ch. 1 train to the sea
TRANSCRIPT
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I used to have a kingdom, I used to have a queen,
But it faded all away …
-I-
Train to the Sea
There is a place, somewhere, where the land greets the
sea. Birds sing, the winds play, and the remnants of the
dying sun still caress the curves of the ocean. In this
place, you may find me, waiting to board a train.
As a child I used to dream a dream over and again of
riding a train to the sea. I would wake in the dark hours
of the morning when the fog still wandered in whispered
movements, and when the earth was very much alive and
softly breathing unbeknownst to the contentment of
sleepers.
I would wake with all my clothes on and creep gently
along the seaside road, the smell of the station‟s old -wood
and iron finding me, refreshing my wonder as I neared.
There was the station, and there was the giant
locomotive, steam billowing from the chimney and dome, the
warm hiss from the pistons near the wheels and tracks. I
would leap upon the train and find a compartment to myself,
and my heart would race as I looked out the window to see
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us bid farewell to all things above the water. The candles
were lit and the flames swayed like forests of kelp in the
undercurrents. The velvet curtains near the windows were
pulled back and tied tight. The wheels began to move and I
had said goodbye to no one.
I found a train to the sea.
The train moved onward, downward, and I looked to the
shore to see the sun rise like fire on the great waters and
watched as my train headed straight into it, a strange
Viking funeral of my own creation. And as the day began, so
did it leave me as I plunged into a vivid blue. Tracks and
rails were blurred and the world took on a wonderful motion
and everything swayed with a lazy rhythm.
But it was too much. Darkness embraced the train as we
fathomed deeper. The coldness found my skin and pierced
through. From the icy and misted windows, dark shadows swam
through the deep to become horrid figures. I was taken with
fear as the flames of the candles failed me and the water
broke through the glass, my skin burning with the merciless
cold of the black water. It filled my lungs and gripped my
heart and the last moments of my waning vision swayed with
the soft glow of a beckoning form moving towards me weeping
a distant melody in the dark.
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But here, I see nothing and hear only the remnant
pitter-patter of the dying rain.
The rain. My nemesis, my foreboding vessel, that which
washed away the colors in my sights. That cruel rain.
But this is a gentle madness, and I feel its genesis
fading. I am flying home, eastbound to the shore, high
above and over the leagues of rolling wheat fields and low
green grasses veined with slow streams. Smoothly and
quickly through the dark warm air, down from the hills to
where the dark sparkle and blue of the sea reaches the
white sands, across and beyond a large bay giving home to a
lovely village by the sea.
I fly south past the village where the fog drifts
lazily with tendril fingers tickling the shore, past the
trees along the seaside road, where I fall upon a small
home on a beach of black sand.
The boat was gone, its absence appalling, a burrowing
elegy. Its buoy marker drifts untethered beyond the
breakers, away from the shore, where a woman stands alone,
drinking apple cider to ease an aching throat. Her eyes are
towards the water and the winds pass by her ears in
cacophonous tones. It is a sanctuary of type.
And it is now a quiet place.
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I could smell the soil through the water. The north
wind flew across the bay, carrying with it the scent of
lavender and gardenias. I took in a lung-full and dove
deep.
The water was full of angular shafts of light drifting
to darkness some thirty feet below. I could see things move
down there, the shadows of great fish shying from my
intrusion, or perhaps the playful reverence of migrating
humpback whales feeding near the surface and singing to one
another, though I knew it was too early in the season for
the gliding giants and their songs.
After a couple of minutes I breached the surface and
exhaled, long and slow. My body stood the temperature and
the sun‟s rays painted the surface morning calm.
There was laughter nearby.
A bank of fog retreated to the great sea beyond the
mouth of the bay. Between the mouth and I lay a small sail
with two old men pulling at the lines. Still a ways away
but within earshot, I whistled to them and waved. My
whistle was a bad one. It came out a wet sputter.
I swam up to the men in the skiff, an old single-sail
catboat. The paint was peeling away from the hull, there
were cracks in the wood, an ancient thing.
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I blew the water from my lips. “Ahoy.”
The two smiled at each other.
“Good to see you, Shandon, been a while,” Jamins said.
He was wearing what looked to be a potato sack. Frankie, a
striped shirt and shorts. Frankie leaned out to take my
hand with his, wrinkled and tanned. I swatted it aside,
pulled myself in and shook my long wet hair, showering the
both of them.
“Thanks Shandon,” Jamins said.
“Yeah, tha nks mate, ” Frankie said.
“No problem, gents,” I said, looking down at three
fish sluggishly squirming just below the surface of the
water, a rope running through their gills, “how‟s the catch
treating you?”
With a dismissive gesture, Frankie passed the question
to Jamins, who usually spoke for the two. “C ould be better,
as always, couple mackerel, a yellow- fin. No sharks… yet.”
He eyed me with a wry smirk.
“Wouldn‟t be many sh arks in the bay with that giant
s quid still hunting these waters.”
Jamins and Frankie smiled and nodded.
“What‟re ya doing up so early Shandon?” asked Frankie.
“Oh, you know, catchin‟ the worm.”
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“You drifted quite a bit a way‟s from your beach,”
said Jamins, looking south towards my house and the nursery
beside it. “Current pull you out?”
I didn‟t quite know. “I guess so. I was just swimming
around and here I am.”
“Well, do you need a lift home?”
“No thanks, but if you‟re heading back to town, I‟ll
gladly tag along.” My arms felt all no odley, but I needed
to check on the market to see how my last delivery had been
selling.
We sailed north across the deepest waters of the bay
towards the small marina. Jamins and Frankie were done for
the morning, and I knew where they were headed, where every
fisherman ached for after a disappointing day.
The wind had picked up with the rising sun, it made
the water ripple along in anxious shimmers, and I felt it
blow cold on my wet skin.
We passed the moments in silence. I looked to the
east, the coastline was scattered with thick green trees,
long vines and giant leaves hiding their trunks. They
stretched some leagues from the village down along the
small dirt seaside road to my nursery and house shrinking
in the distance along the pepper-gray sand at the southern-
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most pocket of the bay, the only beach to have any waves at
all.
There were green hills rising from the coastline
rolling smoothly northward and eastward, where sugarcane
was planted beyond the sights of the village. And far to
the east, leagues upon leagues of wheat fields grew in the
old tradition.
I came back to Jamins saying something that caught my
ear.
“…is always here at night, and I heard her once, v oice
carrying past the breakers. ”
“What‟re you guys talking about?” I asked.
They eyed me for a moment. “Oh, a… nothin‟ Shando n,
just talking about the wind,” Frankie said.
“What of it, she singing to you?”
“No, no, mate. Just windy sometimes, out here, well,
you know…”
So I looked out there, to the west, where the bay
opened to the wide berth of the ocean, azure and mystic in
its vastness. There were no clouds to the western horizon
and the fog had burned away, only a faint blue so lit by
the sun that its gleam ran white with the touching sky. I
felt small looking into that whiteness. It felt like the
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center of things, as though I could peer outside from where
the whiteness came, like a window to somewhere else.
