I wait for the spider to attack its prey. I wait for the sky to fall. I wait for something to happen. Anything that will alleviate this dreadful feeling I have. I’d like some relief from this horrible sensation that possesses my body. Something is about to happen here but I can’t imagine what it will be. All I know is I can feel it in my bones. Wait – forget all that. I know what’s going to happen; it happens every night around this time. It’s the feeling that I’ll once again be part of a weather disturbance that seems to accumulate around our dining room table.

Perhaps you’ve guessed –  it’s dinner time at our house. We live in a tiny little town called Hone (not to be confused with ‘home’). Dinner is always eaten together around our little oak table in the dining room, and no doubt, like every other night before this one, the temperature will rise and you just never know what’s next. I wait for tonight’s climatic changes. It usually starts with my brother Francis. Mom says he’s different. He sure is different, just ask anyone. Sometimes I wish something really horrible would happen, like my brother would choke on his broccoli and die. Or my dad would tell my mom he’s leaving her for Mrs. Bensmold next door. Or that my other brother Benjamin would turn into a frog or something. But nothing thrilling like that ever happens around here. It’s usually just another meal we all eat together – my parents, my brothers and my Aunt Gabby. Yet for some reason, it seems to me, there’s always some kind of charge in the air that causes everyone at the table to go crazy. It seems we can’t eat one meal together without some sort of fight.

The dinner is always prepared by my mother; she’s the Queen of The Kitchen. My mother mostly talks on the phone while she’s cooking, helping some poor soul, as she’d put it. She helps people who have problems. My Mom is like the town shrink. I wish she would shrink Francis. We should have a sign on our front door like that Peanuts character Lucy. My mom’s kinda like her.

My Dad sits in the living room while Mom talks on the phone and gets the dinner ready. He doesn’t mind though, he has his drink and his newspaper to preoccupy him until we’re ready to sit at the table. My dad is home from a long day on the road. That’s what he does, he sells stuff on the road. Not literally, you know, but he travels to different places selling things. I really don’t know what he sells but I’m pretty sure it’s important. My brothers are in their rooms probably listening to the radio. That’s their favorite thing to do. I help my mom with the setting of the table because, well, nobody else will and I worry that I’ll be evicted from my room if I don’t help around the house.

My mother hangs up the phone and grabs a drink as well and makes her way into the living room where my father is relaxing. Her apron flaps as she walks and her nylons make that swish-swish sound. Cigarette smoke, like a shroud, engulfs her as she moves, following alongside her like a constant companion. I hear her trying to get my father’s attention but he’s engrossed in his newspaper. Then I hear them discussing the day’s events – who said what, who went where, that sort of stuff. I listen but usually don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t say anything, I just do my job and keep quiet while they talk. I’m sorta like the maid.

Eventually my father calls everyone for dinner. Nobody moves. Everyone ignores the call, ensconced in their own little projects. My father doesn’t respond well to this reaction from his children so he yells at them to hurry up and get downstairs for dinner. He yells very loud, and then my mother yells at him to stop yelling. At this point I know that the temperature is going to change. I try to ignore my parents’ arguing. I can’t though, it’s too hard. And like I said, the temperature’s rising. My brothers are younger than I am and they forget sometimes that there are rules. I wish my dad would take that into consideration, the fact that they’re young and immature. One of my brothers is also autistic which really adds some heat to the scene. But Dad is a stickler for rules, no matter what. Rule number one is always listen to your father. When he calls you, you’d better be standing in front of him within seconds.

Everyone is at the table. I wish I were somewhere else, frankly. I wish I were dancing with a movie star in the house we own in the Hollywood hills. Dinner always begins with grace. We take turns saying grace and tonight it’s my brother Ben’s turn. He’s ready for the assignment and we manage to get through grace without a scene. It’s not the same when Francis has his turn, believe me, but that’s another story. We listen to the conversation my parents and my Aunt Gabby are having. We’re not to participate. We’re only kids after all. We aren’t asked any questions about our day or what we did in school. Children are to be seen and not heard and sometimes it’s better if they’re not even seen. That would be rule number two I suppose.

Like a tennis tournament, our heads bob back and forth from Mother to Father as their conversation begins to heat up again. I try to ignore it. I try to fantasize about my house in Hollywood but to no avail. The tournament is now in full swing. “Get your elbows off the table, Francis.” “Boys, please don’t chew with your mouth open.” “Benjamin, elbows! How often do I have to say this?”

My brothers are oblivious to what they’re saying. Am I the only one that can hear them?

“Francis, stop that, it’s disgusting. Rita, are you paying attention to how your boys are behaving at the table?”

“Oh James, stop pestering the boys, they’re trying to eat their supper.” Francis and Benjamin have my mother wrapped around their little fingers.

Now the climatic change is about to shift once again. My father slams his hands on the table to show us who’s boss. It usually works too. We usually get it when he does that; the message is loud and clear.

“Oh sure Rita, we’ll just let our kids go out into the world and be pigs. That’s fine with you, is it?”

“Oh James, just stop it, please.” She’s about to start crying. My mother has my father wrapped around her finger. “You see the pattern here, don’t you? I can’t take this every night, I just can’t. Can we not have just one night without this sort of chaos going on? Just stop it, all of you!”

My mother’s screaming at my father, and the rest of us, for that matter. You’re included even though you had nothing to do with it, with what just transpired. It’s your fault that Francis and Ben are pigs, though you played no part in the drama. You may as well have because one wrong look and you can have wrath fall upon you. Apparently everyone sitting at the table is guilty of making Mom cry. Even Aunt Gabby. Does Mom not know that I was sitting perfectly still, minding my own business the whole time? Sitting quietly, making friends with the potatoes and carrots? I didn’t want to be part of this so-called human hurricane in the dining room.

The atmosphere is heavy now and I just want to run and hide. There’s no way out though. You’re stuck in your chair until you’re excused. My mother is still crying. Finally she gets up and leaves the table. By the time dinner is over my body is so tense it feels like a cement block. I’m afraid to look up. I don’t want to catch anyone’s attention, if you know what I mean. What transpires at supper time is enough to make me cringe. I’d like to have a fit like Mom but she’d probably kill me if I did.

“Alright children, you may leave the table. Elly, you’re in charge. Make sure the dishes are done. Aunt Gabby, will you supervise please?” Having given instructions, my father leaves the table and goes upstairs to see if my mother is still crying. I can hear whimpers coming from her room. If I were a weather person I would have called what I just witnessed a substantial hurricane, the atmosphere heavy and tense enough to qualify as a level ten. The storm subsides just as it always does.

“Always rinse before washing, Elly,” my aunt tells me in no uncertain terms. I mean, how hard can it be to wash dishes? Yet every night I get step-by-step instructions on how to wash dishes by my ninety-something-year-old aunt. I can’t bring myself to tell her she’s given this lesson to me a hundred times before.

