by Eli Godbolt
Ellie’s head that is uncovered and is brown curls and is magnetizing the weather and melting the crystals back to water.
The world that is silent. The gray of the sky and the trees that have been dipped in frosting and the hush of it all that is so deafening.
A year ago I would have been able to tell you that Ellie grabbed my hand and told me that I was going to walk with her. Snow makes her grin wide until her lips crack and the first snow of the year makes her tear up a little.
But not this year.
There is a heaviness that is hanging and it keeps her arms by her sides. She does not reach for my hand. She does not look sideways at me and ask me to walk in the snow that is yawning wide like a cat in the morning.
And I can’t say that I blame her. But at the same time, I cement my feet to the ground and stand there with a straight back, just like Ian had. And it is enough.
For a Tuesday.
Fusion
We sit around and think about wounds that we want to heal.
We make resolutions that we hope will tattoo themselves onto our bones and become a part of our DNA.
We laugh hesitant laughs because of all that has transpired. Because it all seems too recent and too much like thin glass-bones.
We make jokes about the safe things. About Riley’s car that broke down again for the third time this month. About how curvy Nel’s sister is getting. About how shiny and like a cue-ball Donnie’s head is.
We lean and we support and we say to hell with those who would look sideways at us.
And through it all we knit and fuse our bones and blood and make all things internally strong.
Circles
I am sitting in my English class and cannot focus on Ethan Frome. No. My mind is shot off elsewhere.
On Donnie, who is strong and works on the weekends to make sure that his brother has new clothes and food on the table and can do his multiplication tables from memory, because Donnie was never that good at math but wants his brother to have many doors that are flung open wide, wide, wide.
On Nels, who will have his casts off in a few weeks and is always getting hugged at home. His cherry truck that has a crooked smile and is up on blocks at his house.
On Ryan, who never talks about Kate anymore and is always alone on the weekends until we come over. About how the isolation is getting to him and how I want to grab him as lunch is ending and tell him that we should get out, with Ellie, and just go drive up in foothills for the afternoon.
On Ian, who still breezes through his calculus problems, but has a canyon that gapes large and craggy inside of him. He is brave and straight and never lets on, but I know that the wicker chair is empty and how it smolders inside of him.
On Riley, who goes home at night to a house where the drinks do not speak or clink loudly, but has to go to sleep every night with the white noise of his mother’s tears in the background.
On Eddie Kludtz, who ran into Mary the barista the other day outside of the coffee house and talked to her about the weather, what happened during the holidays, and how he doesn’t like fish. I smiled at them as I wandered into the grocery store that has changed management and names three times in the past five years.
On how things are cyclical and sometimes glossy-finished and the ripples stretch to the very edges of the pond.
Night Walkers
Ellie, I see you there on the couch that is sometimes scratchy but so comfortable and familiar that it is hard to leave.
“Eli, look at it outside. The moon is out and the snow looks like it is milk.”
It’s like that because God wants you to know that there are still things that are beautiful and can make you ache with longing when you look at them.
“The tree branches are huge and sagging. See them? Do you think that school will be canceled tomorrow? Do you think that the trees are going to crack under the weight of it all?”
Some trees might, Ellie. Not the dogwood. They never get weighed down and snap in two. They are elastic and snap, snap back.
“It’s like porcelain outside, or fine china, or grandma’s flowery cups. Remember those?”
“Yes, Ellie. You always wanted to drink out of them, and grandma would pour you air and you would slurp it. Loudly. I could hear you in the other room.” I smile.
Ellie, I understand now. Redemption isn’t a lump of sugar that sits and shrinks on your tongue. It isn’t a sweet phantom. It is a polished river-rock smoothed over by time and friction. A rock that you put in your front pocket and rub between your thumb and forefinger when the world is too muddled and furious. Do you hear me?
The ugliness of everything, it all washes off. Give it time and love and quiet nights where you open up your bedroom window and can hear the proud chirp-chorus of tree frogs singing throatily to the stars. They sing like that because they know of no other way to be - an audible heart being plunged into the dappled sky. I tell myself these things, because my hand reaches for the window sill on many nights when the moon dangles like a dusty medallion and I remember.
Don’t you see? Because it’s rolling around in my head now, and it is comfortable and warm like Friday nights in July - how all we can ever do is rub salves on scars and hope to God they soften with time. That in the years to come we will trace them with fingers that are steady and do not shake.
Ellie, I want you to walk with me. The night is quiet and the world has feathery teeth and no one, no, not any one will touch you. We can put one foot in front of the other and leave footprints in the snow that are straight and unafraid. We can be brave and bold and know that sometimes stories can have a matte-finish and still be pleasing to the eye.
“Walk with me Ellie? Please?”
The night is black, frosted and gorgeous. It is flecked with galaxy-holes and is a pristine china cup. It is beautiful and is waiting for her.
