Ethereal | RJ (HSMTMTS)

Part 1

Ricky's POV

If you've ever been to Canada, then you know that there's one word that can describe most of it quickly: big. It's big, yet there are so few people. There's so much space being wasted on the air. And there are clusters of people in the cities where they all retreated to be together. I wonder what's so bad about everywhere else that makes no one want to live there. More than that, though, I wonder what must be so strange about the people who actually live in places like this that make them want to stay here. Do they find the city too packed or too loud? Maybe the people out here aren't just wasting this space. Maybe they just take up more space. All their footsteps go farther out here than in the city, because the map is nearly endless, and all of that space is available to them. There's so much space, but nothing to do with it. I don't usually think about things this intently, but out here, there's pretty much nothing else to do except think.

In Stale, B.C., the roads are red dirt with some rocks that have been driven over so many times that they're all packed under the dirt now. I don't know where the red dirt comes from, because other dirt isn't that colour. I imagine the rain must turn the ground from dry dust to a crime scene splashed on your clothes. The people here must be used to that, or maybe they're just good at avoiding it. I haven't seen a rainfall yet. I just got here yesterday. My dad took a temporary job opportunity out here to work with some other geologists researching rocks in the mountains and volcanoes nearby. He works at the university in the town a kilometre away, one that is more than seventeen streets, called Magresborg. I'm not sure whether dumb town names is just a Canadian thing or a mid-western B.C. thing, but clearly it's a thing.

There is one road that isn't red, and that's the one that streams through the city, being the exit and the entrance in two directions. The fact that the only paved street is the one to get out should be a sign that there's truly nothing desirable about this town. But the town isn't the reason I agreed to come here. I could've stayed with Big Red in Salt Lake City for the summer while my dad came here alone, but he said it was a chance to see a landscape I never had before, which is true. I've never been living in a house surrounded by mountains and coniferous trees before. The trees basically wrap the whole town like a present. The only way to know what it looks like is breaking through that wrapping paper and turning the corner into the town.

The other weird thing about being here is that the people already know me. I was just walking by the post office, and the man working there asked if I was the boy moving into the house on 5th Avenue. Of course, my initial instinct was to call the police and tell them that there was a stalker talking to me, but then I realized that this is Stale, and it would be more weird if he didn't notice someone was moving into the town. I also remembered that the police station in this town is just a small red building beside the fire department where a few RCMP hang out, so I would probably be able to just yell and have them hear me.

I've basically just been walking around so far, because I don't have anything else to do. I can't call Big Red, because the long-distance charges on my cell phone would be crazy, and my dad gave me a limit for long-distance calls made this summer on the house phone, so I need to be strategic with only calling when I have something to say. And right now there is exactly nothing to say.

There's a clack every time my skateboard passes over a break in the sidewalk blocks. A few other people are walking around today, getting groceries or coffee at the Tim Hortons. As I get to a corner with a set of lights, I hop off my skateboard and press the button. After one round of lights for the cars goes through, and I don't get a signal, I press it again. A second later, someone else steps up beside me, a boy with dark brown hair around my age, looking like he could be a member of a popular boy band if he didn't live in the middle of nowhere.

"So, uh," he says, leaning over to me a little, "that button doesn't actually work. You just have to walk when there aren't cars coming."

"Oh."

I nod and step into the street, and the boy walks across with me.

"You're the new kid, right?" he asks.

"That's me."

He glances down at my feet as we step up onto the opposite sidewalk and says, "Well, if you want a tip for living here, don't wear white shoes."

Red dust has been ingrained in the fabric of my white Sk8-Hi Vans. If I manage to get all of it out, it will be a miracle.

"Yeah," I respond. "I didn't really think that through."

"Try dish soap and warm water," he says.

"Do you stain your shoes a lot?" I ask with a slight chuckle.

"I'm not exactly careful with keeping them clean," he replies. Then he adds, "I'm EJ. My dad works at the university with your dad."

"Wow, I've hardly been here a day, and everyone already knows everything about me."

"That can't be everything there is about you," EJ says.

"I ride a skateboard, I wear white shoes, and I'm here for the summer because of my dad's job," I summarize. "There's not much more than that."

"How about your name?" He raises his eyebrows as a smile lifts his lips subtly.

"Ricky," I answer. "Now you know everything."

"I doubt that."

"You don't believe me?"

"You just don't seem like the kind of person who would let someone he just met know everything about him." EJ looks at me for another moment, and I feel like a house with the door left unlocked, exposed but only if he tries to enter. He doesn't. Instead, he starts to turn away, saying, "I've got to go, but I'll see you around."

I give him a wave as he walks away. After a second, I drop my skateboard back down on the concrete and continue my own travel. I never had a direction in mind, but I figure it would be weird to go the same way as the boy who just went left, so I take a right instead.