The LeapA Story by Delmar Cooper Short fiction akin to magical realism The Leap More than all other senses the sense of smell is the master of memory. Wax crayons are the first day of school, fried plantains are my mother. But, sea smells, salt, a whiff of rotting fish, sun drawn sweat, these scents are the magicians that conjure back my father. I have such a sense of smell, such memories, because of my father. “Why would anyone smoke?” he asked as he filled his lungs with sea air. I remember thinking I could see beneath his skin; actually watch as air invigorated his blood.
Alone now, I stretch and take one more deep breath. “Smoking?” My mother paused before
answering, and as if reminded, lit a Marlboro from a carton one of her
“visitors” brought all the way from She wasn’t fat, voluptuous maybe, but not
fat, so I supposed it could be true.
That word, “voluptuous”, I learned later. Then, to me at least, she was comfortable. At that age I simply knew things, like
knowing people and potatoes were solid all the way through. My
father never smoked, and no one was as thin as my father, thin with a beaky
nose, bald headed, but otherwise covered with downy hair. More than anything
else, my father resembled a newly hatched gull. Now I run on the part of the beach where water washes sand into a satisfying hardness. Flecks of spray attend my feet, like wings on the heels of a god. I pick up the pace. “You have seen your father? If you do tell him to give me some money.” “Too late”, I told her. He was flying to “Money for carnival, but no money for me,”
she looked me over as if taking inventory of my bones, or calculating a ransom.
“Some man, your father.” Some man, my father. I run toward a distant speck, the long wooden pier jutting out to sea, towering over the water. “No smoking,” he said, “no rich foods. Eat little and run. Run every day. Run at water’s edge, air is sweet and thick
there. Run across the wave tops if you
can manage it.” I no longer separate my
father’s words from my own thoughts. I see the pier clearly now, no fishermen. The hotel men, the visitors, sleep late and put lines into the water only when the good fish are sleeping on the cool bottom. Lazy sharks wait under the pier to suck the squid off a hook the way the hotel vacuum cleaners suck lint off the carpets. My mother worked in the hotel until the manager asked her to leave. Boys in white jackets fetch drinks with little paper umbrellas from the cabana, drinks and cigars for the hotel men and fresh squid for the sharks, but the awnings are down and cover the cabana windows because no visitors pretend to fish today. It bothered me then that my father did not kill the visitors, those fat men who came down, smoking fat cigars, from the hotels to visit my voluptuous mother. Father, pure Del Norte, pure white snow, made me marvel that North Americans lived such cold bloodless lives. I would have killed these men. I relished the thought of killing them, but children can only dream of great accomplishments. Truly fat now, my mother no longer gets
Marlboros and Kools by the carton from “Before you were conceived,” he said, “you
were a spirit in the air, a notion in God’s head. One day you flew from me, and
drifted like a milkweed seed into the sea that was your mother. The sea is beautiful and the sea is barbarous, she will float you across or pull you under. You must get up, make yourself
light, you must run fast and cast yourself again into the air. I will teach you
all this before I go.” Running fast now, very fast, very light, perhaps not even leaving footprints. I do not look back to see " never look back. “Do you
have faith?” he asked as we ran together. All
my breath was going into my legs, but I managed to gasp, “In the Virgin.” “No, no,” he said. “You must not put faith into something, and
certainly not virginity. Become faith
itself.” Every day I became lighter and faster, but I
didn’t notice any improvement in my faith. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It will come at
once, like a thunderclap. Listen for the thunder.” Off the hard beach now, up the dry sand of the dune, the soft sand does not slow me down, if anything, I go even faster. I can see the nail heads in the pier ramp now. My father said, “Become the air itself as
you run. One moment of faith will send
you flying into the very air, into yourself.” I cannot feel the ramp, perhaps it is because the hot sand has burned bare soles into numbness, or maybe it is because I am finally running so fast that my feet don’t touch the boards. “Remember what I’ve taught you.” I could only nod as I tried to keep pace with
him. “Run fast, run light, run close to the
water, never look back, and never look down.” Father stormed the ramp, and just where he had
instructed, I stopped and waited until he disappeared at the end. I looked up at the sky, but I knew he was
flying close to the water where the air is sweet and thick. It is a long way to
Close, almost to the end of the pier now... I do not know if this is the day I will hear the thunder, but when I hear it I will not look back, and I will not look down. © 2014 Delmar CooperAuthor's Note
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18 Reviews  Last Updated on March 7, 2014 Author
Delmar CooperTrussville, ALAboutI write- a little. I don't write to reinvent the wheel, or discover fire. I just drag along from sentence to sentence hoping for a spark. more..Writing
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