fina

props - mainly for theatre

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He had trouble, this uncle, trouble breathing sometimes. And he never talked about the war at all. Never.

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If someone slams a door, or if something falls in the kitchen his uncle jumps, and sometimes drops to the floor to hide behind the furniture

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Comes to visit and to be looked after for awhile by Johnny's mother, this uncle's oldest sister

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but also because of another uncle who fought in the trenches. He comes to stay with them sometimes, this other uncle.

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Our little boy knows that the war in the trenches had been bad, and very scary. He knows this because of the uncle that never came back

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, his flying goggles covered with the tiniest of rain drops tasting of the air, tasting of heaven.

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He imagines the clouds feel soft and cold on his face as he flies through them,

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the uncle who never came home. Johnny thinks the war was exciting for the pilots, soaring high above the battlefields & into the clouds.

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fostered by the stories his many uncles tell him & the silence that falls when someone mentions that other, unmet uncle,

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The war was long over, his mother kept telling him, but it loomed large in his imagination,

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Johnny scampers along beside the motionless train his arms out, making the sputtering zooming noises he thinks that fighter planes must make

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He alone can guide the ship to safety; but the warmth & sweetness of the day are calling for his attention, & he runs off down the platform

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Our Johnny imagines struggling into a sou'wester, fighting against wind and massive waves crashing across the deck to reach the wheel.

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He has heard his father tell stories about the many great ships that have been sunk by storms on the great lakes.

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and that storms on those lakes can be as bad as anything on the ocean, with monstrous waves, and howling winds

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Those lakes are so big, Johnny knows, that sometimes you can't see the far shore. He knows that they are deep and cold,

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but he did work on the mammoth freighters that ply the waters of the great lakes a few hundred miles of where they now stand.

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Leave your sea legs behind, find your land legs! says his father. His father has never been to sea, never even seen the ocean,

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Johnny finds it difficult to walk on ground that stays exactly where his foot left it, so used is he to the rolling and shaking of the train

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They step out onto the platform and into the heat of the city.