Category: It’s Novel
10:7
10:7
As the accumulation of emptiness threatens to smother all lingering spirit or hope, ahead a washed out green sign slowly thrusts upwards out of the unbroken horizon: Tompkins 15 km, No Services. This first, illusive sign of life often brings the traveller back to himself, more strikingly so in the dry stifling heat of a prairie Indian summer. Miles of sticky traveling and whistling wind have lulled you into believing that this desolation had no beginning and would have no end; this first sign marring hypnotic surface of the void, introduces that first delicate crack, that within a few scant miles, will open up like a portal out of this empty, lonely land.
It is here, at this first sign of hope and this first reminder of what you left behind that the epiphany can often be found. That moment of clarity and confluence of unrealized realities that clears away the concealing grime and lets a sort of truth shine through.
It was here that Barney remembered the box. He knew he had fled. He knew his retreat had necessitated abandoning his goals and uncharacteristically leaving behind a piece of his reality, his precious truth, with that crone. And now he remembered that he had left even more behind; he had left behind his words, his history, the records of all that was his now lay in a dank corner in an architectural monstrosity in a nothing town in reach of each and every one of the pathetic and insignificant occupants. It was here, as the desiccated landscape first began to give way to thoughts of renewed life, that Barney recognized the enormity of his defeat at the withered hands of that shrivelled old bitch.
10:8
10:8
It was $4.95 for the bottle of water. One stinking bottle of water that should have been free for the asking but this hole of gas station was asking for five fucking bucks.
This was a sign of the times. Everyone was getting greedy and the bastards in their ivory towers were putting the squeeze on. He’d run into a place last spring in Calgary that was trying to get away with charging $3 for a lousy cup of coffee. Just because it was ‘fresh-brewed’, whatever the fuck that meant. And now he was stuck shelling out cash for fucking water. Nothing from a tap because the bastard owners were too fucking lazy to clean the fucking bathrooms. Fucking pig sties. Actually I wouldn’t let a fucking pig in there, probably die of fucking gonorrhoea five seconds after it walked in the fucking door.
And one more smirk out of that ignoramus prick at the counter and I would have introduced him to my fucking tire iron. Fuck him and his “that’s the price on the bottle dude…”
Jesus, why the hell did I stop. 80 fucking degrees in a fucking desert and no one but morons and inbred asswipes around. I should just get the…
That fucking bitch. That stupid, conniving, ball shrinking whore. This is all her fucking fault. I don’t care what she thinks she has on me, I’m going to drive this fucking car right down her goddamn throat until she shits out what she fucking owes me… I’m going drive this piece of shit through her motherfucking living room and then burn down her pissant little fucking country hovel around her…
It’s my fucking property. She has no right to keep me from it and I’m gonna fucking just…
Fuck.
Fucking…
Fuck.
Barney slammed the empty bottle on to the oil-soaked concrete pad and watched it skitter under the car. He opened the car door and slid down into the Cougar’s sticky vinyl seat still wet from a day’s worth of sweat streaming down his back. A moment of staring blankly at the dust covered gauges and he twisted the ignition violently, slammed the Hurst shifter into gear and jammed the gas pedal down.
I gotta hit Estevan before the border closes. Fucking bitch.
10:9
10:9
The beaver, it seems, has gone for good. Meredith glanced around the empty loft that, other than the stack of blankets and old tack by the window, was exactly as it was 6 months ago before the beaver had mystically appeared over by the coulee.
Winter and spring had come and gone and summer looked to be starting to fade. It seemed she was alone again. She was going to miss that cheeky little bugger; he had had this twinkle that had made her smile. Still made her smile when she thought about it. It had been a good summer; the best in a lot of years and for some reason it had been a healing one. A lot of the old fears and doubts somehow seemed a bit less jagged, still there, but less… obtrusive; like they’d been planed down to remove the splinters and rough edges but still left the grain and gouges to bravely pronounce their history, a visible reminder, but no longer marring the beauty they contributed to.
It had been a long time since I’ve felt this good, Meredith mused as she carefully walked down the steep stairs. I really ought to do something with it.
Outside the sun was low in the west and the sharp shadows animated the yard and buildings, staging a lovely pantomime across the empty space in front of her. She could see her father and mother coming back from the barn holding hands and swinging the galvanized bucket of fresh milk between them. From the gap between the shop and the chicken coop the old combine was trundling into the yard after a long day of ceaseless labour, signally another successful harvest and the hope of enough money to make it through the winter. Over by the old corral, the children climbed up the stack of bales, occasionally sending one tumbling down, much to the consternation of the hired hand by his shack who knew he would be the one to have to fix the stack in the morning.