Aunt Gabby lives with us. She has a small room at the back of the house. She has everything she needs in that room and could manage her own dinners if she wanted to, but she chooses to join the chaos at five o’clock every night. I often wonder why she chooses to eat with us amidst all the fighting and carrying on? I would gladly give up my place if I could. Sometimes I think she enjoys the entertainment every evening. Other than that she pretty much sticks to herself. My friends are afraid of her and so am I, for that matter. She’s like really old. I feel like Cinderella in the house. I seem to be doing all the cleaning and looking after things.

My aunt joins my parents, who are now in the living room watching the news. My parents have made up and I suppose the boys are safely tucked away in their rooms. I embrace the peace and quiet. I find my way up to my room to do my homework.
Often I find myself daydreaming about living a different life, the kind of life that wouldn’t include my wicked brothers Francis and Benjamin. Maybe my parents wouldn’t fight so much if they weren’t around. Life would definitely be simpler without them.
It would be so amazing to be the only child. I wouldn’t have to worry about those kind of fights breaking out all the time. I know if my parents knew what I was thinking about my brothers and about them, they’d kill me. I try to put those thoughts out of my mind. I often wonder if my parents can read my mind.

“Elly, what are you doing?” my mom yells from downstairs.

“Nothing Mom, why?” I didn’t say anything. They CAN read my mind, I knew it.

“Elly, have you done your homework? What are those brothers of yours up to?”

“I’m doing my homework now Mom, and they’re both asleep.”

“Alright, well your father and I are going out for a while. Good night, dear.”

“G’night Mom.” No kiss, no hug, just a ‘good night dear’. Well, it’s not like that hasn’t happened before. 

I feel bad about all the stuff I was thinking about, especially the stuff about Francis and Ben. They’re pretty much dead to the world now, they will have forgotten the storm that passed through this house, that passes through on a regular basis. I haven’t though. That’s why I’m telling you, I guess. I could be considered some kind of family weather-person, predicting disturbances in the family a part of my job. It’s just too bad nobody listens. They don’t understand that unlike the weather channel, I can usually predict with a one hundred percent accuracy when and where the storm will hit. Like tonight, right here in Hone. A hurricane passed through and nobody noticed. Another such storm will pass though here again, and no doubt I will predict the outcome of that one as well. I’m getting pretty good at storm watching. I’d prefer to not have this super power but what can you do. If you have it, you have it.

I keep looking ahead for what will happen next – in a little house, on a little street, in a little town called Hone.

Photo Credit

Photo is by Martha Farley – All Rights Reserved

Speaking of greed. I’m stood on the street corner, waiting for the light to turn. The polar gusts somehow coil icy tendrils into my heavy winter jacket, leaving me shivering. A pathetic excuse for a Santa swings a bell that sounds as if someone had dropped shards of glass into a cheap tin cup. His drooping red sack of a coat is tarnished with soot and enhances a skeletal frame, he didn’t even have the decency to stuff a pillow under his shirt.

I glare at him, not hiding my disdain. Beside him, a handwritten sign, glued beneath a cracked plastic bowl wired to an old shower curtain rod might fool a distracted passerby, but not me. There’s a pitiful pile of coins at the bottom, like he couldn’t even be bothered. This guy’s a fraud. I should report him to the police. How despicable, a thieving Santa.

He’s not even wearing boots, just those fake wrap-around pieces of felt one sees in children’s plays. What a joke.

As the crowd surges forward, I catch a glimpse of his shoes, they’re full of holes, taped and covered in black marker. Blue skin, tight against bony ankles, protrudes above the shoes.

The light flashes green and I’m swept across the street. Grateful a few minutes later to be snug in my warm office and holding a mug decorated with eight tiny reindeer. Tendrils of steam wafts up, promising a hot cup of wakeup.

I pull the shutters down, but all day, whenever I hear the icy pellets rattle my windowpanes, I think about corner fraud Santa. I’d spent five minutes outside, dashing from parking lot to office, wrapped in a heavy jacket, grateful to get in out of the elements. Is raggedy Santa still on the corner, I wonder.

Eight hours later, when I step out onto the streets, colourful city lights twinkle against newly fallen snow. It’s almost up to the top of my low hikers. Heavy flakes, thick as blobs of yogurt, are still falling. I’m buffeted by shoulders, arms and hips by the masses of shoppers as they stream by me. Inside my thick toque the noise of the city is muffled, but, as I move closer to the corner, I hear the pathetic sound of broken glass.

Santa’s still there, arms wrapped around his body, hands covered in black socks. He’s stamping, almost prancing, trying to keep his feet from freezing. I hurry past him, he’s huddled close to a brick wall, his only windbreak. Recalling my self-righteous glare from this morning, I drop my gaze, the memory makes my cheeks sting more than the cold.

I hesitate at the parking entrance, then instead of going in, I continue toward a nearby discount army and navy store. Its windows stream friendly golden light, promising warmth and the pungent aroma of gun oil. Once inside, I scramble up and down aisles, guessing at sizes and filling my bags. Santa doesn’t even look up when I stop in front of him. “Here,” I say holding out two large sacks. “Put these on before you lose your hands and feet.”

He jerks and reaches out instinctively; his mouth widens into an oh. There’s a sturdy pair of boots inside. Two pairs of woolen socks, heavy black mittens, snow pants and a dark green scarf. Water floods his eyes; a perfect droplet clings to an eyelash as if reluctant to fall. Or maybe its already frozen in place.

“Oh. And I almost forgot…” I pull a red toque, trimmed in white fur, from my jacket pocket. I’d stolen it from our window display as I was leaving. “Santa needs a hat.”

His mouth moves but there’s no sound. Tears sparkle against his white cheeks, but before he can speak, I turn and run.

Merry friggin Christmas, I think as I make a beeline for my car. 

Photo Credit

Photo is courtesy of the author

Jan stared at the doctor’s old wrinkled face as she pondered the question, wondering what the hell she was doing here in the first place.

“I’m afraid I’ll become someone or something I don’t like,” she replied without emotion.

“What do you mean, like a rabid dog? Your mother?”

Rabid dog? My mother? Is that your shtick, buddy?? Maybe YOU should see a shrink. “No, I’m afraid I’m not who I think am.” She looked at him, his face withered like an old piece of used-up paper. I could fold him up and stick him in my pocket, carry him around with me. Whenever I needed advice I could just pull him out. Instant karma. She laughed to herself. Oh god, maybe I AM crazy. 

“Why are you afraid you don’t know who you are?

“Pardon, what was the question?” Stay on track, Jan.

“Why are you afraid you don’t know who you are? A lot of people your age have problems with identity.”

Identity was one issue, depression another. Self-esteem ranked up there with both of them. She dealt with them all on a daily basis. If that wasn’t enough, she lived in a household that screamed dysfunctional. Oh man, why had she agreed to see this doctor anyway? 

“It’s like sometimes I feel like this nice person who everyone likes. Then all of a sudden I feel like this other person, someone who isn’t very nice, if you know what I mean.”

“Hmmm, interesting.”

“You know Doc, the Indians of the southwest believed that some spirits were shape-shifters and they could become animals, other sprits or even other people. Sometimes I feel like that. I feel like I’m a shape-shifter.”

“Are you aboriginal?” 

