Short Fiction
Issue #2
Snowy January Day
It’s a snowy January day. Tom has driven to the reservoir after another row with Emma. He is sitting in his favourite spot; an old bench with a dedication to Ted Boyce courtesy of his loving widow Jane. The bench is old, and shows its age, Ted Boyce must have been buried many years ago. The wooden lengths are infested with rot; one piece from the back rest is missing completely since Tom’s last visit a month previously, it leaves a vacancy against the small of Tom’s back. The metal frame, visible in the slits between the pieces of wood is possibly in a worse state; weakened by rust the bench sags and wheezes as one sits and groans relief upon rising. When Tom was here last, he ran his fingernail along the rust-reddened frame. Speckles of rust peeled beneath the contact like an ugly red onion. One fragment lodged beneath his nail and nicked the delicate flesh, painting the tip of his finger red. He’d sworn, loud and angry.
A fine layer of snow has settled over the frozen reservoir. The snow also covers the cut grass of the path which skirts the perimeter of the steep banks that climb from the waters edge. The banks themselves are uncut so emerge from the carpet of white, reeds and long tufts of grass wave invitingly buoyed by chilly breaths of wind. On the far bank, above the waving splashes of green, stroll a couple, arms linked. They are probably the owners of the second car in the car park; the car Tom had narrowly missed crashing into.
He’d driven here recklessly, pissed off with Emma; he’d scythed straight across the country road and entered the white surfaced car park far too fast. The front wheel had lost grip on a patch of ice. He’d spun out of control, round once, disorientating him, then round again. Eventually coming to a stop splayed across two spaces facing the entrance. Luckily for Tom the car park is big, the reservoir has lots of summer visitors and needs plenty of parking space; despite having slid and spun out of control for all of forty yards the wooden stakes that guard the edge of the gravel were a further ten or fifteen yards distant. The slide was marked vividly by twisting black tyre marks that jagged across the previously untarnished snowy carpet. The car had jack-knifed close to the one solitary car in the car park; parked ten yards past where he’d spun and only a few yards to the side of the dirty black skid marks. He’d been lucky not to collide. At this moment he has not recognised his fortune; his mind is occupied by a thought from when he first spun. When Tom had first spun, and had no idea what was behind him, no idea that he would step from his car unscathed, he had not felt fear. He had felt something akin to satisfaction; this would show her. For a fragment of time he had longed to crash, had revelled in his own mortality. He wanted the cold, hard impact to drive him back into the seat, a slab of pain across his back, a trickle of blood dripping down his forehead, then everything going black. The loss of consciousness relieving the tedium he felt before the spin. And it was tedium, he was angry with Emma, but more overpoweringly, bored. It was one row after another with no resolution, shouting to pretend he still cared. So fucking tedious. At the time he’d wanted a drink dearly but had restrained himself before walking to Ted Boyce’s bench.
A lucky escape for the couple across the reservoir too, their car could have been written off. As they pass opposite Tom they stop and embrace, hugging, mouths meeting, the heat from each other keeping the cold at bay. Tom turns his head away, and spits over the side of the bench. He’s cold and feels every breath of wind, an icy entity whispering and tickling his stomach; however, he’s too belligerent to return home so soon. His spittle lands out of his sight and dilutes a single flake of snow, staining brilliant white to something approaching translucence; a tiny hole in the white carpet only to be filled if the heavens choose to open again.
Tom had seen something when he turned his head to spit. A shock of black hair amongst the green of the far bank. A boy, the couple’s son he assumes, was exploring. About 30 yards behind his parents the boy, his back to Tom, edges slowly down towards the icy reservoir. The child’s two gloved hands grip tufts of grass so he can balance as one careful foot follows another down the bank. As the boy gets to the flatter bottom of the bank he turns and stands erect for a second. Tom shuffles curiously forwards, eager not to lose sight of the boy. As he does the boy drops to his knees, right at the edge of the reservoir. He then takes the glove off one hand and places the glove on the snow, at his side. His hand he places on the ice, and slides it forwards as far as he can stretch. The boy then balls his hand into a fist and tests the ice with a cautious blow. The boy wants to test it further, he raises his balled fist right back over his head and hammers at the ice. In doing so he overbalances and falls all elbows and knees onto the reservoir’s surface. The boy freezes. Tom freezes; watching, unblinking. The frozen ice holds. The child moves again, slowly. Inexplicably he is edging further out onto the ice. It takes Tom a few seconds to register the direction, an epiphany, the boy is at risk. Tom watches curiously.
The child, on his knees with his upper torso against the ice continues forwards, his knees scraping against the surface for friction, his hands, one gloved one not, grapple at the ice pulling him forwards. He’s about ten yards out now, Tom steps forwards right to the edge of the bank. A shout perforates the winter’s day, “Jake?” Jake’s dad has registered his absence. The man, no longer linked to his wife is on the edge of the bank, sixty yards or so ahead of Jake looking back at his son. Realising his negligence he sprints back along the path.
