Cold Tomorrow

[31]

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The air is cold when Patrick comes over one afternoon. It's a particularly bitter autumn day and my mother is at work in town. There's a knock at the door and I watch from my seat on the stairs as my father opens it.

"Patrick," he says in a hushed tone. I can't see the man beyond the frame of my father, but in the cold still air, I hear every word. "What are you doing here?"

"The better question is what are you doing here? I thought I told you to get out."

"You did. We were. But..."

There's a pause. "No. No. You are not fighting back. Michael, it's suicide."

"Someone has to make a stand. The Anarkks are going to obliterate Avexyr-kind. I'm not going to run away like some coward when my people are dying. And over what? Some prophecy?"

Another pause. I see the tension in my father's posture as he realises who he's speaking too. "I'm going to pretend like you didn't just say that," Patrick says.

"You're right. It's your belief now."

The silences between speaking grow longer. With each silent second, the temperature of the air seems to plummet. There's an unspoken battle, rising up from the ground like steam and being inhaled with each breath: two friends, once trustworthy allies, now on different sides of a war and battling to deal with it.

"What do you plan to do?" Patrick asks at last.

"Something big. Something that will have a dent. It's not enough to simply join the Avexyr effort; my contribution would be a grain of sand. I have to turn the tide in one stroke."

"Should I be worried?"

Pause. "No."

But my father waited too long to reply, and in that hesitation, Patrick found his answer.

"Look, maybe I shouldn't be speaking to you about this, given our situation. Just know that I'm not going to harm anyone. I'm only going to end the fighting."

More silence. Too much. I try to gather it in my arms but it piles up and spills over.

"Stay safe, Michael," Patrick says. "Hopefully we'll meet again as friends when this is all over."

I hear footsteps as our visitor retreats from the house. "I'll see you on the other side," my father calls out before shutting the door with a permanent-sounding slam.

-:-:-:-:-

I'm at the back of the house, watching the backyard from a foggy window. Outside my father searches through the brush and dirt, looking for something. The sun has only just set and everything looks blue. Blue grass rustled by a strong breeze. Blue father reaching for something, picking it up, pulling back. Fear infecting the blue air, a sense of panic, of time running out. And above, the blue sky darkening, purpling. Even my own skin looks blue in this twilight as I lean closer to the window, fingers on the glass.

My father draws over to the birdbath centrepiece, facing in my direction as he places whatever he found into the empty basin. He starts speaking, faintly and in a language I don't quite understand. Some part of me rings with it's familiarity, with the sense that I would know what he's saying if I only moved closer, listened harder. But it remains completely alien and nothing like English.

After several minutes, he finally stops talking. At the same time, I notice a dark figure amongst the dark trees lining our backyard. The figure draws closer, steps out from brush. In the twilight he looks like a dark blue shadow, sweeping across the lawn. My father reaches forward, about to touch the object in the basin which is now emitting a rich blue glow.