Abend(b)rot

by John H. Rhoades

 

When I walk down this street, I won’t see you except for your smile.

I don’t need to say much about the art scene in this berg. Art is a reflection of life. We live along the border between life and ice. Our fires spurt out of the night, small sprigs in the endless night. So is the art. Small sprigs in the endless drone of life.

 

“Tell me what exactly was the purpose of your piece? You have all these spectral arms reaching for the sky. Would you say that you’re grasping for something? I mean, it’s not like I’m an art student or anything but it seems like there must be a deeper meaning.”

“No. It’s just a bunch of arms reaching for the sky. And also. Not spectral. These are actual arms. If I wanted them to be spectral I would have made them from gauze or tissue paper or something. This is a literal tree of arms.”

“Oh.”

 

I have only seen you gazing with love at the things I wish to escape.

 

School is funny here. There aren’t any jobs. We’re not getting trained for anything. So you could say that school is funny in the way that weed is an inducer of creativity. It’s not. I go everyday, even on the weekends. As soon as we graduate, all we’ll do is what everyone else does. Walk and eat, walk and sleep, walk and talk, walk and walk. When I say I want to be an artist, they say just go for it. Please don’t be surprised when no one gets it.

I sit at the table and watch my brother shovel in the food. Mom ordered it from Spargiis down the street. I forget if it’s just called Spargiis, or if it’s literally ‘Spargiis down the street’. Anyways. The food is from there. My brother shovels it and shovels it. “Can you breathe bro?” He slithers a sneaky eye my way and winks. I don’t think he actually can.

My mom turns to me. “How did the art show go?”

“Oh you know, slow.”

“I bet people just got trapped in the snow.”

“That, or his art just blows.”

Maybe he really can breathe.

“Well, I thought your piece was fun.”

“Mom, it was a tree of arms. How is that fun?”

“Did they still have the blood on them?”

“Of course.”

“Darling I think you might need to tone down the statements. I think we already have enough of that nonsense.”

“You mean settle down?”

“No she means wake the hell up.”

Waking up. The sunlight falls through frosted windows. The quilts are warm. I can slide my feet through the the sheets and as my muscles stretch I grasp at contentment. School doesn’t begin for another few hours. I stretch again. Fluff my pillow and back into dreams.

 

When you remember how to breathe, blow bubbles so I can follow you in the gloom.

 

The cold weather has officially frozen the doors to the school shut. We are told to go home. To walk. But under no circumstances to fall into any form of trouble. Of course, we say. Crystals and frost stretch across the ground, grasping with bladed fingers. The art cabin is open. Apart from the school, who would think it and learning belonged under the same roof? Mary has already turned on the kiln. It fills the space with ruddy warmth. Sitting at the desk I remove my gloves and breathe warm air across my fingers. Mary stays in her office. The tables are cluttered and I whittle the day away. When finally I feel ready to leave, I clutch a tiny wooden crane in my fingers and walk away.

 

We are too far North. The night comes fast in the afternoon. I walk in the sunset to the top of the ridge. Our settlement sparkles. Fire burning through the snow flakes. I lay in the snow and watch the heavens. I think, just maybe, I might see you.

 

It wasn’t always like this. Of course, you say, it never is. Was. But I insist, once, I could reach up and let your star studded fingers fall from the Borealis and touch, brush, my cheeks. I insist, it was not so long ago.

 

And yet. I lie here and watch the sky. The clouds roll along and you are too far away. The stars do not twinkle, the moon does not bathe, yet the night is still open.

 

I will not leave, I will only fall. Happy days, callou callei.

 

The paper calls me up. Someone thinks my art piece is worth at least investing a little bit of time in. The questions aren’t great. Better than the showing. Small miracles. They ask where the arms come from. “Locally sourced,” I reply, “Of course.” They wonder if its plaster, paper-mache, something. “No.” They came from the village, next one over. There wasn’t enough blood, though. So I threw in some red corn syrup, sometimes art takes compromise.

 

The story runs and gets at least some kind of reception. The school is still shut. My brother and I sit at home and watch the street. Do you know what happens in a snow filled city when the doors freeze? Not much.  

