A Glimpse

We start in the forest. A likely place for a story of any sort to begin, for the forest holds endless possibilities for adventure, discovery, and evil woodland creatures. But, in this story, it need not be in the forest for the typical aspects of it are not amazingly important. This story just began, or rather we entered it, in the forest, and that is that. So, we continue: we start in the forest on a day where the wind nipped at your nose and your breath’s cloud prevented you from seeing any farther than five feet ahead of your next step. A day where you wondered why you hadn’t already died of pneumonia and you had to be careful where you walked, because a tree could burst at any given time from all the water that had expanded within it - thus stretching the bark past it’s limit and ultimately causing it to pop; but this is not a science lesson, this is a life lesson.
In this setting, which I have just described, Anna was breathing heavily and walking, or rather was trying to walk because she was so bundled up in various scarves and sweaters that it almost prevented her from resembling a normal human. A penguin would describe her trudging more adequately. She was walking to the little house she shared with her grandfather and grandmother whom she most affectionately called Grandpapa and Grandmamma. In this little hut, which was comprised of a few modest pieces of furniture, all hand carved by Grandpapa of course, Anna, Grandpapa, and Grandmamma lived happily with their red, fox-like dog, Blue. As Anna approached the door, she almost dropped the wood she was carrying, but skillfully caught it just in time, as Blue, evidently hiding, leapt out from behind the house onto her chest, knocking her down onto the soft, freezing snow.
Laughing with a mouth full of snow, Anna then threw aside the wood she had so carefully guarded and collected to wrestled with Blue until Grandmamma came out from the house, looking absolutely horrified. “Anna you’re going to catch your death out here! How many times do I have to tell you not to wrestle in the snow!? Ich kann nicht verstehen warum du willst krank bekomen! (I can’t understand why you want to get sick!)” And with one big sweep of her arm, Anna was in the cabin with a thoroughly wet, but happy, Blue at her side. In an instant, Grandmamma had a cup of hot cocoa, with marshmallows just barely staying afloat, which burned Anna’s throat as she gulped it down, soothing her dry, painful throat.
Grandmamma was a short woman, with plump figure and astonishing silver hair that shined in the firelight. She had freckled arms from countless hours of gardening in the summer; deep, kind wrinkles that etched her face with wisdom and the most spectacular pale blue eyes. It was into these eyes that Anna had looked when she felt sad and lonely. The eyes Grandmamma possessed were simply beautiful, there was no other word to describe them. In them you could see the utmost understanding acquired from over seventy years of living and when looked into further, the wildness of a young girl from so long ago.
“Sweet child, are you getting warmer? I swear, you’re going to turn in to an icicle one of these days, and we’re going to have to hang you outside with the others. Could you find enough firewood this time? Your Grandpapa said it was hard to find with so many deer this winter eating it all.”
“Yes, Grandmamma,” she said breathing out the fumes of hot cocoa and melted marshmallow. “And guess what? You’ll never believe it!!”
“Tell me child. What’s so exciting?”
“Fawn has two babies! A boy and a girl!”
“Two babies? But she is so small. How could she have carried two? Poor thing, even I had trouble carrying your mother. Did they look healthy enough?”
“They were the two most cutest, most sweetest, most everythingest baby deer you ever saw! She let me pet the girl but the boy ran away. But we know that girls are so much braver than boys, don’t we, Grandmamma?”
She chuckled, a deep cheerful chuckle that came from deep inside of her. “Yes we do, don’t we? Now if only Grandpapa and Blue would realize that too. We’ll have to remind them won’t we? Grandpapa should be ba-”
“Remind me of wha? -oooof” At that moment, as soon as Grandpapa had stepped into the cabin, both Anna and Blue simultaneously landed on Grandpapa, whacking him to the floor.
“You’re back! Did you find one? Are we having my favorite tonight?” Anna questioned excitedly while sitting on Grandpapa’s chest.
“I don’t know,” he said smiling, “why don’t you check my bag?”
Anna leapt for the bag and ripped it open to find two fat ducks.
“Yay!! You got two! Grandmamma, he got two! Two! What a wonderful number; two babies, two ducks!”
And with that Anna danced around the fireplace swinging the ducks by their feet, their feathers flying everywhere, singing ‘two’ over and over again. Grandmamma chuckled and helped Grandpapa back up. He put his long lean arm around her as they watched their beloved grandchild swing their dinner in circles, the scene fading out through the window into the cold, white world of drifting snow to only a few weeks later and a hot, tight room upstairs.
Anna was coughing deeply, spitting blood, spitting lung. Anna drowning in her lung fluid, trying to breath. Anna growing weaker and whiter and thinner. Grandmamma holding Anna, Grandpapa holding Grandmamma, crying onto a dying Anna closing her eyes.