I tried to let it pass with the wake of the boat under
its flapping sails in the morning light. I looked past the
mouth of the bay to the deep sea glistening with life,
calming. And I could feel something pulling me out, a
current above the water like a wind within me. There was a
sound too, small but deep, as though it took its time in
reaching me.
It was melodic, alluring, like a voice. I found it
disturbing that I should feel tempted by my own being to
jump from the boat and swim away from the land, to follow
the source of the sound. It came back to the whiteness,
where the light was reflecting off the waters, blurring my
eyes as they reached the line where the ocean met the sky.
And leagues from the shelter of our bay, the trembling
mirages of light melted to a single visage, a shimmering
figure, in ballet, dancing like a phantom across the
sparkling blue horizon.
I stared at this thing for a long moment. I brushed
blonde hair from my face. Jamins was speaking to me.
“What?” I asked.
Jamins looked at me. “Didn‟t say nothin‟.”
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“Oh. Right, well,” I stuttered, thinking of something
to say. “You two didn‟t see that?”
Jamins and Frankie looked where I looked, then they
stared at each other.
“Right,” I said.
I splashed some water on my face, smelling once again
the salt and wood and canvas and subtle remnants of fish.
The three of us enjoyed the growing daylight as we neared
the marina at the north end of the bay, closest to the
village.
Jamins navigated the docks to find his slip at the far
end. We pulled in and they went about tying things up.
“Thanks for the lift , old-timers, can I help out with
anything?” I asked, already unloading their tackle box and
fishing poles.
Jamins tossed my comment aside with a hand. “Go on
Shandon, we‟ll finish up.”
I left them to their cleanup and walked along the
dock, where I noticed a small rowboat slowly spinning free
of its slip. One of its oars had jumped ship and took a
path of its own in the dirty water. I tried to lean out and
grab the boat, but it passed just beyond my reach. Now
untethered, both the rowboat and the oar drifted away from
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the dock and from each other. Two little lost galaxies in
an expanding universe.
I left the docks and turned south to walk down the
dirt road to my village. The morning was alive with the cry
of a whooping crane and buzzing insects hovering over the
stagnant muddy waters near the reeds piping their shunk -
hollow melodies in the wind. And I walked the road, keeping
tempo with happy feet, bare to the soft earth.
My village had a main street bordered with shops and
businesses. The road ran short and wide with a wooden
walkway trimming the entryways all the way down from the
north to the south end. There was the bank with high
ceilings and wood shingles, a balcony from the second story
that wrapped around the whole building where the bank owner
could be seen in his multi-colored corduroy vests enjoying
cigars from the swinging bench facing the beach during
sunset.
On weekends the balcony would be overran with his
children and every other kid in town, and it would
transform into their fortress for war, flinging stones and
pinecones to the invading pirates coming from the sea only
meters from the west side of the tall building.
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I sold my plants to a one-story but wide open-aired
market that always smelled rich with fruits and flowers and
plants. It was just preparing to open.
But there was little activity in the village today,
clouds rose from the eastern hills and began to gather dark
and slightly ominous over the sun, casting its first
shadows of the morning. There was a fresh scent lingering
in the wet air, and my nose could detect a mild smell of
burning mesquite chips coming from my favorite place in
town, The Tavern.
My village being a village, it had but only one tavern
and it was The Tavern, its name long forgotten and sign
outside long weathered away. I believe it did have a name
once, but now the faded oak board hanging outward from the
entryway merely remained fixed so that it might measure the
breeze.
No, to us it was just our old tavern, with ancient
woods from an ancient forest. Dark woods that held the
stories it for so long absorbed as nutrients. It had a
comforting darkness with its old oak benches, stained so
many years before, barrels that actually held a proper
drink. There were even legs of meat hanging near the back
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and its scent swooned with the ever-present olive, big
green and black ones, soaking in wine and herbs.
There was also the salt. Only steps from the water,
there was always salt inside the tavern, though that may
have more to do with there not being any doors. It had a
doorway of course, but it was the doorlessness that gave
way to the casualness of the place. As dark and musky as it
was, it always kept you conscious of the weather outside
because it was always looming in the corner of your eye. In
the early hours of the tavern, and yes it patron‟s to many
of those types, the fog can be found creeping in. Why, it
may even stay for a drink. The barkeep maintained a burning
furnace to keep the place warm in winter.
But lately the days have been strange ones. The summer
is upon us and yet we still see dark clouds every night.
But they never break, and the rain never comes.
I walked up the stone steps placed like a chain of
islands floating over a sea of green moss. There was a
spotted green tree frog near the edge of the small pond by
the old stone bench outside the doorway. It looked at me
and licked its eye.
“And a good day to you, sir,” I said.
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I entered through the doorway wrapped in cool ivy
vines and continued with the customary greeting to all.
“Fine days to this house.”
They responded to me in kind, “And fine days to thee . ”
It was an ageless greeting. The niceties.
The darkness of the tavern leaned away from the jovial
light outside. You could hear those passing by like pebbles
drifting down a brook. I imagined them bussing about,
congregating in various businesses, conducting various
forms of business.
But this early the street and all remained still.
There was no rain, the gathering clouds drifted lazily
without sound. A quiet morning, one where the stillness
blankets you, and if you looked close enough, you could
almost see the breeze.
I shuffled to my favorite spot at the bar, west end,
nearest the window that faces the sea. I looked around.
There were few gentlemen here this morning, but of those
faces all were familiar to me. These early drinkers were
seamen, and they wore that pride with hunched shoulders
cradling their dark pints with a self-assured well-deserved
jealous thirst. Their woven clothing was light and tattered
and dulled by the sun and the sea. Most wore leather-
strapped sandals at their feet. Many, like mine, were bare.
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Life at sea was quiet in speech and loud at heart, they
would challenge a squall with a grimace and welcome the sun
with a smile, men of small words and obnoxious metaphors.
Our small village hadn‟t the larg e sea vessels of the
seaside cities, we were an armada of small sails. It was a
bit lonesome but joyful. Still, they looked with watery
eyes that seldom thought of things simpler than their
epitaphic minimalism. That of the sea, the woman and the
drink.
Never too early for a drink, I got myself a pint.
Facing the window I could see even more clouds gather,
overcasting the sun with a graying gloom, their moisture
stuck to the window, peering in with spying faces.
I look ed to the barkeeper. “Maybe rain toda y. ”
“And maybe you‟ll pay your ever -growing tab today as
well, Shandon, ” he offered with a mocking scowl, “but it‟s
best not to be too hopeful.” He broke to a smile and
started setting up plates and glasses.
I laughed a bit nervously and changed the subject. My
nursery business isn‟t doing that well. I gestured around.
“L ooks like a poor day for fish.”
“More like a good day for fish an d a poor day for the
fisherman.” H e always caught me being dumb. “A nd that means
a good day for me.”
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He gestured to all the drinkers and had a gleam in his
eye. “Still though, you may be right about the rain, the
clouds are gathering pretty early today, maybe it‟ll
finally fall.”
