Flatbed Ford
Ian Cooper
This Smashwords edition published by
Ian Cooper
Copyright 2014 Ian Cooper
Design by J. Thornton
ISBN 978-1-927957-10-3
This ebook is licensed for your
personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given
away to other people. If you would like to share this book with
another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting
the hard work of this author.
The following is a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or
events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters
and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. The
author’s moral rights to the proceeds of this work have been
asserted.
Table of Contents
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
Nice Ride
One Hell of a
Revelation
Who is Ian Cooper?
Flatbed Ford
Ian Cooper
It Seemed Like a Good Idea
at the Time
It seemed like a good idea at the
time.
Going while the going was
good.
That’s all he could really
say.
Franklyn Warner stood at the side of
the road, a stick-man in blue denim and white high-top runners. He
took a drink of water, hitched his pack up higher and then moved on
again.
He was in for a long day at this
rate.
It was the middle of summer and the
middle of Kansas. Hot and hazy, the sky arched blue overhead, with
a lavish dollop here and there of puffy white cotton-ball clouds.
Drops of sweat occasionally worked their way down inside his shirt.
His mouth still felt dry.
It was very quiet. Nothing moved. It
was merely a landscape and he was just a figure moving across it…
although he had passed a house as he trudged, not far back. A real,
live, living and breathing house.
There was a dog laying under a tree,
in front of the porch and in the shade. It looked up and let out a
dull, gruff greeting as he went. That was the single noteworthy
thing that had happened to Franklyn when passing that
house.
There were voices, or so
he thought, inside that house. It sat quite close to the road.
There really ought to be some voices in there.
Even if he hadn’t actually heard
anything.
That was simple justice.
Those people didn’t even know he
existed. They probably didn’t even know he had passed their house
or had ever walked along this road. They may very well not have
been near a window when he went by.
He didn’t really exist for them. He
saw that more clearly now. He was a cat in a box to them—neither
was he living, and neither was he dead.
There were vehicles in the driveway,
and for whatever reason, he tried to recall what they
were.
That way he could prove, at least to
himself, that he had actually been there, and that the experience
was not entirely meaningless.
To Franklyn, there was no act that did
not hold some meaning, and it was meaning that Franklyn sought. Oh,
so effortlessly, as it turns out.
A couple of days ago, he’d seen an
Opel GT rotting away behind somebody’s barn. The act of rotting
away held meaning. The act of abandonment held meaning, and then
the act of observation also held meaning—according to some theory
somewhere, it also affected the outcome.
Franklyn wondered how all of this
would turn out, as he trudged along the road. Take that last house,
for instance, there were two cars in the driveway.
He was pretty sure it was a silver
sedan, gently rounded on all four corners and sides. Four-door,
probably GM. That was the first one. And then there was a big,
two-tone, white and burgundy, three-quarter ton behemoth of a
pickup truck. It was typical for farm and country. That one had the
dual rear wheels, with big fenders sticking out the side. It was
probably a Ford. He was almost certain of that, and yet
Ian Cooper
This Smashwords edition published by
Ian Cooper
Copyright 2014 Ian Cooper
Design by J. Thornton
ISBN 978-1-927957-10-3
This ebook is licensed for your
personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given
away to other people. If you would like to share this book with
another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting
the hard work of this author.
The following is a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or
events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters
and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. The
author’s moral rights to the proceeds of this work have been
asserted.
Table of Contents
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
Nice Ride
One Hell of a
Revelation
Who is Ian Cooper?
Flatbed Ford
Ian Cooper
It Seemed Like a Good Idea
at the Time
It seemed like a good idea at the
time.
Going while the going was
good.
That’s all he could really
say.
Franklyn Warner stood at the side of
the road, a stick-man in blue denim and white high-top runners. He
took a drink of water, hitched his pack up higher and then moved on
again.
He was in for a long day at this
rate.
It was the middle of summer and the
middle of Kansas. Hot and hazy, the sky arched blue overhead, with
a lavish dollop here and there of puffy white cotton-ball clouds.
Drops of sweat occasionally worked their way down inside his shirt.
His mouth still felt dry.
It was very quiet. Nothing moved. It
was merely a landscape and he was just a figure moving across it…
although he had passed a house as he trudged, not far back. A real,
live, living and breathing house.
There was a dog laying under a tree,
in front of the porch and in the shade. It looked up and let out a
dull, gruff greeting as he went. That was the single noteworthy
thing that had happened to Franklyn when passing that
house.
There were voices, or so
he thought, inside that house. It sat quite close to the road.
There really ought to be some voices in there.
Even if he hadn’t actually heard
anything.
That was simple justice.
Those people didn’t even know he
existed. They probably didn’t even know he had passed their house
or had ever walked along this road. They may very well not have
been near a window when he went by.
He didn’t really exist for them. He
saw that more clearly now. He was a cat in a box to them—neither
was he living, and neither was he dead.
There were vehicles in the driveway,
and for whatever reason, he tried to recall what they
were.
That way he could prove, at least to
himself, that he had actually been there, and that the experience
was not entirely meaningless.
To Franklyn, there was no act that did
not hold some meaning, and it was meaning that Franklyn sought. Oh,
so effortlessly, as it turns out.
A couple of days ago, he’d seen an
Opel GT rotting away behind somebody’s barn. The act of rotting
away held meaning. The act of abandonment held meaning, and then
the act of observation also held meaning—according to some theory
somewhere, it also affected the outcome.
Franklyn wondered how all of this
would turn out, as he trudged along the road. Take that last house,
for instance, there were two cars in the driveway.
He was pretty sure it was a silver
sedan, gently rounded on all four corners and sides. Four-door,
probably GM. That was the first one. And then there was a big,
two-tone, white and burgundy, three-quarter ton behemoth of a
pickup truck. It was typical for farm and country. That one had the
dual rear wheels, with big fenders sticking out the side. It was
probably a Ford. He was almost certain of that, and yet
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