Evening Breezes

By Aaron Safronoff

The rain fell hard on the roof of the car, heavy but hollow as I was driven to the funeral. I sat in back, alone. My friends were there but not one of us spoke. I was alone in my grief; selfishly refusing the possibility that anyone understood, or that anyone cared or could care. Somehow the rain helped, made it easier not to cry.
It was cold when we arrived; the kind of cold that begins in your bones. I stepped out of the car and saw a clock with no numbers over the entrance. Was that a joke? I flashed angry, but it was only a spark and it went out as quickly as it started. There was no strength in me to react more.
A gentleman in black hurried over to me. After a few seconds and an incomprehensible greeting, the man offered me his umbrella. I didn’t think it was much of an offer considering that the stranger had been paid to usher me inside, and his insistence felt non-negotiable. So, he walked with me. I hated him completely.
Inside, a somnambulant dirge was already in progress. I sat and listened. People came and went from the podium. They praised and rationalized, and told stories from a book that didn’t relate to anything. But they were behind the lectern for themselves not for me, and not for him. The more they spoke the more I realized that not one of them had ever had a meaningful conversation with him.
The rest of the funeral flashed by like a storyboard.
Hugs from strangers and friends. Ushers helped me to the door. More rain and an umbrella appeared and blocked out the sky. A car, I sat in the back. Conversation, but I said nothing. Then, there was a restaurant. There was a round wooden table with a candle burning in an amber glass at its center. There were friends. There were beers for each of us.
We talked awkwardly until closing time.
We talked about nothing in particular.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9780983713838

Book preview

Brock.

Reflection One

Him

That was how he died, I thought staring out my window.

The winds were whispering through the screens echoing my distant memories. Spring had begun its gentle thaw, the earth’s slumber ending, but I was still far from waking. Across the street, the playground swings came alive, dancing for some unseen audience. There were only three wooden seats to that set, but that was enough for us. Tom, Trevor, and I lived out our dreams on the carriages of that trapezoidal contraption. We flew, we climbed, we conquered, and not one of us ever said a thing about the past. History was still happening for us and we knew nothing of tomorrow. The future was nothing more than a hazy, misshapen creature from that distance; its shadow cast behind it, completely unknown to us.

We didn’t want the trappings of adulthood. The cars and motorboats were nice, and the worn brown leather wallets with pictures and license gave our eyes delight, but the wrists of their owners warded us off. The worry band was always there marking the passing of opportunities. Even out on the lake with summer swelter weekend weather, the tell-tale flash could be seen. Some might try to fool us by tossing aside the timekeeper for a day or so, but the sun had usually burned a shadow on the wrist, a tattoo that requires a change of attitude to remove. Yes, the shadow of the future would sweep out its all-inclusive path with each dying moment, but why would anyone, especially three little boys, want to watch? Besides, we didn’t know. We just assaulted each day as it came, with the infinite energy of a seemingly endless life.

A crisp draft woke me from my nostalgia, and I remembered my surroundings. The curtains were pulled aside; the cool breezes blew them open like the sails of a great ship on the open sea. A crow flew into my view. His wings spread wide for landing as he touched down on the top of the swings. A partner soon followed, setting his feet to the ground beneath. They seemed to be looking for something, heads darting around in every direction. The one on the ground was jittery and hopped around as though it hurt his feet to touch there. When I looked up from him I noticed the other had locked his gaze on me. It may have been an illusion, but it felt otherwise. Maybe he read my thoughts, or perhaps he was trying to communicate something of great import, but I couldn’t determine which. Unfortunately, a passing car broke the natural silence, sending my excitable friend on the ground to the air and out of sight, disturbing my focus on his partner. I looked back to see the other hold his vigilant stare for another moment before he left his perch. I guess they could wait another day to find whatever it was they were seeking. My thoughts returned to my boyhood friends as the playground became vacant once again.

Tom could swing like no other, but it was Trevor who taught me how to let go of the swing and enter that place between the sky and the ground. We challenged each other to see who could stay there the longest, not for the sake of competition, but to help each other rise. We knew the value of that place. It was more than a moment in flight; it was a lifetime of attainable dreams. Reality was our parents’ problem.

I can still see their laughing eyes, and behind the laughter a higher sense of justice. The lines were drawn with a steady crayon then. We would never allow each other to be hurt. Fair maidens in distress were a first priority. And the good guys always won, and that was us. As we grew older we picked up pencils, pens, and typewriters. We tried to create lasting works, like the ones magnetized to our parents’ refrigerators when we were young, except with an adult’s potency and clarity of thought. But unfortunately, those finely written lines bleed in the rain. They fall apart in the face of mortality, to which we had all grown too attuned.

It never rained as hard as it did the day of his funeral. Remembering it now, we grieved more for ourselves than anything else. If I had been made of wax that day, perhaps I could have survived. Trevor, Tom, and I were there, true, but all our eyes were absent. The clouds shed tears enough for all of us. Childhood was laid in a coffin at our feet, and I’d wondered if the justice would ever return.

His death had brought us together again, but not as we were. We were crudely and awkwardly assembled, feelings forced and connections broken; the keystone removed.

I shook myself from those thoughts as dusk fell over the landscape and the passing cars turned on their lights to fight it. A different vehicle every minute or so, purring in the quiet. An evening runner began her way east across the picture with a brisk step and a high head. She missed the playground.

My draperies settled back against the window’s edge as the breeze calmed for the night. And the swings were tired too, so they gave themselves to the arms of gravity until tomorrow. A last gentle wind made its way to my face. Today’s final breath, buried; so that tomorrow might live. Time had never slipped by quicker than now, the future was never more present. The halogen street lamps came slowly to brightness as the darkening sky covered the remains of today.

As the darkness grew, I remembered how I afraid I used to be of it. I’m not sure who did more to cure me. Trevor, always amused by my phobia, teased me at every opportunity. He would wait at the bottom of the stairs of the old house, lights off. When I’d made it to the last step he would leap from behind the door. He scared me senseless, but expletives afterward we always laughed.

Tom tried a different approach, always attempting to explain why there was nothing to fear. Once, he posed an interesting question to my young mind: How could I be afraid of something I could not see; after all, that meant it could not see me. Unfortunately, my goblins had glowing eyes, and my ninjas wore infrared goggles. I decided that I liked his point though, and kept the knowledge of his mistake to myself. A sense of pride overcame him when he saw my apparent acceptance. I think his dad must have asked him much the same question. He must have found some comfort in the logic, but no matter how much sense it made my fear did not care.

A small cardboard box sat on my desk waiting for me. I picked up the light container and tapped the end. It opened with a quiet rattle and I reached inside, removing one of the short red-capped sticks. The match took flame with a satisfying scratch against the side of the box. I watched it burn for a moment before putting it to the wick. A candle can add majesty to the most modest surroundings, and this particular one was a present from him.

The light the candle provided stung my eyes. A swallow and a heartbeat later, I regained myself and dammed