I ordered breakfast, two eggs, over-easy, a biscuit,
cantaloupe, fresh guava juice. The eggs came too runny and
I played with the yoke until it broke and flooded the whole
plate, tainting the biscuit and fruit with a strong over-
bearing flavor. There was too much salt, so I only finished
half my meal and went back to the pint. The beer was brewed
just out back. I sipped the dark lager, it had a sweet head
and a nice malty finish, though a bit hoppy for my taste.
There was almost no carbonation, which made it easier to
drink. The taste was too dark for sunny summer days, but it
seemed fitting with tod ay‟s increasing gloom.
My breakfast was interrupted when I heard someone
whispering from the other end of the bar. I looked over to
see Benjamin seated by himself at the last countertop
stool.
One look at Benjamin and I could tell that he was not
well. It was the way he sat with his legs hanging off the
stool‟s feet post, swaying back and forth like a child on a
swing set. He had a large glass of liquor in front of him
on the bar, untouched. He was looking down and his fingers
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were moving violently over themselves as though trying to
rub off fish scales. And his body language was wrong, he
kept adjusting his shoulders and seemed to almost tremble
from cold.
Benjamin owned one of the largest sailboats in the
village. He usually slept on it with his wife, where only
the two of them would sail at sea for days. And he would
allow any child or parent or friend aboard to sail the bay
during calm waters. He had a grandfatherly demeanor to all
the townspeople, a man quick to laugh.
So it was strange to see him here this early. And
drinking.
I walked over and took the seat next to him.
“Hey there, Benjamin.” He moved his head slowly to
look behind him. He looked right past me. The whites of his
eyes were like red glass, his face wore the contorted
expression of one who has tasted some foul rotten fruit. He
didn‟t seem to notice I was there.
I looked to the barkeeper for an explanation, who
merely shrugged and went back to cleaning pint glasses.
I spoke his name a seco nd time, louder, “Benjamin!”
He kept his head down and smiled. “Hello, Shandon,” he
said softly, without raising his head. He seemed to not be
able to hold his smile and was back to the strange wince.
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“What‟s going on?” I asked .
“Oh nothing, just in for a drink.” He raised his glass
as though his reason was quite clear.
“Is there something the matter?” I asked. “ I never
took you for an early drinker.”
“Oh, well, no, it‟s nothing Shandon… nothing at all…
it‟s just, well…” he looked around, he sighed, “it‟s
nothing.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. He twitched but tried
to play it off by scratching at his neck.
“Come on, Ben, what‟s going on? You can tell me.”
Ben started tracing the pattern of the grain on the
bar. I waited for him to get it out of his system. Finally,
he exhaled and leaned closer to me. “I saw something very
strange last night. ”
It was my time to be startled. “A… what do you mean?
Like a… voice or something atop the water?”
His eyes widened. My stupid damn mouth.
“I knew it! I knew someone‟d seen it too.” He grabbed
me by the shoulders. “T ell me Shandon, what do you think it
is? Do you think it‟s the devil?”
I backed off in surprise. “What?”
“Did you see its face ?” This time he looked horrified.
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I was thinking t o myself and muttered, “W ell, no, I
only heard that someone saw something, just recently, but
from a distance, but I could have sworn she was…”
Benjamin had his full glass gripped by yellow claws,
spider webs of blood fleeing the tightness of his grasp.
“No, nothing like that,” he said, “It‟s foolish, I
know, but I think what I saw last night was the devil … just
coming on up out of the water.” He looked like he just
admitted to stealing a slice of bread, a petty
embarrassment on his face.
I was somewhat hoping another had shared my vision on
the water, but what Benjamin was describing what something
else entirely. And I felt something in my stomach squeeze.
“Where was it?” I asked.
“Near the marina.” He nodded his head to the north.
I just stared.
Benjamin sighed, reticent to tell the tale. “I was
getting in, I‟d been out at sea all day and I‟d hooked a
beauty, a big old swordfish that fought for hours. It was
getting dark and I wanted to be heading in before the winds
picked up. I made it in at dusk, and by the time I‟d gutted
the fish and cleaned the boat, it was well past dark.”
He took a tiny sip of the tavern‟s home brew, belched
meekly. Benjamin was not a drinker.
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“The light house came shining my way and I had a weird
funny feeling, like a cold wind at my neck.” He looked at
me for support. “You know how those winds have been lately,
the clouds were dark and about ready to let them come
falling down in buckets but they never do. They never do.
You know one day we‟re in for a heavy one.” He managed a
weak smile at the thought of rain.
“So I got this feeling and I was walki ng up the hill
towards the road. You know that steep hill just by the
lighthouse? Thought I‟d give the lightkeeper a steak from
the catch, seeing that he brought my wife some chowder last
time she was down with the flu.”
He smiled a nervous twitch and his hands were shaking
as he sipped a bit more of the drink. “And I heard this…
sound … not like anything I‟d ever heard, like a tin violin,
or a wind- up music box all gone out of tune.”
Benjamin flattened his short wiry gray hair back with
shaky hands, and he changed his excited pitch to a monotone
script, like all the life fell from the story, like it was
already over.
“And I could feel it coming when I turned around, and
I saw this big head coming out of the water, then the
skinny little body under it as it bounced on up the hill.
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Benjamin was now visibly upset, but at least he kept
his voice down. A few more men had entered the tavern
during the past moments.
“Benjamin,” I said, “are y ou sure you know what you
saw out there? ”
He looked at my shirt in a strange way. “It was a full
moon and I got eyes like a gull, boy.”
“Alright, I‟m sorry, mate. Why do you think its head
was so big?”
“How in God‟s graces should I know? And that‟s not the
worst of it. ” He lowered his voice and his eyes to his
chest and whispered as though embarrassed and not wanting
anyone to hear, “ The face.”
“What of its face?” I asked.
He eyed me with trepidation. He was scared. “Shandon,
it was all carved up, actual carvings right into its face,
like an old tribal war mask with great black eyes. It was
all just… wrong .”
Benjamin wiped at his eyes.
I continued to ponder with solemnity. “ But what did it
do?”
“Do? It didn‟t do anything but dance up and down the
road like it‟d never even seen me. Guess I wasn‟t much
interest to it .” The story confessed, he pushed the glass
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away and got up to leave, trying to shrug off his darkened
thoughts.
I stood there with my hands on the bar. Something
about his story pulled at me. It felt like falling. It was
sickening.
A yell came from across the dark room. “Hey ! W hat‟re
you dogs yappin‟ about?”
It was Marcus, an old sailor, and a drunk. My fearful
storyteller turned and put on a half-assed face of
serenity. “Oh nothing , Marc, just trading ghost stories,
that‟s all.”
I turned my head to see Marcus raise his eyebrow with
curiosity. A couple of the other guys lifted their heads
from their glasses too. There was a short silence.
Benjamin could see he was caught in their nets now. He
submitted. “It‟s n othing really, guys, I just think I saw
the devil last night. That‟s all.”
For a moment there was silence in the tavern, but it
was quickly cast aside with the eruption of belligerent
laughter, the cruel kind that only sailor ‟ s could carve up.
One by one they came to the bar to gather around
Benjamin and I. They interrogated him in turn, all chiming
in like a Greek chorus of morons.
