macblaze.ca

8:28

“Let me tell you a story. A long, sad story of one man’s folly and another’s criminal stupidity…”

It began just before the war. As you know I met a wonderful woman and fell in love. And as it often happens she was soon with child. It was a disgrace of course, but the kind of disgrace that happened more often than not and there were ways of dealing with it to the satisfaction of all.

Well, of course, being who I was, who I still am really, I found myself dissatisfied with the standard solutions. I had not much changed you see, from that impetuous boy you met high above the ground soloing ago. I was determined to find a solution that ended with me, a beautiful bride and our lovely son — it was a boy as I eventually discovered — living out our lives in comfortable bliss, free of stigma, free of the consternation of a rapidly dissolving and increasing irrelevant class system.

I really thought it would be easy. After all it had been easy all my life. Escaping the ties of my family’s expectations had been my calling so’s to speak; it had been one my one true accomplishment to date. I had every expectation that I would win through the day. I had every expectation dammit.

So there I was, making plans, executing a delightfully complex set of negotiations and casting a shadow over everyone’s sight. I could see my triumph, I had inhaled the scent of victory as I arched out to take that fair morsel between my teeth.

And then — the war came. The marriage plans dissolved in a whirlwind of panic, the deals began to unravel, fear was everywhere, nothing was the same. I tried valiantly to hold the others to the bargains, to convince them that nothing substantial had changed. But that was when I learned the bitterest lesson that war has to teach: that the perceived value of any object or idea is as fleeting and delicate as a moment of silence. Suddenly my only value, the only value I could offer anyone was to fight. There was no question that I would be be bundled off to war to sacrifice what may be for the greater glory of god, my country and my oh-so-importunate family.

And God forgive me, I went. I went and abandoned my love and abandoned my child, giving them over to an uncaring and callous family’s care.

Oh my friend, I can not tell you how many times over the years I have regretted that decision. I should have stayed and fought my own war. I should have realized the import of my actions. No decision should be taken lightly, and that one would have repercussions beyond my wildest imaginings. It has not ended since that day, and I now realize it will not end for many years to come.

“But let me continue.”

For three years I fought on foreign soil and my only contact was through family letters. They told me of my son’s birth and his christening, of his first word, his first tooth and described to me his first steps. I took what joy and solace I could from those precious missives and tried to pretend that the lack of mention of his mother was solely because the family’s embarrassment.

But lied to myself. And they lied to me. And, when at long last I was allowed to return home, I found I had no home to return to. My love was long removed, my child not even a memory but for my sister how had been tasked with penning the dissembling notes and upon my discovering these pernicious truths, I no longer admitted to a family. I took myself away and began a search, that for many years bore no fruit but sorrow.

Albert stopped suddenly and his breathing became ragged.

8:27

The beaver closed his eyes for a moment. It had taken a bit of sleuthing, but he was pretty sure he had the address now. It had been a little more than an hour since he’d left Gareth’s place, and while the bleeding had slowed, it hadn’t stopped. His fur was matted and caked with dirt, and his head was spinning. As far as he could tell it was another ten minutes’ walk, maybe even longer at the pace he was managing.

Still resting his eyes, the beaver considered what would happen then. It didn’t look like he was going to be able to rest anytime soon, and he so needed to rest. Just stop and take a moment. He leaned against the hard brick wall of the alley and savoured the feeling of drifting off. Just a few moments more.

His breathing slowed and for a moment, he dreamed.

***

Albert looked down at him and said, “How are you old friend? I hope you’ve been well. I must say, I have missed you terribly.”

“Hi yourself. I’m well enough; better than well, I suppose. All that clean living.”

“Ah. Yes, I suppose you don’t often find yourself trapped here amidst the smog and pollution of the city, do you?”

“No. And I am eternally thankful for that. Literally.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true as well. Can I get you something?”

“No, no, I’m fine. I am a bit curious as to why you needed to see me so suddenly. Is there a problem?”

Albert looked away from the beaver and his posture suddenly collapsed. For a few minutes he said nothing and then, “Yes, my dearest friend. There is in fact a problem. And I am afraid there doesn’t seem to be anything anyone can do about it.”

“You see, it’s my son.”

 

8:26

He couldn’t believe they had shot him. He couldn’t believe how much it hurt. He couldn’t believe he was still moving, although he was pretty sure that state of affairs wasn’t going to keep up much longer. He couldn’t believe they had missed him lying there in the dark; he hadn’t really had any respect for them to start with, but that was beyond the pale. And mostly the beaver couldn’t believe that this might actually mean he was going to fail.

