In watching the hands of a clock for a full minute there’s an uncertain sense that time is slowing. Too easily a man can get lost in the cavernous gulf that exists between those arbitrary notches slashed at by the unrelenting chop of the little clockwork hand. Not eternity by increments, but eternity by the cold slow seizure of that motion by the mind. Eric had no clock to watch, only a tiny patch of rock to regard, but the sun, his terrible companion, he studied, and he hated. He could not fight against the sun. It burned his ears, pushed at his back. He could not swat it away, could not turn and glare, could not clench his fist and threaten. He could only, with some hesitation, grit his teeth and stow away into the protection of his shanty to hide. At the best of times during the day he could sometimes slip away into his own head and return later to find all the sun gone from the room. At the worst of times what seemed like a vacation of days and months was only a momentary sneeze of attention, and no time had passed at all. Shadows pushed slyly over his floor in cold retreat from the dim light of morning. Hot portraits were pissed against the outside wall. Mid-morning was marked by holding a hand to the slender trunk of a tree and hovering over the bony bank of the caldera. Mid-day was noted by the sun at its zenith, one of the Priest’s boys with his food. The great cliff’s shadow preceded the long cloud of evening which preceded the drop of night. These were the ways that he assured himself that time had kept pace with the twists of his hunger, the quiet of his breathing, the throb in his knee, the blood thumping in his ears. |
I read this excerpt at the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Awards in April of 2011. Take my advice: when reading for a crowd - even if it seems like a great idea at the time - no matter how nervous you are ... do not get drunk and lead with a self aggrandizing joke. |
The nights could be a deafening press of silence. Moonless nights, the cool air still, the waves at the shore eerily arrested and flat, he could step outside the shanty, feeling his way in the dark to the door, and hear only the crackle of the flattened grass brittle beneath his bare feet, seeing nothing of his outstretched hands waving before his face, or of anything living or dead in any direction. Those nights, it was truly not so much like the sun had set and had taken its light with it as it seemed like the noiseless shroud which surrounded the stars had sank down to swallow the earth darkly, and that he, with not a breath of breeze available to him except for what he blew across his lips himself, was bodiless entirely, and alone in the stillness with it.
His hard bed became the center bud of his new home, where he planted himself. A browning pile of dried palm leaves served as his pillow, his blanket, his bedding, his allowed amenities. Patience, he told himself, patience.
Prying, the wind tried to trickle into his sanctuary, tried to lick at his naked knee with a long, moist, tongue, and was stymied. Worse, he told himself. Worse. The time he’d fractured two ribs after losing his balance and falling against a barrel in a storm, that had been worse. The time a Russian sailor had stabbed him in the thigh after a fight, that had been worse. This would simply take time.
When his father had broken his arm when he was only ten. That was the worst. Nothing would ever be as bad as that again. First pain is the worst pain. It veins deepest, and stays.
His footprints that day had been only brief portraits in the dust, not all of his toes showing, so it was dry, late in the summer. The stalks of the corn had watched, high and yellowing. His father’s hand had grabbed him by the arm, below the elbow, grabbed and wrenched hard, spun him around.
You pay attention, you hear?
A gasp, a green-stick snap.
Triumphantly, the crows sang in the fields at dawn.
But the pain that day had been only a minor interruption to his chores. No complaints, no mass of tears. Not that time. Two inconvenient pieces of wood tied near his elbow, a clean rag to hold it all together, he’d stomped the mud of their fields that afternoon seeing to their donkey. That hurt, he took into himself. Buried it. It became the supporting lattice of new bones. And in him had grown the knowledge that there could be no reprieve of sorrow or burst of joy except for what he won for himself. The wrist had been worse. Learning the lesson hurts more than the remembering. This would only take time.
Another excerpt can be found HERE, on Newfoundland and Labrador's Tourism, Culture, and Recreation page.
His hard bed became the center bud of his new home, where he planted himself. A browning pile of dried palm leaves served as his pillow, his blanket, his bedding, his allowed amenities. Patience, he told himself, patience.
Prying, the wind tried to trickle into his sanctuary, tried to lick at his naked knee with a long, moist, tongue, and was stymied. Worse, he told himself. Worse. The time he’d fractured two ribs after losing his balance and falling against a barrel in a storm, that had been worse. The time a Russian sailor had stabbed him in the thigh after a fight, that had been worse. This would simply take time.
When his father had broken his arm when he was only ten. That was the worst. Nothing would ever be as bad as that again. First pain is the worst pain. It veins deepest, and stays.
His footprints that day had been only brief portraits in the dust, not all of his toes showing, so it was dry, late in the summer. The stalks of the corn had watched, high and yellowing. His father’s hand had grabbed him by the arm, below the elbow, grabbed and wrenched hard, spun him around.
You pay attention, you hear?
A gasp, a green-stick snap.
Triumphantly, the crows sang in the fields at dawn.
But the pain that day had been only a minor interruption to his chores. No complaints, no mass of tears. Not that time. Two inconvenient pieces of wood tied near his elbow, a clean rag to hold it all together, he’d stomped the mud of their fields that afternoon seeing to their donkey. That hurt, he took into himself. Buried it. It became the supporting lattice of new bones. And in him had grown the knowledge that there could be no reprieve of sorrow or burst of joy except for what he won for himself. The wrist had been worse. Learning the lesson hurts more than the remembering. This would only take time.
Another excerpt can be found HERE, on Newfoundland and Labrador's Tourism, Culture, and Recreation page.