Over the past couple of weeks, I've been reading a book called The End of Summer by John Lowry Lamb. I learned of this book through childhood classmates. John was in my class at St. Mark's from first through fifth grade, and had recently passed from a heart attack. He had published this book in 1995 and it appears to be his only published work.
The book itself is a bit somber, focusing exclusively on a 12-year-old boy whose parents die in an automobile accident. The narrative takes us into the thoughts and experiences of Nick, as he grapples with losses in his life.
What struck me most about the book was personal. That is, I found myself paying attention to his writing and the things he referred to along the way. For example, John Kennedy. We were in class together the day JFK was shot.
Beyond that, I think of the fact that he and I had the same writing instruction, the same teachers. Maybe this is a "writerly" thing, but I couldn't help it. He learned the way I learned, writing papers with a fountain pen, diagramming sentences, outlining textbook chapters.
The End of Summer has a fairly satisfying ending, and immediately afterward I went into my studio to get some things done on my computer. I picked a legal pad that had been sitting on my computer table for quite some time. I don't know why I suddenly noticed or cared to investigate at that moment a folded up page that was folded and clipped to the pad. I had--and still have--no recollection of why it was stored that way.
I opened it up and found a piece of writing, I assume from me since I tried searching lines and came up blank. I'm thinking it was some kind of exercise, and perhaps I thought I'd be revising it.
At any rate, I was rather stunned when I reached the end. This is the entire piece, which I will admit doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, especially because it feels like it picks up in the middle of something, but this is all I have:
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