illustration by Jameson Currier
My Day
by Jameson Currier
It was eight o’clock by the time my hands said and the village market was opening and getting things ready for the shoppers. It was not till nine o’clock when the shoppers started coming in.
From my second face, for I had four being a tower clock above the city, I saw children playing in the deserted street outside their homes.
If I turned around, I could see the empty school grounds and the school. Behind the school far off I could have seen the recreation grounds but since that was deserted too it was not much point in looking on that side.
On my fourth side I could see more houses and flats and a good deal of chimneys with smoke coming out, for it was a very cold day, and I was just getting ready to strike twelve when it started snowing. I saw from my first side that the market people were packing up. From my second I could see the children scampering inside to get into warmer clothes. On my third and fourth sides I could see houses, flats, and the school getting covered with snow.
The city was deserted except for a few children. It was not till 2:15 did more children and adults come out. The children were playing happily and the adults doing their shopping. It was not till 4:45 when it began getting dark, and the children began going into their houses and the only sound there was, was the sound of cars on the snow, and the snow crunching beneath people’s feet. It was not till ten o’clock (my time) that I fell asleep, and that was my day.
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I had been born and raised in a city in Georgia, just north of Atlanta. In 1966, I was enrolled in “sixth year” at Oatlands Primary School in Weybridge, Surrey, England. Because of my father’s employment with an aeronautics manufacturer, our family had relocated from Georgia several times for short periods—to Buffalo, Los Angles, and now England. I was at this primary school for six months, until February 1967, when my family returned to Georgia. Every week at the British primary school I wrote an original essay, story, or poem—mainly as practice for spelling, grammar, and penmanship. While cleaning out a room at my father’s house, I rediscovered the “book” of stories and poems that I wrote when I was at Oatlands. “My Day” is one of those stories. I was ten years old. The illustration was drawn in 2024 at the age of sixty-eight.
“Lost Treasures” is Jameson Currier’s ongoing project to rediscover, revisit, and illustrate his early writings.
Jameson Currier is the author of eight novels, five collections of fiction, three illustrated tales, and a memoir.