         A few days later, a knock at the door. Man says he got the address from Mary. Saw the story in the paper, went to see my piece, some kind of bigwig in the art scene. He says he can take me places. That’s what I’m reaching for right? That’s my dream right? All those arms grasping at the sky. He totally gets it. But don’t worry, I’m not surprised.

 

We leave bells along the gates to the town. Long strings of bells. Each one is bigger than the last. When it gets really windy you know the ferocity by the sound of the bells. Or because it feels really fucking windy.

 

The night, this night, is clear. I go back up to see you. The bells are quiet. The town, the same. On the ridge when the clouds are gone I can see to infinity. The mountains, so far away, just provide a frame for the endless, for you. As the Borealis burns, I whisper to the whittled crane in my hands. It creaks its wings and sighs. No crane likes to fly this far north. I whisper to it again and it reluctantly flutters from my hands. The bells remain silent and it flies up, up, up, up towards the cold inferno in the sky.

I don’t know what it said to you.

I didn’t give it any instructions.

I only let it go. Little product of my heart.

 

I remember the first time. You walked from the heavens. Stepping out of the Borealis and descending until you sat there right next to me. You left your naked hand upon my gloved one. The frosted glass of the town gleamed in the ways I always pictured the stained glass of churches. Who here could possibly attend such services? You laid your head upon my shoulder and I smelled the sweet scent of tobacco smoke and cloves, the longing of childhood, the pique of old books, all in your hair. You had eyes the color of nebulas and smiles the warmth of hearths. And I could only give you words. How fleeting they have always been.

 

This time, I long for your laugh. But you have always been the funny one. What do you long for in this? I can only give you what I never really had, is it always not enough? You tell me that the only poem you had ever read was by E. E. Cummings. Oh, what piracies we could together steal upon this world. You leave with a kiss upon my cheek. Keep me as the feather in your ever changing hat, I ask, even though it’s so many years past being stylish. And, as always, you shake your head. How do I know you have come but for the slight impressions in the snow. No more than brush marks I sometimes think are imagined.

 

Today, my brother graduates. The date, I believe, is no more than a guess. “Congrats, my bro.” My mom reads the diploma and sighs. “You took nothing but P.E. courses.” He looks back at her and grins, “At least I don’t know art.”

 

I reach out to the art professional later in the day. He says there are projects a plenty. Just say the word and they’re mine. For the small price of a soul perhaps. Nothing costly in the least. What more could I ask for than to make things for other people.

 

The next two months are unendingly cloudy. When I forget the swirls of your hair, I know that I have no need for the sculptures on my desk. I have no need, I say, for what I probably never needed to know.

 

The joke for you, and me, is in entropy. Laugh at what does not stay.

 

The clouds again have come. My family leaves the fire to putter and smoke. I leave them to smoke and putter. The street lights haven’t always worked. Nor have the streets ever much needed light. I walk alone towards my sculpture. The blood is still dried to the arms. The tree of skin, muscle and bone can never decay in the utter ice of our world. I look up again but the mist and clouds keep you so very well hidden. I lean against the sculpture tree. I slowly sink to the ground. Through my pants I feel the ice. I think if I stayed I might kind of like it.

 

I come back to the tree every night. Another two months and the clouds never break once. I know now that I must be forgotten to you. How could you remember? So I leave my clothes at home this night. Thanks again to the street lights for never working. When I reach the tree I lay my naked self against it. The arms they take me and hold me. They feel my cold flesh and wrap themselves around it. They pour themselves into me and I fall into them. I feel myself hoisted through their ranks. Like sap in the tree, I flow up and up into the branches. I push my icy hand out. Then I push the other. I feel the clouds circling my finger tips. The mist ripping in my clutch. My eyes seek through the leaves of bloody nails. I will pull at these clouds and rip at this mist until you are the only thing I see. The cold comes and it fills me. The wind whispers and it haunts me. The bells of the gate slowly cry. My fingers, numb and old, push into the grey and seek for you. Forever.