I've been practicing my writing a lot this year, and I'm [again] toiling away towards getting a book finished. This short story I'm posting here is little more than a practice session for me. I wrote it in one sitting months ago and haven't really come back to it until now.
I'd like to share it. So read it if you'd like, and give me whatever flavor of criticism you care to throw at me. I'll accept all of it gratefully!
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Brian and FoxWe brought the boat in early tonight: the wind was biting hard all afternoon and me and Fox didn't get around as easy as we used to. We weren't fishermen, not anymore. Just two old men with nothing better to do but to sail off the shore reliving those better days.
I tied down the boat and then me and Fox began our walk back to our little house up the hill. At the end of the dock, Fox looked at me with a look in his eyes that I hadn't seen in years and said, "Brian, let's walk up the beach."
"Why? It'll take even longer to get home, and I'm too tired for another adventure today." I hated the cold, and I could tell that the gathering winds were the leading edge of the first autumn storm. "And you're too tired, too. I can tell."
"I'm ignoring you," he threw back. "I don't know how many more days of this I have left. I want to run on the beach again."
"Run?" I laughed. "Good luck running, Fox. Tell you what… you go as fast as you want, and I'll keep right up with you."
Fox leapt out in front of me. "That's something I'd like to see. I'll be waiting for you at the house." And off he went, bounding down the wooden steps from the dock and to the beach below. I had trouble believing how fast he managed, and I knew after a moment that – being even older than he – I'd never keep his pace.
"Now hold on," I called above the sloshing of the waves breaking on the shore. "You slow down if you know what's good for you." He stopped in his tracks, ten or twelve feet away, and watched as I creaked down the steps. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked as I approached.
"I'm the only one with a key to the house," I reminded him. "You go running off and I'll go by the bar and leave you sitting outside for a couple hours." He nodded, defeated. "Plus," I added, "I reckon I don't have many days left for beach-walking either, so we may as well enjoy this walk together."
And so me and Fox took
our time. I'd been living off that shore for over sixty years, and – beautiful to me as any home could ever hope to be – I'd never felt more in love with that sea and those sands. The entire shoreline had become
mine, I felt, and looking to my side I saw the same thought sink into Fox's eyes. It was
our home. Out to the west, past the very edge of our great ocean, our hazy sun was lost to the drifting cover of our puffing clouds, bringing to our little beach the twilight of our last summer day.
Fox said something that I didn't catch. I made him repeat himself. "I said that there aren't any birds out tonight. I like the birds, I miss them."
"You just saw the birds this afternoon," I said. "Don't be so glum. They'll be back tomorrow."
He sighed. "I know," he offered. "But will we?"
I looked down at him.
Never had he acted anything but the youngster, and now, tonight, he seemed more aged than I had ever felt. "What's wrong?" I asked. My eyes were hot. It hurt to see my oldest friend, my only friend, suddenly struggling as he plainly was.
"I haven't been well." His eyes were out to the sea, almost as if he were talking to the water, as if I weren't even there. "I know this is my last walk along the beach. I'll never sail again."
Fox looked back to me, the saddest he'd ever looked. "I really have nothing left to do but die. What else is there for two old men like us?"
I tried to laugh but just couldn't. His words hit me hard, since the very same thoughts had been growing on me for weeks. At last, after too much silence, I had something else to say. "You're my friend, Fox, and that's worth being here for, isn't it? It'd be rude to die and leave me here with nobody."
He tried to laugh, too. "I guess that's something. But it's the same for me. You'd be a hypocrite to maroon me in this world. I wouldn't even be able to feed myself if you croaked. I guess neither of us is allowed to die."
"I guess not."
For a while we found ourselves content to track through the sands. Every once and again Fox got ahead of me and milled to and fro across the beach, sometimes sloshing through the water and other times kicking up as much sand as he could, as if he were still a child. I was content to watch him, imagining myself in his place and having his kind of fun. Innocent and foolish he looked, and for me that was enough.
Gradually, gently, we worked our walk north towards the end of the beach; right at its end was a small path that snaked away to the east back into town, back to the house. The sun's light had long left us, leaving us only starlight to see by. But we didn't need it, not after so many years calling this place our home. I wouldn't have dared to, but I could have walked from the boat to the house with my eyes blindfolded and my ears corked. And I know Fox could have done the same.