“Did‟ya see a serpent, Benjamin?”
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“H ope you got a gold earring for Davey Jones. ”
“Did you hear the song of the siren?”
“The devil, ha!”
“Was it a he or she ?”
More laughter.
“Did ya sell yer soul?”
I squirmed out of their condescending reach with an
apologetic smile to poor Benjamin, now surrounded by the
fools.
I turned my head to the darkness of the corner and, in
secrecy, saw the darkness take shape to a small dancing
figure rising up from the water like a spirit summoned by a
sorcerer, an antithesis of my personal vision, out along
the sand dunes, through the mist and before the moon. I
could hear a distant cry and see bright and black eyes
staring right at me.
I left the tavern to the market to see how my stock
was selling this week, convincing myself that the day had
not just grown darker in all its parts.
My plants at the market were doing just fine, so I
made my way home, where something happened … something hard
to describe, and it troubled me to some extent.
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I left the market quickly and was jogging home at an
easy pace. I took the foot trail that paralleled the main
road to my house. Both lined the sea, but the road was wide
and carved from a grassy slope that rose some meters away
from the shoreline while the trail hugged the water through
the banana trees and ferns. The trail was well worn by my
own feet. I had little use for the road right now since I
had no vehicle or carriage or horse. There was no sand
along the trail until you curved around to the small lagoon
where my house was built. I call it a lagoon but it is
merely a round inlet with a dark beach, a microcosm of the
bay.
Under the trees one could look right through to the
water. The moss was thick at certain parts and comforted my
bare feet. I came to the section of trees that curved in
towards one another, bowing gracefully to make a narrow
tunnel about thirty meters long, shadowed underneath thick
branches and dark against an already-darkening sky.
I ran along until I felt a strange sensation inside
the tunnel. A shift in the wind perhaps, but I stopped to
listen. I did n‟t know what it was, but I shivered and felt
something through the thin trees on my right. I could see
past the trunks to the water, now a pearly grey. I had seen
feet, walking, the hem of a dress brushing against ankles,
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and there was a sound, just for the slightest moment. And
before I could think more of it there was only water and
stones through the trees.
Then I felt a rush at my back, and heard the sharp
intake of breath, and I was off like a hunted animal. I
sprinted out of the tunnel into view of my house. I
sprinted the whole way, almost three hundred meters. I ran
from the image and the sound, focused with my own sounds of
blood pumping and hard breathing and the small waves and
breath of the tide.
I slapped the wooden planks of my nursery to sound my
finish, just as in a race. Both hands to the wood above my
head, I stretched my legs. I let the sweat drip off my face
and run down my bare chest, watching it drip all the way to
the ground. I breathed deep and slow, calming myself. The
sweat tasted of salt on my lips and I spit at the small
puddle beneath me where the wood of my nursery met the
earth. I ran my hand down the planks to the ground and
peered to the far corner of the wall. And I noticed
something, the boards were sunken deep in the ground near
the end of my side of the nursery, almost a whole foot
down. I stepped back ten meters and eyed the rooftop. The
roof was leaning to the right. Then I was sure of it, my
nursery was sinking.
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Like a ship with a hole in the bow, it was heading
down into the dirt. Strange, because the dirt was very hard
there and didn‟t meet with the sand for at least twenty
meters. Yet here it fell before me, like quicksand.
I entered through the other side, the nursery had only
one wall and the other three sides were open-air with
removable palm-woven netting. The large room was moist and
warm, drops of condensation perched on the tips of the
longer leaves. I could not spot the problem from inside. I
peered under the long wooden tables. They felt soft and wet
with the slow growth of green algae. The various tables all
seemed to sit on top of the dirt, yet the building had
surely sunk a few feet. I noticed the gardenias were almost
in full bloom, ready to be taken to the market. I fetched
my shears and began trimming and clipping. I pumped the
well into the irrigation system that hung from the low
rafters, sprinkling water to the thirsty flora. Small palms
in the left corner grew well.
I busied myself in the nursery, forgetting the
downward lean of its housing. I forgot it all in the joy of
my work. The dark ivy, blue algae, the begonias, ferns and
gardenias, they all brought me to a strange calm.
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Benjamin‟s story of the devil had shaken me. It was
something he had said, something that cast a small shadow
of familiarity in my mind.
And there was the sound. Unexplainable. They were
allies in discontent. I worked all day without stopping. I
was a mad scientist in a small forest laboratory. I finally
stopped with my whole body proudly wearing garments of
soil, dark and very real on my skin. It was just before
sunset, and there was little else to do but load the plants
to the market on Monday.
I left my sinking nursery and washed at the outside
shower near my kitchen window. I kept a tank filled with
water from a nearby spring, scented with different flower
pedals and herbs. I pulled the lever and the water
sprinkled onto me. I scrubbed at the soil, soaped up and
rinsed it all off. There was the sound of the water
bouncing off the koa-wood floorboards, the smell of the
sweet scented water, and the winds that played through the
trees nearby. I closed my eyes, and inside them, under the
lids and beyond the dark, sounds became shapes and I saw
myself elsewhere, water coming in from all sides, coming
down into my mouth.
It was not the sweet spring but the stinging salt of
the sea. Startled, I opened my eyes and nearly choked on a
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mouthful of water. I gasped and coughed, spewing much more
water than I could have taken in. I was out of breath and
quickly felt weak, dizzy.
I left the shower, dried and trudged inside, staring
out the kitchen window towards the beach. I was losing it.
There was music and song nearby. I saw the sea at sunset
outside my window. I looked for the green flash just as the
sun sunk beneath the waters, an ancient tradition that
signaled purity of heart for the one that sees it, but I
only saw dancing figures gather to a single translucent
mass and my ears filled with a haunting cry, and it grew
louder.
I plugged my ears with my fingers and turned my back
to the water. Like a fool, thinking I could escape, I
pulled the shades at my kitchen window and leaned against
the wall with my eyes wide open, fearing to see worse if I
closed them. The sound resonated within me, passed down my
body and around me. And I began to shake like a cold soul.
So I sunk down to the floor and willed it all away, the
sound, the song, the voice and the figure. All away…
The sun had fallen and a cool breeze was coming
through the open windows as I scurried through my closet
looking for the appropriate items. I wasn‟t sure what those
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were because I didn‟t know where I was going. My closet had
a few coats, and one belonged to my great grandfather. It
had rough leather on the outside and some type of light fur
lining inside. It smelt of maple and faint tobacco, old but
not unpleasant. It was also the warmest and most durable
coat I had, it had seen more winters than I had lived. So I
grabbed it and threw it over my shoulder, along with my old
leather pack. I am fond of the older things.
I wore dark trousers fit for outdoor adventures and
laced up my leather-hiking boots. I sheathed my hunting
knife and filled my canteen and packed dried fruit and
nuts, dried smoked fish, and a loaf of honey-wheat bread
inside the pack as well.
The sky was not quite dark complete as I hurried along
the seaside road that led from my place to town. I was in
need of a drink. Some light remaining near the horizon and
dark clouds patched various spots in the sky and they
maneuvered themselves like puzzle pieces, ready to hide
away the stars.
