Canoe Trip

The World was tinted a saintly blue when I awoke that morning and my bedroom was awash in saintly light.  I went to the window and looked out.  The sea was a vast plain, currentless, undisturbed, like a blank canvas, or a desert.  I pulled on shorts and a shirt and walked downstairs, stepping lightly, avoiding the loose boards that squeak under the carpet.  

I got myself a glass of water at the sink and stood looking out the window drinking.  Not a bird or a cloud in the sky.  I picked up my notebook and pencils from the kitchen table and made my way down towards the water.  It was warm out but there was a breeze.  The planks of the deck were cool on my feet and then the sand was slightly warmer.  My uncle’s canoe lay upturned at the foot of the stairway and I grabbed it and flipped it over.  Whenever I turn over a boat I always expect to find snakes underneath, or crabs.  There were three life-vests, one of which was for a dog, and two paddles.  I grabbed the one paddle and chucked it into the boat.  I put my book in the seat and the pencils beside it but when I lifted up my end of the canoe they rolled off onto the hull.

I hauled the thing across the sandlot, pushing over dune-grass and bracken, leaving a trail.  When I came to the edge I lifted half of the canoe up onto the rocks and went around to the back and pushed.  Holding onto the gunwale I let the boat down into the water and when both ends were in I walked onboard myself, teetering and wobbling like a buoy.

I maneuvered myself into the seat and took up the paddle and looked back up at the house, slowly drifting away.  In this part of the world they build the houses up on stilts to protect them against tidal overflows and the occasional flood.  The place was sided with raw wood paneling, now weathered to a deep burgundy-grey, which I found odd since all the other houses were painted.  I liked it, but it also made the place look like driftwood.  I turned around to face the sea and put paddle to water.  I thought about how I might build a house myself sometime and just like that, I was off.

I paddled along the island, away from the mouth of the seaway.  Beyond the main peninsula there were a series of smaller islands I wanted to check out.  The water was shallow.  Despite that I was now far from the shore I could easily walk back if I needed.  I watched the sea-bottom slide silently beneath the boat, sand shaped by the whims of the tide, a shell now and then.

I paddled around the first of the islands because there seemed to be a bigger one on the other side.  I looked back towards the cottage and the morning was finally breaking.  The family won’t be up yet, I thought, and they’ll see that I’ve taken the canoe.  They’ll figure it out.

When I came to the second island I looked for a place to climb out.  I passed a floating dock of some kind but it had been squatted by gulls and they shrieked when I came by their nests.  I passed a hunting blind presumably for ducks or bird-watchers maybe but it was too far from the shore.  On the far side I came to a cleared area with a small beach.  I paddled in and wedged the nose of the canoe into the sand.  I picked up my book and gathered up my pencils and stepped into the water.  It was perfectly warm and cool and I waded around looking for things to draw.

I drew the shape of the long grass by the beach, bowed back on itself by the constant breath of the sea.  I drew a few leaves of seaweed just inches below the flowing glass surface of the water.  A little ways in I found an old sign toppled over.  It read: CRAB SANCTUARY.  Unlawful to haul or take crabs by any means.  There was coral or lichen or something growing on it.  Grass had entangled it by wind or time.  Nature had wrapped it’s fingers around the sign and was pulling it in.  The beach was a maw.

After drawing the sign for a while I went back to the canoe.  From a sitting position on the seat I could lean back and rest my head on the deck and put my feet up on the crossbar in the middle.  There was a little float inside the deck and I took it out and put it under my head.  The sun was shining on me crossways now and was balanced by the breeze.  I breathed in deeply, the salt, the sky, and listened to the sound of small waves kissing the side of the boat.

I dreamt I’d been offered a job.  I dreamt that I lived in a town and that the whole town had been offered a proposition by a businessman.  We were all to work in some sort of factory producing or mining some ore or something.  The whole thing was supposed to be a good deal for us, the workers, but we were wary of the employer, who seemed untrustworthy.  It was like there was something strange about the whole situation, some mystery that no one could figure out.

So myself and the rest of the townspeople were in this work area.  Were were not the first crew that had been hired to do the job.  There had ben an old crew, perhaps many old crews, and something seemed to have happened to them, no one knew what.  There were even rumors that the old crew had died.  At this point in the dream I was shown a vision: it was the work site in chaos.  I saw the old crew fighting something unknown; they had machine guns and were really going at it, bombs, everything, like a war.  The vision was sudden and I didn’t understand it.  FLASH!  Two seconds of visual images and then POOF!  Gone!  Back to the job.

