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They are, no one denies it, mysterious and unapproachable, our elders, but by god with your help we’ll exploit if not respect their datatroves. Hello latecomers. There’s room down front. May I present to you, in a single meatbag, a salvageable stockpile of chess strategy, secondary math, and typography, if I’m saying the word right, not that anyone cares: let’s welcome Mister Oldman, whose successful transcriber will likely be promoted.

Mister Oldman you’re a sweet old man
and we’ll all be sweet of course
when our business is done
and our grandkids don’t come
and our days are as empty as yours. 

Welcome, MO. My you are brittle residual and aromatic aren’t you? And deaf as a stump. No need to answer. Yesterday a man your age would have been devoured by predators, terminated by virus. Today nothing kills you. But the foundations you chair, sir, are lusty loaded and plunderable. We’ve taken a good look. Now, we don’t expect you to fall on your sword, sir, you prefer to obsolesce like the rest of us, but here’s the thing, your firmware won’t update. No it’s not a voltage disparity. Your gyroscope is losing speed, MO, you absorb energy with diminishing returns. Understand? Just nod. Don’t strain your neck please. It’s the last of its type. You don’t learn, MO, and what you know is fading, so we’ve asked you to mentor. We’ve gathered candidates to digitize your unverifiable memories of learning both chess and Euclid from your beloved granny. Candidates please present yourselves, and let’s help our esteemed elder produce Essence of Oldman in popular optical formats. With luck, Mister Oldman, your work will be the go-to guide for making fixed-size fonts of movable type from lead ingots. Just sign here, here, here, and once for the foundation.

Original Copyright © February 17, 2007
Revised Copyright © February 12, 2026

I’m helping Dad break into his house. The doors are unlocked but he can’t use them. They could fall from their hinges and he wouldn’t step over them, wouldn’t cross the threshold, wouldn’t pass through the frame. We’re standing before one now. Don’t poet me, he says, doors are not metaphors. He’s right to discourage me; I translate everyone into bad verse, sometimes out loud. Just now I pictured Dad “tackled by memories” at every doorway because he played high school ball. Cheesy, but I use it to stiff-arm season-ending thoughts. That linebacker sprawled across the welcome mat where she collapsed coming home from their anniversary dinner? The linebacker with the boobs? That’s Mom. She won’t be getting up. Dad’s pain is real, but for me it’s a chance to sketch with the telestrator. See how the weak-side end-around avoids the dead wife. The obvious play is an out-route at the pantry, but that leads to the accessible entry he built for his grandson sidelined by an IED. There are losses in every direction, shut-down defenders at every door. His best man was clotheslined and dropped for a loss at the entrance to the garage. I risk telling him what I’m thinking, and he laughs without mirth and punches me. So we might get through this. But we never make it inside. The memory of Buster sprawled at the slider off the deck where he collapsed scratching at the glass takes Dad to a knee out of more than fatigue. He’s my wife’s Dad, actually. He hasn’t a hint of a bald spot. I touch his shoulder, speak his name, call him coach, help him up. He lets it happen, hates still living, wants to go. He’s offered us this house because he thinks we walk thoughtlessly through doors.

original story Copyright © January 10, 2007
revised story Copyright © January 20, 2026


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  1. davidbdale's avatar

    This is a close relative of a Very Short Novel titled Short for Family from 20 years ago. The revisions…

  2. davidbdale's avatar

    This is a close relative of a Very Short Novel titled Red Water from 30 years ago. It's different enough,…

  3. grantman's avatar

    Interesting piece which touches on many aspects of getting old especially the part where we don't fit anymore. Having worked…

  4. davidbdale's avatar
  5. davidbdale's avatar

    This is a close relative of an early post titled Something Delicious from 20 years ago. This revised version is different enough,…

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The pen name davidbdale honors my mother Beatrice (Bea) and my father Dale

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