Just for her.
A Note to the Reader
The events in this story are kind of horrific. I get that. But please know that these stories were born out of truths. Little pebbles of truth that lie at the core. So if the question of “how much of this really happened?” is spiraling all dizzy in your head, then just know that. I didn’t come to decieve or sugarcoat. So yes, portions of these stories did happen. Certainly not in the chronology or extent that you see on the page, but then again, it all goes back to Tim O’Brien and “story truth”. So if you ask, I’ll grin slightly and tell you that there is truth in here, but to tell you what is factual and what is fabrication would detract from anything and everything. Just know that names have been changed and events slightly skewed to protect those involved. And that is all.
About the Author
Eli Godbolt grew up in the small town of Everson, Washington. Like many other kids in the middle of nowhere, he went to school. On most days, this was out of sheer boredom. He attended school, read books, made friends, shot off illegal fireworks on occasion, and was normal in a slightly tweaked-sort-of-way. He wouldn’t have had it any other way, really.
He attended college at WWU in Bellngham, WA and discovered that despite his best efforts, he really loved school. He received his teaching certificate and has been teaching English, mathematics, and creative writing to high school students in Federal Way, Washington.
Small Town Glory is his first “complete” book. His post-apocalyptic novel The Specters in Books is yet unpublished, but may come to see the light of day very soon.
Contact Me Online:
Facebook
Author Website
Small Town Glory Website
Sample Of THE SPECTERS IN BOOKS
A mumble of incoherent wake-up-speech. A sputtering of leathery eyelids. Clipper’s face coming into fog-view and snapping clear. A movement of cracked lips.
“Who…” Breathless. Nearly inaudible.
And downy softness in reply. “You are safe. My name is Clipper, and I won’t hurt you.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Please.”
“Yes? What do you need? Here. Drink this water.”
The inky eyes closed and the leathery head slowly bobbed from side to side. As if it had no other movement. A skull on an uncontrolled spring. The water came to the cracked lips and the eyes snapped open. Wild. Desperate.
“No…please no.”
“What is it?”
“No water. Please, don’t help me.”
“You’re delirious. Please, just lie down and rest. I’ll get something for you to eat and-“
“NO…” Forceful and sad. Mountain large and pregnant with loathing. He was becoming more coherent with each breath. He was not violent, she could tell. But he was not harmless. He had been twisted, and had not wanted to be. Bent against his will. Broken and fractured and still the hollow and ghostly breaths rasped out.
“You must eat. Do you understand? You must get your strength back.”
“I don’t…want it back.”
“Nonsense. Look at me.”
And for the first time, she saw him. The black pools looked at her storm-sea eyes. The same eyes that had seen something human in him. Beyond teeth and an all consuming cavernous stomach. He was wild and unpredictable, she could see. The glint of the one who howls long and low and eats ravenous and greedy. But she could not deny the softness that was there beneath the exterior that she imagined would reverberate an audible thunk if a finger tapped lightly upon it.
“You must eat.” There could be no argument. But he would not hear. The tangle of his leather-brain clicked ruthless and he snarled low in his stomach and flashed his black tar eyes angry and stubborn.
“Listen to me,” he said. He had pooled all his collective strength, focused it into menace, and gripped the sheets with talon-hands. “Don’t help me.”
“I can’t oblige that. Not even close.”
He growled and moaned low, thrashing slightly.
“What’s your name? You know mine. Extend me the same courtesy and tell me yours.”
“No,” he turned slightly away towards the window.
“You’re quite the ungrateful guest. You know that?”
He snarled and rolled back to her. “I have no name anymore.”
“Nonsense.” She repeated and clucked her tongue as she picked at her fingernails. “It’s still there. Buried beneath leather-scars, no doubt. But it’s there.”
“Has been ripped out.”
“No,” Clipper smiled thin and soft. “Nothing is ever erased. There are always ghosts. Impressions on the opposite side of the bed that will never go away. That you don’t want to go away. Hands that you will reach for in the middle of the night when you know full well that what you are reaching for isn’t there. Your name hasn’t been taken away. Just buried and condensed down. Do you understand? It is still there.”
“No. It is lost.”
“Listen to me,” delicate hand placed gingerly on leathered face. Slight flinch at the sensation of skin on skin that had not been felt for years. And something so familiar, like a distant tenderness. An open wound scabbed over green and nerve-raw. “You are not lost.”
Black pool eyes closed tight. So tight that it seemed his entire face would begin shrinking into his sockets. Hand-talons now unclenched and the sheets trembled. Her right hand cupping his face and left hand resting slightly on his.
“My name is Jaq,” he said, paused, and looked into her eyes, “and you must kill me.”
The air was frozen and shuddered outside the window.
The moon hung enormous and cratered and full and cast a pale veil on all everything and put on the sheen of the netherworld.