Venus was out, the silver-blue planet always out-shone
the brightest star, and it nuzzled closely to the full moon
rising from the east. A strange constellation lay in the
sky as well, rather unfamiliar. Like a sword, or an upside-
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down cross. It was lovely. The night was lovely. The
crickets were wide awake, as were the frogs along the
streams, and their polyrhythmic chirping and croaking gave
meter to my solemnly deliberate pace along the road.
The Tavern at night was quite a burden to my eyes.
There was movement everywhere. I looked to the worn wooden
walls and saw candles lighting every few feet. Their flames
dancing and casting light over all the nitwits with their
dastardly cheerful faces. Someone sang a sea chantey whose
sound was like grinding a rabbit‟s skull on stone to my
ear. It was lively and loud and I laid my hand to my head
as the sounds resonated and pained within me.
I was on edge, my senses heightened. Each slurred song
and jarring laugh pierced through. It was like being half
asleep and hearing a nearby conversation amplified into
your head.
I looked around. The room was overflowing with my
town‟s people. A ship must have arrived recently, for its
seamen laid claim to the entire bar, with a few newly-found
maidens bouncing at their laps. They where swaying to and
fro, clinking glasses and slapping backs like a bunch of
jolly bastards with syrupy ales falling from their mouths.
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The candles hanging from the rusted chains that came off
the ceiling swung along with the sailors in a similar
rhythmic merriment.
I tipped my imaginary hat, proclaiming with a sardonic
whisper, “Fine days to this house,” and entered.
There was a band in the corner just beginning to play.
It was a quartet made of two skinny brothers playing
classical guitar and upright bass, a beautiful dark-haired
girl playing violin and a heavy set percussionist playing a
hided tambourine. They played chunky dance music and all
sang in island harmony, sounding out long vowels that
milked everyone‟s sprits to the floor in front of the small
stage they played from.
They were playing at a steady tempo and I could almost
pick out the high voice of the violin singing through all
the noise. The bass plucked a staccato backbeat and was met
with the tempo‟d nods of the crowd. The y were good.
There was dancing and drinking. Wine was being brought
from oak barrels in the back shed where they would be drunk
without being tasted. A pity, the tavern maintained a
vineyard up the slope a few leagues inland and produced
some very nice pinots.
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Aside from their lack of appreciation for good wine,
the tavern was a typical jovial summer night. But my mood
sought no such thing. I was here now for a strong drink and
perhaps hoping to see my best friend, Patariki, waiting for
me at the bar . He wasn‟t here yet.
I took one of the last remaining tables nearest the
door, opposite my favorite spot at the window facing the
water. The inside was much warmer than the cool clouded
night outside, and I ordered some of the good dark stuff
from the blonde waitress. The band was picking a new tune
that seemed familiar but when they started singing,
guitarist first, I couldn‟t quite spot it. One by one they
fell to a syncopated groove, an island-tinged number in
waltz time.
The blonde waitress brought my dark and frothing pint
down with a clunk on the hardwood table. I heard the
guitarist sing out, you don’t know why the skies cry in
such ways …
And just then my ear caught something in the wind and
I snapped my head to the door with squinted eyes, staring
out through the open doorway at a distance down the dark
road under the muted sky.
Peering from the well-lit tavern into the dark only
seemed to exaggerate the outer darkness even more. And as
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my eyes adjusted, the night seemed a graying blue, and the
wet clouds fell and hung as curtains down to where the road
left the village and headed eastward. And just a few
hundred dainty skips and toe tips down the road, where I
could hardly separate the blur that was the sandy dirt and
the sky that knelt down towards it, the air seemed to move,
majestically, fluidly, swirling as though gathering.
And with it came the sound.
It rushed to me and grew to a low howl, small within
my ear. I quickly looked away and shook it out by draining
my pint in a few gulps. It tasted heavy in my throat and
stung me. My eyes watered and I knew I‟d regret treating a
sweet beer unkindly. I itched at my ear and my finger came
back wet.
I ordered another beer and sat waiting for Patariki to
arrive, my discontented and sporadic thoughts keeping me
poor company.
I was sitting as a sullen observer when a drunken man
with a woman in his hand came stumbling by, knocking into
me, half his drink spilling on my coat.
“ Gag… blackersnaf !” I exclaimed.
“Oh, excuse me mate,” he said, offhand.
I replied with my most gallant manners and sneered.
“O h no my dear sir, I must say the fault is my own.”
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He stared at me with confusion on his face.
I shook my head at the belligerent ass and took off my
coat, shaking the drink away while my second beer arrived.
I stood up, frustrated. All the chaos inside this tavern,
the music and laughter and shouts of glee, everyone calmly
taking sanctuary amongst the warmth of sound and sights as
if nothing was wrong, as though nothing was coming.
But there was too much. Too many fools who did not
quite hear all that surrounded them, fools of a fortunate
disposition that could not sense the other things. Like the
air‟s movement, the swirling and collection of moisture
inside the tavern itself. They did not hear the faint and
terrifying howls creeping just behind the wind. Or the
single voice that lay countermelody to those cries.
No, for they were lost in song and drink, thoughts
floating amongst the crashing of glasses, the scraping of
boots and the shuffles of bare feet on a sandy and salted
wooden floor. All those voices, belligerent, musical and
terrible, all mixed but did not harmonize.
Not to me.
So I headed to the door. It was time enough. And just
then, Patariki came like a phantom through the mist of the
road and into the tavern. He eyed me and spread his arms
wide, gliding in like a manta ray. He was wearing his
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business coat and slacks, nice shoes, like he‟d just come
from the office. His hair was black and short and
disheveled. His usually light chocolate complexion was
rather pale. His eyes, bright and red. It was clear he had
not recently shaved. He smiled but with a certain cynicism.
The air shimmied around him as I felt him try to mask some
kind of rage.
The grin was malice by the time he reached me,
clenching my arm, stopping me from leaving.
He smelled strange. His eyes were lined with dark
circles. He seemed serious but was trying to play it off
with that damned stupid smile.
He wore a mood ring. It was black.
I expected something weird.
„Riki spoke, “Hey Grace, how do you think you‟re going
to die?”
Something like that.
“I‟m not quite sure,” I said, “maybe I‟ll fall down a
hole.”
He made a face. “Seriously, I just want to get eaten
by a shark. Really man, a shark, just swim up and bite me
in half, teeth tearing into my flesh. I wanna hear that
tearing noise, you know? And I wanna feel that pain, the
real physical pain, not any emotional shit. That‟s what I
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want.” He shrugged his shoulders in an obvio us fashion.
“Come one, mate, seriously. What about you?”
“I want a beer,” I said.
He looked at my other hand holding the glass. “You
already have one”.
“Oh… well”, I dismissed, “then you want a beer.” And
with that, I decided to stay.
„Riki was great, th e flotsam of my soul. Untamed and
restless, he lived at a much quicker pace than I. He seldom
let a breath pass between his lips without uttering some
vicious observance.
He eyed me up and down, his face holding a soured
look, like he was giving blood and donating it to a
vampire. His wide nose was puffing in and out, sniffing the
air.
