Spunky (standard:drama, 3242 words)
Author: Wax	Added: Mar 10 2005	Views/Reads: 3173/2448	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
More or less a sequel to "The Monkey's Paw'" from the turn of the century era. The "Paw" has been passed on.

Spunky 

A young man, of obvious wealth, stared out at the blue waters of the
Pacific. On a spectacular day such as this he was pleased with the 
activities before him. Trendsetters, so similar to himself, were daring 
the caps and chop of the surf with their trend setting boards and 
sails. "This is California. This is where I belong," he said to 
himself. 

If not for the proceedings taking place directly behind him he would be
down there. He preferred the rush of the fast living, the caring only 
for the moment. This visit was just too tense. He stood rigid, arms 
folded across his chest, all the appearances of the impatient. 
Something from above seemed to lightly settle on his shoulder. With 
noticeable distaste he went through the motions of delicately removing 
a feather, daring to trash his Yves S. suit. What caught his eye 
brought him back to the events of the day. An elderly gentleman was 
finalizing the proceedings and fastening his brief case. A second 
elderly gentleman was paying close attention to the brief case. They 
exchanged a knowing glance between them. A few soft words were spoken 
into the ear of the second elderly gentleman and the first was gone. 
The young man turned and faced his uncle. Neither spoke. Waves crashed 
thunderously in the distance. The ocean always let you know it was 
there. With the slightest gesture the old man motioned his nephew to 
sit. 

This was the way it had always been. Few words. Few words were all that
were needed. The young man spoke respectfully to his uncle. "Well, 
what's so important?" 

The old man was not about to be rushed. His nephew was shy of
pleasantness but he adored him. Still, how should he tell him? Why 
should he believe? 

"You've met my lawyer before. When your mother died,” he said. 

The young man nodded. 

"Mr. Post is a fine man, he'll be calling on you. Make time for him." 

Again the nephew nodded. 

The old man stared out to the ocean. He'd spent the last 20 years here.
The beach house had been the final escape for him and his long departed 
wife. How would she have dealt with this? What would she have said? The 
answer was simple. Nothing. She knew many things about his business 
affairs, but not about this. What he had to tell his nephew went back 
many years, and no one, not a living soul had knowledge about any of 
it. The old man leaned forward and firmly grasped his nephew's arm. He 
then searched young James' eyes for the trust this story would require. 
He was a good man.  With an affectionate pat to his nephew's arm he 
settled back and began his tale. 

"You were very young James, when a great man, my former employer, your
father's former employer, passed away. The only sure thing you could 
say about P.D. Morris was that he lived the majority of his life as a 
lonely man. There is little in the world now that compares to when he 
was born. His family went a long way back in old England. Back before 
the beginning of the last century even. His grandparents raised him 
somewhere in the midlands. There is not much I can tell you about this 
time of his life except what he wanted me to know. His grandfather had 
been an old army man. A strict man, no doubt, the stolid type, 
regimented. You'd know this to be a fair assessment of the grandfather 
if you'd known P.D. Morris. The grandfather had spent many years in the 
service of the Empire in such places as the African continent, the 
Mideast, and India. Especially India. When his days of adventure came 
to their end, he naturally took retirement and settled down in a 
countryside cottage, as was the custom in those days. There isn't a lot 
of detail that even I know about that period of time, but according to 
my former employer his retirement didn't last for very long. What he 
recalled being told by the old boy was that some sudden urgency 
required that he return to India. At about this time his grandfather 
had been connected to some incident locally, where the son of an 
acquaintance had died under unexplained circumstances. There isn't much 
more I should tell you right now of this because my employer found it 


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