They were there, on the horizon, and he knew them. Far away, painted featureless by the sun. And the dog: he knew that heaving, that sound of hardy breathing—panting—and he knew that tongue that lolled about outside. But this dog was young. And those voices, they weren’t— “How?” he thought. The sun burned brilliant, but his eyes didn’t hurt; he didn’t feel the need to squint. The sand was clean, and the crabs that shuffled by were beautifully wild, unconcerned. Far off, the waves washed up, and back, up and back, with his breaths. The figures far off stopped, but they weren’t waving. They were watching. Each one, turned to him, faced him, “they must see!” he thought. But, they did not gesture him forward. Only the dog came. Only the dog welcomed him. Welcomed him here. "To wherever this place is," he thought, "here where the breeze comes just when I’m too hot, and the sun burns my skin just as I want to swim. And that dog is smiling as though it all came out. Smiling as though we made it. As if the bombs falling fell away, swooping far and up, away from Earth and body below. As if the pup hadn’t stopped his hardy breathing in the rubble and closed his eyes." And he smiled, for he did know them, especially that goofy little dog. And farther off, he saw, that which stopped him. There, the shape of a woman and another dog: serious, regal in their stillness, waiting.
Their love hid in the small joints and quiet alleys of the cityscape. Small meetings by firelight, stouts in the cold nights, and small kisses that relieved them. They’d lived there for years; knew no one. In a full room of merriment, they sat alone in the middle, smiling at their hands and dreaming into the bar. Rain was welcomed, cold was weathered. He chopped wood and she pressed coffee. One day they’d have babies. They whispered names they promised never to say aloud to any soul outside their world. After a hard day of work, the initials were enough to save his grace. She worked hard to keep his head up, but she didn't need to.
The trees grew into the kitchen, the weeds to the side of the porch, all knowledgeable in their place, as well as to where their role ended. The old man rocked in a chair that creaked with the afternoon and smiled as dreams of the past melded with the sunlight that soaked into his nose. The boy swore the chair was alive, growing along with the trees and the weeds and the vines along the fence. The magpies squawked in the trees above and the boy’s eyes fluttered upwards. A soft voice took an edge, “You ol’ magpies keep it down, yelling your heads off.” Her loose fist left one finger straight and she wagged it so the boy could see. The noisy birds fell silent.
She held the boy’s hand as they meandered down the old roads of crumbling asphalt and cracked brick. Even the stone felt alive there, as if spirit burned under the surface. There were names in the road, and old walls sagged. A flag the boy hadn’t seen anywhere else flew beside one he did.
The nice woman at the store offered a sucker, and the boy held on to it tight for the walk home. He was saving it. Dogs of varying size and breed wandered over the lawns, smelling and relieving themselves where they saw fit.
Around the corner, a brigade of soldiers marched in grey. The boy took pity on them. Many were bleeding and grief-stricken. They split their company in two, allowing the boy and his grandmother passage. One of the parting soldiers had been wounded atop his head; red bandages clung to the slouching man’s skull. The boy offered up his sucker, holding it to the man, who looked the boy in the eyes. The boy felt cold, but stuck to his gesture.
“You’re a sweetheart to hurt for them, but honey don’t,” she said, pulling the boy along, “these old ghosts need to leave these fields and their cause already. God knows they need rest.”
Piano perforated their words and candlelight danced in their glasses. The voices in the bar were amiable. Laughter came from one corner, and then again from the next. Down the bar, she looked up: dark hair and eyes so wide he felt himself getting lost. His insides turned, his smile kempt. In another life, he thought. So it was that she opened.
“This bar is full of politicians and military men. Which one are you?"
“It is. Why I must be weary of you.”
“Of me? But I can be neither.”
“Some things are far worse.”
She drank from her glass, turning towards the wall.
“You didn’t answer the question.”
He leaned in, “Do I have to?”
“I could make you.”
She wasn’t smiling now, and he noticed it.
The halt of the piano was audible. He turned from the bar. Everyone in the room was silent. Every head, uniformed and not, was watching him closely.
He spoke carefully, “You must be in a hurry.”
