Running backwards

I cast off from the dock and strain against the oars, the gentle slap of waves on the hull accompanying the rhythmic sounds of my efforts. I watch my lands recede slowly before me, sea ice thumping past my boat and swirling into my wake, seeming to close my path behind me and follow me out of the cove.

I pull harder on the oars, driving my boat against the current, through the frozen sea, larger pieces of ice diverting me, resisting, but unable to turn me from my path. A gentle wind begins to blow against my back, casting my hair into my face, my eyes, sticking to the sweat already formed on my forehead.

My oars fight to find purchase in the sea, scraping atop shattered sheets of ice that ripple and convulse at my passing, however slow and labored.

My progress is halted with a jolt as I meet a sheet of ice too wide and far too obstinate to be turned aside. I lift my head and look to my lands, fallow and gray. No smoke rises from my chimney, no hides hang drying. I set my teeth and plant my feet, pulling against the oars with all the strength I can muster. As I strain against the ice, fragments of the sheets around me bump and jostle, knocking against the hull and each other. I reset my grip and again pull on the oars, my breath hissing out from between my teeth, and I watch as the sea ice gathers around my boat, crowding in close, seeking to resume its previous form, a solid sheet, impassable by boat, yet unable to bear my weight on foot.

I rage at this and throw myself against the oars, dragging them through the field of ice closing in around me. I lean back on them, my joints cracking and popping, the oarlocks screaming in protest. I can't bear to turn and set my gaze upon the sheet of ice in my path, and so again I throw myself backward, the flesh of my hands tearing as I stare at my home, dead and empty, lost to the cold. My boat groans in protest of my efforts, every board and plank straining and creaking, as desperate to let go as I am to hold on.

The ice seizes the oars, refusing to release them, refusing to give even an inch's passage. I clench my eyes shut tightly, and again I throw myself against the oars, redoubling my grip against the betrayal my blood presents, the slickened wood threatening to escape me at any moment, and then it happens: an oar snaps, and with it the oarlock. I tumble backwards against the mast, still clinging to the handle of the oar and rising just in time to see the splintered shaft of my oar slip under the ice.

I rise and seize my remaining oar, yanking it free of the clinging ice and raise it over my head, crying out my fury and despair as I turn and bring it down on the sheet of ice at the bow, feeling the impact shudder up my arms as I'm sprayed with tiny bits of ice, my desperate attack having only the meanest effect on the ice. Again and again I raise the oar high and bring it down, my cries breaking down to choked sobs as my desperation sees my confidence flag.

I set the blade of the oar down on the ice and lean my head against my hands, still gripping the handle. The fog of my breath swirls about me in the new stillness, my heavy, shuddering breathing the only sound to my ears.

Then I think I hear her voice whisper past my ear before that too is taken from me, snatched up and carried off to sea by a sudden breeze from across the ice. I raise my head, now smeared with the sticky blood from my hands, and I swear I can feel a lingering warmth across my cheek, half-remembered as a lover's sigh upon waking, fading as quickly as it came, taking my strength with it.

My shoulders sag and my head bows, but then without a sound the oar slips through the ice and into the sea, loosing itself from my grip and disappearing into the brine where the vast sheet of ice before me has split and gently opened, a path to the bosom of the sea gradually widening as I look on.

I raise my sail and see it ripple slowly in the gentle breeze, filling reluctantly and coaxing my boat forward through the ice to the open sea. I seat myself at the rear of my boat, my hand on the tiller, and close my eyes, letting the breeze play across my face as it slowly carries me out of sight of land.

4 March 2015

Inheritors

The haft of the axe feels familiar in my hands as I look out through the darkness.  The rain lashes against me, but I was soaked to the skin the moment I walked outside, and I don't imagine I can get much wetter. Lightning slithers across the sky, touching down somewhere to the east, somewhere in the valley, and for a moment all the land is bathed in a pale light.  I can see the fence to the corral is broken.  I'll have to see to that tomorrow.  In the meantime the animals are too scared to run away.  Part of me wishes I knew what that felt like.

I take one step, then another, wringing the axe handle in my fists, and then the thunder rolls across the plain, shaking my heart loose in my chest.  I feel it through my feet, in my bones, before I hear it, louder than anything in years, rumbling up through the valley like a megaphone, the mouth of some demon cast down to this purgatory with the rest of us.

Another bolt of lightning arcs through the sky and that's when I see the tracks, an uneven stride betrayed by the footprints, unnatural deep, in the mud, filled with water, already half-drowned in the deluge.  I tighten my grip and turn around slowly in the yard, eyes narrowed against the rain.  Not that it matters.  The land is bathed in darkness and me right along with it, the only light coming from my doorway, weak and tentative, casting shadows more than illuminating.

