Dusk

The shore was white, leading to a deep forest sheared sporadically with amber and burgundy. The boy lay almost unconscious in the boat. For days he had drifted aimlessly on the sea, searching in desperation for any signs of safe harbor. Another fruitless day reaching its conclusion, he remained motionless even when the ark began to rock forcibly. He lay still there in his hamper as pieces of driftwood and stones collided with the vessel, swaying it further and further. When he could ignore it no longer he lifted his head and looked at the coast he was rapidly advancing toward. No sooner did he get a glimpse of the land that was beckoning him that the hull fractured and the boat capsized, dumping him in the water.

He sunk in the ocean, disoriented. Among him plummeted pieces of wood that once made his bed. He looked up and saw the mast falling on top of him and he frantically swam out of the way. He found his pack floating in the midst of the murky brine and he grabbed it and swam with all he was to the surface. With an indifferent sun setting at his back he emerged from the gulf soaking wet and collapsed to his feet and coughed in weariness and relief. Dazed, he turned and sat on the sand and looked at the empty vista. What was left of the broken hull bobbed in the water, chunks of itself dispersed around it. For a moment he thought he might see them; their hands stretched out at him, their faces open with joy. But they weren't there. There were only the remains of a destroyed escape craft sinking with the sun and the knowledge that there would be no going back.

When he stood he looked at the gaping treeline at his back. It was dense, almost impenetrable save for a narrow, winding path that led further than he could see. The light of the day was fading quickly, and he thought it best to stay where he was for the night. He opened his pack, the burlap heavy with water, and fished out a blanket and a small oil lamp. As he unrolled the blanket he thought he heard his name whispered from the forest. He called out but there was no answer. Only the sucking of the tide and the rattle of dying trees. He turned his focus on the lamp and tried to ignite it but couldn't. Again he heard the whisper from the woods. He walked up to the edge and shouted into it. After a while he turned but as soon as he did the land hissed his name once more. He was sure of it now. He stashed the blanket and the lamp into the bag, slung it on his back, and started out on the bent road into the foreign world beyond.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Isolationist

Among the stalks and fronds there is the face of a man. His visage haggard and gaunt, he rises and parts the bushes. He has on him a dirty army green parka and leather leggings zipped over his pants and under his hiking boots. A large, stuffed rucksack is on his back and a bolt-action rifle is slung over one of his shoulders. He walks the terrain, thick and untouched by the brands of civilization. He is far away from it, as far as he can take himself. No home; no trappings of the multitude to surround him. He is alone in the wild except for a burly, long-haired dog and his thoughts. Thoughts detached and reminiscent, swaying from destitute to tranquil. It is autumn now and the nights are growing colder. He searches for a suitable alcove to set up camp, combing the land with his sunken eyes. A cave perhaps or the base of a protective tree; he doesn't know. The land is a mystery to him. Even now he is still lost. He settles for a bald and flat clearing, surrounded by bushes high en...
Read more

Beasts

A dozen or so tents were sprawled down in a valley. A single cook fire lay among them with men assorted around it eating bowl-fulls of stew and giving some to their horses. There was a horse for every man and they looked underfed and drawn under saddles adorned with diverse cutlery. The bronze tassels in their manes were frayed and loosened, jutting from them uneven quills of hair. And all of them, man and animal, wore some manner of red cloth on them, be it a scarf around their neck or a sash tied around their waist or foreleg. There were no women or children. "Can they hear us?" The boy asked. "Not if we're quiet." Cale said. They spied on their stomachs on a high hillside overlooking the camp. Far enough for them to feel a modicum of calm even in appropriate wariness and suspicion. "Who are they?" "I'm not too sure. Nomads probably."  "Maybe they could help us." "No. Not them." "How can you...
Read more

Geneva

You were thirty-five when you died, thirty-five when my mother was born. 1955, sixty-one years ago. Another age when a woman taken by a man twenty years her senior was not so unusual. A man of the drink and the carcinogenic speech. The baby he didn't want. Called a miraculous birth, the healthy girl from the dying mother. Four months later and you were gone. It was diagnosed as tuberculosis, an antiquated mislabel for hidden and insidious aberrations carried on like a curse in the blood, the genes. The kind that betrays your own body with attacks on the lungs and the liver. Weapons striking sudden and swift. A few months and the trigger is pulled. Such fragile forms set with unjustified disease to make you sure of His sadism as you are of life itself. Pulmatory fibrosis and emergency transplants and cancer. My uncle, your nephew, sits withered and pale. He sucks on an oxygen tank as we watch, sullen. "Wanna hit?" he says. I smile with him. You lived in secondhand storie...
Read more