by Jon McDonald
“I hope not. I won’t need you till after five. I have to pick up Gloria’s Christmas present right after work. Meet me at six at the Nobel Gallery on 53rd.” Gilbert suddenly had an inspiration. “No, wait…. Why don’t you just take the rest of the day off - early Christmas.”
“Thank you, sir, I will.”
Gilbert tucked the phone back into his coat pocket. He continued to stare at the battering storm. For some reason he found comfort in the chaos. He went to his desk and called his secretary. “Constance, why don’t you take the day off? Won’t need you today. Have a great holiday.”
“But sir, the office party….” she replied.
“Stay if you like. I’m leaving.”
“Oh….” This was obviously unexpected. “But sir, the Christmas bonuses… Who is going to hand them out?”
“Can you take care of that for me? Or get Matthews….I don’t care.”
“But it’s always been you….”
“Not this year.”
Gilbert hung up and sat in his chair. Even though it was now mid-morning it seemed to be getting even darker. And with no office lights Gilbert shut his eyes and emptied his mind. He listened to the silence. The only sounds were the hum of the ventilating system, the slight vibration of his computer, and the rain pelting the office windows.
Gilbert suddenly sprung up, collected his coat and headed for the elevator. For once the ride down seemed abysmally slow. He dashed out the elevator doors, across the lobby, and pushed through the revolving doors into the welcoming storm. The rain had ceased, the temperature had dropped, and now the snow was beginning to accumulate on the tops of cars and along the creases between the buildings and sidewalks.
Gilbert had abandoned his umbrella. He tightened the scarf around his neck, pulled up the collar on his overcoat, and began wandering the streets, oblivious to shop windows, cozy restaurants, newspaper stalls, and Korean grocery stores. He headed to Central Park and made fresh footprints along the trails, passing the merry-go-round, the zoo, and Bethesda Fountain. The snow acted like a sound sponge, soaking up all the city noise but the squeak of his footfalls in the snow. Anyone passing by would not have suspected a man in turmoil. A man haunted by indefinable shadows. A man ravaged by a gnawing, nameless grief.
At last, and almost without forethought, Gilbert found himself at the Nobel Gallery. It was close to closing time. This close to Christmas, the gallery was busy with patrons. Gilbert had previously purchased a small Renoir sketch for Gloria. She had been particularly taken with figure of a little girl and had commented on it when they had been at the gallery for an opening.
Gilbert picked up the present, which he had paid extra to have exquisitely wrapped, and was about to leave the gallery to return to the penthouse when his eye was caught by a photograph. The current exhibition was by an artist who had photographed extensively throughout Asia. The photo which intrigued Gilbert was a quiet, unobtrusive picture of an old man sweeping a bridge. It might have been in China or Vietnam. The photo was in black and white. There was little detail as the figure was mostly in silhouette but it caught perfectly an exquisite, expressive moment. The sweeper was performing a most menial job. Yet the photographer somehow caught an attitude of sublime acceptance in the old man. He had a place in the universe. He performed his task without reservations. He was grateful to be here – now – in a moment of perfect harmony. Even though others might follow him, depositing more trash, he would be back to perform his job once again - content with even this most humble task. What was it in this photo that so captivated Gilbert? Here was a man – the complete opposite of Gilbert. A man of lowly estate – yet he commanded a nobility that touched Gilbert deeply.
Gilbert stood before the picture engrossed. Outside the snow swirled in ever darkening circles as evening descended - the winter dark holding secrets of deep forests, locked and frozen streams, and lanky circling wolves.
“Sir, we have to close now,” a gallery assistant informed Gilbert. “Would you like us to put a hold on this photo for you?” she asked.
“I’ll have to think about it,” Gilbert replied, as he clutched his package and left the gallery, launching back into the snow storm once again, and hurrying back towards the comfort of his familiar penthouse.
That night Gilbert slept soundly for the first time in weeks. And as he slept he dreamt -
How grateful he was for the new gloves, soft as chamois. His wife had made them herself – sewing by the light of the oil lamp – small delicate stitches – from a fragment of leather she had found in the market, trading it for a cauliflower from her garden. It made his grip on the broom more secure, and it kept the cold from enflaming his arthritis quite so much.
Would there be snow today? The sweeper studied the sky. He was experienced at gleaning information from the clouds. Yes, he was sure there would be. He could feel it in his bones as well. And they never lied.
This end of the bridge was done. Next he would work his way down the street by the police station. This time of day the Sergeant would often wave at him to come in for a hot cup of tea. He couldn’t stay long, but the station was warm, and a hot drink would help him face the cold once again.
He began to sweep at the top of the street. This is where his daughter used to play. But it always made him sad to think about her marrying the farmer and moving so far away, only to die giving birth to his grandson, whom he had never met. Life was so filled with memories. And as he swept he had little else to do but think - remember the past or dream his fanciful dreams.
Just in front of him a woman tossed a cigarette butt. Filthy habit, he thought. How many of these nasty things had he swept up over the years? But how nice that he could remove them from the street.
