“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
- Albert Einstein 

                                                          LIFE CLOSED EYES 

Mike and Selma sat in the beaten up old blue ford waiting for Kelly to come out of the two story brick elementary school.  She usually rode the big yellow school bus, but since it was her tenth birthday, Mike took off a half day from the factory so he and Selma could pick her up.

They arrived fifteen minutes early and after notifying the office to send Selma to the truck, headed back out to the parking lot to wait.

It was hot.

Early September wasn’t the hottest part of the year in west Texas, but sitting in a tin can on black pavement while waves of heat vibrated off the ground, rivaled any August heat wave.

The windows on the old Ford were down since the air conditioner gave up the ghost some years before.  Money was tight and luxuries like air conditioning were pushed aside for necessities like ice cream cones on birthdays, and an almost new red bike for Kelly.

Kelly was the only child Mike and Selma ever produced.  She was the apple of their eye, and for all intents and purposes, the glue which stuck the little family together.

Mike was not an educated man having quit high school his junior year to party with friends.  He started working at the factory when his father kicked him out of the house shortly after.  It was hard dirty work, but it was a decent wage for someone whose only needs at the time consisted of food, shelter, gas for the truck, and beer money.

He met Selma at the Maverick High School homecoming football game in 1996.  She was a tall girl, thin, with brown hair and green eyes that sparkled when she laughed.  She was a senior honor roll student and college bound when their worlds collided.

Mike was twenty-two, had a decent truck, dark hair and eyes, and a muscular body from working long hours lifting heavy molds at the factory.  Most men his age were off in college or the military.  So, his friends were usually in high school.  They used him to buy them beer.  He used them for entertainment.  He knew Selma saw him as some sort of bad boy, and he played it for all he could get.

 And he got everything.

Selma was pregnant at graduation.

They married.  Selma worked as a waitress to supplement their income until Kelly was born.  She never went to college.  Sure, she talked about it, once Kelly was in middle school next year and able to stay home a bit by herself.  But, with the long factory hours, a child to take care of, and a home to maintain, that’s all it was, talk.

Mike liked it just that way.  No need for the woman to go out and do something foolish like outgrowing him. 

He sighed.  “How much longer you think she’ll be?”

Selma shrugged.  She wore her brown hair up in a pony tail as a tribute to the heat and a white floral dress with a deep scooped neckline that showed off both her narrow shoulders. 

They sat for a few minutes in silence, sweating.

“This is an old school,” Selma said.  “At least fifty years old.”

Mike grunted.

“And the trees.  They look like they were planted at the same time the school was built.”

“Yup,” Mike said and checked his watch.

Selma eased forward enough to dislodge her sweating bare shoulders from the faux leather seat.  She smiled at the slight sticky pull.

“Can you imagine how many children those bricks have seen?  Those trees?  If those bricks could talk, can you imagine the stories they’d have?  They’re older than we are.  They were standing here watching kids come to and from school everyday before we were even born.”  She laughed.  “The stories!”

Mike rolled his eyes.  “Do you know how tired that idea is?  How many movies and stories are out there with that kinda thinkin?”

Selma nodded her head, pony tail bobbing.  “Yeah, that’s true.  But none of them are told by me.”

“For good reason,” Mike said.  “You ain’t got no schoolin girl.”  He leaned forward squinting out the dusty windshield toward the school’s front doors.  “You just don’t have what it takes honey.  I think she’s coming.  Is that her?”

Selma looked, nodded, and stuck her arm out the window!  “Over here Kelly!”

Mike rested his calloused hand on Selma’s small soft shoulder.  “We’re gonna have another baby.  Give Kelly someone to look after.”