But then I see it, off to the east, below the horizon somewhere, somewhere in the valley where that lightning hit, there's a glow, faint and cold, but it's there, otherworldly and altogether unpleasant.  It's not much of a light, on a clear night with the moon out you wouldn't see it at all, but in this black it's shining clear across the plain, through the rain and right into my soul.  Then I see the figures moving with their damaged gaits exaggerated against the glow, casting shadows a mile long behind them.  First one, then two.  Then five.  Moving towards the glow, moving down into the valley, and I am afraid.

I hear a heavy footstep on the threshold behind me and I stand stock-still, and suddenly I know that the axe I carry is as useless as the arms that hold it, dead and numb.  I close my eyes tight, trying to will this fate away, but I know better.  Nobody dies in their bed anymore.

It steps down from the porch and I can hear it breathing.  My vision goes white and I think for a second about my end, but then the thunder crashes and, jarring every thought from my head and all there is is the rain and the fear and that thing beside me, slogging through the mud, breathing, breathing.

It moves past me, heading off into the storm towards the valley and that glow, and soon its sound is lost in the night.

Long after it's gone I'm still standing there, breathing slow and hard, and I turn back to my house and walk to it, never again turning my gaze to the valley and that terrible glow.  I bar the door behind me and set the lamp on the table.  I sit with my back to the wall, the axe across my knees, and I wait.



9 December 2013

Joe Cocker

I'm on my feet before Sly gets a word out.  Jack's in trouble, he says, and I'm out the door with him in tow.

He tells me the rest on the way.  What he knows of it anyway.  Jack talked a lot about getting out, but Jack talked a lot about everything.  Talk is cheap, but getting out is something else.  We all know that.  That's the price you pay.  Or one of them, anyway.

Getting in's the easy part, but even that's not that easy.  You typically need to have brains if you want to make it in this business, Sly being an exception, and if you have brains you tend to stay away from this business.  There are other considerations, but a handful of brains and a willingness to turn them off when the time comes are what I would consider two prerequisites for employment in this field.  After that, a capacity for violence, loyalty, ambition, these are all good things.  But hardly necessary.

We're flying across town, headed to a brownstone on the west side by the tracks.  Sly's telling me Jack's big plan blew up, his way out fell apart, and everything's going to pieces.  The plan itself was an issue from the start, and I'm not surprised he never discussed it with me.  If you want to get out in a method that leaves you breathing and breathing free air, then a plan is fundamental.  Planning was always Jack's strong suit, so I'm surprised it went tits up until I hear the details.

That's the other thing: you typically feel the need to pull one last job, a big one, on your way out.  You need to be sure you'll never have to work again, mostly because you'll never be able to.  You won't be able to trade under your given name, so you have to figure something else out.  If you want to throw some paperwork together and pump gas under the name of Scott Peterson or something to make ends meet, be my guest.  As for me, when my time comes, I intend to disappear and whoop it up until the money runs out.  Which, if I do it right, it shouldn't.

The other issue with leaving is you'll find that interested parties might have an issue with you pulling up stakes after making yourself a nice living under their protection, or at their expense, depending.  Some of these parties might feel like you owe them something, whether that's a lifetime's worth of ill-gotten gains, or, say, all the blood in your body.  It's easy to make enemies in this business, and hard to live with them.  That's why you want to have friends, friends that'll fly out of a diner at a thousand miles an hour when they hear you're shot up on the west side after pulling some damn fool nonsense more likely to get you killed than get you a way out.

We pull up to the brownstone next to the tracks and jump out, engine running and doors open: I don't plan on being here any longer than it takes to drag Jack down here and throw him in the back seat, and Sly's wild-eyed, but I can tell he's on the same page.  We're not going to have a lot of time to get this done, not in this neighborhood, not with lookouts calling us out as soon as we crossed Wentworth.  But these are the things you do.

We take the stairs two, three at a time, calling out for Jackie Boy the whole time.Up on three the door's cracked and I crash through it, Sly right behind me.  We tear through the place (dead man on terrible green shag, another halfway out of the bathroom) and I hear Jack call my name from one of the bedrooms.

I burst into the room and stop short.  First thing I see is Jack, one foot on the windowsill, curtains blowing around him.  Second thing is Bernie, Beautiful Bernie, in bed, not moving, the girl with him hanging halfway out, head on the floor, she's not moving either.  More blood than I've seen in a while.  This was not the plan.  This is a death sentence.  You don't get to walk away after something like this.  I can't tell if there's a train coming or if it's the blood rushing in my ears, but I can hear the footsteps coming up the stairs, five, six, a hundred guys, here for vengeance.

Jack gives me a sad smile, blood on his teeth.  Don't think less of me, he says, and he's out the window and gone.

Not a bad plan.



11 November 2013

Old time romance

We watch long enough for the whole building to go up, the flames casting shadows on the sky a thousand feet high, before we disappear, almost before you can hear the sirens.



