Arks*
by alan girling
Chapter 1
Strewn on the earth were rocks and bricks in shades of brown and red. Tim picked one up and chucked it hard. It bounced off the wall of the house where no one lived. He said, “Let’s go in. We can throw rocks out!” It was a day of rest. We knew no one would come. So we filled our pants and climbed the steps.
The sun shone through the grime on the glass to the plants on the floor. We aimed the rocks at the light, watched it smash, watched it fill the room. We laughed and laughed, smashed more, laughed more and soon the whole house, up and down, was an ark of light and we were in it, the two of us as one. We knew no one would see us on this day, it was so bright, so warm and new and bright, in the light we had made.
Chapter 2
The light let us see the dust that hung in the air in shop class. It shone through to glint like fire on the blade of the saw. Tim placed the wood, held it and pushed. Slow then fast, the wood whined. Chips flew to the floor and to his face. A chip hit him in the eye, he jerked, and sliced his thumb deep. His cry cut through the air, through me. I saw the change in his face, how he could not stop the blood. It pooled at his feet, mixed with the dust. No one could stop the blood.
Chapter 3
It rained from the sky, formed streams on the hill by the school. We built a dam made of stones, clay, mud. Tim said, “Let’s make it big and wide.” And the streams ran like snakes to fill the pool we called our sea.
Holes in the dam leaked new streams. Down the hill, two boys made their own dam, their own sea. Tim said, “The streams are ours. Let’s take out the big rock.” I pulled it from the mud, and the flood rushed to fill their sea, break their dam. Stones, chunks of clay rolled and slid to the field where no one played. The boys cried and came to smash with their boots and break our dam. Soon, I knew, the seas would rise.
Chapter 4
In the woods by the school, the creek swelled. Tim lit a match. We rolled the day’s news and touched one end to make a torch. The trees glowed a new green. Flames rose to singe a low branch. I looked at the school for the eyes that would be on us. A bird flew to the sky. Tim said, “They will see its wings, then our fire.”
Chapter 5
Flame snuffed, the woods were deep and dark as the creek, the green now grey, the eyes gone. I thought of how they'd caught us, seen our fire, and of the slap of the strap on my palm, how it stung still. Home was far, so we lit the news one more time. An old moon shone full in the bare sky. We crossed the creek, the flood, and tried not to slip, not to sink, not to be swept to the sea. I held the torch high. It was hard to get back to where we came from.
Chapter 6
Through the flame, I saw Tim float in the sky in the tree in his new room in his new house of wood and nails. An ark of light in space. And I heard him build, heard him pound, heard rage and pride in each blow. He could not stop. One floor, one room, done, then to start the next.
And there, up high, his old room shone black like a new moon. He’d lived there once, lived in pain as no child should. He said, "I don't have to go in 'til they see I'm gone."
"When would that be?" I asked, but could not laugh. It was a day of work. No one would come.
“Hey, Al,” he said. “Join me here in the sky. Let’s be a pair, two as one, move with the stars, the moons. It’s tight and cool, but dry. If I can take the loss of dark light and cold heat, so can you.”
“Yes,” I said. “I'll climb. And I will build, too. In my time.”
Yet still I wait, down on this earth, where my hands stay numb and the waves, thick and red, lap at my feet.
…………
*A slightly different version of Arks was first published in Smokelong Quarterly, an online flash fiction magazine, in September, 2005.
A great story, the long days out in the woods really resonates and the loneliness at the end gives it much more gravity.
Sure got a poignant feel running through it.