Daughters of the Teardrop Sea

Chapter 1: Cold Fire

Chapter One

A Cold Fire

Saturday afternoon, downtown in mid‑summer. A cool breeze blows. The glass fronted buildings shine in the sun. Shoppers dressed in summer colours drink coffee, soft drinks, beer in air conditioned plazas. Young men with burning eyes and cool demeanour shine their glances on the head to toe splendour of young women wrapped in cotton shifts and the like. Old men sit on wooden benches under the shade of public landscaping.

Up from the river comes a tall, thin young man wearing denim jeans and a pink and blue cotton shirt. The shirt hangs out at the back and is unbuttoned to mid‑chest. He is noticed by no one. He runs up the main street to a large maple tree, leaps up, grabs a low hanging branch, and pulls himself up.

First his shirt drops to the ground beneath the tree. Then his pants. Then his underwear. He is sitting in the tree wearing nothing at all. He starts to sing in a very loud voice. Then people stop at the base of the tree to see what is going on.

The young man is sitting about half way up to the top of the tree, dangling his feet over the branch. He looks to be in his late teens or early twenties. His hair is sandy coloured and cut very short, and he is very thin. His ribs stand out dramatically around his chest as it rises and falls with his singing. Some of the people who are gathered beneath him under the tree are giggling and covering their mouths with their hands. Some are laughing and joking out loud, some calling up to the boy things like "Jump! Jump!", and some are calling out things that are crude and disgusting. Mothers whose young children want to peek at the naked man drag them by the hand saying, "There's nothing to look at. Come on. Come on." Some of the people are singing along with him, some as if they mean it and some as if they are at a sporting event. The song is "Onward Christian Soldiers."

The police arrive just as the boy is finishing his final verse. He looks down at the crowd beneath him. "Happy?" he asks. "Sure.", someone replies. "Huba huba." says another. The boy stands up on his branch and urinates.

He watches the crowd part. He does not smile or frown or laugh or make faces. He stands proudly, one hand against the trunk of the tree and the other guiding his gesture. When he is finished he sits back down again on his branch.

Someone has stolen his clothes. When the fire trucks arrive he is brought down from the limb with no undue disorder and quickly wrapped in a sheet. From the back of the police car he holds it

loosely about his chest and observes the waves of heat rising from the pavement. The police determine, after some deliberation, to take the young boy to the hospital. He appears to be some kind of nut.