“No.” Jan was starting to get fed up with this guy. Jan Spickowitz.  Hardly an aboriginal, Doc.

“Well my dear, perhaps you need to relax more, get some exercise. Do you need more pills? Have the ones I prescribed run out?”

“No, the pills are good.” In truth, she never took them.

Jan sat tight-lipped for the rest of the session. She didn’t want to talk to some ancient doctor who knew little or nothing about being a teen on the brink of discovery. All right, perhaps not discovery. But certainly she was on the brink of something. Maybe a nervous breakdown. Teenagers were known to have nervous breakdowns and behavioral problems like rebelliousness. Jan wished she could have gone that route but being rebellious was too scary. Who knows what would happen to a girl once she gave up her innocence? Oh god, she could end up losing her virginity and then what? The sky would fall for sure. So yes, rebelliousness was out. Drugs? No way. Too dangerous. Her brother told her that people he knew died of drug overdoses. No, Jan wasn’t ready to die. At least not yet. Although death did fascinate her. That was the issue she should be discussing; her absolute obsession with dying and death. Why it so appealed to her, she didn’t know. But from early on, death just seemed to be a very interesting topic. Nobody liked to talk about it. If someone in Jan’s family died it was all hush-hush. Nobody ever said, “So-and-so died”. It was either “They passed away” or “They’re gone”. Gone where? That’s the big question, isn’t it? But right now Jan had other issues to deal with, like getting this session over with before lunch. All of a sudden she was hungry. It was time to leave. She got up from the chair and started for the door, aware the doctor didn’t seem to notice. Maybe she was a shape-shifter, shifting herself into an invisible teenager. Poof and she was gone.

Years later, as an adult, Jan saw another doctor. He was pleasant enough, but at over three-hundred pounds she didn’t think he had any business talking to her about addictions. She often found herself thinking back, looking into the abyss that was her past. She believed everyone looked back, into that wide chasm filled with all the hurts, the screams of anger, the pain and the hopes. That chasm that is the past and the future and the now, all thrown into one giant gorge. She recalled so vividly her desire to be a shape-shifter, her intrigue and curiosity about the American Indian’s pursuit of truth. That was all Jan wanted. She wanted people to speak the truth. That young girl was so lost, trying so desperately to navigate through the emotions of growing up without a spirit guide, without someone to tell her “Hey, it’s okay, this will pass”. Jan now embraces that young girl. She keeps her close. That young girl erupts sometimes at the most inopportune times but Jan doesn’t care, she’s glad to have her around. She keeps Jan grounded and real. Jan often marvels at the fact she’d gotten this far in life being obsessed with death. She always thought she’d be dead at thirty. 

Eventually, Jan found she didn’t need a spirit guide. She didn’t need to be a shape-shifter to survive in the world. It took her thirty years to figure it out, but all she needed was the inner strength that was her. She just needed to trust in herself and in her own truths. Now all she had to do was stay alive long enough to enjoy her revelations.

Jan didn’t know what brought on the morbid thoughts of her past, her vulnerability and innocence, but she reveled in the memories. Over time, she became her own spirit guide. The old Jan and the new Jan had joined together, like an old married couple. They bicker, they fight, they share a great sense of humor. And sometimes they think they’re shape-shifters.

Some might think Jan has lost it, but if you looked closely, you’d see she’s found the one thing that makes her truly happy: she’s found her true and wonderful self.

Photo Credit
Photo courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

They’d been married less than five years. Now he was gone. His death was such a shock to Marian. Her parents tried everything to keep her moving, coaxing and pleading with her to at least leave the house now and then. But she was stuck, it seemed. Stuck in a celluloid world, alone with her Ben, whom she missed so very much.

“Why? Why did this happen??” she screamed into the air. She didn’t receive any answers. Just then, the phone rang. “Oh, what now?” She angrily picked it up. “Hello? Yes.” 

“We just wanted to let you know a representative will be in your —” The guy never had a chance. Marian smashed the receiver down onto the cradle.

Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” was playing on the stereo. She had turned the sound off on the television so she could just watch Ben, watch him laugh and dance and hug her and their friends. She watched as he danced with his parents, her parents, with her nieces and nephews. She cried. Grief overtook her. Like a shroud, it covered her in black. In darkness.

There was a knock at the door. Marian got up slowly and walked over.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Mar. Let me in, I need to see you. I want to make sure you’re ok.”

Marian didn’t have it in her to see her friend. Not now.

“Gail, go home, I’m fine.”

“Marian, your parents and Ben’s parents are extremely worried about you. You’ve been locked away in this house for over two months. You have to get out. Are you eating?” Gail’s voice was heavy with concern.

Marian opened the door and let her friend in.

“Oh, thanks sweetie. What are you doing in here, day after day?” 

“Watching movies,” Marian replied quietly.

“Movies? What do you mean, what kind of movies?” 

“Movies of me and Ben. I feel him with me when I watch them. Like he isn’t dead. I feel like I could reach out and touch him.” Marian started to cry.

Tears spilled down Gail’s cheeks as they hugged each other. She asked Marian if she’d eaten today.

“No, I don’t know, maybe I did. Each day seems to flow into the next, like I’m here but not really here. I can’t do anything, Gail. It seems like I’m just stuck in this position. And I don’t ever want to turn the TV off because if I do, Ben will be gone for good. Forever.”

Gail motioned toward the kitchen. “Come with me, you need to eat.” 

“No, I can’t, I can’t leave Ben.” Marian’s eyes were filled with sadness and fear.

“Ok, turn the stereo off and turn the volume up. I was at this wedding too, I wouldn’t mind reminiscing with you. We can listen from the kitchen, would that be okay?”

“I guess so,” Marian answered reluctantly.

Gail took Marian’s hand and led her into the kitchen and over to the small table by the window. Marian sat down and looked out at the garden while Gail prepared something for them to eat. They could hear the sounds of laughter and music coming from the den.

“I don’t think I can go on, Gail. Without Ben. Look at the garden out there. That was his place. Everything I look at reminds me of him. The pain is just too much.” Marian looked down at her hands, fixating on her wedding rings.

“You will go on, it will just take some time. You know time heals all wounds. And Ben would want you to continue on, Mar.”

Marian sighed. “I feel so lost.” 

After dinner, the two of them went back to the den and sat side by side. The home movie was still playing, and they watched as Marian and Ben were preparing to leave the reception as newlyweds, both of them laughing and embracing friends and family. Gail and Marian held each other, crying.

Gail gently pulled away. “I’m going to have to go now, I have an early morning meeting. I want you to go to bed, okay? Promise me you’ll turn the TV off and go to bed and try to sleep. Do you want a sleeping pill? I brought some just in case.”

“No, I’m fine, you go. You’re right, I should go to bed. I’m exhausted. Thanks for coming over, and please don’t worry about me.” Marian continued to stare at the screen.

“Mar, stop,” Gail demanded. “Go to bed.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll walk you out.”

Marian closed the front door after they said their goodbyes and walked back into the den. She sat and watched the TV screen, mesmerized as it burned with love and loss. She watched the movie over and over, watching her dead husband, almost willing his celluloid self to come to her. She felt as though she, too, was being driven by some force toward her husband on the screen.