“Nice jacket,” he said.
I looked at my coat. “Why, what‟s wrong with it?”
He shrugged. “Oh nothing, its great, its
faaaaannntastic, I haven‟t worn one of those since I was
g ay.”
“I didn‟t know you ever stopped!” I said in mock
surprise.
And with that, our courtesies were exchanged and he
asked, “So mate, what‟dya do today?”
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“Played chess with my sanity” I said.
He nodded, but of course. “And who won?”
“Eh?” I spat distractedl y. I was looking outside
again, still certain the gloom was increasing. “Oh, well I
suppose I‟m losing.”
“Well, then there‟s nothing to lose if we get a bit
pitched tonight.” He smiled at me with that damned grin.
“I‟m in a right state and I could use a few pints… and a
few more.”
I just went along with it, not ready to jump into
whatever he had planned, which usually ended with blood
falling out of my skin.
The waitress had delivered „Riki‟s pint. He let it sit
on the table, untouched. His mood changed quickly. He
looked down and interlaced his fingers, his serious
gesture. It was his only tell of a change in mood, aside
from the mood ring, and it did not suit him.
“So you know Vera?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Vera! Shit Shandon, my niece, the little girl that
I‟v e been bringing over to play around in your nursery. I‟m
sure if you search your tremendously oversized brain you
might remember. Asshole.”
I flipped him a gesture of equal insult with my hand.
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“Thanks ajax.” He punched me in the shoulder and went
on. “Well, anyways, since you‟re not going to inquire as to
the reason of my somewhat displaced behavior tonight…”
“I think you‟ve been rather placid, actually, and—”
“ She drowned today .” He looked me right in the eye and
took a long pull from a flask concealed inside his coat,
never taking his eyes off me. He was smiling, cruelly.
“What?” I asked in disbelief. Of course I knew Vera,
she was a real sweet thing, she used to sing to my plants,
thinking they would grow quicker. As much of sinners as
Patariki and I are, we usually are quite compassionate. I
was shocked, and actually thought of someone else but
myself for the first time today.
“Yea h, my niece, she‟s gone mate,” he said.
I tried to empathize, but I could not. There was a
wind outside. I heard it. It unhinged me, crept to me like
a nervous itch. And so my mind was there when I said,
“Gadzooks man, how about that?”
How about that? Jeez, I was not on it tonight.
I recovered. “I‟m so sorry „Riki, what the hell
happened?”
He ignored my eyes and looked at his beer. “ I was
watching her for my sis, and we were down playing around in
the tide pools, she was singing to herself and running
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around, poking at all the sea anemones. ” He shook his head
slowly.
“I was sitting on the rocks, just hanging out… it took
a while, but I finally noticed it. I didn‟t hear any
singing.”
„Riki took a slow gulp from the pint and shook his
head slowly. I felt something soft tap at my back and
turned my head. There was no one there, but I noticed the
band was playing a new tune, something bright and chunky.
“I got up and ran over to the pools,” „Riki continued,
“I couldn‟t see her anywhere. I called out her name,
shouted as loud as I could. We were alone down there, no
one around.”
He wiped at his right eye with the hand holding the
pint glass. “‟Riki,” I said. He waved me off.
“It took a few minutes. I was in the water, waist
high. The tide has been coming in and the waves were
crashing onto the rocks. The pools were overflowing with
white water. It even knocked me off balance a couple times.
“Anyways, I found her in the deep pocket in one of the
bigger rocks. There were a bunch of seagulls screaming at
me when I ran and jumped in it. She was floating facedown,
and when I turned her over her face was blue, there was
blood running down by her temple. She must have been
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knocked over by one of the waves, and went unconscious when
she hit her head.”
„Riki went back to the pint. I put my hand on his
shoulder. I didn‟t know what to say.
“I‟m sorry,” I said again. “Your sister knows?”
“Yes, Shandon, she knows,” he said.
“What did she say?” I asked.
„Riki turned to me, his eyebrows crinkled, his face
aghast. “Say? She didn‟t say anything. I called the
authorities. They took her body away, to the morgue, I
guess. I wandered around all day, just walked the town, you
know? About an hour ago I finally mustered up the sand to
go and tell my sis. I was supposed to drop off Vera in time
for dinner so I wasn‟t late or nothing.
“I went into her house and she was sitting there on a
barstool in the kitchen. She looked at me and knew
something was wrong. „Where‟s the little bird?‟ she asked.
She always called Vera that, „cause she was always singing.
So I told her. She didn‟t say anything to me. She just sat
there for a moment. Then she stood up and went to the junk
drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a pair of scissors. I
thought she was going to fucking kill me, and I was ready
for it. I couldn‟t move, mate, I swear.”
I nodded my head.
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“But it was worse,” he said, ”she grabbed at her hair,
pulled a thick bunch of it from her head, and cut it off at
the scalp. She dropped it to the white tile floor. It
looked weird, scattered there, her hair is even darker than
mine. And she just kept on cutting until she was almost
bald. She looked at me the whole time. We didn‟t even say
anything to each other. And I didn‟t try to stop her. I
just left, like a bloody coward.”
“Shit, mate,” I said, “why did she do that to
herself?”
„Riki shrugged, his eyes back to the pint. “So people
wouldn‟t ask her everyday how she‟s d oing, and so that
every time she looked in the mirror, she would remember
Vera. It will take a good two years for her hair to grow
back. Our mum always loved her long hair.”
„Riki downed the rest of the pint in a few gulps. I
followed suite, a quiet cheers to „Riki‟s loss.
“So you just came from her place?” I asked.
He put the glass down with a hard clank and nodded.
“Came straight here, figured I‟d find you working over a
pint.”
He kept looking at me and again, took out the flask
from inside his coat. He took a sip and smacked his lips in
a mock-refreshing glee.
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“‟Riki, jeez, mate, I‟m really sorry. She was a sweet
thing.” I looked around at all the people in the bar, the
strange movement under the light of the swaying
chandeliers. “You sure this is the best place for you to be
right now?”
He tossed my question away with a hand and stood up,
shifting his flask to fit deeper into his pocket. “It‟s
alright. I‟m off to the bar, get a few more drinks and
maybe some women. These sailors have been out to sea so
long they‟re probably wondering why half the men in here
are wearing dresses and don‟t have any beards.”
This didn‟t seem like „Riki, to act so casually. He
was almost skipping aw ay when I stopped him. “‟ Riki, first,
bad line, man… just, really lame. Second, take it easy
tonight, we should be mourning Vera, not causing trouble.
I‟ve got to get my hands muddy tomorrow, loading some
plants, and would rather do it without holes in my
knuckles.”
I had no intention of loading plants tomorrow.
He pointed at me with one long finger and said, “Then
you picked a bad night to drink with me, poor friend.”
He grinned and proceeded onwards towards known and
hopeful liquid destruction.
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I tried to think about Vera, a little singing child, I
could see dark skin and a wide nose. But for the life of me
I couldn‟t remember much else about her, other than the
songs she used to sing that remained in the nursery like
the sonic imprint of some lost ghost.