Anna is different now. She’s a man now, a young one just growing whiskers, heart pounding for want of adventure. Eyes hunting for dangerous, exciting journeys, eyes unbroken, eyes still innocent. She is Pierre in this life. Pierre after he had left his home, Pierre swinging through the lines of a giant ship’s mast, being sprayed with salt water by the other sailors below on deck. The ship hasn’t left the harbor yet, supplies are still being loaded, bags of sugar and flour and lemons. Boxes of tobacco.
The ship sets sail, sails billowing, deflating, then catching the harsh salty wind as it whips Pierre on the face in his watchtower, high above the ship, looking out into blue fluid oblivion. Searching for danger. He sees in the distance porpoises skimming the glassy ocean, dancing with the waves, singing with the wind. Good luck falls on the ship today; porpoises join it in its trudge, laughing at its slow speed and inelegant, cumbersome movement through the water. They play with the sailors and jump to eat the newly caught wiggling fish dangling from the sailors’ rough, weather-beaten hands.
The first day on the sea ends, and Pierre’s young eyes grow weary. Light fades and the moon draws closer to the ship, moving higher into the night sky without old city light to blind the stars. The Moon joins her family in the night heavens, spilling her light on the waters, turning them to melted, lapping silver. Turning the ship to a quiet, moving, mystical tomb, floating on the ocean, completely subject the power of the sea.
Day breaks. And Father Sun spreads his light on the world, stirring the winds into action, instigating the waves into rage. The ship rocks gently in the breaking moments, swaying to a mute lullaby growing louder. Soon the waves are angry and the winds fierce, the boat is at the mercy of the waters now, the boat swinging back in forth, port to starboard, in the gigantic sets of waves flowing towards the trade ship in close sets. The Sun is not merciful on this day, hiding behind dark, gray, heavy clouds, he watches the storm hit. He watches as the sailors move quickly without question to complete the Captain’s orders. Rolling up sails, tightening lines, tying themselves on deck to avoid being swept overboard with the upcoming monstrous waves. And above all the commotion, sits Pierre, eyes widened, glancing back and forth between the frantic sailors and the impending swells. Looking down, far below, at the sailors moving to and fro on the ship’s deck, as ants escaping their hill being flooded. And back to the forthcoming surf, approaching the now seemingly tiny ship, almost moving with an eagerness to break over its wooden prey.
The swells approached, and flung the craft with all its watery might, planks broke and splintered into a million shards, rudders snapped, stealing all chance of navigation out of this wet fury of hell. And above this all, on the tallest mast straining under the tossing of the waves, sat Pierre, white, salty, shivering. Pierre with his empty hopes for adventure. Pierre falling. Pierre riding the cracked mast down to the cold, dark, rage of the sea. Pierre looking up at the bleak sky, the hiding sun, as he sunk below the sea, the salty water blinding his eyes, filling his throat, drowning his life.
He wakes up through the dark brown eyes of his next body, a man’s body again. Jose’s body in old Spain. Jose sleeping next to his wife, and not far from his newborn daughter’s crib. Shouts can be heard over his other children’s morning squabble. Far-away shouts of anger, shouts of rage, shouts of revenge. Jose is instantly out of his bed, shaking his young wife awake, grabbing her a blanket, whispering desperately to get up, get dressed, leave. He races to his other children, his son and older daughter, covering their mouths with his big chubby hands, silently marching them to the back of the house, telling them to be quiet, telling them to escape to the stables. The baby is whimpering upstairs, and the shouts down the road are growing louder. Jose stumbles up the stairs and finds his wife frightened, ignoring the baby, staring wide-eyed out the window. He grabs her slim wrist, and the crying child and runs with them downstairs and out the door to the stables.
He finds he son and daughter huddled in a smelly stall, the son shedding silent horrified tears. Whispering in Spanish to the young children he tells them to hide, bad men want to get them. Mother and the two daughters are separated from Father and his son in the labyrinth of stalls. But Jose isn’t so worried; he has his son, his beloved child. They hide in a stall that they can sit and lift their feet from the ground, hide their dangling limbs from the men come to kill Jose, all those dear to him. Angry breathing grows near, louder, and metal shoes click on the earthen ground of the stable. A thin, heavily knuckled hand swings open the stall door; Jose slips his son’s body behind his own and stares into the cold metal eyes of his murder’s gun.
Wheat sways golden in the noon sun, farmer’s hats protecting red faces bobbing up and down up and down, harvesting. Blue eyes staring through a worn aging face, shadowed by a yellow modest bonnet and more deeply by hardships faced crossing the plains. Blue eyes staring at the noon sun, hard lean backs dripping with sweat, the plain wooden house in the distance, her house. Blue eyes searching for herbs to heal, to alleviate pain, to roll into dough. Blue eyes smiling at friends and workers, offering lunch to tired, sweaty hands. Blue eyes walking home.
Blue eyes moving slowly to bed no longer shared by a husband. Blue eyes smiling at the Moon, breathing in freedom, remembering a long life lived, a hard life lived, a worthwhile satisfying flowing life lived. Blue eyes remembering, closing, dreaming, dieing.