Several days later, Gail checked on Marian again. When Marian didn’t answer the door, she panicked and ran around the back. On instinct, she threw a rock at the French doors, flipped the lock and ran toward the den. She could hear the party; the music playing. She recognized Ben and Marian’s wedding song. When she got to the den she stood, stunned, frozen in time and space. Marian was on the television screen, waving. Is she waving at me? Gail wondered. She searched the house from top to bottom. Marian was nowhere to be found.

“Yes, I’d…I’d like to report a missing person,” Gail stammered into the phone. She was standing by the television when she heard what sounded like Marian’s voice, saying “Don’t bother looking, Gail.” Gail stared at the screen, at the two young newlyweds, happy and content, with a whole lifetime ahead of them. In a celluloid world.

Photo Credit

Photo courtesy of Pexel

I hail from a small town out west. I fought in the war; the war to end all wars. I took all my pent-up rage and fury and joined the forces that fought Hitler. I was there, fighting in the trenches and on the battlefields. I had good reason, you might say. Her name was Hannah.

Hannah was a young woman from my neighborhood; a beautiful dancer, whose mind and body worked together gracefully and made glorious music. I didn’t know her very well, you see, but I loved her just the same. I watched her from afar, watched as she carried herself with such grace down miserable, dowdy streets, wishing I had the nerve to ask her out on a date. I never did, yet in my adolescent head, she and I were lovers; passionate and volcanic.

She danced ballet, and I saw her numerous times with her little pink shoes in her hand. I wanted to see her perform so badly, but I never got the chance due to circumstances beyond my control. Yet in my head, she danced with such poise and grace, and I would imagine her body moving ever-so-elegantly across the stage, like a work of art in motion.

When the war broke out, everyone in our town started talking about joining up, how they were going to help crush Hitler and his war machine. Yet when Hannah’s family walked down the street, people would cross to the other side just to avoid them. My heart sank for her as I took in her beautiful dark hair, noticing how her soft brown eyes would turn down. So I joined the war effort, for her, for Hannah; for this unspeakable love I had for her.

I fought a war based on prejudice and hate. During that time, I lost my innocence and a lifetime of hopes and dreams, for nothing would ever look and feel the same. I learned that to survive, one must divide and conquer; that might did overrule right. I tell myself I am bitter, that I fought a war for a woman I loved and never knew. Four long years, I was away. When I returned, she was gone; vanished forever from my life. Like the dust that blew in my face, her loveliness became just that – an image, a mirage on a western street. I never got over her; Hannah is still with me after all these years. I have lived a long life, it seems, but not without hardship; not without pain. Certainly, I have not lived my life on my own terms, for Hannah haunts my every dream. Her beauty, like the classic art work of the masters, lives on in my head – ageless; timeless.

The cormorants’ story reminds me of Hannah and her people. I watch them on the lake, double-crested, large, greenish-black water birds with slender, hooked-tip bills, orange facial skin and webbed feet. They almost became extinct because of their greed, it was said. The fishermen wanted them eradicated; they claimed the cormorants’ desire to fill their bellies with fish made it hard for them to make a living. Because of what people did to this species, poisoning the water with chemicals and pesticides, the cormorants were almost lost to man’s whims. But they survived, and are back regaining their rightful place on the shores of the Great Lakes. A species that almost vanished because of ignorance, has reestablished itself once again. Did Hannah? I wonder, as I watch the slender beauty of these water birds on the lake from my deck.

I have been a fool, it seems, living a lie instead of speaking the truth. Instead of defending the rights and the freedoms of people on the street of my hometown, I went away and fought. What would it have been like if I’d had the courage to speak to her, to Hannah? To offer assistance, to comfort and support her. Like Hannah and her family, I suffered too. I suffered from the injustice of not speaking up. I suffered the shame, the pain and the blame for not being who I was – a boy, a man in love, a man who needed to express his love but found he did not have the fortitude to speak of it. Yet he had the courage to fight. I am just as guilty as those that inflicted the evil in Nazi Germany, for my foolishness kept me from the one thing I ever truly wanted my whole life: the beauty, grace and wonder that was Hannah.

Perhaps now, you silly old man, you’re suffering from dementia. Hannah was never real. I sometimes think that’s all she was, a figment of my imagination. So many years have passed between then and now. But no, she wasn’t an image in my head. She was as real as those birds on the lake. If only I could have told her I fought for her, for her people, for justice, for peace; that I fought for democracy and freedom. If only I could have told her simply, “I love you.” I never did, though, and I never felt like my life was my own. I always felt I was on automatic pilot, doing the right things at the right time but never really feeling right about any of it. Is it too late for me now? Maybe not, if someone could hear my story. If you listened to this story, you’d know that life does not always turn out the way you’ve planned. But like the crow ducks, there’s a good chance you may survive. There’s a chance you can reestablish yourself on the shores of your own ideals, your own values and desires, instead of those of the ‘fishermen’ that just want to control you.

Perhaps if I had done that so many years ago, I would be sitting here with her, with Hannah, watching her dance in her pink pointe shoes around the edges of the shore as the crow ducks fish peacefully on the water.

Photo Credit

Photo by Martha Farley – all rights reserved

Full night had descended by the time Jeri struggled to the front of the cabin. The windows were dark, and when he didn’t smell wood smoke, his heart began to race. He banged on the door. “Bobby!” In a panic, he used his mittened hands to clear the snow that had piled in front of it. “Bobby?” he called when he finally dragged the door open. “Bobby?” The cabin was like a black cave; it felt empty and stank of sick and something sour. Another burst of fear flared in the pit of his stomach. “Bobby!!”

“Err,” came a muffled voice from beneath a pile on the cot.

“Bobby?”

“Un-hunh.”

“You okay?” No answer. Jeri rushed over to the bed and found Bobby face up underneath an old burlap sack, still in his snowsuit. Up close, he was rank. “You alive?” Jeri shook his shoulder and received another grunt. “Let me find some light and get the fire started; it’s freezing in here. How long you been here, man?”Jeri asked as he reached above his head, fumbling blindly for the battered old lantern hanging from the rafters. “Here it is.” He stumbled over to the table, groping for a box of matches. He held the now-glowing lantern over his friend, and his stomach did a flip-flop. One of Bobby’s eyes was swollen shut, dried blood caked his cheek and he lay in a puddle of vomit. An almost-empty quart of whiskey glinted from under the cot.

With shaking hands, Jeri started a fire in the converted five-gallon-drum rocket stove, then filled a big pot with snow and placed it on the grill. “Hang on, buddy, I’ll getcha cleaned up and warm.” Jeri didn’t know how he was able to tend to Bobby without having to throw up himself. Man, he hated puke. He pulled Bobby’s shirt off, used the burlap sack to scoop up the worst of the mess, then threw it all outside. The snow was really starting to come down. He hurriedly unpacked the supplies and filled the toboggan with more wood before dragging it all inside.