I could see the anxious skittle in Patariki‟s walk as
he made it to the bar. He aimed straight for a lovely thin
creature standing in an insecure fashion near the end of
the bar. Her wavy hair hung well past her shoulders and she
wore a summer dress made of a thin material that hung close
to her figure. Patariki looked towards me, made eye contact
and put on his war face.
Within moments they were laughing at something he had
said, and she touched his chest as she chuckled right
along. He had ordered a beer but then slid it away after a
moment, a strange action for him. And stranger still that
he was behaving like this, to attempt to mask his sorrow by
being so loud and stupidly happy.
Poor Vera. „Riki would try to be tough, though. I knew
he would prete nd the pain didn‟t affect him. But how could
it not? He would blame himself, never forgive himself, and
was he wrong in that?
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I rubbed at my eyes and knocked over my pint glass. I
caught it before it could roll off the table. I was getting
a bit sloppy.
With colorful lights blinking out of my vision, I
surveyed the tavern. Fog had come in through the open
doorway, and I noticed the moisture clawing at the windows
behind the bar. I looked around the room to distract myself
but things seemed to slow down. The people in the tavern
seemed to waver, and it took some slightly drunken
concentration to understand what I was seeing. The movement
I had seen earlier outside had made its way in. Swirling,
hydrated tension.
And then everything seemed to stop. Something was
happening.
I could feel that the air inside the tavern had
changed. I could feel my skin moisten. The air grew thick
as though coiling, like a vaporous snake poised to strike.
And though everyone seemed to lie still, the music still
came. It came from the four instruments in the corner,
directly to me in the chair, alone in the slithering cloud
of vapor.
The sound of the band had a muted effect, like a
sponge covering the strings of the instruments. And each
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individual pluck sounded off like an arrow through the
trees of a thick forest.
And the sounds came for me. I followed with my head as
they hit me in the chest and fell to the floor with a plop.
One from the violinist as her delicate hands plucked.
Plop.
And one from the long-fingered brother on the standup
bass.
Plop.
One from the guitar and a slap on the skin of the
tambourine.
Plop. Plop.
The voices of the crowd too all fell to the floor with
a hollowed knock on the once-resonant and now dead wood. I
sat in the chair while this happened, my mouth agape. I
watched the sounds rise to take form. They stood tall and
dark, shrouds that broke apart from every corner of the
tavern. There was a culmination, a crescendo of visions and
illusions, nightmares with eyelids wide. All around me were
the sounds of breaths sucking in sharply with fear.
I was tense, and struck with a strange familiarity. A
single voice entered my head, seductive, beckoning me to
the ceiling above, where hovered a dark cloud, fecund with
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water, rolling with the hidden limbs of some horrible
thing.
And the clouds spread apart, and fell upon me.
The rain had finally come, and it fell with a
forgotten fury right before my eyes on the very tavern
floor.
It poured down from the wooden ceiling with aggression
and menace. I felt the water cold on my skin. It brought my
hair down over my eyes, touching my lips. I shook it and
let the water spread like little drops of poison to the
patrons around me. The sound of heavy rain was parted with
garbled words from an unseen source. And someone was near
me, the waitress. She came close to me but whispered
distantly. “Shandon?”
I looked up at her through the rain only to see her
face was blurred somehow. Almost faint, like her face was
as far away as the voice. It was not clear to me.
And for a moment it was she .
I panicked and slid my chair back too quickly. One of
the legs hit a crack in the wood floor and I fell over,
landing on my back, drenching my entire body in the puddle
that had formed below me. I stood up immediately and the
waitress was gone. I felt the stares of the whole tavern. I
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stuck my tongue out in defiance at everyone looking at me
with lovely sanity in their eyes and something quite
different within mine. My lips tasted of salt while the
water continued to fall.
Patariki came back to me with, no kidding, six pints
in his arms and a huge smile on his face. Then he looked at
mine and frowned, spitting through the rain. “Shit Grace,
your face is lo oking damn pale for this time of year.”
He dropped the beers on the table and I grabbed two,
drinking them immediately, preferring a quick death. I
wiped my mouth and then wiped the water from my face.
Patariki was encouraged by my ravage thirst and
started rambling as though everything was normal, as though
God always alters the laws of nature within the tavern on
Saturday nights…
“Well I gotta tell ya Shandon, I feel better already.
A couple hours in a ducky establishment such as this and
I‟m already moving onward. My sister should be here with
me, though. Lil… Lanel… shit , I‟m drunk. I‟m forgetting her
name. What‟s my damned sister‟s name?” He laughed.
I looked at the rain falling over us and said,
“Delilah.”
“Funny. Well, with little Vera, anyways, sh e was
Bianca and Venus and everything in between, you know ?”
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I shook my head, no . The empty pint glasses were
filling with water, a shallow gold color as it mixed with
the remnants of the brew. The rain fell hard and the winds
inside picked up. There was a noise…
“A true princess of heaven‟s skies , the little bird.
Well, you know what she looked like. Eyes like the sky,
dark skin. Always playing around in the water like a sea
nymph. I used to toss her into the waves when she was too
scared to jump in herself. She loved it.” He shook his
head. “The little bird,” he said again.
I sort-of nodded in absent agreement. The band had
begun a quick instrumental tune with a ferocious bass slur
every four measures. The tall brother slapped the side of
his upright on the two and four like it was a lone night
with a wild woman. The beautiful violinist plucked her
instrument sideways like a guitar with a polyrhythmic beat,
a deep tribal funk tapped out by the percussionist.
The sailors had left the bar to wiggle like fools on
the dance floor, gesturing with hands to the ceiling like
forsaken Nephilim stranded on the decks of a sinking ship
within a horrid tempest. There was a low howl outside the
window spoken from the disapproving wind. I could see
Benjamin‟s carved -faced devil staring at me with huge dead
black eyes, a long cruel nailed-finger pointing at me.
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Terror sped my heart and I shivered through the cold and
vicious rains.
And Pa tariki just kept on talking. “Yeah, well I‟m
sure you saw that sheila over there by the bar. She loved
me, that was obvious. I offered her a drink but apparently
it‟s against her better judgment or religion or something.
So I slid my own beer away in a casual and smoothly
appropriate gesture.” He winked, actually winked at me, and
rais ed his glass and went on. “She told me she didn‟t mind
if I drank, but I told her a shark can‟t mate with a bear,
ya know?”
I nodded again, wiping the water from my eyes.
“Yeah, I‟ve got her, but I thought we should get a few
down before she takes me away .”
I looked out the doorway and planted my feet to the
floor, ready to rise. This was too much.
“Let‟s cheers to new women and forget the others,
right mate?” He was getting sloppy. So was I.
I eyed him closely and he grinned again.
Then I saw it.
I had to yell quite loud to be heard through the rain,
now falling at an angle from the twisting winds. “You‟re
not wet!” I shouted.
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“Huh?” H e stiffened, he held his glass still while I
kept looking to the prophetic rain inside my mind.
“Oye, Shandon, you with me?” he asked, almost
inaudibly. “Why‟d you yell so loud, everyone‟s looking?”