Jake, startled by the shout, lifts his torso but does not turn towards the shout for now he sees Tom. Their eyes meet, the boy; white faced and kneeling, looks questioningly at Tom, who chastened at being spotted, retreats a step. As Tom retreats, the boy shifts, and beneath him the ice shifts and then is gone. The boy for a fragment of a second kneels on water, his head bowed in shock at the absence of ice. Then he drops, and his mother on some periphery screams, and screams, and the water erupts and when the splash settles Jake is replaced by an ugly wet black circle. The shrill scream reverberates ceaselessly in Tom’s head whilst Jake’s naked hand emerges from the water, desperately scratching and clawing and beating at the ice. His pale hand flaps again and again like a desperate fish, but the ice breaks again, and his hand retreats limp into the blackness. The screams redouble, smashing every bit of rationale and freezing Tom again, freezing him to watch in fascinated horror.
The boy’s dad reaches level with the vacuum in the ice, and leaps all-mightily off the bank beyond the waving reeds and over the frozen expanse before gravity rushes the surface up to meet him. The ice smashes into his body, a mass of white ice and black water explode high above the reservoir surface tracing the man’s drop in reverse. The man disappears beneath the explosion into the black water, he is gone like his son. But swiftly the man rises, revitalised and gleaming wet, his long soaked hair dripping. The man stumbles waist-high in the water, lurching towards his son, sheets of ice breaking and bouncing off him, water falling off him. And with every yard he moves forward, inexorably the water rises. As he reaches the solid ice between himself and the hole Jake has left he swings his arms mechanically. They pendulum from his sides up through the water, first cracking the ice then sending blocks spinning into the air. The man, barely slowing amidst the thick ice, walks forward blasting with his arms continually, oblivious to the soaking cold. And all the time the water rises; now it is at the bottom of his chin and he’s just short of where Jake slipped away. The man’s mouth forms a giant ‘O’ sucking in air, still he walks forwards relentlessly submerging himself fully. The screaming returns, redoubled, almost consuming Tom, who still watches.
The landscape is still again, only now the reservoir has an ugly black stain reaching out from its far bank. From where Tom stands it looks like a giant mushroom, the stalk stretches away from where the boy disappeared, whilst the murky round head has emerged from where his father landed near the distant bank. The man’s head reappears in the stalk, facing towards Tom the man steps back, his mouth forming another black O; a hole in his severely whitened face and the water dripping from his long black hair. Then again forwards, into the breach the man disappears. He appears again seconds later and water surges from his hair as he wobbles and stumbles back towards the bank, Tom overcome, drops to his knees clumsily compacting the snow beneath him. He is barely aware of the numbing cold now. The father is clumsy too, resembling a man on stilts meeting his true love; first he sways, then he swoons and finally inexorably he collapses and disappears into the water. All is silent. Time is stilled, even the woman on the far bank is silent; she stares at the viscous black polluting the brilliant white. Then her husband reappears, stilled, overcome, he floats face down in his mushroom cloud, vitality stolen. The boy remains unseen in his cold white prison. His mother screams again, uselessly. The reeds and tufts of grass wave green over the white cold invitingly.
Tom walks slowly back to his car, he feels the incessant cold with every step now; he opens the unlocked door and sits still for a couple of seconds. He wipes at his cold alien face, frozen tears tumble off his cheeks at the touch of his clumsy numbed hands. He climbs back out of the car and opens the boot; it is stiff with the cold but with both hands he manages to lever it wide. Inside the boot he feels inside the spare tyre, running his hands along the inside of the rubber until his hands touch icy cold, frosted glass. He removes a bottle of whisky and walks stiffly back to the front seat. Tom sits with his legs out of the car and takes a long, slow mouthful from the bottle. He savours the harsh heat against his dry tongue. He swallows, then takes another long draw; already he feels warmer, more real. After the third time the bottle meets his lips he replaces the top then spits the last vestiges onto the snow between his feet. The whisky dilutes a few snowflakes to a dirty liquid yellow, for the fifth time today a pristine carpet of white is broken. After replacing the whisky in the spare tyre he climbs back into the car. Then he starts the engine and drives slowly across the car park, meandering round the car he careered past earlier, he indicates left and departs.
As he drives away the heavens open. Urgent flurries of snow begin thickening and repairing the carpet of white. Instantly the patches of blemish from his spittle are covered. The snow dances swiftly over the dirty tyre marks from his skid, soon they are covered too. Thus any trace of Tom’s visit to the reservoir is concealed. He later tells Emma he went to the pub, his whisky-stained breath affirming his alibi. The murky wet mushroom in the reservoir takes longer to conceal, the snow settles and sails on the black water, the edges of the ice creep forward. Indiscernible to the naked eye; still white covers viscous black.