In those dusky black shadows and rays of golden light, the old place was alive again, like it hadn’t been in decades. It’s funny, up until now I hadn’t much missed any of that. This old place had been her fortress of solitude for so long. Other than that brief and bitter interlude with… with Barney… I’ve been alone, and I thought I liked it that way. As a small cluster of clouds, high up in the western sky moved swiftly across the sun, the shadow play faded to black and was wiped clean, leaving a filmy gray curtain across the buildings and old motionless equipment that moments ago had been alive in her imagination.
Meredith, leaned back against the faded old wood of the shop’s doorframe staring blankly at the yard. Her mind drifted until, a few moments later, she watched as the sun reappeared, lighting up the canvas, bring the actors back to the stage but somehow, subtly, resetting the scene.
It iss time for a new scene, Meredith thought to herself. It’s time for a little forward momentum in my life.
10:10
10:10
Where the mountains meet the prairie, the long undulating band of hills, trees and grassland mix together to for the foothills. They aren’t very wide, almost indiscernible if compared to the vast waving seas of the dry and golden prairie or the massive jumble of rock and ice that typifies the Rocky Mountains. But this tiny belt that serves as a transition from earth to sky is one of the most truly beautiful places on this planet. Teaming with wildlife, full of raging rivers and placid ponds, a glorious treat to behold in all of nature’s seasons, the all too brief transit of the foothills is often overlooked. But to those who pause in their journey and take in the air both warmed by the prairie sun and cooled by the mountains’ shadows, the reward is a sight that will live on in your dreams and memories for many years to come.
10:11
10:11
The beaver was at home here. It reminded him very much of his roots, felt safe and, for all it’s insignificance in the shadow of the soaring rockies, when perched atop one of the many summits on the edge of the hills watching the carpet of grass roll out endlessly in front of him, it always made the beaver feel like he was on top of the world looking down on his many problems like they were random collections of dirt and detritus, like dust bunnies to be scooped up and swept away.
For him, this traditional pause at the edge of the mountains wasn’t just a a moment to reflect, it was a respite from far too many memories: failures, unfinished tasks, unrecoverable losses and all of the reminders of the world’s mortality that he wore embedded in his hide like tiny glass shards.
The beaver often returned to this exact spot, high above Longview and the vast sprawling ranches that lay south. There was always something ironic about this spot, accessible only by passing through the foothills along the Highwood river valley then curving south at the very bases of the first of the limestone monsters hemming him in on both sides before emerging once again on the western edge of the foothills. A quick crossing of the frigid and fast Livingston river and a long winding trek up the backside of grassy humps left him atop one of the tallest and last of the foothills with an unimpeded view that left him imagining he could see the frosted waves of the Atlantic lapping against the east coast’s shores.
To achieve the goal one must give it up freely. The hope is always that you will emerge from the emptiness with a reward greater than the sacrifice. In the case of his beloved foothills, they had yet to fail him in this respect.
10:12
10:12
It was probably time to turn around and trudge back down. It was late, the fading season quickly sucked the day’s heat from the evening air and there was the matter of the boy.
The beaver had failed to keep his promise up until this point. Despite his best efforts he hadn’t managed to keep up and success had proved more elusive than he had imagined oh so many years ago. But now he had a solid goal and it wasn’t likely to get up and walk away. But then he hadn’t really believed that this Barney would have been able to get up and walk away so many times either.
Yes, time to go. Time to close off the chapter on this hellishly long book.
10:13
10:13
With a high pitched grinding noise and and reverberating bang, Meredith shut the heavy sliding door to the old shed where the Cougar had been parked. The once proud silver paint of the leanto shaped building had flecked off the old wood and there was barely any trace of the red edging her father had so painstakingly added to all the out buildings in the yard. Stepping back she cast her eyes around the old place and realized it had been years since she had really looked at it. Run down and a shadow of its former proud self, she had really neglected the place.
“Time to do something about that I guess,” she mused, “time to get off my keester and see about more than a few things I guess.”
Meredith clasped her collar closed with her left hand, trying to keep out the evening’s chill and bent down to pick up the dinged up and battered old red jerry can. “Last bit of purple in the place. Better do something about that to if I mean to get back to business.” She walked across the gravelled section leaning off tot he left to balance the weight of the gas and tried to keep the old and from infusing her jeans with the smell of gasoline. “I guess I better break out the covies too. Probably need a new pair of rubbers, some good gloves and I might think about trading in the old Minnie for one those bobcat things. No sense wasting time and money on the old tractor when I haven’t got a single PTO implement left. A good bucket on a bobcat and it’ll be just fine for scraping the snow and mucking the pens.”
