Grandfather’s Chattel Stick

(…somewhere the sky is falling) the man in the hat awoke, lit a cigarette and decided to buy a cowboy hat with a chin-string and whistle. ‘What a beautiful day to buy a hat’ he said (...somewhere the sky is falling). He remembered things best left unremembered, his grandfather’s chattel-stick, the one he used to shooed pigeons, ‘foul creatures’, out of his way; his grandmamma’s scissors, the ones she used to shear and cobble chicken skin; his da’s Buick, the one that never seemed to run properly; his ma’s ironing-board, the one that was always collapsing and folding in on itself; his brother’s match package collection, the one he was forbidden to look at; his teacher’s haircut, blunt and bowled round the edges. Things like these were best left unremembered, as they tend to confuse and interrupt the trajectory of one’s life.