“I could smell it on you,” she said, “as soon as you walked in.” She was moving towards him, her eyes still so mesmerizing—he felt as he had one day long ago in the mountains, when he had come eye to eye with the biggest rattlesnake he had ever seen.
“Put it on the bar.”
Her voice shook him from memory. There was a bite to it. This, he thought, is why the old man had recruited me, why they sent me here. For in his hands, up his arms and clear through to his spine, the man in question felt electric. It was in the air too. The tension, he thought, might as well break—now.
The woman’s stool flung out from under her, his boot retreating back for his support. The shine of steel flashed from his armpit. Three shots ran from his pistol before his arm was ripped back to the bar.
In moments the woman stood before him, cutting out the inside of his cheeks with a bottle that had broken as she fell, while two men breathing heavily in their suits held his arms down to the bar. Her eyes were riddled with disbelief, for no matter how viciously she cut him, he smiled as he bled, and his arms didn’t shake under the men holding him. His eyes looked past hers to the far corner, where a man in a very sophisticated jacket laid lifeless on a table, red dripping down to a small pond pooled about the chairs.
She growled at him, brandishing the bottle, “This won’t change a thing.”
He gurgled back, “You should hire security, facist pricks.”
Photo by Tyler
She wore her hair up, but it always fell. Her gait held energy. Her smile, luck. The woman behind the counter brought coffee with a “good morning.” The woman liked having her there. The other counter sitters always had something to say that fouled up her day. “This country’s in the dumps,” or “My landlord has chiggers.” The woman could only take so much. “I’ve smiled at life-shattering statements,” she’d shrug, “crying divorcees and defeatist philosophers screaming this shop is a hotbed for false living.” But then this girl, who came alone and laughed aloud compelled the complainers and the ungrateful to glance over, and think. And this girl would whisper with the woman at the absurdity in their little lives and the woman felt rejuvenated with every visit. There was wisdom in her smile, a warmth that brought meaning. Comfort flowed ever outwards from her. She was the light in Northtown, the smiling girl who walked with her hands in her pockets and who always reveled in her friends’ victories.
They were the Gods of Thunder and of Lightning. One always following the other. Running, romping at play. They loved the Sun and the Cloud, the Sand and the Water, all their brothers and sisters. They loved the jettisons of rock and the corners, and what came after. They bounded through forests and pounded atop mountains. They were fleeting, here one moment and gone the next. They were happy, born in freedom, and in fight. Thunder always following, always chasing. A flash of teeth and Lightning would pull ahead, a burl from Thunder and the two would start again. Lightning was cunning; Thunder determined. They were brothers. At times, their faces curled in hate as they warred, each swearing off the other in fits of rage. But neither could, really, for the presence of one needed the presence of the other or the world felt empty. So they fought on, through waves and hills and time alike.
She was thin, and the weight of the world was getting heavier with every morning. It rained every day that fall. Along the streets, in the train compartments, people cursed the weather. They couldn’t wait for the seasons to change, couldn’t wait for a new year of different times. She would hear them and look up, watching from the corner of her eye. She walked slow that season, her little bag holding only her clippers and her pair of gloves. Some of the plants were dying now, they wouldn’t return until next year, two seasons over. The colored leaves above the road were falling fast; every night there were winds that tried their damnedest to clear the branches. She walked past the men and their blowers, men putting all their time to removing the red and gold foliage. She did not hate them. Back in the garden, she raked the dirt up and down the rows so that the lines were neat and uniform. She trimmed the dead branches and patted the good leaves from below, speaking quietly of encouragement. Her back hurt in the mornings. The rain fell harder. There seemed to be a torrent for every one of those curses she had heard on the trains. The day came when the rain stopped. The people on the train complained about the mud, and the scores of some sport she had forgotten about. She did not turn to look at them, she didn’t need every word anymore. The clouds hung above the street as she stepped slower than she ever had before. She smiled to see some of the leaves had hung on, a fortunate few that gave the world a little color. Her clippers weren’t in her bag. She didn’t rake the dirt. Instead, she went around to each plant saying goodbye. To her surprise, there was a flower freshly bloomed. “What a shame,” she thought, “that I only meet you now.” And she thought of all the flowers she'd miss, and it was hard for her to step away.