Cliffside Stones

A Story by ZackOfBridge

I lay, baking on the boulder. The sloshing of the stream put my mind to ease, but not to rest. The constant sunlight peeked behind my closed eyelids. Opening my eyes to the sky would be a mistake. I rolled to my side, the rock warmed my skin. Today was summertime in paradise, but I am missing something that paradise can’t give me. I sat up and looked through the clear water, little pebbles and big rocks scattered across the bottom, unmoving. A hook disguised as a fish hung delicately in the churning water, bait still pierced by the sharp end, unnibbled. There is no one around.

Birds chirped from unseen branches above. I took hold of the unattended fishing rod, reeling in the hook and then latching it on to one of the loops, placing the pole on my crumpled shirt. I dipped in the water, first one foot and then my whole body. I did not have the willpower to inch my body into the water, feeling myself freeze from my toe slowly to my chest. With my eyes opened wide the water distorts my vision. It reminds me of some kind of impressionistic painting. I had dived into Monet or a drunken Renoir. The rays of white light filter through the ripples of the surface and coat the rocks in rainbow hypnoticism. The German trout get spooked by me and like finned torpedoes they dart into the rock crevices. They leave me alone to my paradise.

I come up for air, but not eagerly. A reflective haze falls onto everything. As a child I reasoned the haze was the bright light of heaven. I would think that God had prepared the end for me a moment too soon. I still like to think I’ve missed death by coming up when I did. The haze clears and everything settles. I am still the only person in the whole of the watering hole.

I used to enjoy my own company. I swam close to a boulder to lift myself from the water. I forgot to bring a towel and so I sit still, allowing the sun to burn off the my thin coat of water.

Everything is so content. The trees have no wishes for anything different. The water is content, restless, but content. The butterflies sailing along the breeze are more than content as they bounty the flower scent. I force moist feet into my shoes. I stuff a sock into each pocket of my damp shorts and decide to pull my shirt back on because the damned mosquitoes are whistling around me. With the fishing pole in one hand and it leaning against my shoulder I started on the narrow path that would take me to the gravel road and ultimately set me in front of my cabin. On the cabin porch my father would be drawing smoke from a mail order cigar and smiling with purple, wine stained lips. He would ask if I caught anything and I would say that I had one on the line, but it was stubborn. He would go on smiling and looking to the treetops because he is content.

The path trailed alongside a stream. The clamor of rushing water was constant beside me. A rusty metallic pipe would reveal itself out of the dirt like so many roots had. The pipeline originally pushed water to the cabins, but now its primary use was for me to balance on like a child as I walked until it was covered by higher ground. The moisture in my shoes created suction in them. There was a smacking sound as I walked the path. I saw a little lizard cut across me and cling to the side of a rock. I saw a closely-knit community of silk worms lacing bushes with cotton like cocoons. Not much further up, a bird pecked at a large meal silk worms.

I was off the dirt trail, wooden cabins were visible along the gravel path. There weren’t people, only their summer property. People came and went and all the while, termites pinched a meal from their little slice of leisure. Gravel crunched under each footstep; followed by the smack of the water in my shoes. A cloud, an imperial mass, blew in from the west. The cloud over-caste, blotted out the sun and the sun could not prod through the thick cloud. A blue-grey hue settled onto the grass and the barbed wire fence and the cow patties and the old, rusting machines left from the time when this was domain was logging property. There was a physical greying of what should be paradise. The beautiful meadow of the yellows and greens toned down by my own dissatisfaction. The tall trees, with the sweet aroma of pine and home to the chirps and sing-song rumors of the birds were under appreciated by unhappiness.

Gravel crunched from behind. An SUV coasted to my right. A man was smiling, looking everywhere, and trusting that his car would stay on the road because his attention alone would not. With his face inches from the windshield he looked up to the tops of the trees and the sliver of blue sky that showed through. I waved a friendly wave. His crook of smile widened. The driver side window slid downward. His wife looked up from the magazine she was flicking through. “Did you catch anything?”

“Just some nibbles.” The tone of my voice did not match the smile on my face.

“You’ll get ‘em next time right?” The man’s wife said and winked one eye to me.

“That’s right.” I said and now the smile was legitimate, I would get those slippery conniving fish the next time. They said see ya later, rolled up the window and drove on. As they passed I saw her; A girl, maybe a year younger than me. She had blonde hair like the cheery woman in the passenger seat and I knew her eyes without seeing them. A turquoise. Unlike her father in the driver seat, she did not have her face pressed to the glass. I could see that she was looking down at her knees. She looked up and at me, her face was without expression and then her face was gone as the car passed me and drove further down the road.