What was this? The rain came down but wasn‟t there,
the woman‟s blurred face, the visage of the devil dancing
in my head, staring at me, the howling in the wind, it all
grew within me.
Then I just caught Patariki slightly muttering
something odd, “…you don‟t know why the skies cry in such
ways.” He bled it from his mouth with a strange tilt from
his head and a sip of his drink.
“What?” I asked.
“What…” he said, perplexed.
“What did you say?” I demanded.
“Shandon, I didn‟t… what the hell is wrong with you,
man?”
I had trouble saying it. “Please, please don‟t ask me
to bring it up. I‟ve yet to discuss it with myself first,
I… I think I might destroy something, the world maybe.”
Steam should have risen from my head. I interlocked my
fingers tightly. This was all wrong. This whole place
seemed like a new drawing of an old place, the paint still
wet on the canvas.
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“Shandon…” he said again. He put his pint down. The
water still gained in its heavy downpour, even stinging my
eyes as I squint ed through it. It grew cold as „Riki took a
breath and looked at me. “Alright mate. Just so you know,
before I came in tonight I saw your backpack in the bushes
out by the door.”
“Yeah, so?” I felt like I got caught stealing candy.
“So… w here you trampin‟ off to, mate?”
“East,” I said.
“ And w hat‟s east?”
“I don‟t know, the edge of the world, maybe.”
“Sheesh man, what is wrong with you? I‟m supposed to
be the one messed up tonight. You‟ve been at the d rink too
long.”
Patariki had asked what was wrong with me, and I
wanted him to understand. I opened my mouth to speak and
stopped.
Then I tried again. I could not face his eyes as I
spoke. My response was metered, I spoke slowly and
rhythmically, as sanely as possible, even as the howling
just outside the thin walls of the tavern struck to my
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marrow, I knew what I was about to say would cause my
friend great discomfort.
I took a breath and listened to the sickeningly sweet
sound of the falling rain. It came out as a slow and
desperate whisper.
“There is a growing madness in my mind, I feel I… see
her all the time. But the details of her face are blurred,
as though under a swift flowing river, or like a dream,
someone I once knew but fell from my memory. She haunts me
in these things I see.”
He looked at me for a still moment before he
stammered, “You mean…”
“I don‟t know.”
“Yea h but, you don‟t really think…”
I met his eyes and hissed the words with less volume
and more anger through gritted teeth and dripping lips, “I.
Don‟t. Know.”
I trembled with a growing aggravation.
Frackshitnag , I couldn‟t e ven remember her name, what
was wrong with me?
He backed away a few feet and eyed me over. The music
was still quite present, as were those dancing with joy on
the floor nearby. Many looked at me as I yelled all my
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thoughts to Patariki. Water was overflowing from the faint
and diluted amber pint nearby.
And then I stood and started laughing at how insane I
must look, through the water, I must have been shouting at
the top of my lungs. „Riki came close and grabbed me slowly
by the jacket. “Shandon… what… but she‟s…”
He stuttered like an idiot and tried to hold me and I
fought it. The melted face of the waitress eyed me with
pity and called for the barkeep‟s assistance. Even a couple
of the sailors came to rescue and settle the mad man in the
tavern.
I fought them all in the middle of the storm. They
yelled all at once. One of the sailors punched me as if to
wake me, then he said, “Everything will be alright, mate.”
This was funny.
I howled with laughter. Just too fucking funny.
Then I hooked my right leg behind his left knee and
put my left hand in the middle of his chest. I pulled my
leg back while pushing him away with my hand. He flew back
in to the table behind him, knocking two people over with
it.
The music stopped. I look ed around. The rain hadn‟t
stopped, though, no. It rose as though it obeyed the
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crescendo of my spirits. It became a torrential and livid
hurricane.
No one else seemed to notice.
I grabbed Patariki by the collar of his coat. Winds
screamed inside the place, howling like wolves in the fog
that now surrounded the tavern, yearning to get in. The
hurricane swept the water in different patterns. It fell up
from the floors to the ceiling, defiant to gravity.
When the music stopped, the dancing ended, and all
that could be heard was my voice and the storm. I squeezed
the cloth of „Riki‟s coat, the blood under my skin fled
from my paled knuckles, and water was dripping through the
thin gaps between my fingers, rung from the cloth of his
coat. I bowed my head and shut my eyes hard until I saw
sparkling lights of color drifting under my eyelids and
figures seemed to dance around like the devil that rose
from the sea with the carvings in his face.
All howling.
And with teeth clamped down, with ears full of the
screaming cries of unknown souls, with my eyes to all the
motionless and gawking demons in the tavern, I pulled
Patariki in close so that only he would know my secrets,
yet I spoke to all of them.
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“My dears sirs… my dear sirs, I shall be a ghost to
you all.”
There were staring faces from the patrons of the
tavern, paved with sympathy and fear. The members of the
band just stood facing me, strangely, like they were
waiting for something.
Ha.
Poor bastard Patariki stared wide-eyed in disbelief.
He could not understand. This was not the tragic loss of a
young girl, this was something else entirely. I frowned
with a pained look and let him go.
I backed up and tripped on that same damned crack with
my boots and fell over on my ass. Some in the tavern
laughed. Most, including Patariki, did not. I quickly got
back up, turned and fled through the doorway kept guard
with those ominous guardian vines.
Outside, the rain was not rain at all, only a thick
fog and it felt good. I grabbed my pack from the bushes
where I stashed it just before I entered tonight. I walked
down the eastward road, carrying all I needed. I looked at
my jacket, my thick pants and boots, they were dry enough.
I came by a small playground and heard the metal
chains of the swing whining about. The swing-set was in the
middle of a large sandbox where the kids would play. As I
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passed it I saw a child, a small girl, singing softly to
herself. I froze for a moment, thinking it was Vera,
„Riki‟s little bird. But she was lost now, reclaimed by the
sea. This girl was stationed on the swing, slowly swaying
back and forth while keeping the tips of her small feet on
the ground.
Why she was there, I could not begin to guess, or of
much of anything that night.
She glowed with a sweet innocence, or of something
else entirely.
I turned my ear to hear her song, a faint and strange
melody.
Where have you gone my sweet?
It was an old nursery tune, and I knew it well enough,
yet in this setting it chilled me as frost to my skin.
I looked eastward down the dark road, tattered clouds
moving at will but with no wind to be felt. I grinded my
teeth as I walked onward, to anywhere. But mostly, just, to
elsewhere.
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Interlude
I say goodbye to no one,
Steal your secrets and leave them on the floor,
I woke up with my clothes on,
A suicide note stabbed to the door.
And it’s twilight, you know,
And I’ve one ticket on a train to the sea,
And with torn away memories
Perhaps I’ll drown myself and leave.
But this train, it won’t stop
Through the sea or beyond the door,
And I’ve got a wicked grin that’s full of sin
S ay’s I won’t see your face no more.
So blow me a kiss as I fade with the mist,
I pronounce to the land as I fall.
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My dear sirs, my dear sirs,
I shall be a ghost to you all.
‘Ca use I fou nd a train to the sea…