Across the street a dog was depositing his steaming load. Why couldn’t people keep their dogs in their own homes? But then he speculated that most of these poor creatures probably didn’t have a home to go to, and had to scrounge around the fringes of the market for whatever scraps they could find. And so he swept that up as well. Always sweeping - always more to sweep.
Sweep, step, sweep, step. Head down, he danced his way along the street. No one paid him any attention. He might have been a tree, a post, a cloud, a speck of dust. Sweep, step, sweep, step. And as he danced he dreamed. There – before him, was it a face? A mandala in a temple wall? He felt a slight sensation in his chest - a connection to the circle, as if it was pulling him towards it. It was dark, barely discernible, but it called him. Pulled him – inwards - ever inwards. Even the now falling snow called forth but the vaguest trace of his awareness. Those passing him on the street were merely shadows. As a passenger in a train rushing past a rice paddy would be unaware of a grasshopper on a swaying stalk of rice. These dreams, if that was in fact what they were, were common to him. It was as though he lived half of his life out there, in his shack - with his wife - with the streets his broom cleaned. The rest of his life was spent here in this other world - in these dreams, dancing between the two worlds – comfortable in both - but now, growing ever more at home in his dreams. There were new worlds. Radiant worlds - spinning in light. Galaxies spun in circles, spirals, whorls of energy and matter, forming matrices of color and light – shooting stars of stellar flares. And then, all at once, he was someplace else. As quickly as a step and a sweep of his broom he found himself struggling with an umbrella in a stubborn wind. The umbrella wanted to free itself and dance down the massive glass canyon in a strange city. He continued to wrestle with this adversary until he reached a mighty tower. Once inside he stamped his feet, closed and shook out the umbrella, and headed for the express elevator that would whisper him to his comfortable office floor.
Harbors
Michael Sevarin’s grandmother had died and was buried without fuss a week ago. Michael was the only contactable remaining relative. There were a few cousins out west somewhere, but they were no longer in touch with the family and he didn’t know how to reach them. Michael at 38, and living in New York City,
had no choice but to go up to attend to his grandmother’s affairs. He didn’t know - there might even be a small legacy involved. So he took a week off from his job as a researcher at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and drove up to Corea, Maine where his grandmother had lived all of her life. He left behind an indifferent wife and two daughters who would hardly miss him at all - so engrossed were they with their own frantic lives of school and texting.
As Michael drove into the small town on the coast he had to refer to his map several times, as it had been a long time since he had been up here and he was not sure how to find her house unaided.
Opening up the house and walking inside was strange for Michael. He had not been up here for many years. His parents were both deceased and without them he had tended to drift away from relatives as he became increasingly devoted to his career and his own family. It was a late winter afternoon and the house was dark and stuffy as he walked into the living room. He did not immediately turn on any lights but just stood in the house and listened. There was a grandfather clock in the hallway but it was silent. It was no longer being wound on a daily basis. There was a wind coming off the harbor and he heard a tree branch knocking against an upstairs window. He was reminded of when, as a young boy, he had raced down the hallway stairs, tripped at the landing, and suffered a cut between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand on the furnace grate buried in the floor. He still carried that scar to this day.
The house was a modest fisherman’s bungalow - clapboard siding, two story, two bedrooms, and a small front and back yard - much like the other nondescript houses on the block. It’s only nice feature was that it was on a rise with a wide view of the bay – lobster boats nestled in the harbor below, with the open sea stretching away outside the sheltered cove.
Michael climbed the stairs to his grandmother’s bedroom. He looked in and saw how drab and ordinary the room looked in the dim gray light. There would be nothing in the house he would want to take back with him to New York. He sighed and threw his backpack on the bed in the guest room. He would stay here the night and visit the attorney who was handing his grandmother’s estate – or what there was of it - in the morning.
He treated himself to a lobster dinner at a diner near the harbor, and when he returned, needing to find some amusement for the evening, found that his grandmother’s TV set was an old black and white job with rabbit ears that could barely get any signal at all. Michael had not thought to bring a book along to read, so he decided to go up to the attic, poke around up there, and see if there was anything of interest.
He pulled down the folding stairs from the ceiling in the hallway, turned on the attic light, and climbed up. Michael figured it had been many years since anyone had been up here. His finger dragged along the top of an old trunk left a very clear track in the dust. He looked around and saw mostly cheap old furniture stacked haphazardly like scaffolding about to tumble. He peeked out the attic window and saw that fog had crept into the harbor below. The foghorn had begun to warn any boats that might still be returning late from a day of lobstering.
His attention was drawn back to the trunk. It was very old and when he opened it, it smelled like old newspapers and leather. Written inside the top was - “Cpt. Jason Sevarin” – his great-great-grandfather, he seemed to remember. Yes, he had been a sea captain with his own ship. But that is about all he recalled about him. Michael rummaged through the trunk – mostly ship’s logs, various papers, old clothing (might be worth a little something, he thought). But there was nothing of much interest. He sat down on the floor next to the trunk, his legs resting on the steps of the attic ladder. He was just about to leave when his eye was caught by a slight irregularity at the base of the trunk. There were two bands of leather running vertically from the top of the trunk to the bottom, creating three equal sections. Around the bottom, a metal band circumscribed the trunk. But it looked as though this band was peeling away in the middle between the two leather bands. Upon closer inspection, however, Michael could see that the band was not peeling away but was, in fact, the facing to a drawer hidden between the two leather bands. Michael tried prying the compartment open but it would not budge. He looked around the front of the trunk hoping to find a release of some sort that would open the drawer. But he couldn’t find anything that responded to his probing. He thought a moment and then realized the latch might be inside the trunk.