As the fire roared in the stove, the cabin quickly warmed, and Jeri added more snow to the near-empty pot of water. Bobby hadn’t moved the whole time, and Jeri put a hand on his friend’s skin; it was still cold. He dragged the cot closer to the fire and used the growing amount of warm water in the pot to clean the blood off Bobby’s face. Afterward, he draped the snow-dampened sleeping bag over the rafters to dry before arranging it over his sleeping friend. 

Jeri cracked one eye open as grey morning light seeped in through the small window. Bobby stood with his hands to the stove, his breath hanging in heavy clouds.

“You okay?” Jeri struggled to sit.

Bobby turned, his face lost in the shadows. “Been better. When did you get here?”

“Last night. You sure were out of it.” He pointed at Bobby’s face. “You fall?”

Bobby shook his head. “Nope. The old man.”

“Oh,” Jeri said in a small voice.

Bobby touched the tape on his cheek. “You bring bandaids?”

“Electric tape. From the shelf.” Jeri pointed at their junk ledge.

“It’s really snowing out there,” Bobby said. “Had a hard time getting the door open. We’ll have to build a roof over it.”

“We got all those pallets,” Jeri suggested.

“Good idea.”

“You hungry?”

“Starving.”

Soon, they were eating bacon and eggs and drinking hot chocolate. Even though he claimed to be starving, Bobby ate sparingly, still a bit green from the day before. All morning, they played cards and read to each other from their favorite novels. In the afternoon, they decided to cut the tip off a small balsam and prop it inside a bucket and make Christmas decorations out of old tinfoil. That evening, they heated the turkey with all its fixings.

“I can’t believe you stole an entire Christmas dinner,” Bobby said as drops of gravy glistened on his chin.

“Rescued an entire Christmas dinner,” Jeri corrected.

Bobby snorted. “Well, that’s one way of looking at it.”

“I’m not kidding. It don’t matter, ‘cuz as soon as my mom got home she would’ve chucked the whole thing in the garbage and cooked three TV dinners instead.” He gave Bobby a look. “We don’t eat used food in this house,” he said, mimicking his mother.

Bobby’s mouth fell open. “You serious? She would have thrown all this out? It hasn’t been touched.” He gaped at the mashed potatoes, stuffing and turnips resting inside the tin roaster that still held most of a twenty-pound turkey. “There’s enough food here for a week!”

“Swear to god,” Jeri said and held up a hand. “We don’t do leftovers in our house.”

Despite its rocky start, it was the best Christmas either boy ever had. They laughed more than they’d ever done and when the storm eventually blew itself out, they spent several hours digging paths to the latrine and the wood pile.

“We’d better go home,” Jeri said as he warmed himself beside the stove.

Bobby looked up from the book he was reading. “Why? We have enough food to last for a few more days and we got lots of fire wood.”

“Our parents are probably worried.”

“Doubt it.”

“Maybe they’ve got a search party looking for us right now. You want someone to find this place?”

Bobby tossed his book and rolled to his feet, giving the door a quick glance as though any second it would bang open. “Maybe you’re right. ’Sides, we can always come back.”

Silently, the boys packed up and prepared for the trip home. “What do you want to do with this?” Jeri asked, holding up the leftover whisky.

“Dump it. I ain’t ever drinking again!”

Jeri looked at the brown liquid in the bottle. He thought about when he had stepped into the cold, black cabin that felt like death and was filled with a smell that made his gorge rise. “Let’s make a pact,” he said. “Me and you, we don’t ever drink. Not ever.”

Bobby stilled at the solemnity of the statement. “You serious?”

Jeri gave him a grave look. “Seems to me booze hasn’t done either of our families any good. Guessin’ it wouldn’t do us any good neither. Seems to me you’d be dead and I’d be all alone now if I hadn’ta found you when I did. We should do a blood pact right now and maybe…”

“Maybe it’ll save us a whole bunch of grief,” Bobby said, finishing his sentence.

On the way home, with a matching pieces of black electrical tape on their palms, they concocted a story to tell their families: how they were caught in the storm, how they got trapped but managed to survive in that old boarded-up apartment building on O’Brien. Jeri imagined how this crisis would help bring him closer to his parents, and pictured them crying and hugging him with relief. When he arrived home, he took a deep breath to prepare himself for the theatrics. He opened the door and stomped the snow from his boots onto the mat.

“Jeri, honey. Try not to be so loud, Mommy’s got a headache.” His mother lay wrapped in a blanket on the couch with the TV turned to a soap opera.

He blinked into the darkened room. “Where’s Dad?”

“Having a nap. Would you be a good boy and get Mommy a cup of tea and an aspirin?”

Ten minutes later, the phone rang. Jeri’s mother groaned. “If it’s Barb,” she called out, “tell her I’m feeling under the weather.”

It was Bobby. “Do you want to go back out?”

“Meet me outside in a half-hour,” Jeri said.

Bobby showed up carrying a battered leather case with a wilted red ribbon tied to the handle.

“What’s that?” Jeri asked.

“A pair of binoculars. The lens is broke on one side, but the other side works great. Old Joe gave it to me.”

***

Decades later, more years than either man wanted to remember, Bobby’s hair had gone completely white and Jeri’s head had grown a lot more forehead. The two Lone Pine boys lounged outside on deck chairs watching Eva Lake turn from grey to pink to blue in the early morning light. Retirement stretched before them in all its promising glory. Years ago, when they had finished apprenticing, and in honor of their old friend, they had formed a construction company and named it Joe and Sons Contractors, known to locals as Old Joe’s Contracting. The thriving business was now in the hands of the boys’ children, and fishing now loomed large in their future.

A small tousle-haired girl wandered out of the house clutching a messy peanut butter and jam sandwich in one hand and a battered case in the other; these days, it was more duct tape than case. “Morning Grandpa. Morning Pops,” she said as she crawled onto Bobby’s lap.

“Morning, Sunshine,” Jeri said. He’d been ‘Pops’ to Bobby’s only granddaughter since almost the minute she could speak.

“Morning, Squirt. What do you have here?” Bobby asked.

Squirt shoved the remaining sandwich into her mouth before struggling with the lid. She pulled out a pair of scuffed binoculars. “’Noculars,” she said. Her eyes shone. “But I can’t get them to work.”

“Wow, I haven’t seen those in a long time. Where did you find them?” Jeri asked.

“On the bookshelf. Can you fix them?”

Bobby chuckled and settled the little girl more comfortably on his lap. “One lens was broken even before I got them. Here, put them up to your eyes. Now close your left eye and open your right one wide.” He moved her fingers to the dial. “Can you feel this? Move it until the lake focuses.”

“Nope, it’s still broke. Wait, let me move it the other way. Nope…no…hey! I can see. There’s a loon!” She sat up with a start. “Look, Grandpa, look!” she said, handing him the binoculars.

Bobby peered into the eyepiece, a smear of peanut butter now on his cheek. “Looks like that loon’s a mama.”

“Let me see, let me see!”

Giddy, the little girl slid off Bobby’s lap and charged over to the railing, settling the binoculars on top. “And there’s a papa too! I’m gonna go show Sandy.”

