Monday, August 11, 2008
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3:57 p.m.
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This is a great short story written by Dan Simmons. It's quite large so I'll be posting it in chunks. Normally I wouldn't do this, but it spoke to me. Since this is my blog, I just kinda do what I want. The narrative jumps perspectives so I've chosen to break it up with each change, but it's all part of one story.******************
The teacher and the boy climbed the steep arc of lawn that overlooked the southernmost curve of the Missouri River. Occasionally they glanced up at the stately brick mansion that held the high ground. Its tiers of tall windows and wide French doors reflected the broken patterns of bare branches against a gray sky. Both the boy and the young man knew the big house was most likely empty—its owner spent only a few weeks a year in town—but approaching so close afforded them the pleasurable tension of trespass as well as an outstanding view.
A hundred feet from the mansion they stopped climbing and sat down, backs against a tree which shielded them from the slight breeze and protected them from the casual notice of anyone in the house. The sun was very warm, a false spring warmth which would almost surely be driven off by at least one more snowstorm before returning in earnest. The wide expanse of lawn, dropping down to the railroad tracks and the river two hundred yards below, had the faint, green splotchiness of thawing earth. The air smelled like Saturday.
The teacher took up a short blade of grass, rolled it in his fingers, and began to chew on it thoughtfully. The boy pulled a piece, squinted at it for a long second, and did likewise.
"Mr. Kennan, d'you think the river's gonna rise again this year and flood everythin' like it done before?" asked the boy.
"I don't know, Terry," said the young man. He did not turn to look at the boy, but raised his face to the sun and closed his eyes.
The boy looked sideways at his teacher and noticed how the red hairs in the man's beard glinted in the sunlight. Terry put his head back against the rough bark of the old elm but was too animated to shut his eyes for more than a few seconds.
"Do you figure it'll flood Main if it does?"
"I doubt it, Terry. That kind of flood only comes along every few years."
Neither participant in the conversation found it strange that the teacher was commenting on events which he had never experienced first hand. Kennan had been in the small Missouri town just under seven months, having arrived on an incredibly hot Labor Day just before school began. By then the flood had been old news for four months. Terry Bester, although only ten years old, had seen three such floods in his life and he remembered the cursing and thumping in the morning darkness the previous April when the volunteer firemen had called his father down to work on the levee.
A train whistle came to them from the north, the Dopplered noise sounding delicate in the warm air. The teacher opened his eyes to await the coming of the eleven a.m. freight to St. Louis. Both counted the cars as the long train roared below them, diesel throbbing, whistle rising in pitch and then dropping as the last cars disappeared toward town around the bend in the track where they had just walked.
"Whew, good thing we wasn't down there," said Terry loudly.
"Weren't," said Mr. Kennan.
"Huh?" said Terry and looked at the man.
"We weren't down there," repeated the bearded young man with a hint of irritation in his voice.
"Yeah," said Terry and there was a silence. Mr. Kennan closed his eyes and rested his head against the tree trunk once again. Terry stood to throw imaginary stones at the mansion. Sensing his teacher's disapproval, he stopped the pantomine and stood facing the tree, resting his chin against the bark and squinting up at the high branches. Far overhead a squirrel leaped.
"Twenty-six," said Terry.
"What's that?"
"Cars on that train. I counted twenty-six."
"Mmmmm. I counted twenty-four."
"Yeah. Me too. That's what I meant to say. Twenty-four, I meant."
Kennan sat forward and rolled the blade of grass in his hands. His thoughts were elsewhere. Terry rode an invisible horse around in tight circles while making galloping sounds deep in his throat. He added the phlegmy noise of a rifle shot, grabbed at his chest, and tumbled off the horse. The boy rolled bonelessly down the hill and came to a contorted, grass-covered stop not three feet from his teacher.
Kennan glanced at him and then looked out at the river. The Missouri moved by, coffee brown, complicated by never repeating patterns of swirls and eddies.
"Terry, did you know that this is the southernmost bend of the Missouri River? Right here?"
"Uh-uh," said the boy.
"It is," said the teacher and looked across at the far shore.
"Hey, Mr. Kennan?"
"Yes?"
"What's gonna happen on Monday?"
"What do you mean?" asked Kennan, knowing what he meant.
"You know, in the Story."
The young man laughed and tossed away the blade of grass. For a brief second Terry thought that his teacher threw like a girl, but he immediately banished that from his mind.
"You know I can't tell you ahead of the others, Terry. That wouldn't be fair, would it?"
"Awww," said the boy but it was a perfunctory whine, and something in the tone suggested that he was pleased with the response. The two stood up. Kennan brushed off the seat of his pants, and then pulled bits of grass from the child's tangled hair. Together they walked back down the hill in the direction of the rail line and town.
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Parallel
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Death of the Centaur
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