Gravel crunched under my feet. The road under my feet was taking me to my cabin. Now the unseen birds sang and were heard with embrace. Wood cabins, with their American flags and wood-carven family signs passed without any cars in front. I approached my cabin after a slight incline in the road, the cabin came when the road plateaued. Stairs led to a large porch built from once solid hard wood but with more time came more decay. My dad sat, rocking in an old light green chair, puffing at a cigar stump. Smoke drifted upward towards the closed window of the second story. I waved to him from the ground and he waved back. He pointed across from our cabin.

There they were. The eager man was lifting an ice chest from the trunk, and when he had his grip on it, he started towards the open doorway he continued to look all about and even tried to wave to me when he caught sight of me. His wife grabbed as many duffel bags as she could and disappeared into the cabin. The girl, she stepped out of the back seat. Looking down at a cell phone; she blindly navigated herself through the doorway.

I leaned the fishing rod against the cabin wall where dry moss had latched onto the mocha painted wood. I started up the steps. On the porch my dad sat rocking, the fresh pine air now smelled of thick tobacco. He took a sip from the bluish tin cup held in his drinking hand. “Catch anything?” His voice only floated through my ears, eyes and attention were still drawn to the last place I had seen that girl. The open doorway of the cabin across. There my gaze sat until the mother stepped out. She was getting more bags from the car. “Anything at all?” My head turned to the noise.

“Nothing, not even a nibble.” I wonder what this girl would think of fishing. Boring no doubt. “I guess they just don’t want the bait.”

“Its not about whether the fish want it, you've got to want it too,” Smoke billowed from his mouth. “Want it bad enough and the bait is hardly necessary.”

“So the wines good then?” I said.

“The wine is fine, but you know Ray,” He leaned forward in his seat and took another sip of the wine that was fine, “there is something else you should be trying to catch.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” I already knew. He nudged his head for me to take a look. There was the girl again. Her golden, once flowing hair was up into a bun. She pulled a red pillow from the backseat of the car. She vanished behind the oak door of the cabin. I turned back to my dad with a flat smile. The gloom from before had moved on and the sun, stepping to the west on tall stilts of yellow sunlight, remained to brighten all that was organic.

“I’m just going to wait for the girl to come to me,” I said and laughed because I knew that would never result in anything except dry disappointment. “Isn’t that what you did at my age?”

“Ey boy,” He knew I was implying that he had never got any action. He swirled his smoking cigar in the empty air like he was conjuring memories of the past. “You should see my book.”

His book, this is what he called the list of the women he had had. I hissed a laugh, “Your book?”

“Yeah, my book, its doing jus’ fine.” He poked at the air. “Its like a freakin’ novel.”

“So,” sarcasm molded my face, “your book is a work of fiction?”

Confusion struck his face, “Oh, get outta here.”

I was a shut in the rest of the evening. I tried to read, but the thought of the girl convoluted the words and I couldn't make sense of any of it. I watched movies I had seen before, but they only played in front of my eyes.

After the sun had plunged underneath the mountains, the crickets began to strum their song towards the clustered, glowing pin-pricks of the night sky. I laid in bed, forced down by the thick quilted blankets. An old fashioned clock on the nightstand ticked the seconds away like a termite. The thought of the girl was a hopeless one.

That ticking of the clock joined me in my sleep. Each tick in the form of a forcefully gentle wave sweeping over a beachfront. Each tock became the waves recession into the ocean. The wave would rush back like a child called home for dinner, that moment was over, but a new one was washing over the shore. Tick tock. I dreamed of a fog, I could only see what was at my feet. My feet, wet and spiced with sand, stepped forward always. They only stopped for a small rock stamped into the sand. I picked it out, thin and flat. This would be the perfect stone to skip. My wrist flicked and the stone glided towards the rustling ocean waters. The perfect rock only skimmed over the surface once before the tick of the clock engulfed it. I Kept walking in the fog. Cold, foaming water rushed over my feet. At my feet the stone was back. I threw it in. The stone, with help of the tide, came back. This rock was never at rest. I picked it out once more. In my pocket it went. In the fog a hazy silhouette of a girl was walking forward, away from me. She was not going to come to me. The fog was clearing.

III.

The hard morning sunlight weighed on my cheek and burned off the fog of my dreams. I squinted out the window. My father’s snores reverberated through the hollow walls of the cabin. I ate, drank steaming coffee, and quietly went into the morning. I shot at cans behind the cabin, and eventually at a bushy tailed squirrel. I never hit anything.

