Grayson's Body

Brevity

Chapter 8: Brevity

Brevity

[brev-i-tee]

noun

1. shortness of time or duration;

2. the quality of expressing much in few words; terseness:

On Saturday I spent the day doing homework. I mean a little bit of homework, but a whole lot of reading. I let my mind drift as I took a random book down from the tall shelf by my bed. I let myself not think for once.

And it was pretty freakin' nice.

I didn't go back over to Grayson's as the afternoon rolled into the evening. When I was making spaghetti at the stove for us for dinner, Mom turned to me out of the blue as she grabbed a bottle of cold water from out of the fridge and said, "Aren't you going over there?"

I had said, "No," as I took a noddle from the hot pan and placed it in my mouth, making sure it was cooked enough.

"Did something happen?" She asked lightly with her calm, relaxed eyes.

I had given her a smile that I hoped look reassuring enough, "No. He's just doing stuff."

"Okay," she had said as she turned around and went back to the living room with the bottle in her hand.

Saturaday was her off day since she pulled a swing shift. Usually I was over there, or at Chip's. She hadn't seen Grayson at all the whole day. This was unusual for her, but I didn't say anything. She didn't even know that I was there. Not at Grayson's that morning, not at Melody Lane last night. The fire was all over the news, and she talked to me about it while we sat there and made my dish, as she was still in her pajamas because she deserved to be in them.

I felt horrible to know that I was there, and that I couldn't even tell her.

I watched out the front window as Grayson pulled his jeep from my front yard at noon and into his driveway. I watched as he went back inside and didn't come back out. A couple of people came over, two other football players, and I watched as they slipped inside. This was normal enough. That night I saw the garage light come on, shinning out against the driveway, and I knew he was working out.

When I fell asleep that night, I smelled the smoke through the walls somehow. I smelled it burnt into the plaster, into the whole smooth surface.

That night I had a nightmare in which I was walking down a trail on the edge of town. The sun was bright and somehow I felt the warmth through the cuts of light in the trees. I was looking at everything: the way that the spring finches were swooping in and out of the branches, their singing, their movement. I looked at the long plant stems as they brushed the side of my leg.

Did you know what Kettle is named after?

It's named after "Devil's Kettle." It's this waterfall that they found a long, long time ago back in the days when they first founded Minnesota. Technically, it's not a normal waterfall. Sure, the water flows off this large cliff right off the highway and goes into this small lake at the bottom, but it doesn't come out. The water, I mean. Back in the day, especially in the late 90s, scientists would drop all sorts of things: bouncy balls, mostly but sometimes small objects like shoes and letters in plastic down the waterfall. None of those things ever resurfaced, though. In town there's this joke that maybe it's another dimension or something. Kind of like The Twilight Zone.