alexnuit

[alexnuit]

A Short Walk

I bounce my shovel against the ground. My garden is dead, and the soil is impenetrable. Dad tells me it’s time. We’re deep in the throes of winter. He’s getting old and we both know it. It hangs over us in every conversation, touching and going. He tires quickly, grabbing at his lower back after long days. I see his pain and try to pick up some of the slack. Chop more wood. Forage more of the dwindling berries and mushrooms he taught me to identify. There’s some pride in his face when I bring those back and I feel good until there’s barely enough for one meal and I’m faced with reality again. He tells me it’s time.

I miss the calm of summer. The lake was home to fish that kept us and the ducks fat and happy. When the deer came by, we would observe while they picked at the grass. Dad’s gun collected dust on the shelf and he stopped asking for back massages for a while. His skin tanned and glowed. His smiles came easier. His sentences were longer. Now the lake is frozen nearly a foot and the ducks have gone south. The cold sinks and pulls his pale face down with it, every smile made with huge effort. Words are grunted out, nods and head shakes replacing most of his speech. The only evidence left of his joy are the crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes.

Living off squirrel meat and bone broth in the weeks past has taken a lot out of both of us and he’s given up on not being pushy with me. It’s for my own good, he says while my eyes turn glossy. I try to get him to look at me, but he’s not interested, responding by dropping a collection of winter gear at my feet. The snowshoes he made for my tenth birthday. My camel hair coat. My fur-lined gloves. I huff. I’ve done this charade before. It worked, before. I get dressed, sighing with every new layer that goes over my underclothes. I stand when I’m finished, pinching my brows together while I look up at him. He takes his rifle off the shelf, palms facing the ceiling while he gestures it out to me.

“Here.”

“I don’t want it.” I’m being difficult. He looks so tired of me.

“Well,” he grabs my wrist, hard, and I yelp, but he only squeezes my hand harder against the barrel, “it’s yours.”

He walks out with his eyes and head fixed in front of him. I follow, squinting at the stark white reflecting into my eyes. The wind slams the plank door behind us, the boom echoing like a gunshot against the logs that make up our walls. My head snaps back at the sound. He’s already ten steps ahead of me by the time I start to walk again. My legs are short, one of his strides counting for nearly three of mine. The snow is soft under my boots and snowshoes. With every step I fear I’ll sink beneath the powder and he’ll be too far away to save me.

---

Once we get past the clearing, it’s dense forest and a skinny path obscured by twigs and thick root structures. We haven’t spoken in ten minutes. I can feel the tip of my nose and ears going numb, protecting me from the shocks of wind that bleed through the woods. I look at my father, at his back. His broad shoulders through a thick coat. His graying hair sticking out of his cap. The way he struggles on one leg as he walks. It was an accident. Spring. He surprised me with a bowl of blueberries, each one a deep indigo, beautifully round and plump. My favorite. I found them sitting on our table, ready for me as soon as I woke up. I ran outside and his back was turned to me when I jumped up to hug him around the neck, holding on as hard as I could. He wasn’t prepared for my weight, and I think I had forgotten that I was too big for things like that now. We both fell into the grass. I don’t remember the strength of his yell. I do remember the crack.

There isn’t much time left in our trek to the lake. The frost is pinching my toes, penetrating through two layers of sock and thick winter boots. I have lost the feeling in my hands. A particularly large root trips me and my palms hit the ground, hard. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even look back at me. Only slows down his steps while I struggle to get up and grab my rifle. I want to make him care. But I can’t pretend I’m about to cry anymore because the pain is too real. I don’t think my tears could do it justice. I focus on the gun, heavy and cold in my hands, like a block of ice seeping through my gloves. I sigh with every other step, breathing hard with my mouth open as the wind stings my eyes. 

I keep thinking about what I’m about to do. The guilt is too much.

“I don’t know why you need me here,” I say. My voice breaks on the first word, getting used to talking again. “You’re better at this stuff anyways.” My legs are burning with every drag against the snow. It’s a weird feeling. I’m sweating and I wish I could take off my jacket, but the cold pushes against my face and I hug it tighter.

He sighs. He loves sighing. “It’s not about better,” he huffs out between steps. I think he’ll say more but he doesn’t.

“Then what?” I hear the whine in my voice.

“It’s about survival.”

I consider his words. We are surviving. It’s never easy in winter, but we get through it. We just need to wait for spring.

I speak. “But we’re fine.”

He doesn’t respond. Only trudges forward.

When we come upon the lake I am spent. My stomach is stabbing me in the left side. I taste blood in my mouth. I look out at the flat space, snow piles decorating the perimeter. I would think it was gorgeous if it weren’t for what was about to happen. We position ourselves behind a large rock, stuck on the edge of the forest.

“Here.” My father hands me a small box of ammunition, his voice hushed. Why are his hands shaking so much?

“I thought it was loaded already,” I say back, whispering.

He looks at me, offended. “No.”

We sit like that for a while, knees pushed into the earth. Watching. Waiting. I’m reminded of more peaceful days. I’m reminded of the ducks. I look over at him, his weathered face. He seems peaceful. Like he’s thinking of them too.

It isn’t long before I feel a tap on my shoulder. He only points. An enormous buck, crossing over from the other side of the forest. He taps me again and makes a ‘five’ with his hand. He’s beautiful. But his movements seem staggered. Tired. The gun’s already loaded. Dad props it up against the rock, slowly. Gentle. Before coaxing me to come grab it from him. My tears are back. Turns out I can cry some more. He doesn’t budge, only pulls me over, firm. My shoulder hits the back of the gun, and the tears aren’t welling anymore, they overflow. I can barely see him. Dad grabs my hand; his thumb rubs across the back of it while he presses my fingers over the trigger.

“Breathe,” he whispers.

My eyes refocus, lining up. Getting my shot. I look and he has so much life left in him, with beauty like nothing else. I see power in his stance, a commanding presence sticking out from the stark white land. But behind that power is fatigue. A need for sleep. My first instinct is to let him suffer longer. My second tells me I’m selfish. I squeeze my hand. First, I hear the bang, echoing against the trees. Then, the birds flee screaming. Finally, the drop, and buckets of blood covering the snow.

[alexnuit]

For Martha

It's deceivingly warm

Warm and bright in the days you used to blot out the sun.

I miss the black clouds moving by the millions,

When no level of destruction could take the sky from you.

Shotgun blasts like a fly in your ear, a nuisance for a few.

Before steel rails turned you into a commodity,

Your value stretched by the time they kept you in cages.

Before your legacy was reduced to an idiom:

Tied to a wooden leg, and mercifully you could not see.

As you flapped your wings, your fallen brothers, shards stuck deep in their breasts, returned home.

Not to their nests, but to the earth.

And when the fungus breaks their bodies they will sigh with relief,

Until the new generation takes out the last free one left of you.

And when it's just you, alone but safe,

You shake like you're still waiting for the final shot.

Now there's deathly silence on sunny days

Where there used to be thunder.