‘Bruce, here!’ Turning his attention from the frosted ground he regards me with perked ears. What is important enough to keep him from sniffing out scent trails he can’t fathom. His questioning eyes say as much.
‘C’mon buddy.’
Trotting over his breath sends locomotive puffs trailing into the air.
‘Good boy, Bruce, good boy,’ I coo, reaching down, roughly scratching his cheek. He smiles into my embrace, the lingering scents of rabbits and squirrels already becoming yesterday’s news. Looking at his canine grin I can tell that the irony is lost on him. Even here in this remote place it surrounds us, echoing in the chill of the hollow air. I can feel it while walking amongst the well worn trails and hear it humming with the tune of the spillway. To Bruce this is all new, his first trip to Clinton Lake Park, each experience a novel adventure of endless possibilities. Nevermind that the paths he walks have been a trod a thousandfold before and the tracks he chases fall in lockstep another. He lives as we all do, from a height measured by giants that we can never know.
Trotting over his breath sends locomotive puffs trailing into the air.
‘Good boy, Bruce, good boy,’ I coo, reaching down, roughly scratching his cheek. He smiles into my embrace, the lingering scents of rabbits and squirrels already becoming yesterday’s news. Looking at his canine grin I can tell that the irony is lost on him. Even here in this remote place it surrounds us, echoing in the chill of the hollow air. I can feel it while walking amongst the well worn trails and hear it humming with the tune of the spillway. To Bruce this is all new, his first trip to Clinton Lake Park, each experience a novel adventure of endless possibilities. Nevermind that the paths he walks have been a trod a thousandfold before and the tracks he chases fall in lockstep another. He lives as we all do, from a height measured by giants that we can never know.
Her name was Persephone, Persey for short, Gus on most days. She was everything Bruce is not, scared of dark corners, stair steps, and being left alone. She possessed the ability to steal the heart of anyone who came into contact with her, be it man, woman, or dog. Her love was unconditional, depthless, pure. I don’t hold it against Bruce that he’ll never be her, but the fact that he isn’t is a constant reminder. The way he can run away and return in a week, reeking of adventure, a mischievous grin on his face. He fills another shaped hole in my heart, one that won’t fit in the gap Persey left behind. It strikes me that this is life. Living, giving away pieces of ourselves, losing those we loved, feeling the growing void.
To him, Persey never existed. Such an idea is impossible, never could there have been another filling his shoes. The world started turning when he first opened his eyes, I was and always have been middle-aged. As I always will be.
I remember thinking those same thoughts a lifetime ago, looking at my mother through a child’s eyes, trying to comprehend her having a life before I came into the world. The idea that she had loved more men than my father, that she had dreams, and when they broke gave up on them, did something to steal away the simple truths I knew. In a way I felt betrayed, like I was insignificant if I hadn’t burst into existence, everything taking shape around me like the cooling universe. I smile as I remember thinking those things, and doubly so because Bruce will always be that young boy. To him, I’ll never be older than middle-aged, and when he leaves this world so will I.
‘Let’s take a walk.’ With a snap he falls into step, nose locked to the ground at my heel. Looking out across the landscape I’m reminded of how much I like being alone. Not isolated. Alone. There is a difference. I take in a deep breath from the overly crisp air, enjoying how it stings my cheeks and invigorates my throat. All around me the sound of absence hums from bare tree trunks and the barren ground. Living life a person grows used to the omnipresent hum-hiss of passing cars, honking horns, and a multitude of voices. December’s chill does away with all of that, sending people scrambling for cover under blankets, turning up their heaters, going into hibernation. December’s chill does away with the white-noise.
And yet it does something more than simply remove noise, the absence of it lays bare who you are. As we crunch over frosted rocks, the earth split and cracked, I don’t hear a single bird sing. Even the dull roar of the creek is stilled, encased in ice. Above our heads the sky is an inverted bowl of infinite blue, pure but for one radiant blemish. In the snap stillness, the world is reserved, imposing none of itself. Each crunching step, each billowing breath is instead reflected from it, displaying one’s self in countless fractions. Thoughts and fears, hopes and dreams, reflect as easily off the stillness. The absence leaves one alone with their echoes, surrounded by them, filling the void. I enjoy solitude for the clarity it brings. In everyday life a person is buffeted along by a sea of concerns, struggling simply to catch their breath. The stillness does more than quiet the noise, it allows you to breathe.
As I walk, surrounded by the glittering images cast from an infinite number of branches, trunks, and blades of grass, I catch the glimpse of another shape. It dodges into view out of the corner of my eye and out again as quickly, moving slightly behind, trailing my movements. It is there and then not there at all, as fast as imagination can conjure such things. My mind registers it as something, but I know it’s not. With a deep, steadying breath, I remind myself that the mind has this habit, seeing ghosts at the glimpse of a shape.
A smile threatens the corner of my mouth. How silly I thought Bruce to be, unaware that he was chasing the past when I was equally unaware that it chased me. It chases me still. Outrunning it is as impossible as outrunning a shadow.
