A story, or a beginning

A story...

Dirvin Morris lived in the smallest of saltboxes, a rickety rack of leaning shack precariously pitched west as if plowing headlong into a gale. His commode and wood-stove resided in an out-building connected via patchwork ducts, providing protection from a catastrophe at the hearth, but at the price of a lingering foul odor.

Dirvin hardly noticed. The air filling the paper bag he always wore over his head smelled mostly of his breath, which was itself quite pungent owing to his lack of hygiene. Had his dwelling been outfitted with indoor plumbing, it is doubtful the situation would have been any different, for the water required by most modern bathroom practices would most certainly cause irreparable harm to his brown paper burkha.

Why he remained separated from the word by that scratchy paper veil for so many years was local mystery. A semi-weekly debate was deliberated around the corner table at Estelle's Cafe, down in town, with the frowning and squinting old-timer fixtures taking long sips of their decaf coffee between postulations. One school of thought (and the one that is perhaps the most inviolable) holds that a traumatic brain injury and it's impact might compel Dirvin's awkward position. Other's say perhaps severe tissue trauma left him a horrific monstrosity, or perhaps a physiological aversion to sunlight would cause his face to melt if it was exposed.

Whatever the truth, they all sat silently watching every other Wednesday as he shuffled down the street to the grocer's to place his order, which would be hurriedly left on his stoop several hours later by the bike-bound delivery boy who sweated to sleep every second Tuesday.

And so he shambled between the hovel and the outhouse with eyes perpetually fixed downward at the extra long slippers contrived to forewarn of impending impacts, for his paper lid was penetrated by no perforation. Sustenance was mostly delivered by straw, and Dirvin was the largest consumer of Carnation Instant Breakfasts in the greater Kennebunk area. As a result, he had received several letters of thanks from Nestle honoring his loyal patronage, but long ago he had grown tired of straining himself reading one dreary sentence after another in the space afforded between chin and bag, so they sat unopened. And Mr. Morris sat every evening instead with a very brown view, listening to the seagulls and the waves.