by Mike Barnes
Close my eyes.
Waiting for a sign.
It comes from Stone—who else?—from the zone he runs and summons to. And who else would be speaking now? It’s Stone’s watch. Stone’s time.
Except—it doesn’t sound like Stone. Not quite. Stone-inflected. Stone-plus?
Waiting for a sign.
§
Rain at first. Just rain. Soft sleepytime.
A hard pattering. Skittering sounds, mice scurrying on glass. Seeds, grains thrown in fistfuls. Drifting in and out, lulled by the sound. In the chair, a blanket over me.
Harder now. Frozen pellets, slashing. Oozing thickly down, hardening in spots to glaze. Aquarium. Freezing over.
Ice storm.
Longest day. She said that earlier. Start of winter.
Calendar time. Clock time. Not yours. Not ready yet.
Stone’s voice… but fading. His meter ticking too.
Awake again. The window ice glowing. That thick. Feel my forehead. Warm, not burning. Carefully, I stand. Get next to the glass. Hands and forehead on it, cool. The street bare. EMS, the Fire Station, wide open. All out. One car slewed up onto the sidewalk, clear-coated with ice. Toy dipped in plastic.
Hear it, behind the ice scatter. Tinkling, like a million chimes. Squinting, see them. The coated twigs, clear bells, jostling. The great trees leaning impossibly. Bulks straining to hold.
A long time. And then the first crash. A crack, a deep rending tear, long like a scream, and then the splintering rush. The thud. Immediately, the stoplights go out. Condo at the corner goes black.
Ice keeps coming down. Limbs, whole trees, sagging lower under the clear heavy hand. Strangled creaks and groans inside it. Lurches, then toppling, taking more blocks into black.
An area of darkness. And another. Joining to make a greater. Light streams trickling through, around. Another crash. Another chunk of darkness claimed.
The black, the dancing gleams.
And now, inside the striking chips, the tinkling and the crashes, a warmer, fainter sound. Drifting high wail of sirens, from faraway, from all around.
Singing of adjustments without end.
Singing of the long climb back.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the staff at Biblioasis, particularly Grant Munroe, Natalie Hamilton, and Chris Andrechek.
Special thanks to Dan Wells for his warm personal support and close, perceptive editing.
About the Author
Mike Barnes, a dual Canadian-American citizen, has published eight previous books across a range of genres: poetry, short fiction, novels, and memoir. His poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, and his stories have appeared twice in Best Canadian Stories and three times in The Journey Prize Anthology. He has won a National Magazine Award Silver Medal in the short story category. His collection of poems, Calm Jazz Sea, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award; and Aquarium, his first collection of stories, won the Danuta Gleed Award. He has also published many essays, one of which, the photo-text collage “Asylum Walk”, won the Edna Staebler Award. His last book, a collaboration with the artist Segbingway, was an illustrated book of fairy tales entitled The Reasonable Ogre. He works as a private English tutor and lives in Toronto.