I never fail. Well, I might not actually accomplish what I set out to do sometimes, but goals are malleable and I always get something done. But dammit, I never fail. Jesus, it hurts. I really have to do something right now before I pass out or worse.

Damn. I didn’t want to involve him. It just seems so … so inappropriate. And if I ask him for help, I’m not gonna get away with ditching him before the last act. Christ, and the morons have brought guns into it; what the hell are they about, anyway, bloody idiots. No, the guns make it too dangerous to bring anyone else into it; I need to find someone … someone already at risk.

Gareth. Shit, I need to warn him. Or at least get him out of the now all-too-real line of fire. And he can help with this little problem I seem to have acquired courtesy of the gun-toting twits with the politeness problem. Find Gareth, fix me, get him moving away from the action and …

The beaver stopped in his tracks. He had just remembered where he’d been when he encountered the simpletons with the Smith and Wesson.

“Oh fuck,” he moaned. “Fuckity fucking fuck FUCK!”

He started moving again, swinging back toward the apartment he had so lately abandoned. I must be in shock. They know about Gareth. They’ve connected the dots. How could I have missed that simple little fact? I need to find him. I need to fix this. Damn them for fools, I need to stop them. It’s going too far.

Panting heavily and leaving a crimson smear in the grass behind him, the beaver moved painfully up the slope and angled toward the street.

If I can figure out where he was all day … He hadn’t come home, and it was already too late to expect he’d be coming home tonight. So where… the girl! He’d been hanging out with that girl. And that was new. No one else would know about that. The girl could keep him safe and out of it.

The beaver felt the panic start to ebb and a wave of exhaustion take its place. But at least his brain was processing again, and it was starting to formulate a plan, albeit short term.

I need to find the girl, find Gareth and find out what, if anything, they know about this before it explodes in their faces. And while I’m at it, I need to find the interfering varmint and make sure he doesn’t make this worse than it already is. Just my luck and he’ll end up roasted on a spit somewhere and they’ll blame me for it. Then I need to end this stupid farce as soon as possible, before anyone else, including me, gets shot by the handgun-packing halfwits that someone seems to have set loose.

 

8:25

What I need to do, Edward pondered as he watched the sun slowly come up over the city’s skyline, is find out just why the interfering beaver is so adamant about this. Generally by now he would have given up; or at least have been willing to share some of his resources with me. Competition is all good, but he generally isn’t so stupid as to think he can take on all comers. Every time in the past when things have gotten this complicated, he has either bailed at an opportune moment or agreed to some sort of mutually agreeable solution.

This time I can’t seem to even get the stupid rodent to state his position, let alone compromise on it. Every time I turn my back he just vanishes and then reappears at absolutely the most inconvenient juncture.

So. I definitely think I better investigate this little offshoot before proceeding with any major revisions to the plan. Really, it has been foolish of me to put it off so long, but I guess I had hoped that my honourable adversary would eventually come to his senses. And that means I have so research to do.

***

Well, well, well. Edward had never visited Alberta and he definitely had never heard of Magrath. But it was beginning to look like he would have to do some serious research into that little town and one or two of its residents. Hopefully he could avoid the long delay that visiting there would necessitate, but if that is what it would take, then that is where he would go.

But before packing my carpetbag, I think I will just visit the national archives and see what I can see about a woman named Meredith McGrath.

 

8:23

Staring at the screen in front of me, I find myself at a loss of what to write. The story progresses, in fits and starts as it always has. Things change, plots evolve … shit happens.

Authorship seems to be very much the kissing cousin of the curse. A curse will slowly suck you into its tangled tendrils and wrap you in its weave until you find you and it indistinguishable from each other.

The story wraps around your mind, stealing parts, changing realities and eventually taking over the course of events until the intent no longer matches the reality. A story lies and breathes on its own yet remains powerless without the cooperation of the story teller. Together it grows and expands and hovers always on the edge of chaos. Always on the brink of becoming that which no longer has shape or form or even any discernible meaning.

Stories, like life, are the hardest thing you will ever do and yet one of the few true things that can guarantee you satisfaction in the end.

And my son is an magnum opus. The thing I am most proud of and the thing that, very often painfully, encircles my soul like divine geas.

On this day, I stare at my screen and wonder what to write. I wonder how to the tell the story of my child, my son, of the protagonist who has slowly slipped beyond my pages and grown beyond my imagination. And yet who will never truly be separate from the story of my life, who will always be a greater part of my storyline, and who remains the greatest tale I have ever told.

