Box On A Lot With A Lock And Key

A Short Story About A Long Term Injustice The Veterans Administration Inflected On A Vietnam Veteran And His Family.

The VA sells a house that is constructed on slow-sand to an unsuspecting veteran. The property previously owned by a brick company was exploited for the clay and filled in with the soggy muck leftover from the mining process. The property although stable in the dry season as in August the month it was sold to a would be home owner becomes a slurry bed of muck just a tad bit thicker than quick sand depending on where you stand for 6 months of the year. The house and I use that term loosely is slowly sinking into the ground and I use that term loosely as well. Both at different times the veteran and his daughter are swallowed knee deep in the muck and require rescue before the severity of the dilemma reaches home.

The would be home owner is financially trapped in a box on a lot with a lock and key for thirty years. Day after day week after week year in and year out a thousand tons of muck is removed and replaced with stone two Spackle buckets at a time into a virtual money pit.
If hours were dollars the stone castle would be above ground not bellow.
Jim Raab

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