Asher Mac

Choices are always the best and worst part of life. There are simple choices that are seemingly unimportant, like choosing what socks to wear in the morning. Then there are choices that are exciting to make, which person to marry, what house to buy. Along with those exciting choices are also the choices that are dreadful to make, choosing a casket for a loved one to lie in, choosing to stop giving someone love, choosing to better yourself. The question of choices is only complicated by the choices that, when you first choose them, give you such pleasure, but yet the longer you continue to choose them the more pain you suffer. These are the choices that kill men.
These choices come in both the good and the bad. A man truly believing that it is right for him to honor his country and go off to war, the choice of being patriotic and enlisting will at first fill him with pride and honor, people will respect him and give him honor. Then the actually going off to war, the fighting and killing, the noise, the images that will never leave him, the stench of blood that he will always remember. The changes that his mind and body will go through, he may even die, all by making a simple choice.
The incorrect choice that immediately makes some one feel better but in the long run they suffer. Think of a man who cheats on his wife and sleeps with another woman. In the moment it gives him great pleasure, the feeling of the other woman, the rush of knowing that it is not his wife. Then the displeasure of telling his wife he has found someone else, or worse his wife finding out herself. Then the inevitable, the agony of divorce. Followed by the pain of the unfamiliar, and having to start anew with a different woman who is unused to all his quirks.
Most, however, hardly ever think about the small choices that lead to the major decisions made in their lives. Even when faced with an important choice, some fail to see the long term effects (called consequence) that the choosing will have on their lives and the lives of those around them. Choice, how incredibly easy, and yet how effecting.

Asher Mac had never done well in the choosing of the right choices. He had always done the thing that felt the best to him in the moment, and had never thought further then the next week. He hated his father, but yet secretly hated him in his heart. His father had been a brilliant man; he had gone to college for years and graduated at the top of his class. His father could do anything. The small town of Clearmont, jut south of nowhere, was awed when he came into their town; he excelled at whatever he did. He was diligent and smooth; whatever he put his hand to succeeded. He was a leader of men, a wonderful speaker, a great logician, and to all of the young women’s delight, a tolerable poet. He understood rules, guided his life by them, and by doing this could do anything.
Within three months of his coming to Clearmont, Clint Mack was considered a god among men. The town was not full of dumb people, no indeed half had even gone so far as to receive some college education. No, Clearmont had only forgotten to read. Thus, with the entrance of the brilliant Clint Mac, they were ready and willing to be lead wherever he wanted to lead them.
The family Grander was well established in Clearmont, Their grandpa’s, grandpa’s, grandpa had moved there during the depression, and the family had never thought of leaving since. Their daughter Clara was the towns’ sweetheart, a pretty girl, who treated everyone kindly. So it was only a matter of time before the town’s hero and the town’s sweetheart met and fell in love. Asher Mac was tolerably good looking, but that really didn’t matter since he was full of smarts, and Clara Grander was the belle of the town, all of the old folks called her most beautiful thing they had ever laid eyes on.
With her beauty and his brains, nothing could go wrong. A woman wishes to have a smart confident man and a smart confident man wishes to have a beautiful woman. The town prepared for their impending marriage.
They planed in vain, Clint Mac did not marry Clara Grander, no he took her out to the dinner several times, and then proposed to her sister. Clara Grander had a mousey sister, the town’s librarian. The girl was shy and useful, not a beauty but a useful, task performing girl. The town’s folk could not believe that Clint Mac would bypass Clara Grander, for any reason, and the fact that he had done it for her mousy sister left them staggering. Clara’s hair shone brilliant and gold in the sunlight, in sharp contrast to her sisters muted not quite brown. Likewise, her sister’s eyes were an undistinguishable color that were hid behind a pair of librarian bifocals that no one as young as she was should have been wearing, but Clara’s own eyes were brilliant and blue that shone bright with life and happiness.
Well they had shone with happiness, until, Clint Mac had bypassed her in favor of her sister.
And such a sister, two siblings less alike had never been. Gale Grander had no beauty, she was older than Clara by three years but, one might have thought that a decade or more separated them, by the way that Gale dressed. Not only was she overly modest but she also dressed in closes that had been her mothers they were old, two sizes to big, and threadbare, almost to the point of falling apart. Gale saved her money and continuously sewed the old, old close just enough so that they would not fall apart. She would brush her thick hair, but it was neither straight nor curly nor wavy but always stood in a shroud around her head, messy and annoying. Not even her voice had any beauty in it, it was to hard and demanded to much even if all she issued was a meek “Thank you.” The hearer would be offended, for her voice would seem to reprimand him for his insolence.
No, Gale was too ugly and horrid, and Clara was too lovely and wonderful. How could Clint Mac choose one when the other stood only waiting for him to take her? It made no since, none at all and for the first time the town started to doubt their god.
Clint Mac was not one to care what others thought, what he thought was enough to fill his mind all day. So, a month after he proposed, the two having never gone anywhere together or done anything with each other, were married. The town waited out side of city hall; they were uninvited guests to a reception that did not exist. When Clint Mac came out of the Hall, followed slowly by Mrs. Mac, the town cheered. The Mac’s waved then left, and the town sighed telling each other that if he had married Clara they would have had a proper church wedding, with a big party afterwards. Then, the dejected town’s people went home.

That night, when they reached Clint Mac’s door, his bride turned to him and asked (The towns people would have said that she accused.) “Why did you marry me?”
Clint laughed “You ask me now after we are married, aren’t you afraid that you won’t like the answer. And it is too late, we are married, you can’t get out now.”
“I’m not afraid, if you did marry me for some awful reason I would rather find out now, so I may adjust myself to my new life. I don’t like surprises.” She ended feebly (The towns people would have said snottily.).
Clint Mac smiled, a small smile, one specifically for her, “That is why I married you.” He bent and kissed her cheek.
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
Then Mr. and Mrs. Mac entered their home.

The towns people were soon adjusted to their Clint Mac being married to a woman so totally unfitted for him. There were stories circulating that Gale had somehow forced Clint Mac to marry her. Some even went so far as to say that Clint was really in love with Clara, and that Gale had been so jealous of her sister that she had told Mac that if he didn’t marry her that she would kill her sister. This rumor was circulated by all, but only as a highly unlikely story that someone else had told. The rumors and cold shoulder would have been hard on Gale if she has been connected with the town in any intimate way. She was only the town’s librarian, of a very small library, and few of the towns folk ever stumbled into the library, the few that did did not waist their time talking to Gale. The library was cramped, small, dark, and quiet, a nightmare to most. Besides there was that horrid smell of old books, and older books that were slowly deteriorating, or decaying. The smell had been adsorbed into the very wood of the bookshelves, and the ceiling and walls of the library. Talk of demolishing the building always brought a smile to the face of a town person.
They kept their library because not to have it would be one less thing for the town to boast of having. They had no movie theatre, no mall, no really big grocery store, and they wanted to be proud of their town so they would list the things that they did have to each other, their relatives, their children, anyone passing through town, and perfect strangers that they met on the bus. They would tell of how they had, four dinners, six restarounts, and even a