Over the Darkened Landscape - By Derryl Murphy Page 0,58
gone. Mom’s face was red, and she made to brush away imaginary crumbs from her blouse.
Clink. Clank.
In bed that night, Ken turned on his side and watched the vent, barely acknowledged his mom and dad as they came in to kiss him good night. His mom ran her nervous, sweaty fingers through his hair, and his dad clapped him on the shoulder and, after a kiss on the forehead, reminded him to stay upstairs.
Door shut, dull glow of a distant streetlight seeping through the window, Ken tried to keep his eyes open, but eventually he drifted off to sleep. He dreamed of ogres and treasures and aliens, sometimes all at once.
Clink. Clank.
Scrape.
His eyes popped open. Had he dreamed the new sound?
Ken looked at his door and saw that the lights in the house were out. His parents were asleep. He climbed out of bed and scooted over to the floor vent, and after a fidgety few seconds of indecision, ran his fingernail across the metal slats of the vent.
TICK-tack-tack-tack-tacktacktacktacktack.
Clink. Clank.
Scrape.
Then: “Come down here.”
Just a whisper, really, so distant Ken wondered if it had come from his own head. He jumped up, his dad’s order ignored because of curiosity, and found a flashlight in his toy box.
He sneaked down the hall, past his parents’ bedroom and his dad’s snores, and turned on the flashlight once he got to the top of the basement stairs.
Clink. Clank.
One step down, he stopped and listened. Again. He watched the light dance wildly on the wall at the bottom, his hands shaking. Finally he reached the cold concrete floor of the basement and raised the light to see.
Clink. Clank.
No longer so distant. At the edge of the light, a chain scraped slowly across the floor. Ken followed the movement with the flashlight to a chain clamped to a man’s ankle. He tracked the light up and into the eyes of a strange man, sitting on a cot. The man shaded his eyes with one hand and smiled, a broad toothy grin that looked ready to devour anything in its path. “Heya, kid.” His voice was low, throaty, a rumble that scraped Ken’s ears.
Ken hung back, lowered the flashlight to the gulf of the floor between them. “Hey.”
“Can you get me a drink of water?” He pointed to a plastic cup beside him.
Ken didn’t move. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“The government pays citizens to host prisoners now,” the man said. He frowned as he reached down to scratch around the cuff on his leg. “Cheaper than building new prisons.”
“What’d you do?”
The man gave another toothy, hungry smile, held out the cup like he was offering a reward. “Get me that drink of water and I’ll tell you.”
Clink. Clank.
Scrape.
Northwest Passage
I stand on the shoreline and watch as the plane races across the lake, waves slapping at its floats. The pilot guns the engine, the whine of the propellers rises in pitch, and then it heaves itself into the air. The plane banks to the right, still over the lake, then the pilot waggles his wings. I wave in return, then watch and listen as it fades out of sight and hearing.
The wind is a bit blustery and cool today, but the sun is shining and it is certainly no worse than I might have been expecting. I pull the canoe farther up onto the rocky shore, then grab some gear from the great pile of it on the ground and load it into the canoe. A nearby copse of awkward-looking trees will provide shelter from the wind for the night, I hope, and so I drag the canoe across the ground, straining against the weight on the rope and against the wind.
There is indeed a small clearing, enough to pitch my tent. I flip the canoe on its side to act as a windbreak, then get the tent up and tied down. After that, I dig a hole for the fire, gather wood, then start it up and get to work on supper. Hunched in behind the canoe I only feel the wind in its brief forays as a Southerly, and the sun will remain in the sky to quite late tonight.
From my pack I pull out my grandpa’s diary and read, pausing only to top up my coffee or stand and look around whenever I hear a twig crack or another unfamiliar sound of nature, so far away from home.
*
For ten years, at the peak of the Depression, my grandpa was a trapper up North.