10 October 2012

Plans and promises

The white and purple flowers shiver in the breeze, just out of reach.  I wish I could tell you what they are, what they're called, but I've never seen them before today.  I suppose that's not much of a regret to have, not when compared to the laundry list that's been rolling through my mind for the last hour, but in a way this one stings more than the others.  I'm not one to cry in public, and I suppose this counts, so I try to keep it to myself.  It's a good way to go crazy, always acting like somebody's watching, and I always figured in the end it would be for the best to stay well-behaved, and yet here I am.  So much for that.

I try to work my way closer to the flowers, but my legs aren't cooperating and I couldn't drag myself along with one arm anyways, even if I wasn't spilling out everywhere.  The shivers are weaker now, fewer and farther between, too.  Cold comfort, I guess, but I'll take it.  I'm a little surprised I'm not colder, what with the dew and the dark and that tugging breeze, but again, I'll take it.  At least it's quiet, peaceful.

I think about her and how she'd hate me if she heard this, how she'd tell everyone who'd listen, and I think I'm glad at this point she won't hear a thing about it.  There's no one left to breathe a word of this, this absolute disaster, to her, to cause that crooked smile to drop, slow, to introduce doubt and fear to her eyes and denial to her heart and lips.  It's better this way and I suppose, somewhere I chose and choose to avert my gaze from, I always knew it would be like this, and I think in some way I welcome it.

My breathing is slow and shallow and the blood is thick and sticky on my hand.  I'd say I've given up on anyone coming along and finding me, but I honestly never entertained the possibility.  Besides, that's a great way to ruin a moment, a sunrise like this, some idiot yammering on, just spewing noise and confusion and stupidity, and I'd like to enjoy this morning, to the best of my ability, and preserve a bit of quiet dignity, if at all possible.  I wish I could say that was the reason I've been so quiet, suffering in silence and all, but there are practicalities at play that have a way of relieving me of my choice in the matter.  I guess I'm just glad I can still appreciate what poetry there's left for me at this point.

I'm watching the sunrise that should be breaking over the horizon, watching the sky that should be easing itself towards day, shafts of sunlight burning off the mist, bringing warmth and light into the world once more, but instead it's getting dimmer and I still can't quite reach those flowers, turning to face the dawn.



9 October 2012

Revealed by degree

We roll into town around midday, the boy still bleeding in the back.  I look through the dust-caked windshield and take in the main drag, roofs hanging over walkways casting shadows pitch black compared to the glare of the sand, almost white.  I check the pistol again and stow it, the other one under the dash in case anyone gets too close while I'm gone.

"I'll be right back," I tell her and jump out of the cab.  She latches the door behind me almost before I hit the ground.  She's a good kid; she knows what to do.

The sand's so hot I can feel it through my boots.  Used to be you could still see patches of asphalt here and there, traces of ancient roads that once stretched from horizon to horizon, roads the masters of this world built before turning it into a cinder, still crackling and hissing in the sun, a perpetual desert, ash covering everything the sand can't.  This world was a different place not so long ago.  Long enough the little ones never knew it, but not so long ago as to be lost completely.  Most of those you meet now can't remember the way it was, or won't, anyway.  I suppose I understand that.  The ones that could remember often found they couldn't forget, couldn't force this new world to make sense and couldn't find a place in it.  Most of them have managed to find their way out of it by now.

A moment to stretch my back is about all I can stand out in the sun, so I make my way up onto one of the walkways and let my eyes adjust to the shade.  The walkway runs off into the distance, stopping suddenly at the charred bones of a house or shop.  I can't imagine what anyone'd be selling anymore, but I suppose opportunity springs eternal, even if nothing else does.  The walkway across the road is battered, with loose boards popping up, twisted and gnarled, beneath holes rent in the roof, shafts of light stabbing through like puncture wounds.

There's no one outside, but there wouldn't be, this time of day.  I make my way down the row of buildings, each shabbier than the last.  A dry decay has settled into this town, beat down and on its last legs, but it's still a good step above the wasteland stretching out for eternity in every direction beyond these dessicated buildings.  Though at least out there you can see death coming for you, striding across the sands, casting a shadow a mile long, ready to swallow you up.  In the towns, in the ruins, there's death and danger around every corner and in every hidey-hole: cutthroats and rapers, slavers, the diseased.  Cannibals.  It seems sad that nowadays the safest life is the solitary one.  If no one gets close, no one can hurt you.  No one can sniff out your weakness, your fear, your need, and turn it on you.  So you keep to yourself, keep moving, and stay away from the settlements.  Except when you need something, which we do.

They're not likely to have medicine here, The good stuff, the old stuff, or the herbs and rags you find people that swear by, people missing eyes, people with weeping sores, people clutching themselves, racked with pain that won't abate.  You have to trust it, they say: It's the power of belief.  Well I don't and they do, and look at them.