I saw a rock on the ground. Flat and thin. My dream flooded over me, I remembered the melancholy fog, the insidious repetition and finally, the girl, she was not going to come to me. I picked up the rock, fingered it over once and gently slid it into my pant pocket.

She was not going to come to me. I would go to her. Two knocks on their cabin’s wooden door. I waited, a nearby stream was constant. The door opened and a confused look was on the girl. All of my new found confidence nearly evaporated at the sight of her. I had forgotten that it was still early, “Good morning neighbor.”

“Good morning.”

“Have you been up?” I was so taken by this wave of confidence I had forgotten that it was still early.

“Yeah, was trying to get my phone to work,” She pulled it out from her pajama pocket and started thumbing at the screen. “So, there's like, no cell service here?”

I had no idea why she wanted phone service. I’d never want to use a phone here. I loved the feeling of isolation that came with the shedding of cellular obligations,“Nope there isn’t. Its pretty lame.”

“Yeah.” She was thumbing at the phone still.

“I know a place you could go to get it working.” There was a chance it might

“You do?” I had her attention again; a smile peaked onto her face.

We, Hilary and I, left later in the day. We had ridden bikes to a spot where my family would go to watch the meteors showers. In the daytime the spot was a cliff side that overlooked our valley. I told her I’d take care of her phone. With her phone raised to the sky above my head, the two of us walked to the edge. It had a clear view of the mountains blanketed in evergreens.

A great moment of silence passed, silence without awkwardness or forced small talk. A salmon color stretched onto the clouds as the sun dived slowly into the horizon. The shadows elongated, stretching far and waiting to become darkness.

Hilary fought the silence, “This makes me feel so,” Tall, I thought, I feel so large here on this cliff. Hilary inhaled; her face showed that there was inner debate, “small.”

In the corner of my eye I could see that Hilary was facing me. She was waiting for me to agree so that we could feel small together. When i met her gaze turquoise eyes tempted me to just agree. I could see unhappiness washing around behind her eyes.

“I feel big.” I said and took my eyes away. I could sense she was still looking at me. I looked over the landscape again. Trees like splotches of green rolling over the mountain face, and then back to the ponds of turquoise, “I feel tall.”

“Look at us, we’re taller than all of those trees,” I pointed to one side of the distance and dragged my finger across the valley. "We sit above it all."

“Any signal, yet?” She said. Her face was glowing from the suns pink hue on the clouds. She was looking over the stillness of the forest. I didn’t really believe she cared about the phone anymore, but she knew no other way of beginning a conversation with me. Looking at her phone two miniscule pillars of what she might call hope declared cellphone reception.

“Nope, but this is definitely the best spot for it.” I pulled the rock from my pocket and tossed it over the side. I listened to it as it tumbled towards the elusive bottom. The sound of a long drop, busting twigs and the excitement of a rolling stone climbed up the cliff side. It finally came to an end with a staggering crack.

“Wow! That fell for a long time,” She said squealing with uncorked joy. I laughed and tossed another for her. “Its nice here. And pretty too.”

“Pretty pretty.”

“Throw another rock, I liked hearing it.” She said. It was a polite command. She was really very cute. Her blonde hair draped across her peach colored cheeks. In this moment I felt comfortable, my doubt went over the cliffside.

“You give it a try. It isn’t so hard, easy once you get the hang of it.” She giggled. Oh thank God she giggled. She grabbed at a rock next to her phone and gave it a light toss into the air above the incline. She heard with glee her first stone tumble down the mountain.

“Did you hear how long that took, that’s a drop.” She said and I agreed with wide eyes and the nod of my head. She watched me looking over the cliff, “How come you didn’t bring your phone?”

There were some rocks next to the phone between us. I picked one up and tossed it over. “I didn’t want to.”

“Is there no one you want to talk to?”

“Not more than the person I’m with.” I wasn’t sure if what I said was rude, but she blushed and looked back to the mountains.

Silence settled with the breeze. And then buzzing. In the dirt, her phone was convulsing. It was like a child’s tantrum. Hilary’s hand darted to pick it up, but she stopped. Her hand hovered over the brightened screen. Her instinctive smile collapsed, she looked to me. “Go ahead,” I told her and smiled, but all hope was lost. She smiled again and tried to nap it away with her front teeth.

She grabbed the phone and told me to listen. She brought the phone behind her head and threw it out over the cliff. I watched it somersault in the air before the sight of it was lost in the trees. I looked at her. She grabbed my face and kissed me. The sound of the phone’s first collision climbed up to us. We kissed until the clashing of the phone was lost to the forest.