A little while later, the employer arranged an excursion for all the workers, the tour of a nearby museum specially arranged for us.  The day of the tour I became ill and was forced to stay in a bed at the museum, like a sick child on a school field trip.  There was a stigma attached to the museum, that the exhibits were supposed to be quite graphic and unpleasant, like a holocaust museum or a hostage video.  There was a prestige built up around making it all the way through.

The next part of the dream was strangely related and unchronological.  There was a scene in which I was in bed, sick.  While I lay there I saw the image of my friends and coworkers walking through the museum.  They were saying it wasn’t too bad but they looked awful, like they had been beaten and had cried.  They were in a trance as they headed for the next exhibit, out of their minds.

I lay in the bed and thought about these strange and mysterious visions; they all seemed to point to something but I couldn’t figure out what.  I kept my thoughts hidden; I wanted to figure it all out before taking any action.  The lights in my room were dim.  There may have been a television on.  The room was open to other rooms and hallways in what seemed to be an enormous building with many floors.  There were three or four dark figures with me in the room.  They had arrived one at a time to check on me, and had accumulated in my sick room.  They were chatting with me and with each other about miscellaneous events and goings-on.  I found their talk wholly uninteresting, but I pretended to follow along in order to hide my true concern– the strange mystery and my visions.

There was another person in the room who was different.  Instead of standing in the shadows, she was in the light.  She was sitting at the edge of the bed and we seemed to have a private conversation that the others didn’t hear.  Perhaps we didn’t speak but just exchanged glances and gestures.  She looked over at me and touched me on the shoulder.  When I felt the contact of her fingers through my shirt I was overcome with calm and comfort.  She appeared more like an angel, maybe even God, and I forgot everything about the job and the museum.

Suddenly she turned her back to the room and faced me fully.  The other characters standing around gasped and their eyes widened; they couldn’t believe it!  She didn’t care.  She climbed on the bed almost on top of me and leaned in close to my face.  There seemed to be a rustling and commotion in the room around us but all I could see was her eyes and I was born to look in them and learn the nature of my own heart.  She looked at me directly and said “I love you.”

In that instant I knew everything.  The employer was my enemy.  He was using us for some terrible purpose, and this whole trip to the museum was meant to desensitize us, to make us into slaves!  There would be war and bloodshed and torture.  But her words had empowered me; I could challenge the employer!  We went through the museum together.  The townspeople were lost, deranged.  We went out together, maybe to find the employer and to kill him, or maybe to blow up the museum, and we came out into a rainstorm and I saw myself from behind walking in the air with an angel.  But the rain was hot, burning hot, and this confused me.  The last image of the dream was her face beside me, surrounded by light and rain.

I woke up completely surrounded by water.  It was mid-day and I was sunburned and my neck was killing me.  I looked around and saw nothing.  I watched the sky for birds thinking I might paddle in their direction of flight but there was nothing.  I looked at the waves and ripple of the water to determine the direction of the current.  I was drifting sideways, hungry and thirsty.  I wondered how many days it would take to drift across the Pamlico Sound.  Oh fuck.  Oh shit fucking God Christ.  Fuck.

The Lam

They ran holding hands, their footsteps clapping on the pavement.  He stopped at the edge of the building and looked at his feet; he could barely breathe.  She let go of his hand and held her knees, pressing her cheek against his back, gasping for breath.

You alright?

Think so.  They gone?

He peaked around back of the building, the damp night air made rings around the lamps and light glistened on the stones and bricks around them.  There was a wrought iron fire escape leading up to the roof, with a recycled plastic dumpster underneath filled with black trash bags.  She was looking back down the street listening, trying to breathe quiet.

Come on!

He took her hand again and they ran behind the building.  He pulled himself up and balanced on the edge of the dumpster and grabbed hold of the fire escape.  Pressing his feet against the building he pulled himself up the ladder.  The iron was cold and damp.  When he was halfway up he heard her drop back down to the pavement.

Wait a minute!

She looked up and down the alleyway then went around to the front of the dumpster.  She stomped down the brakes on both front wheels and turned them crossways.  When she got hold of the fire escape she put one foot on the building and one foot on the edge of the dumpster and pushed.  The dumpster pivoted, tottered, and fell over with a thud, it’s contents spilling out onto the pavement.  Her feet dangled  a moment in the air before she could press herself up the ladder.

