lone straggler standing inside the giant metal container. He was looking sadly at the neat columns of boxes and the tetris-like precision of household goods stacked on top of each other. They were all packed into a near-perfect cube, barely visible by the dim light of the streetlamp. None of it held any value for this visitor. Although all of it together was priceless. A representation of two and a half years of rewarding friendship.

As he hefted himself down from the back of the truck, he looked up the steep driveway and could see the family he had come to help, standing tired now in the lit garage, sorting the last niggling things as night weighed heavily on all of them. To most others the scene in the garage would be a forgettable one. But to our visitor it was something special. These were his good friends.

Muted voices floated down the driveway and rolled to a stop near his feet. He realized he may never again see these friends, who so quickly became important to him. And who will so quickly be gone.

He's happy for them, of course. He always is. But inside, a feeling of irreplaceability stretches from his gut, into his throat, where it forms a lump that he can't ignore. He tries to shake it off, but not before the moisture in his eyes finds its way onto his sleeve. He wants to rush up the driveway and grab them all in a heartfelt hug.

Instead, he turns to the moving truck, and with an acquiescent sigh, considers that perhaps it knows best how to deal with these things.