“I thought you and Sandy weren’t speaking to each other?” Bobby said.

The little girl turned and grinned. “Grandpa, she’s my best friend. We never don’t talk.”

“Tell your mother where you’re going,” Bobby called as she charged down the steps.

“Aw, she’s still sleeping, Grandpa. You tell her.”

The men watched her hurry along the front path. Just before the beach, she kicked her shoes off and hid them inside one of the planters on the side of the trail, then sprinted out of sight. They grinned at each other.

“Remember how we were going to become spies?” Bobby said.

“I can’t believe you still have those things. Where’d you find them?” Jeri asked.

“The summer after we gave the cabin to Amy and I came home from college, I took a wander over to see how things were holding up. The girls had already painted the inside pink and added purple furry pillows to the cot. I found them outside with a bunch of other crap they were throwing away, so I saved them.” 

Jeri laughed. He’d taken similar trips to the cabin and remembered being appalled by the girly changes. His wife, Sarah, would have approved of the decorating scheme; his three daughters, even more so. “You ever think about where we’d be if we didn’t find that glade and become obsessed with building the cabin?” he asked.

“I’ve thought about that a lot over the years,” Bobby confessed. “More than likely, we would’ve ended up working in one of the mines.” He paused. ” And when they shut down, we probably would’ve had to move out west. I wouldn’t have liked that.”

“Me neither,” Jeri said.

Bobby stood and held his hand out for Jeri’s mug. “More coffee?”

“You even gotta ask?”

On his way into the kitchen, Bobby stopped and studied an old strip of wood he’d salvaged from his derelict family home. It looked pretty ratty on the otherwise pristine doorway, but it was one of his most cherished possessions. On it, lines were marked all the way up, with the names of his children and the dates of all of their growth stages written beside them. But as he peered closer, he could still see four faded lines and the names Amy, Bobby, Gale and Phil, and for a moment, remembered when they had all been a family.

Photo Credit

Photo from Flickr – some rights reserved

Read more in this series:

Two Lone Pine Boys – Part 1

Two Lone Pine Boys – Part 2

“Where’d all these other kids come from,” Bobby asked a few hours later as they found an empty table in the cafeteria at lunch time. Most of the faces in the hallways were unfamiliar.

Jeri opened his brown paper bag. “Most are probably from Mark’s Street school. Not everyone lives in Lone Pine. Some might live in Don Park or up by the ski hill. You want my apple?”

Bobby crossed his arms and slouched into his chair, peering suspiciously at the strangers sitting at other tables. “They look diff’rent, is all.”

Jeri shrugged. “So?”

Once classes began in earnest, the dread disappeared and the boys settled into a new routine. The weeks flew by, and new subjects, new teachers and new faces made the experience interesting. But at home, the cabin still remained the boys’ primary focus.

After the summer’s window installation project, they’d chinked the cracks in the walls with old insulation, newspapers, grasses and moss. Then, the messiest and stinkiest part of the job began: mixing mud from the creek and straw from pilfered bales to coat the whole inside into a tight, adobe-style finish. That was Old Joe’s suggestion. Then, they’d tacked yards of salvaged chicken wire to the inside of the walls and the floor to help secure the mixture. The entire month of August was almost gone by the time it dried enough to whitewash. While they waited for the cabin to air out and set, they collected firewood, and chopped, sawed, split and stacked for two solid weeks. Bobby figured they had enough for two seasons. Jeri wasn’t so sure.

“Remember last winter? No matter how much wood we burned, the place never did heat up,” Jeri said.

“Yup, the wind blew through the joint like we were sitting in a field. This year, with all this work and the new rocket stove Old Joe made us, it’s gonna be snug. You can bet on it.”

The day before Christmas vacation, the hallways echoed with good-natured laughter and excitement. No school for two weeks! Bobby hated the holidays, as it meant having to spend long stretches at home trying to avoid his father. The boys spent most of their time at Jeri’s house, but only when Jeri’s parents were gone. They didn’t much care for the boy with the lanky black hair and somber face. “He’s not really our kind of people. Why don’t you make friends with the doctor’s son? He’s your age, isn’t he?” his mother had said. Jeri stood at the window staring out over the snow covered lawn, thinking about Timmy, the doctor’s son, who was constantly knocking his books out of his arms in the hallways at school. Jeri didn’t quite know what ‘our kind of people’ meant; maybe the kind of people who spent most of their time partying and leaving their kids home alone.

His parents were both off work until after Boxing Day, and were excited about a Christmas Eve party they’d been invited to by his father’s boss. They spent two days trying to decide what to wear. In the early afternoon, they’d set out for Nym Lake, hoping to beat the forecasted blizzard.

“This Christmas Eve party is just for adults, dear. Why don’t you watch TV while we’re gone? There’s food in the fridge.” His mother gave his shoulder a vague pat on the way out the door, leaving a wake of cloying, floral miasma. An hour later, the storm blew in with a fury. Jeri spent a restless couple of hours flipping through channels until the snow abated and the sun peeked out. He squinted through his lashes at the glistening sparkle of colors as he crunched his way past Barry Court, his hands rammed deep into his coat pockets against the chill.

Bobby’s mom answered the door gripping a stained housecoat tightly around her stick-thin frame, a cigarette cemented to her thick red lipstick. “Yeah?”

“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Rider. Is Bobby home?”

She glowered at him like he’d spoken to her in Chinese. Her bloodshot gaze skipped over his head and down the drive. “Bobby?” she asked, in a tone suggesting she had no idea who he could possibly mean. She leaned through the doorway and squinted against the light before calling back into the dark house. “Amy, is Bobby home?”

Amy’s pale face peered out from behind her mother, her large, dark eyes smudged grey with sleeplessness. “No,” she whispered.

“He ain’t here,” Mrs. Rider said, and slammed the door in his face.

Something was wrong – Bobby not here, and not tapping on his window as soon as the wind had died? He whirled around and ran for home, heading straight to the garage, where he dragged a pair of snowshoes and the long toboggan to the back door before barrelling into the house for supplies. His Auntie Pat had dropped off a leftover turkey from the Knights of Columbus Christmas party the night before, and he packed the entire thing into the sled. By the time he was done, he had three shopping bags, two boxes and a large backpack full of gear. He spread his sleeping bag over the haul and secured it with a nylon rope. Ten minutes later, he was at the end of the lane strapping the snowshoes on, about to head into the bush toward the cabin. Halfway there, the sun disappeared behind heavy clouds just as fresh snowflakes began to fall.

