Shorts

The Depth of the Sky

I
flood

The water rushes over him, singing with the weight of the world. Up above, somewhere beyond the reach of his fingertips, there is air, whistling with the cold. Down below, under his feet and heavy miles of water, there is the bottom of the lake, rough and loose and stony. He stands, suspended in a vacuum, stretched out to the heavens, sinking to the earth. Then – the bottom is cool and weak beneath his feet, he sinks, bends, kicks – and the surface appears, rippling against his neck, the harsh smell of the air gasped into his lungs.

It is a different kind of living there in the lake. His brother told him that the others, when they dive, close their eyes, exist only through the waves tugging at their skin. He read once that fish at the bottom of the ocean cannot see; there is no need for it. They feel their way, smell it, hear it. Sound is different under the surface, slower, through a distant wall. The thoughts in his head and the blood rushing through his body become louder, more vital.

Up above there is –

the sound of water splashing, the sound of water being splashed

laughter

trees threatening to surrender under the weight of the wind

– his breath, fast now. Desperate to know it’s still alive.

The swim to the shore is well known, well-rehearsed. A foot here, there; his fingers gripping a tree branch that overhangs the lake. Sam’s hand snags his elbow, pulls him up the slippery rock.

“Nice one,” Sam says, a grin in his voice. He presses a towel into his brother’s hand. “Here, dry yourself off.”

“Otherwise Mum’ll know?”

Sam laughs. “Exactly.”

They sit down on the bank, teeth chattering in the crisp November air. The water is still busy – he counts three, four voices.

“Who’s diving now?”

There’s a pause before Sam answers – ah, he was looking at his phone again. “Uh… Dylan. Off of the top rock,” he grumbles. “Show off.”

Laughing, he lies back carefully, squashing the towel under his head. “Jealousy does not become you, little brother.”

The sun is threatening to escape from its bank of cloud, he thinks, feeling its lightness across his legs. He lies there, ears half listening to the calls from the water, to the echoes from the banks. He imagines his eyes are open, imagines what that means, sees the depth of the sky above him, the steadiness of the earth below.

II
fire

Everyone says that the Smithsons’ fire lights up the sky like the longest day in summer, blazing orange and white, the fields shining flickering gold, the barns surrendering to the flame.

He just remembers the heat.

He wakes with it, before the shouts reach their house. The heavy weight of something wrong, the thick ashen air. Suffocating. With the heat comes a dreadful sense of urgency, and it is that that lets him find his clothes, his boots, unlock the back door. He runs out into the fields before the others are up from their beds.

The night, the air pressing against his face, feels tauntingly cool, the sky smelling like it’s threatening rain. The taunting smell and warmth of the fire tugs him through a gap in the hedge towards the Smithsons’ farm without him even realising it.

“No…” he chokes out, face wet with tears, feet fumbling their way across the grass. The air feels thick and dense, every step leaving him gasping.  

He falls somewhere between their house and the angry flames, knees crumbling to the ground. There, stuck in the viscous trap of hours that feel like days, he feels the giddying spin of the earth through space, feels the tug of the moon on the tides.

He cannot help. Sam, he learns later, ran with the others to herd the sheep away from the blazing barns, to free the stamping horses. Their mother and father joined the water line.

He cannot help. He just lies there, fingers tearing at the arrogant earth.

The darkness has never felt so lonely.

When the flames have been tamed and the skies have opened up their bounty of rain, the livestock have been contained in a different field, everyone returns home, the sun beginning to warm the horizon.

His mother finds him, wretched and cold.

“I couldn’t…” he begins, and his voice dies out, cracked and raw. She guides him home, and the way is so unfamiliar now beneath his feet he fears he would be lost without her.

Dylan Smithson stays with them for a week whilst his parents deal with the wreckage of their farm. He sleeps in Sam’s room, their heads feet and miles away through the wall, the nights full of bitter guilt and silent tears through broken eyes.

III
feast

The smell of Christmas roasts through the house, warming the frigid sheets on the beds and clouding the iced windowpanes with breath. Time runs gently through the rooms, through the lanes, through the fields. Tradition gently blankets everything in light snow, brushes the houses with festivity.

He likes to press his hands and nose against the windows, feel the aching cold across his cheekbones as his feet rest dangerously close to the fire. His father used to lift him up there when he was small, tell him to feel the way the snow’s reflection of the moon lights up the whole countryside, the way the hedgerows look dusted in sugar. He can no more feel the snow than he can see it, but he still rests his face against the cool glass.

Christmas Eve is a heady day, wrapped in anticipation. Sam likes to celebrate every time zone reaching Christmas Day, laughing every year at Christmas Island ticking first, at ten o’ clock in the morning.

This year, the air aches with potentiality.

The Smithsons visit for lunch, bearing gifts that are quickly stowed under the tree for the following day. He sits at the far edge of the table, eating whatever food gets passed his way, laughing at the appropriate times. The whole time his stomach is a knot, his chest twisted in an internal battle. The fish sits heavy in his gut, his head spinning with endless rounds of mulled wine and champagne as Sam calls out “Vietnam! Kazakhstan! Georgia…!”

He wakes early on Christmas morning, the rest of the house still sleeping under the eaves, a gentle rain washing quietly against the windows, watering the snow on the ground. He rises, tugs on a jumper and sneaks downstairs, winding his way towards the back door with an ease borne of years of practice.

The fields smell beautiful under the drizzle, his boots crunching in the grass. His journey is slow, made over slippery paths with sleep-stiff limbs, a dot moving through the white, under the grey sky, lit by a creeping winter sun he stretches out a cold hand to feel in the air.

As slow as the walk seemed, it is still early when he reaches the Smithsons’ farm, the world only beginning to stir. His heart spreads to his toes, throbbing in his socks, to his fingers, aching and tight, to his throat, choking his icy breaths.

Biting his lip, he knocks, and waits.

IV
flying

The water runs over his skin, bitingly cold and gentle, seeping into his bones. He lets it wrap him up and take him under, feels the stretch of the whole world between his fingertips and his toes, between the break of the air on the lake’s surface and the stony earth beneath his feet –

He laughs at the tickle of kisses pressed against his jaw, fingertips run feather soft along his arms and across his back, fleeting over his neck, his ears, his eyes –

The new barns smell sweet with hay and sawdust, the air rich with the sweat of those who have helped build them, the gentle whickering of horses –

The grass under his fingers is warm and long, wrapping its arms around his wrists and feet, tangling him with the earth, pulling him back to tilt his face up to the sky, the depth of the heavens –

The lake is tinted with the rays of summer, humming with the wealth of the world, and when they dive, they shut their eyes –