An Ocean of Cold
Heather Butcher
He lives at the back of the lot, among the last row of trailers, tucked in a corner, in a single wide the color of butter, with his dad and sister, and he never talks about his mom. Up the hill along the deer’s path, in the fall, when the maples blaze red and the cherry trees burn orange and the willows glow gold, he wraps me in his canvas jacket, and we stand under an umbrella of stars. The coat is rough, like the calluses along the top of his palm, but he feels warm compared to the brittle darkness of November. Listening to the soft rumble of his voice behind my ear, I watch as his fingers trace the ethereal lines between stars. He demands attention and he questions me when I laugh and his touches are clinical, but tonight, he’s delicate.
He knows where the animals wear down a trail, mostly deer, but there are turkeys too, and tiny things like squirrels and chipmunks. He walks the land like it is his, brushing his hands across the scuffed-up husks of trees, their inner flesh exposed by local bucks. The older trees are solid, strengthened by age and unbothered by each new year’s crop of young bucks as they test themselves against the seasoned skins of poplars and beeches and pines. And yet, if the tree is young or in the middle of rapid growth, it can be devastating. As the hard outer bark is scraped away, the soft tissue underneath is exposed, and if the damage is substantial, the tree dies. You can tell where a buck walks by the wounded tree trunks.
A bare strip of land rises up through the hollow, a treeless corridor created for miles of electric line. It looks like a scar, the barrenness almost shocking, and I feel a small heaviness inside my chest looking at it. Standing in that openness with him, the night spreads across the sky. Our breath drifts up, the stars twinkling through the fog. With nothing but ground and sky, his anger smooths itself out. Outside the confines of thin plywood walls or crowded locker-lined hallways or airless backseats, his displeasure disperses rather than focuses on me. We are under a sparkling onyx dome, infinity staring back at us, a raven celestial pool framed by the bony limbs of empty trees. His resentment has room to run.
On top of a mountain, you can see how valleys meander through shadows, how the Earth is wrapped in blue sky, and how reality exists beyond coal mines and ribbons of road. Living in the mountains is like living underwater. Thousands of miles of earth cradle us. Life, caught in small slow currents, drifts along ridges and laces through ancient forests and settles into the clefts of hills.
Soon he’ll be back in these woods with a rifle, looking for a buck. The leaves won’t linger long. Autumn descends swiftly, and frost replaces dew. But there is still an ocean of cold yet to swim.
Heather Butcher’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appears or is forthcoming in The Ilanot Review, Tahoma Literary Review, and TIMBER.
Table of Contents for Flaw and Favor