“Times are a changing and its time I was a changin too. The beaver’d like that.”
Meredith stopped to put the can down and stretched her back out. “Now why the hell did I say that? The beaver would like it. Huh.” She scooped the can up with a swing of her arms and let he momentum spin her around until she was pointed at the shed where the old orange Minneapolis had been parked for too many years. “But the old girl’s not done yet. We both have a bit of work to do before we can call it finished; and I think there’s no call to be trading her in. I can spare a few dollars for the bobcat and we will just her snug in the shed for a few more years. I’d like that; yes indeed I would.”
10:14
10:14
A cool morning with an edge that comes only in those waning days of summer. Not yet fall, but no longer comfortable to about breathing the air circulating in the first rays of the sunrise.
It was the time of year that sent people scrambling to examine their closets and ponder the state of their long ignored jackets and throws. A fleece of sweater served well in those few cool summer nights, but something about the first snaps of chill in late summer called out for something substantial; a weighty blanket to ward off the imagined frost and to hold at bay the remembered piercing of winds that were to be real all too soon.
And again all too often you found yourself staring out at eh charcoal skies that showed the feint glow of sunrise, something that had been a rare and unexpected sight these past summer months. The shorter days rushed in on your life, squeezing time into a narrow chasm and anointing the days with all the turbulence of mountain rapids in the spring. The slow, languid pace of the summer had gone and nothing could stop the sudden inflow of time and an air of unfulfilled expectations.
10:15
10:15
People remember events differently. Most people are disposed to winding their memories and senses together in a braided tress, not unlike their mother’s macrame hanger or grandmother’s garlic rope. Our senses act as a catalog, a reminder or even a storage space for things our consciousness tags as important to remember.
And to each individual the infusion of senses into events varies in ingredients, strength and vigour. Those among us blessed with pitch and an ear for life will often wrap a memory in a song, creating a new and distinct work that echo’s the original but, like a virtuoso taking up his instrument to perform, will exceed the original composer’s intent. Those who’s nose acts as a window into the world, will add the memory as an ingredient into the aroma of their favourite dish or establish a new amalgam from such things as a warm summer’s eve or the scent of their daughter’s hair. Sight, touch, taste, all the traditional senses make the perfect packaging for those thoughts and feelings that we choose not to forget, and many that we would not so happily choose as well.
But not all memories are of the body. Not all events can be encapsulated and entwined in things real and tangible. For some, the senses were never strong enough to hold such monumental perceptions, for others it is the singularity of an event, the razor sharp clarity that prevents its adulteration by any of the traditional five.
So how then does the mind classify and catalog such memories? For some, for all too many and all too long, the only answer the psyche can offer is to hold it always in the forefront, to never store or file or move the moment from the immediate consciousness. This state, in this unending form, exemplifies the most common definition of hell for its adherents, a never-ending retelling, that no matter how pleasant in its original, will soon become an overearly and inescapable purgatory.
And sometimes, when the mind cannot continue in its self-inflicted misery, or if it could not ever grasp an event enough to even form the memory, the mind will wrap it in layer upon layer encysting it like scar tissue around a foreign body. There is no memory, no truth, no reality attached to it and our conscious and subconscious selves hold it forever separate and apart, attached yet inaccessible.
But even these arms length creations remain in orbit around us. We feel the effects of their gravitational pull and they can push and pull our moods and thoughts like tides. And they too must somehow be accounted for and tracked by the deepest and most elusive nodes of our secret selves. Philosophers, and scientists alike, writers, dreamers and believers have long felt that there are more things around us that can be be cataloged by the senses or perceived by the accepted modes. Some way, somehow, our minds can perceive and account for the unknown, storing that knowledge in an unknowable place and deriving reason and sense for the effects of the indiscernible. Something that is of us, yet beyond us acts to monitor and control the effects of that which we have sent into exile and acts as a guardian and castellan, something hidden must exist to protect us from ourselves.
There are many ways in which we build our selves, but the strongest building blocks are those we experience and adopt into our souls. Our memories are precious and requisite, without them we would not grow or learn or be able to contribute new and ever-unique truths to our worlds. But not all memories are bricks; some, and every soul alive has them, are flames. Fires that destroy and immolate everything they touch and can rarely coexist safely with the true structure of our selves. Some memories exist only to harm and it is a sad sad day indeed when a mind lets open the fiery gates and sets free the conflagration one anyone’s soul.
10:16
Can you spot the beaver?
