It was late. It was dark. We pulled into the driveway and something caught my eye. In the shadows, in the driveway next door, a tiny red dot betrayed dark figure. I opened the garage door and stepped cautiously from the truck. My wife took things from the cab and headed inside. I dropped the tailgate in order to remove the unwieldy cargo. The burning cigarette attached to a man’s mouth approached quickly.
“May I help?” puffed the cig.
“Gladly!” say I.
In a sec the mini-freezer gently met pavement, but with a groan.
“Thanks”, says a me, looking curiously at the grown man.
“I just had surgery on my arm. Ah, she hurts.”, puffed he.
“Lordy!”, I concorded. In this stranger’s efforts to help me, he may have hurt himself.
It turns out, this man was waiting for others to arrive. Upon our last words, several vehicles raced for the curb and piled out into street and marched toward the house of Puffy’s. The neighborly homeowner among them informed me that a friend of theirs, a young adult I surmised, had died suddenly (tragically?). This explanation served as a purpose for the gathering.
The next morning, the next-door driveway and the curbs were clear. Nothing to see here…but… What looked like a tall, rounded vase with a base sat solitary and distinctive near the attached garage. Filled with something which seemed to give it external texture, it was. Internal gravitas? But what was it? Remnants, but of what? A tribute, but to who? Ashes for Algernon? Butts!