Vernon ’ s Equinox – A short story

Vernon’s Equinox by David Bradley Nominitive determinism had failed Vernon Carpenter. He was an office clerk. No one could say precisely what it was this 63-year old office clerk did day to day, so it was odd that the memo arrived offering redundancy with immediate effect. If nominative determinism had passed him by so had the boom of the baby boom generation of which he was purportedly a member. But, such is life, hyperbole is rarely tangential with the mundane and everyday. If he’d been a poetry reader, Vernon would have known only too well of the life of J Alfred Prufrock. He would in his seventh decade have knowing he should be raging, raging, I tell you, raging against the dying of the light. There was a flicker, an ember, not a dying ember, a slow burn that might rekindle a fire that had yet to be lit. Vernon, the papers might have told you, if it had turned out he was a serial killer, was a quiet, unassuming man, who, according to neighbours “kept himself to himself”, a classic cliché of journalese. He did. Vernon did keep himself to himself for what he lacked in carpentry skills he made up for in an altogether different area of skill. Vernon looked to the stars. Every clear night. He had a half-decent telescope locked securely away in his garden shed. A shed that had a nice big skylight, that could be pushed open and out of the way with the broom exposing the universe to his all-seeing eye and his telescope to any thief who figured the door wa...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs