ALL THAT WAS LEFT BEHIND

Breaking of the Silence

Our tiny town of northern Ontario had inched towards the beginning of November, meaning that many of the deciduous trees dropped their brilliant leaves, and that the air was becoming more frigid as the hours of fall dwindled. The sky and the grass, and everything about the world were painted in the faintest hue of an inky grey. It made me shiver inside, and long for a brighter radiance in the sky.

            I envied the trees, and their ability to simply drop their old leaves of dying promises. They would be as ugly as I was if they were forced to hold the blackened leaves all winter, a black twisted mass of death in the midst of a pure white winter. I imagined that the dry dark leaves would clatter together in the whirly wind, and whisper desperation, and yearnings for help. The black leaves were like lead, a hardened metal too heavy to hold.

            I sat there and thought of blackened lead trees in Claire’s quaint little bakery. It was the smallest of businesses lining the lake view, but was most definitely one of the most popular. People breezed in and out of the shop all afternoon, in and out in a contented gust.

            As the conversation and busyness dyed down a bit into a slower period of silence, I immersed myself into the landscape scene outside the massive window I gazed out of. Streaks of vivid pink and orange ribbons of colour zipped across the sky, hugging the ball of the sun. Fading father away into the sky were the lavishing streaks of intoxicating purples and shadowy blues, as if an exotic bird feather tickled the clouds.

            I felt electrified by how simple everything then appeared. It was as though Samuel’s thinking was completely bizarre, and irrational.

            Dangerous, he says. Dangerous how? I wasn’t as feeble as I looked.     Doesn’t know what he’s doing, he says. I could figure it out. No problem.

            I wanted to brush my fingers over the fuzzy haze forming within the soft pink clouds, and run my hands across the abstract art piece floating in the sky.      That’s what it was. Art. Art in the gallery of the world.

            I bet that Samuel had only simply lost sight of what I'm here for.

            I wasn’t sure how much time slipped past me, all I knew was that Samuel was wrong. Of course there was a way to at least shed light onto the unknown.

            Off in the distance, I heard the sweet call of Claire summon me. It took a moment before I slowly stood up, never unstitching my eyes from through the window. Partially focused on what I was doing, I obediently searched for where I had plopped down my backpack.

            I wondered where I had put Samuel’s card.

***

The world slowly shifted, into a darker and colder state. All the hours in the days seemed to slide by with ease, quickly forcing the sun to hide behind the horizon and be replaced with a luminous reflection from the moon. While the frigid November winds blew through the town, more silence was produced then I have ever experienced in my entire life.

            Life was busy with school, into an ever working period of things to think about. However, silence leaked in and drowned me, as I had lost all contact with Samuel, and had not had any more encounters with Lincoln or Charlie.

             I was disconnected, and lost, left out in the darkness of the silent November night.

            A month since I had arrived in my lovely grandmother and grandfather’s home. Two old fashioned people who have not had the ability to drive all the way down to my real home, to my old family.