I could see even through the night that our path had become more treacherous since last we'd used it. Sand had drifted up the hilly path for several yards, making those first few steps almost too difficult for us to make. But we limped and hobbled up it anyhow, Fox leading the way as usual; I think he liked getting the worst of it out of the way to make it easier for me who was considerably the elder of the two.
The only difference between this night of working up the hill and the many nights previous was that Fox complained much more than usual. Than ever. "I think you'll be in front next time," he joked. "My old knees can't take this grinding anymore."
"I never put you in front," I chided. "It's not my fault you're so impatient." As I spoke, I could tell that he was carrying himself as if he were about to fall over and roll backwards into me. "You need to stop," I said. "We can stop."
Fox spoke between long breaths. "I've made it up… this way more times than… than you've had birthdays, oldtimer. I'm not… quitting… now."
Again, we kept moving. A few tense steps followed, and then we were through the worst of the drifts and making pretty fine time climbing the rest of the path. At its crest, as was our way, we stopped and looked out over the hill where the path ended. Just below was our home, our little town, and from where we stood we could always see our house on the nearest outskirts.
Fox was anxious to get moving but I stopped him with a hand laid on his shoulder. "Wait, Fox. I'd like to watch the lights come up. It's been too long since we just watched." I wasn't sure how he'd respond, but he sat down in the grass, sign enough that he agreed with my idea.
See, electricity had only just come to our town, and even then it only started up an hour or so after sunset and flipped off again long before morning. I thought it was a waste, since the only time to enjoy it was when everybody was already asleep. But the younger folks loved it, and since me and Fox were the only old men left in town, we stood by and ignored what we could and just stomached the rest.
But it sure was beautiful. Starting at the farthest bit of town from the waters, it began with a light or two flickering a couple times, and then like a wave of stars the whole place went up. Every time I saw it I recalled the first time I'd seen it not even a year before: I had no idea electricity had come, and from my perch on the hill I wondered if maybe the sky had become the earth, and the other way around. It was either that or I'd fallen over, I was sure of it.
Now, I watched without a clue in the world how it all worked and just called it beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the sea at sunrise.
"You've never told me what you think of all those lights," I said to Fox. He didn't stand back up, but made a sort of grunt. "That's because I don't think anything of it."
"Why not?"
He looked up to the sky, which had no stars to show. It was wholly dark, wiped clean of stars by the lights from the town. "It ruins the sky. None of those fancy candles will ever be as good as stars."
He was right, of course. But that didn't mean I couldn't enjoy something that was out of my control.
I stood silent a while longer. "You ready to get home?" I asked.
Fox blinked, a long, slow blink. "Brian, you know what this night is, just as I know it. I can feel it in my bones." He stood and faced me, eyes already accepting what was about to happen. I let him say what I felt I would have ended up saying. "We won't be waking up in the morning."
"No, I'm afraid not," I spoke towards the town. "I never thought I'd be able to feel the last day or the last night. But I think we've both had a pretty good run at life. And I know how tired we are. I'm not upset with this as the last day."
I smiled to him. "At least we still had the boat." He nodded.
The two of us took our sweet time, as usual, working our way back down the other side of the hill and into town. By the time we made it back to the house, some of the lights had already started flicking out. I helped Fox get to sleep, neither one of us saying a word – we'd said everything – and I then put myself into bed.
I had but the one window which was right by my bed. As my eyes wandered shut, I looked out that window and, to me, it looked like a single star broke through the town's haze of light and shined down on me and Fox. I new all at once that Fox was right – nothing could be as beautiful as the stars. No ocean, no sand, nothing I had ever loved. A smile was with me as I fell asleep.
It was three days before anyone happened by the Brian Hooten house. The door stood aloof by some gust of wind from the storm of the night prior and swayed lazily upon its rusted hinges. It was Walter Sutherland, dock attendant who had spoken at length with Mister Hooten, who had first paid the old man's home a visit. He had come to report to the man that his dilapidated boat had finally sunk.
What he found, as he would report a day later, was the old man long-dead in his bed with what remained of a smile on his face. And, on the floor beside him, lay his dog – who the old man was often seen talking to as if it were a creature of words – who had also passed along.
Topic: Brian and Fox. (Read 575 times)
