Rich Hanson's Short Stories

A tale of homage to Ted Williams, but on a deeper level, a tale of hero worship and unquestioning belief

He held the graduation announcement in his hand for a long time as he gazed pensively out his study window. The lilacs were in full bloom, their purple flowers blanketing the bushes with a quilt of scented purple. A young couple was walking on the sidewalk, no doubt on their way to the college. They were holding hands as they paused in front of his home to watch two squirrels, wild with the exuberance of Spring, chase each other around the trunk of a maple tree. The young man used their pause to steal a kiss from his lovely raven-haired companion, and the man behind the window turned his gaze away from them, feeling like an intruder. He felt an instant of contempt for himself, and for the staid, ordered existance that had him sitting at his desk, compelled to answer his mail the same day that he received it. Wasn't a bit like the old computer catch-phrase "garbage in-garbage out?" he wondered, to be a slave to such a routine. Especially today, when the late morning was lush with exploding foliage. The odors of green, of growth, of flowering life, he knew could coax his soul into rhapsodies of longing if he gave in to his urge to emerge from his walled-in world to give himself to the splendor of a beautiful Spring morning.