Emptying the contents, Michael ran his hands along the interior surfaces. He couldn’t find any latch. He sat back and examined the trunk once again on the outside. He turned the trunk around and examined the leather hinges. He opened the top all the way back as far as it would go, exposing a small area at the top hidden by the leather hinges. The middle hinge concealed a small lever that Michael was able to release with some effort, as it had obviously not been used in many years. As the lever disengaged the lock he heard the drawer slide open at the front. He quickly turned the trunk around and examined the open compartment.
The interior of the drawer was lined with a type of soft cloth that he did not recognize. In the center was an indentation holding what appeared to be a large marble, about the size of a fifty cent piece. Michael picked it up and held it between his thumb and forefinger, examining it closely. He was surprised by its weight and composition, as it seemed to be made of solid gold. Now, that would be worth something. There were no inscriptions or markings on the ball itself. He re-examined the compartment, but there were no other objects or any writing that he could determine.
The orb was so smooth and perfectly shaped that it slipped right out of his grasp and bounced down the steps of the attic ladder. Michael watched in some amazement as the ball bounced off each step perfectly, then when it hit the floor it rolled and banked off the hallway wall and began bouncing down each step of the main stairway. Michael climbed down from the ladder and followed the ball as it reached the bottom of the stairs, banked off the front door, and rolled down the hall by the stairs leading to the kitchen. Just as the ball was about to enter the kitchen it bounced off the door jam and scooted under a door that led to the basement. Michael was amazed by the journey of this ball. He could have stopped it and picked it up but it seemed to have a determination and direction of its own, so he just followed it.
He opened the door to the basement and turned on the light. The gold ball was once again bouncing down each tread of the stairway to the basement. He followed it down into the damp basement. This was an unfinished basement with an earth floor. After the ball reached the last step it landed on the floor and rolled around to the side of steps and rested in the middle of the floor to the right of the stairway. There was only a single bulb lighting the whole basement, and the ball had settled in a part of the basement that was almost completely dark. Michael leaned down to look at the ball and noticed that it was giving off a faint glow.
He seemed to know instinctively that he was to dig there. He picked up the ball, put it in his pocket and found a trowel on a workbench. He began digging and was only about a foot down when the trowel struck something solid. He brushed the dirt away with his hands and saw he had uncovered a metal box about 8 by 12 by 4 inches. He dug around it and lifted it carefully out of the hole. He went over to the workbench where there was an additional overhead lamp which he turned on. He brushed away all the dirt and picked up the box, examining it under the light. He had never seen anything quite like it before. Being a researcher at the Metropolitan Museum he had examined many artifacts from many different ages and civilizations, but could not recognize what this might be. The box had no markings, no seams, no hinges and no latches. It was completely smooth, without any visible openings. He held the box up towards the light and turned it in his hands, gently touching each surface. He could not tell which side was the top. He shook the box but heard nothing.
When he turned the box over again, what had been the underside revealed a small change. Right in the middle of the box there was now a round indentation. He didn’t know whether he had missed it befo
re or if it had just now appeared. He looked closely at it, and it struck him that the indentation exactly matched the shape of the gold ball. He quickly retrieved the ball from his pocket and placed it in the indentation. It fit perfectly. But nothing happened. He set the box down on the bench with the ball in the indentation on top and backed away. But still nothing happened. Then it struck him to turn the box over, resting the ball on the bench with the box on top of it. He stood back again, and to his amazement the box was perfectly balanced on top of the ball. No edge touched the bench, and as he watched, the box began to emit its own light, just as the gold ball had done. Then, without any sound, seams began to appear at the top of the box. Fine lines appeared along the four edges, and the lid detached itself from the base, resting loosely just above the box.
Michael reached over and removed the lid. Even though it was made of a sturdy metal it was as light as a piece of paper. He put the lid aside and looked in the box. There were several folded pieces of manuscript and a book. He picked up the first manuscript, unfolded, and examined it. The nature of the material seemed to be like both a paper and a fabric. It was sheer, but substantial as well. It, too, had its own glow and could be read without an additional source of light. It was a map. The letters were of a language that Michael did not recognize. He was familiar with a number of the ancient languages – Aramaic, Sumerian, Hebrew, Akkadian – by recognition if not by full understanding. This was nothing like anything he had ever seen before. He put the map aside and picked up the second manuscript. It, too, was in the same unrecognizable language. He then examined the book. This was more ordinary. Regular pages within a leather cover. It appeared to have aged while the other manuscripts had not. Michael was unsure of the language but suspected that it might be the language used in the ancient city of Ugaritic just a few kilometers back from the coast in what is now Syria. He had been working on a project from a dig at Ras Shamra and while all the writing from there had been on clay tablets, he was sure that the language in this book was the same.