Looking back at the one that follows me I see it belongs to another man. Its stockiness and hunch are foreign to my self-image, but they are features I have seen before. The image of them pricks at my mind, out of grasp, but tantalizing close. It’s a time-weathered memory that I recall, one from a lifetime ago. A memory of autumn scents and smells, the feeling of rough unshaved cheeks, my legs dangling from a pair of broad shoulders, tugging at tufts of hair out of fear. Across the years I can’t remember the sound my father’s voice, but I’ll never forget the thrill of riding on his shoulders. I don’t hear his words, but I know he’ll chide me for being afraid. He won’t drop me, he says. He promises.
I never heard him say it, but my mother was fond of recounting his favorite promise. The one he would make when the going got tough, saying that he would be better off leaving and living somewhere remote, building a home out of a log cabin. As a child I scoffed at those words, catching none of their underlying truth, blinded by my narrow world-view. To my young eyes the world was visible in the stark contrast of black and white. Every question, be it of faith or morality, was as simple and unhindered as a frigid December day.
Why did he not leave? For years he had hung about our heads like a tortured ghost, too afraid to move on, too unhappy to stay. Under the shroud he cast, my mother and I had bided our time in tension, whispering words in hushed sentences, straining our ears for a telling creak from a neighboring room. His presence soured the joy in everything, and by the end, the mere thought of him did too. For all of his faults and wrongdoings I would have forgiven for every single one them. Every one except the promise he broke, the one he made that autumn day as we crunched over fallen leaves. I’ll never remember the sound of his voice, but I’ll never forget the words he spoke, ‘don’t be afraid, I won’t let you fall.’
The fading summer warmth I feel splashing across my face and lapping around my body is at odds with the cold I know that should be surrounding me. Without looking I understand Bruce has disappeared behind the years, as little more than a future probability, something yet to come. Without him I am left alone in another place, at another time, hunched over on a retaining wall with my head in my hands. And then, I’m not alone.
Raising my eyes, I glance reluctantly down to where Persephone is pouting at my feet. Her puppy dog eyes glistening in the afternoon sun, her floppy ears tucked back as far as they will go, leaning imploringly on one haunch. I can’t speak to tell her what is wrong, but she knows. Something ingrained, something instinctual crosses the divide between us. This semester her burden was heaped onto my life along with a full course load and a failing relationship. None of which is her fault. At the moment, that fact does little to stifle the pull I feel on my heartstrings. What did I get myself into? I don’t even know what I’m going to do with myself, graduating in a month with bills to pay and direction to find, and now, I have a pup to take care of.
It wasn’t my intention to adopt the dog I had seen in a classifieds with the beautiful brown eyes, merely to go look, and decide what I was searching for. That conviction didn’t last past the moment she jumped into my arms and lavished my face with wet kisses. It didn’t last past the moment she stole my heart.
Here and now, with all the burdens heaped about my neck, I have a hard time remembering that feeling. I cannot help but think about the fact that Persephone was a stray to begin with, and how easy it would be to leave her on a doorstep or take her to the pound, claiming to have found her. How easy it would be to get rid of her and be free again. She was stray before me, if I walked away now I wouldn’t be doing any harm, it would be like I had never come into her life in the first place.
The thump thump thumping of her tail brings my eyes back into contact with hers. There is so much more to my life than her, but looking into those imploring eyes it’s obvious that I’m her everything. If she could grow to be my age surely she would be able to understand how complicated the world is. She would know that I have hopes and dreams that have existed before her. She would know that I had loved and lived long before she came into the world. She’d understand that I want to be free and there are more important things than her. But she won’t, she’ll always have the innocence of a child. The same innocence a boy once knew, years ago with his father, sitting upon shoulders strong enough to hold up the world. Everything will always be centered around her, taking shape like the cooling universe, growing cold, but reassuring in its certainty. I will and always be a young man, and when she leaves this world so too will I. It could be no other way because no one else will ever be able to fill her shoes.
I rise, drawing in a deep breath from the cooling air, her anxious eyes following me. ‘C’mon Persephone, let’s go home.’ She falls into lockstep with me, no longer pulling on her lead or zigzagging across my feet. I let out a pent-up breath, more to myself than her, ‘I won’t break my promise.’ She knows.
As we walk the warm concrete beneath our feet darkens in shades from light grey to the dry brown of frozen earth. With each new step cracks radiate out from our feet into ragged diamonds, splitting the ground with miniature canyons that we walk over like giants. The sun above our heads hardens, no longer suffusing golden warmth, but casting the hard white light of December. As we walk, twenty years come rushing back in an instant and take Persey from me. At my heels Bruce has taken her place. His stoic eyes scanning the winter landscape for signs, his nose sniffing for hints of phantom trails. Bruce fills another shaped hole in my heart, but I don’t hold it against him, it’s a constant reminder of the promise I made a lifetime ago.
As we walk we’re flanked by two shadows, one with the strong shoulders of my father, the other with the plodding gait of my dog, her ears flopping with each stride.
As we walk, the past we chase chases us into the failing light.