He waited for her at the top and when she came out onto the roof they made a crouched run for the front edge.  The asphalt roof was grimy and damp and there was barely any pitch to it.  There was a short wall covering the sight of the roof from the storefronts below and they sat with their backs against it breathing heavily and listening.  After a moment he stood on his knees.  He felt a drop of sweat hang on his nose and he licked his salty lips, watching the road and the buildings above the road.  The traffic light was blinking red in both directions.

Anything?

Nothing.

Goddamn, I…

Wait.

Three blocks down and across the street he saw a white breath of smoke rise too purposefully from behind the trunk of a black Plymouth.  He watched the edges of the car to see if he could tell which one of them it was.  He watched the orange arch of the butt whirl unnaturally out into the street and in his mind he thought he could hear the hiss of it landing on the damp road.

We need to go.

They crept along the roof like stray cats.  Their hands and the knees of their jeans black and wet.  The line of shops had one continuous roof but not at the same height and when they came to a new level they climbed up quickly, thinking they might be visible from down the street.  When they came out onto the last section she looked around for another fire escape.  She found one along the gable side and looked down the edge of it.  Seeing a similar dumpster at the bottom she contemplated climbing down and flipping it but decided against it.  

Over here!

She turned around and saw the boy had found a hatch down into the roof and had opened it.  She came over and they peered into the darkness and tried to discern what could be down there.  He lowered himself in to the waist and hung there by the elbows waving around with his feet.  He felt the edges of some kind of plank and when he thought he knew pretty much where it was he let himself down onto it.

What is it?

It seems alright, come on down.

She lowered herself down and he grabbed around her hips so she could reach up and get hold of the lid of the hatch.  He looked up along her body and saw the stars beyond her silhouette.  After that he saw nothing.  There was no echo in the sound of the closing hatch.

Feel here.

He took her hand and felt along the edge of the plank and beyond it they felt soft and sharp fiberglass insulation.  She suddenly saw an image in her mind of them standing on a single thin board stretched across a bottomless pit.  They crouched down, holding on to the edges around them, blinking at one another, waiting.  He closed his eyes and thought when I open them again I’ll see something different.  He could feel her breath.

There should be a… there!

He looked around, saw nothing.  He heard her moving and then he saw that behind her about ten feet away was a square of light on the floor.  He thought to himself it could be floating in space and he crept toward it along the plank, feeling the insulation on his knuckles.

She lifted up the square of plywood and the light of the store filled the attic space.  He looked around at the sea of blue-green insulation that surrounded them like atomic clouds or lunar dust.  He started to climb down but she stopped him.

Wait a second.

She took off her shoes and tied the shoestrings together.  Then she stood up balancing on the plank and took off her jeans and rolled the shoes up in them.  She took this bundle under her arm and leaped down into the store.  Her stocking feet stung when they hit the polished concrete.  She kept low, seeing the street fully visible through the display windows, orange light filled the store.  He began to untie his shoes.

I won’t be able to close the lid!

Hold on, I’ll get a chair or something.

She crawled slowly toward the window, her eyes fixed on the scene outside.  There were two mannequins posed in the window, donning dresses and elaborate hats.  She peered through their legs and tried to see as far down the street as possible.  A drop of sweat ran down the skin between her breasts and she rubbed it into her shirt and laid herself flat beneath the window and closed her eyes and listened.  After a minute she backed into the room and looked quickly around for something to stand on.  She positioned a rack of clothing under the attic opening and the boy lowered himself down, replacing the plywood square over the hole.  They wheeled the rack back to it’s place and crouched around behind the counter where the register was.

Think they’re still out there?

I don’t know.

I can’t fucking believe this shit!

Me either.

This is exactly what I was afraid of.

We might still make it!

Maybe I shouldn’t have…

–we BOTH chose to.

The bottom half of the counter was a single continuous shelf behind a series of cupboard doors.  It was wide owing to the fact that the upper half served as a case for displaying watches and rings and there was nothing under there but two boxes of receipts.  She took those out and pushed them into the corner and climbed in legs first, placing the rolled up jeans and shoes under where she’d have her head.  He was looking at the street out the window; she tugged on his shirt.

Come on.

When he climbed in there was just enough room for them to lay on their sides.  She reached over his shoulder and pulled the door to, leaving only a small crack of light.  Their thighs were warm against one another and the waves of their breath seemed to sooth their racing hearts.