Chuck.

Chuck is not a young man, so he doesn’t walk very quickly.

 

Right now he is walking, very slowly, up the old track back of the woods, towards the two bridges that cross the river.

 

Once there had been a ferry where the bridges now stand, and Chuck had been the ferry master. Then the bridges were built and the ferryman retired.

 

Nobody asked Chuck if the bridges should be built and it seems that nobody who took the ferry was bothered either way, so the bridges were built and the ferry stopped.

 

And the people stopped taking the ferry and started taking the bridge.

 

Except at night.

 

Once the sun had set the forest and the river were dark and the people were scared of the night.

 

So Chuck became a lamp builder.

 

And once he had finished building the lamps he became a lamp installer, and he installed them on the bridge.

 

The people who had built the bridge had moved on to other rivers and no longer cared.

 

And the people who used to use the ferry, even at night because they had Chuck to protect them, were happy that the possibility of using the bridge at night was dawning.

 

Just as long as the lights were lit, which they had to be, each night.

 

So Chuck became a lamp lighter.

 

Right now a queue of people are waiting for him to come and light the lamps.

 

But Chuck is not a young man so he doesn’t walk very quickly.

 

And the people waiting to cross the bridge are young, and impatient.

 

They start singing;

 

Chuck, Chuck the dawdling Chuck

He’s so old 

He doesn’t give a fuck.

We wish he’d hurry; we wish he’d run

We want across this bridge

Before the morning come.

 

Chuck doesn’t mind the singing because as well as being slow, he’s deaf.

 

His eyes are not at their best either, which could be a difficulty in his job if he didn’t use very long matches and if the lamps didn’t have very large wicks.

 

But he does and they do, and besides, Chuck wears very thick and powerful spectacles.

 

The lenses are so thick that Chuck could probably use them to focus the sun’s rays to light the wicks if ever he ran out of matches.

 

And if ever the sun was there at lighting time.

 

Which it never is.

 

Obviously.