And who tells his own story now.

 

8:22

With age comes wisdom. Edward had heard that somewhere. Well, he had the age thing down. He wasn’t so sure about the wisdom, though. He’d spent a lot of time screwing things up lately, mostly because he hadn’t stopped and thought it all through. “Patience, my dear rabbit, patience,” he murmured to himself.

And so Edward found himself beneath the same bush, in the same park for the fifth night in a row. All the evidence pointed to this place; unfortunately, it didn’t seem to point to any particular time. Hence the patience mantra that had been rolling through his head these last few days and nights.

He’d watch the world go by, the insects speeding by at a rate that made Indy cars seem glacier like, and the passage of clouds drifting purposelessly across the skies. Young children had screamed by and an old man and his old dog had ambled across his sight lines twice a day, every day.

He’d miss that old couple. When they strode out, they had no place to go and seemingly nothing better to do. But Edward knew better than to write them off as the flotsam drifting at the end of a long life. Every day, twice a day, the two set out, companions and confidants, and faced the world head on. Twice a day, every day, they discovered new things, breathed new air and took in the world changing about them.

These are the observers: observers who  see the world and are not fooled by the masks and layers of social detritus that accumulate around them. Ancient archaeologists whose very years allow them to brush off the strata of time and change, and see the universe for what it is and what it is evolving into.

It is a pity, Edward thought not for the first time, that life holds to one of two cycles. Either we grow old and more childlike, seeing the world once again though an infant’s eyes but unable to affect it, or we grow ancient and wise, clear-eyed at last but without an audience. Either way the fates swing us, there may be only a tiny, select few, like Edward himself, who remain able to poke and prod and hopefully produce enough momentum to effect even the smallest of change to the raging currents of time.

And as the shadows slowly moved across the grass in front of him, Edward glanced across that mottled swath of green and saw the old white-muzzled dog awkwardly look back across his shoulder, catch Edward’s eye and wink.

 

8:21

“Bugger!”

The beaver had been hanging about Gareth’s apartment for eight hours, and there was still no sign of him. This was getting dangerous for pretty much everyone involved. And time wasn’t on his side with old cottontail out there somewhere and a bunch of beaver-napping lunatics on the loose.

For the fortieth time the beaver strode over to the window and gazed warily out at the street. It was dark now and nothing seemed to be moving out there.

“Bugger!” he repeated.

At which point the heavy wooden apartment door flew into the hallway with a resounding crash, and two dark figures quickly followed, dropping what appeared to be a matte-black battering ram.

“There!” the beaver heard come from one of them, and then they headed straight for him.

“BUGGER!” the beaver grunted for a third and final time as he flung himself at glass in front of him. His sixty pounds shattered the brittle glass with ease, and moments later the beaver found himself scrambling out of the dogwood and paralleling the building toward the lane. Fourteen feet up, he could hear a muffled curse and then the sound of a someone dropping into the poor abused shrub that he had just exited.

Muttering imprecations to himself, the beaver hung a right into the short lane and scrambled up the back of the old pickup and onto its roof. From there he could just reach the top of the brick wall that surrounded the dumpsters and boxes of the neighbouring shop. Along the wall and onto the canopy overhanging the back entrance, and then a quick hop onto the top of the large illuminated sign that wrapped around the building.

“There’s the bastard!” The beaver quickly slid around the corner and jumped awkwardly onto the canvas roof of the 450 SL that was parked in front of the all-night convenience store. He rolled clumsily across the hood, leaving a few claw marks in the shiny black paint job, and landed mostly on his feet on the side of the empty street. He could hear his pursuers running around the building, but he figured he at least had some breathing space now.

Across the street the park began, but it was all fields and didn’t offer much protection. He could make a stand there or try to head up the street a hundred metres or so and make for the protection of the park’s dense shrubs. All things being equal, the beaver figured the two pursuers weren’t much of a challenge, but he had already experienced a bit too much of other people’s hospitality and it was time to make like a banana and split.

Besides, maybe he would find his lemon tree in there somewhere. The beaver headed down the street, sticking close to the shadows of the buildings, and slipped into the trees just as one of the dark figures rounded the corner.

 

Whaa?

Oh … Yeah … Whaa?

Oh … Oh …

Oh. Fuck. Yeah.

Well twist my nipple with a gold-plated tie clip and call me sister. Damn.

I guess that’s it then.

My bad.