Now that the aesthetic movement has been in effect for a few years, the citizens of this country have torn down the ugly homes and buildings that shouldn't have been built in the first place.
The restoration of edifices that were begat of real craftsmanship have begun. The government plans to unveil a new campaign to reclaim green space. Most of the campaigns have progressed smoothly. Most city, town and village inhabitants of this country have decided on an aesthetic scheme for their dwellings that dignifies, sustains and appeals to the sense of sight belonging to the majority whom voted in the localized beautification election.
The folks of the town of Harkness, however, could not agree on a singular beauty. In a town so small, I never imagined how diverse it could be. We never knew the creativity hibernating in each Harknessian individual.
I was renting one of the ugly houses. The town leaders put me up in an old renovated Bed and Breakfast until a more beautiful abode was built for me, er, well, I can't lie, for any renter.
The town folk gathered at the Harkness town hall to deliberate on the Harkness beautification plan. Joshua Stangl, the director of the Harkness Museum, desired a historic aesthetic, Merry Tuttle, owner of the Harkness Nursery wanted an Olde English look, Turk Collins, proprietor of the local bar, Zoot, coveted a 1920s Art Nouveau visage, Harkness postmaster, Shill Kramph liked modern and clean lines. The Hamilton family, of the the Hamilton Family Farm, pined for edible landscapes as far as the eye could see. The Comic Book shopkeeper, Fitz Pringle, volleyed for a wooded glen dotted by Hobbit-style earth homes, The Harkness School District superintendent, Arlyle Mock, requested red brick for everything. Holly Mezner, the Harkness librarian, was keen on green, the color and the application. John Flax, the town drunk, envisioned a Scandinavian ski village to go with the Arkness mountains, which were ancient and nothing more than high plains.
Mayor Vernon Kronon introduced his wife, Midge, to the discussion as she took over the podium. Lips too close to the microphone, she puffed, "Listen everyone. Your aesthetic is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! All wrong!," she darted her eyes around the room before she reasoned, "This town needs to move beyond the past and look towards the future." Pausing to pose an airless face stoppered by a fish mouth, she gathered untempered courage and proclaimed "I suggest the town of Harkness embrace our clean slate and create a masterpiece of old Rome--a better Rome!"
Instinctly, a few of us chuckled at Midge's foreward thinking plan.
"Better Roam home!," flew from the back of the crowded room; a comment which vibrated the congregation in stifled laughter.
"Yeah, real futuristic--an aesthetic that was dreamt thousands of years ago," flipped Harold the Funeral Home Director.
"I want lightrail!"
"I want cobblestone!"
"I want gaslights!"
"I want gothic!"
"Green roofs!"
The meeting adjourned in a frazzled state of incompetence. I went back to my room at the Bed and Breakfast. Gerry and Terry Marsh, my hosts, weren't going to let me stay forever. I had to find a place to rest my bones.
The next morning I went to my job at the Funeral Home. I'm a carpenter by trade and I can build a good box. Yeah, I make caskets for the deceased citizens of Harkness.
Harold approached me as soon as I turned the lights on in the shop.
"What did you think of last night's meeting?"
"Well, its a shame nothing came of it, but I heard some good ideas."
"Yeah, I kind of liked Superintendent Mock's red brick conception."
"I liked that one, and I'm rather fond of Holly Mezner's green plan."
"Oh, that green stuff. That will never last."
"I think that's the point, Harold, it's called Cradle to the Grave."
Harold searched my face to see my angle. Unanswered and still unsure, he turned his back and offered, "Hmph! Green! Doesn't have any business being in Harkness."
"Why's that, Harold?" I uncharacteristically taunted him further.
He mumbled something with expletives and wandered down the hall and up the stairway to his office.
I rolled my eyes and simultaneously turned toward my current project. It was a casket for Torly Striker. He is in his eighties and figured he better have himself a nice home for the thereafter. We designed it together.
As I added the small details for Torly's next home, his words came back to me..."a home for the thereafter." I smiled.
"Maybe even a home for the right now," I thought. A slight notion fogged my mind. I could sleep in here. After all, I just need a place to rest my bones. Click.
My thoughts churned and calculated. Yeah! That's all I need is a protected place to sleep. The rest of the world will be my living space. I can shower at the High school gymnasium or in the pristine Arkness creek. Eat at restaurants or on the go. Have my mail sent to the post office. Buy a plot of land in the cemetery and wake up to a solitary lifestyle.
I did this. Right between the headstones of Murray Castberger circa 1812 and Lorelei Chambers circa 1921, I slept in the grave yard in my personalized casket designed to hold a few belongings and influence a satisfying slumber. My approach to living was at first considered strange and macabre, but after the town leaders got ugly over beauty, many Harknessians were left without a beautiful home.
I was now considered a hero of sorts for the new homeless Harknessians. My portable sleeping quarters fulfilled a void in the town. Made to order, my caskets or casks, as I now call them, are customized for complete slumber comfort and satisfying minutia needs of the individual. The homeless needn't be bedless. Nor should they keep one eye open whilst engaging in rejuvenate sleep. The health of the down trodden improved. Not only did they get enough sleep, but they watched less television, became more physically active, and many were released by the nasty grip of pack-ratism.
At first there were only a few of us and the company was welcomed in a Hobo aesthetic kind of way. We had campfires next to the Pauling Mausoleum every Thursday and spoke like frontiersmen. I will report to you my journal entry from several months ago so that you may see where my mind was when I invented the new fad of Harkness:
More neighbors, I think I'm going to add wheels to my cask and try nomadic living for awhile. At least until I can once again wake into solitary enjoyment. Maybe I'll buy an orchard and rest my bones among the fruitful groves.
Now all the casks have wheels. Mobile portable sleeping quarters, are wildly popular in this region. Everyone is pulling them along with designer or creative, handmade ropes. Some casks are bedazzled, spray-painted, toled, decoupaged, Pollacked, big and little wheeled, hydraulic, and on and on. Everyone is expressing his and her creativity and displaying his and her version of beauty.
Most of the Harkness citizens sleep in the graveyard now. The town is known for its living dead. This acknowledgment was resurrected when weary travelers witnessed a mob of Harknessians groggily, weaving and lurching down through the cemetery gate in search for a cup of morning joe. We are also known as Zombieville.
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