Photo Credit

Photo from flickr – some rights reserved

Read more from this series:

Two Lone Pine Boys – Part 1

Two Lone Pine Boys – Part 3

Bobby and Jeri lived a street away from each other in the farthest back corner of Lone Pine, a subdivision known for its hordes of near-feral children and mosquitos the size of bats. Bobby was tall and Dickensian thin. He usually hid his face behind a curtain of lank black hair and appeared to be the complete opposite of his best friend Jeri: a small, pale boy with curly red hair and a sprinkle of strawberry-colored freckles across his nose. Curiously, although the boys had lived the first six years of their lives a short walk from each other, they first met during a particular day at school. There’d been some kind of disagreement about the rules of a marble game that ended in a fist fight. An unfair punishment meted out by a recess teacher had united the two and, later that day, they had boarded the bus home as best friends. The boys enjoyed growing up in Northwestern Ontario, where the snow’s icy claws kept a death-grip on the land with toe-stealing ferocity for most of the year. But although they had fun sliding down hills on scraps of cardboard and snowshoeing through knee-deep snow, the boys lived for summer holidays. Summer meant catching frogs, climbing trees and raiding gardens ripe with baby carrots and sweet peas, all of which could be done while wearing nothing but shorts and without fear of frostbite.

Early mornings usually found Bobby tapping on Jeri’s window. “You gonna sleep all day?”   

“You know you can just ring the doorbell,” Jeri said, rubbing his eyes as he peered out through the screened-in window.

“Uh-huh,” Bobby said, digging a hole in the grass with his big toe. As usual, he was barefoot. His shoes, when he wore them, had been passed down from brother to brother to brother. When his grandfather was still alive, he had fixed the soles with pieces of rubber from old tires, but Bobby preferred feeling the damp grass beneath his feet. Or so he claimed. 

Jeri’s shoes were always brand new, and lately his mother had been buying him tube socks; white ones, with a red and blue stripe on the tops. “Meet me at the back door,” Jeri said before disappearing from view.

A short time later, Jeri charged outside as the door slammed shut behind him. “Be back tonight,” he called, but there was no answer from the silent, sleeping house. He handed Bobby a sandwich spread thick with peanut butter and strawberry jam – their favourite.

“Old Joe says he has windows and we could have ’em,” Bobby told Jeri as they sat on the back step finishing their PB&J. “I’m sure we can get ’em all up to the cabin in the wagon.” Years before, they had befriended the old man everyone in town called Old Joe. His last name, Zaplyuisvichka, was unpronounceable by almost everyone but his daughter. The boys had spotted the old rusty wagon with its missing wheel in the old man’s garbage pile and had asked if they could have it since he was throwing it away anyway. The next day, the wagon was sitting in Old Joe’s front yard; the wheel had been replaced and it had been painted a bright red.

They retrieved the wagon from behind the toboggan where they kept it hidden in Jeri’s garage and headed down the road, the wheels clattering on the gravel. Jeri stuffed his shoes and socks into the hollowed-out log by the creek before they bee-lined to Old Joe’s. Jeri scratched at a mosquito bite on his neck. “So, how’dja even know what Old Joe said? Maybe he said he had dead chickens. No one understands what the old guy says. He talks different.”

“I know what he says,” Bobby said, “and he said ‘windows’.”

Jeri gave his friend a skeptical sideways glance. “Okay, I believe you.” But his tone said otherwise.

It turned out Old Joe did have windows – six of them. Four were from some kind of vehicle – a van, the boys guessed, and two came from an old chicken coop at the back of his house. The old man mumbled, gesticulated at the cache, then shooed them off.

“He says he don’t want them back,” Bobby translated.

“I got that,” Jeri replied dryly.

The boys loaded their treasure into the small wagon and headed toward their secret trail. “Looks like you can open and close at least four of them,” Bobby said with a huge smile. It had been three years since the day they’d been chased into hiding in their glade. Now thirteen years old, the boys had a sanctuary under the dappled shade of cedars and pines. The first summer, they’d set up scraps of tarp and cut pine boughs to make a small shelter. But now, after many botched attempts and under the tutelage of Old Joe, who’d become a surrogate father and mentor to them, a cabin had taken shape. It stood in the opening of the thick copse, now an eclectic structure made from logs, mortared glass bottles, salvaged plywood, two-by-fours and even a hood off an old Chevy truck. They built it with brand new tools borrowed from Jeri’s father’s garage: an axe, a couple of hammers, saws, a crow bar, screw drivers and a few pairs of pliers. Some of the tools still had price tags on them. Jeri’s father wasn’t exactly a handyman; he never missed any of it.

Over the years, the boys had hung around construction sites and volunteered as gophers, hauling drywall up or down stairs and absorbing the building process. They also asked questions; lots of questions. One contractor had been so impressed by their work, he’d given them screws, nails, leftover insulation and tarpaper. He had even delivered a pile of wood to their trail-head, telling the boys it was up to them to get it the rest of the way to whatever it was they were constructing. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!” the boys had said enthusiastically. The windows from Old Joe were the final additions to their cabin. They’d helped put in a dozen or more over the past summer and were confident in their ability to install them.

“We gotta make sure the headers are strong,” Bobby said. “Remember what happened last winter when we had that big snowfall.”

Jeri nodded. “Good thing we still got those pieces of two-by-eights; we’ll be able to make four supports. Only thing is, we hafta figure out how high to put them. How tall do you think you’re gonna get? When you’re full grown, you don’t want to have to duck to see out.” 

That night, when Bobby sat down for supper, his dad seemed to be in a good mood. He decided it was the right time to ask him some questions. “Dad, how tall are you?”

His father’s spoon stopped halfway to his mouth and hovered motionless in the air as he squinted his eyes in thought. “‘Bout five-foot-ten; ‘least that’s what I was the last time I got measured. Why?”

“Just wondering,” Bobby said. When his father frowned, he decided he’d better elaborate. “Do you think I’m going to get as tall as you, Dad? Is that how it works?”

“Is that how what works?”

“Like, does a guy get as tall as his father and a girl gets as tall as her mother? Or, ’cause Mom is shorter than you, am I gonna be halfway between you an’ her, tall?”

“You end up halfway as tall as your mom and you’ll be a pipsqueak.” His father winked at his mother.

Bobby felt the knot of anxiety release in his gut. Sometimes asking his father any kind of question would set him off.

“Hey, who you callin’ a pipsqueak,” his mother asked with a giggle.

What followed was unprecedented in Bobby’s experience: his parents laughed and chatted like they were a normal family, like it happened all the time. After supper, they even measured themselves against a doorframe, then measured Bobby and Amy too, marking everyone’s height in black pen. Bobby was a little sad that his older brothers had already moved out; it would have been nice to have everyone in the family acknowledged.

Afterwards, his father danced his mother around the kitchen, as if an invisible band was playing their favorite song in the background. When he leaned her back in a dip, they both laughed. His mother’s cheeks were pink with delight.

“I sure could use a beer, Gale,” his father said.

“Me too,” his mother replied.

Bobby and Amy traded looks. They both knew family time was over.

Photo Credit

Photo from flickr – some rights reserved

Read more in this series:

Two Lone Pine Boys – Part 2

Two Lone Pine Boys – Part 3

‘The accident’, as those around her called it, happened almost two months ago. Blair ponders this as she sits staring at her ‘Precious Moments’ calendar. Accident, tragedy…people have different ways of approaching the subject. Blair usually helps by just stating the facts: her husband and two children were killed while driving along interstate nine. A woman, in the passenger seat of a car heading in the opposite direction, was arguing with her husband; she’d had enough of him. These perfect strangers, Blair’s husband and this couple, met on a collision course not even God himself could understand.