The windows are battered and pitted, like the rest of the building, and so caked with sand and dust it flakes away under my touch.  Even wiped clean I can't see inside, the darkness on the other side of the glass is impenetrable, hiding God knows what.  The twisted shapes lurking within are creatures worse than any that ever strode the earth.  Ghosts of decent men, driven beyond reason, molded and pounded into horrible new configurations, appropriate inheritors of this world of the dead and the dying.

I pound on the door and wait, any sound from within lost beneath the hiss of the unrelenting wind.  I pound again and reach for the knob, but the door jerks open before I can touch it, open just a sliver, just wide enough for the barrel of a rifle to slink out.

"You get back in your rig and you get out of here."

The eyes behind the rifle are wide and wild, ringed by crow's feet.  I tell her that we need medicine, that the boy is hurt, dying, and we need their help.

She doesn't falter, doesn't blink.  "We don't want no trouble.  Now whatever you brought here, you take it away with you."

I understand her decision.  I imagine I would do the same thing.  But all the same, it fills me with a great sadness.  We've all of us become new beings to suit this new world, twisted reflections of the new landscape and the horrors it holds, our wickedness maybe not so new-found as some of us would like to believe, revealed by the same scouring wind that ground down the great towers and monuments to ourselves, leaving waste and ruin, girder ribcages with steel arms outstretched, broken and asymmetrical, clawing feebly at the sky.  It seems some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: that we have the ability to visit such evil upon each other marks us as deserving of that same evil.  Our capacity to inflict suffering earns us the suffering we find ourselves able to inflict.

"You wish death upon the boy," I tell her, and back away from the door.  I take another look at the battered remains of this town, this little pocket of humanity struggling to survive despite itself, and I walk back to the truck, the little one opening the door for me.  I climb in and meet the girl's hopeful stare, but she should know better.  I take a look back at the boy.  He's pale, sleeping or unconscious.  Medicine wouldn't have helped him anyway.



4 September 2012

Made of stone

We steal up the steps and into the church, the doors swinging lazily, refusing to close.  I'm confident no one saw, but she's convinced.  I don't know if the shadows here are deep enough for her to hide, to feel safe, but if not here, then where?  This is supposed to be some kind of sanctuary, but I can't tell if those eyes are looking down on us with pity or accusation. Hundreds of eyes in hundreds of faces, staring down from pedestals and windows, not so different, as it turns out, from the very same eyes and stares that drove us in here, into the dark.

She's breathing hard, a knife edge on each quick gasp.  She won't look at me, and I know why.  I leave her to her thoughts and walk deeper into the church.  My hand hovers over the holy water font, miming the forgotten gesture with a mind all its own.  I look into the yawning dark and see no one, no one to cast us out, to see us for what we may be, to hold up that mirror that we've worked so hard to convince ourselves is distorted, twisted.  It seems we may find peace here after all.

The door slams in its frame, knocking itself open again, the resonating boom echoing through the church, repeated a thousand times, the voice of judgement, perhaps.  But the sound diminishes, and disappears.  This place holds no terrors for us, no great unknown.  We'll be safe here if only because it's empty.

I draw her deeper into the church, slowed to her stilted pace, and keep my arm around her.  When she does look up, her face is streaked with tears.  It was before, too, and my response, my rage, is to blame for our flight, our need to run and hide and not be seen.  Her tears have always had that effect on me and I have never seen it as something that needs to be controlled or tempered.  If she does she's never said so.  Something leads me to believe it's a welcome response, proof somehow that the world still makes some sort of broken sense.  And if she needs that from me, if I can provide some bent compass rose to her, then all the better.  I'm happy to do it.

But this time her tears weaken me, and I hold her tight.  I don't know quite how to do this, but I try and find that she seems to approve of the results, though I feel awkward and weak, uncomfortable and embarrassed.  It's stupid of me, and I know it, but there's nothing for me to destroy here, nothing to break in order to fix her, so I have to do my best in unfamiliar territory.  There's a weakness in her that I love, that I find myself protecting like a flame, holding it gently, against everything else there is that seems to want to crush it.  Sometimes I'm able to open my hands and let it go, to let it soar and wheel through the air, reveling in a beauty I can't detect or fathom.  When it flies high enough to leave me behind I'm left with traces, dust on my fingers from a moth's wings, sitting silent on the edge of the bed, paint peeling around me.

But it crashes to earth, it always does.  The gravity of this place is just too much to escape, no matter how light your soul is, how overwhelming your need to be free.  So I rush back to protect it, to put it back together and let it heal and forget.

Her breathing is even now, and slow, punctuated by the sniffles of a child.  I know she didn't want to come here, but where else was there to go?  Soon she'll lean against me and we'll make this place our own.  Her eyes will close and I'll lie beside her.



1 August 2012