There was something in my grandfather's face when he told the story.
I've never seen it since. I never witnessed it before.
It was a world in his eyes. Somehow stunned yet perceptive. Thinking.
It's the face I want to see on a leading man's face as the comet crashes to Earth. Doom, helplessness, and acceptance.

It's a simple story. It's as keenley abrasive set in any time period. Easily toned down for the timid, or shouted for the deaf.

For me it was the wild west, and the tone of my grandfather's voice was full of saftey and contentment.

"Life there was different, Pat. The animal in man becomes more apparent when we're free." He told me.

"Now in those days men drank and played cards, and they did it a lot." He was sparing my young ears the juicier detials.

"The saloon was where these wild men gathered. There where brave men, smart men, good men, and bad men. They spoke of women and victory. They bragged of riches they never possessed. Most of them did, anyway."

"Our story is about one - In fact, the only one there that day - that never lied to hide himself. He was the barber in our small town. A veteran who's war with the great west had ended."

My granddad told me about a mine outside of town. This is where we find our struggling damsel in distress. As she must be in a story like this, she is beautiful. A happy, kind, charitable, young ray of sunshine.

Nearing the end, my grandpa rounded 3rd to bring it home.

"The brave men in our little town had all gathered at the mine. Our barber was quick to try and see if there was a safe way to free the trapped girl. They could hear her shouting from behind the rubble. She had to have just a few inches of air around her."

My grandpa finished the story leaned further forward in his seat.

"Our barber did what nobody else could. He wedged himself between two rocks in the rubble, holding a bolder near the top. He just pushed. He didn't even look twice at the dangers above him. He pushed until the rock on the side of the mound rolled free. As it went the rocks above tumbled forward. He was burried right there by a ton of the very land he fought for. The way was open though. Our damsel was free."

"See there's some things a father and a son share, my boy. Maybe it's genes, or evolution, or even a little piece of a mans spirit in his son. But when those rocks tumbled though, that bravery was lost forever."

That's where he left it. He didn't go on to lecture me about Honor and Chivalry - he left that to me. He knew the reality of the story, though. That there are good things in life that are lost far to easily.

Through the years i grew with this story hidden, hardly coming to mind. It's only when i recalled that face that i remembered it. It's only recently, interacting with the surviving victoms of natural selection, that i've come to understand it.

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