The woman took out a forty-five and shot her husband while he was driving. The bullet went right through his head. Miraculously, he survived. But the bullet traveled at the speed of light across traffic lanes, across worlds and into the temple of Blair’s young husband Steve. He was killed instantly. The car then careened over the side of a cliff into oblivion, killing both of their children, who were traveling with Steve on their way home from a camping trip.

A state of profound sadness; the kind of sadness where even tears do not come. Blair certainly has had her fair share of tears, but they do not come as much anymore. But the sadness sits on her heart like a heavy weight. Yet even in the sadness, hope remains. At least, that is what the Koreans believe. Blair, on the other hand, has come to fear that hope is dead as well.

The Korean people have no doubt felt this emotion, this Han, over the years. Their country, their people, have lived through war and famine. This is a country that knows loss. In the midst of devastation, pain and grief, the word Han would become almost haunting; like a piece of music you can’t forget, its melody running through your mind over and over again.

Blair looks up from her calendar and circles the day; the day her life changed forever. It seems like a lifetime ago. Her breathing becomes rapid, her jaw clenches as grief washes over her. How do people manage their loss? How does one measure grief? How can something bring such profound sadness that one cannot even shed a tear? How, indeed. Easy, Blair thinks to herself. People’s lives are broken by emotion, grief, illness and other tragedies all the time. Lives lost, hopes crushed. And yet, in this profound wake of grief and pain, people do find meaning, do they not? Maybe it’s not over ’til it’s over, as they say.

Blair clutches the photo of her husband and two children. The edges are bent and out of shape; worn and damaged. The photo is with her always, like a friend, a companion. She studies the photo with concentration, as though she could bring them back to her. Maybe if she concentrated long enough or hard enough, she could will them back. This is the human experience, is it not? That even at our most vulnerable and most weak, we are in a state of grace. That even in our loss we can and will find hope that life does, indeed, go on.

Blair gets up from her desk and walks over to the window. The sun is just coming up over the horizon. She holds the pistol to her head and in an instant she is gone from the world and from the Han that had stolen her life.

Photo Credit

Photo from Flickr – some rights reserved

Her eyes are gold, almost yellow in this light. I have to drag my gaze away before she thinks I’m being rude. I look down at my guitar instead and strum a chord, then tweak the E string.

I’m sick to death of this lockdown. My bedroom, once a refuge away from my annoying sister, my nosy mother and my father who was always looking for new chores for me, seems more like a prison cell now. The vintage super hero posters pinned to the wall mock me with their outdoor panoramas. Spiderman, swinging free above the city in a sky so blue you could swim in it. Batman holding a criminal by the ankle above a gloomy alley full of dangers, but also dark freedom. Wonder Woman in a dense tropical jungle, with her perky breasts and impossibly skinny waist, tying up a lucky perp with her magical lasso. Lately, I’ve been ignoring her sexy red, white and blue uniform, and instead I brush my fingers across the green and yellow parrot who sits in the branches above. “Lucky bird. You can take off and fly wherever you want to while I’m stuck here climbing the walls. Stupid virus!”

At first the lockdown had seemed like a godsend. I’d been on the verge of failing science. Not because I didn’t know my stuff inside and out, but because sleeping-in had become an everyday habit, and Mr. Lawson’s class was first thing in the morning. And somehow finishing my homework just wasn’t worth the effort. But now, sleeping-in had gotten old faster than I thought possible. I’d give anything to be able to do that project now. Stupid Covid-19!

To top it off, Mom’s an emergency room doctor who can’t even come home. She’s living in the Marriot Hotel right now, the one in Motel Village just outside of the city limits. The whole family hasn’t seen her more than three times in the last eight weeks. And even then, it had been for less than ten minutes each time, her standing on the sidewalk, looking pale and exhausted, me, the big baby I’m starting to become, trying to hold back tears. And, for the first time in years, I’m wanting to hug her and be hugged back by her. I might be seventeen, but dammit, I want my mom!

While Mom’s been away doing her part, the rest of the family’s fallen into a routine. My little sister, Nellie has been making boxed mac and cheese and microwaved hotdogs on Mondays. On Tuesdays, Dad cooks something he calls Italian Stew. He might call it Italian, but the closest it ever comes to Italy is when the can sits next to the pasta in the pantry.

“The can’s just the base,” Dad tells us. “I add all the secret Italian spices. It’s a special recipe passed down to me by your Uncle Giovani.” Uncle Giovani is Dad’s old roommate from college, his real name’s John O’Rielly. So there’s that.

I’ve taken to creating new meals every Wednesday. Some days it takes hours of scouring YouTube to find something simple, yet delicious. Well, most recipes look good when the blogger makes it. I’m getting better at it though, at least yesterday everyone ate all of the seafood lasagna.

Then Nellie made some kind of comment about her piano lessons and I had to open my big mouth. “Taking online guitar classes is different, it’s not the same as real life. And I’m getting super rusty.” Dad jumped on that like a cobra waiting for Mowgli to let his guard down. So fast forward to tonight, and I’m sitting eight feet away from ancient Ms. Axlam, our weird next door neighbour. She’s skinnier than anyone else I’ve ever seen. Her long thin arms and legs are like a spider monkey’s. When she looks down at her own guitar her face is hidden by a curtain of grey-tinged frizzy hair.

“Sorry my Dad forced you into this,” I apologize. “He’s been super pushy since this horrible quarantine.”

She looks up and the sunlight glints off her yellow eyes. “I’m happy to help, Aiden,” she says, then strums a chord with those impossibly long fingers. She has a bit of an accent, it’s buried under almost perfect English, but there’s a slight burr beneath.

She shakes her head. “This is not a horrible lockdown, Aiden. What we are doing by staying inside, is helping to save lives. This life is easy.”

I’m about to protest, but she strums another chord and gets a faraway look in her eyes. “I was in a horrible lockdown once, many years ago when I was a small child. They shot my father in the street when he tried to sneak out for food. We had to leave him there because the soldiers were killing anyone caught outside. The next day his body had disappeared. Maybe dragged away by animals, we never found him.”

She plucks another chord and her words begin to mingle with the notes. “A year later, and in a faraway refugee camp, after my little sister died of starvation and fever, my mother walked into the river. I was left to fend for myself. Ten years old and made to do horrible things for a mouthful of porridge here, or a spoonful of maize there.”

Her fingers pick out a mournful melody. Her smile is sad and pain seems to be etched onto her face. Then suddenly, from her clever hands, the song becomes joyful. She looks up and the dying evening light makes her regal. Silver bracelets tinkle against her bony wrists as she plays a jaunty tune. “You have Italian stew and YouTube lasagna. Your mother is brave and strong, your little sister is alive and well fed, and your father doesn’t take no for an answer. So play me a G major, then you and I will rejoice and celebrate this quarantine.”

I swallow hard and with shaking hands pluck out a G major. Soon, under her excellent tutoring, I work out the kinks and we play long into the deepening night.

Photo Credit

Balcony – Pixabay Creative Commons

Guitar on balcony – Wallpaper Flare