The Milieu Principle

by Malcolm Franks

The hiss of the brakes informed Matt the bus had come to a regulation stop. He opened his eyes to look at the time.

  Twenty minutes before noon.

  “Sault Ste Marie,” the driver advised over the intercom. “You all got forty minutes.”

  Matt stretched his arms and then rubbed his legs to get the circulation back into his cramped and tired body. It had been a frustrating journey. In the beginning he had tried to sleep between stops. Every time he closed his eyes violent images of Amy and Dave’s last moments on this world would invade his mind and startle him back into sudden, unsettled life. When he had needed to stay awake, his tired body forced his eyes to shut and he’d missed the previous stops. At least now, he could do the things he’d planned to do.

  Stepping out into the daylight he felt the hot sun on his back as he walked into the Station Mall, positioned by a river. He found a washroom area and set about freshening up.

  After buying provisions, he shopped around for a decent CD player and a healthy number of batteries. Arriving at the music stalls he searched out the bargain racks of CD’s for the long journey ahead. Armed with his new collection, he sought out a couple of recently released albums before adding a notebook and some coloured pens to the rapidly growing mound in his shopping basket.

  Matt decided to wander out of the other side of the mall and find a park bench to eat his sandwiches. Looking across the vast expanse of the river he could see the good old US of A, introduced by the American town which bore the same name as Sault St Marie. The two nations were connected by the sight of an impressively built road bridge spanning the water over to his right.

  According to the guidebook he’d picked up there was a tourist attraction named the ‘Tower of History,’ rising some two hundred feet above the ground. On a good day from there a person could look right and be able to see the massive Lake Superior, to the left Lake Huron, whilst directly south it would be possible to catch a glimpse of Lake Michigan.

  All this awesome scenery, in one tiny region of the globe didn’t seem fair. Matt wished he had the time to properly explore the area. Except he wasn’t a tourist on holiday, he was a fugitive on the run, and the greyhound was waiting for him.

  Matt marvelled at the surrounding scenery as the bus picked up speed and headed west. He would have preferred to spend some of the time fully digesting and admiring the surrounding countryside, but knew he had to work.

  Over the next few hours he played with the same words, over and over again, using the thesaurus to check if any of the words he’d made up with the letters were real and spelt correctly. Matt had enjoyed puzzles, such as anagrams, when he was younger. By now he had grown fed up of the tedious exercise. And there was nothing he could think of which linked Dave with the odd phrase. Worse, he was becoming entirely disinterested with the whole thing despite its importance. Attention span had never been one of his strong points and Matt was getting decidedly bored. He typed in the phrase for the umpteenth time and juggled the words around.

  Nothing happened. Despite his continued typing the screen refused to co-operate, and his mind began to rage at the unfathomable task his old school chum had left him with. Matt switched off the laptop to return to the CD player.

  Looking down the index on the case he spotted a familiar song and moved onto the track. It was the signature tune he’d used at the farewell party from his last job before setting up the business, a song about moving on and leaving the past behind. He considered it to be highly appropriate, a mirror reflection of his current circumstance.

  Turning up the volume, his head started to bob up and down to the opening riffs and steady beat of the drums. As the track built in tempo and the chorus approached, Matt could contain the urge no longer. Though he’d always considered he had the singing voice of a eunuch on speed, he just had to let it all out! No sooner had he started to screech the lyrics of the chorus then he felt an energetic tap on his shoulder.

  “Hey man,” said the irritable voice. “The journey’s gonna take long enough without listening to that god awful sound.”

  Matt’s initial bemusement turned to sheepishness, and he agreed not to inflict his wails of tuneless melody upon the surrounding passengers.

  He returned his gaze to the front and could see the driver’s face peering through his mirror, grinning like a Cheshire cat. For a man looking to keep a low profile in this new country, Matt was making a distinctly poor fist of it.

  Not long after, the bus pulled up to allow the driver a comfort break. Most of the passengers took advantage of the stop. Matt chose to use the time to stretch his legs and get some fresh air. Looking on in awe at the surrounding scenery, he could feel a set of eyes staring at him from behind.

  “You like our country?” asked a man’s voice.

  Matt turned and smiled at the driver. This man’s face was different to anything he’d seen before. Neither white nor black, Asian or oriental, the skin texture looked a worn reddish complexion. And his eyes were as dark as he’d ever seen in another human being.

  “It’s amazing,” he admitted, “totally awesome.”

  “I’m Charlie,” said the driver. “You’re British eh?”

  “Yes. I’m Matt, Matt Durham.”

  The men exchanged a firm handshake before continuing their conversation on the way back towards the bus.

  “It’s good you appreciate our world. Too many Canadians take this scenery for granted.”

  “They shouldn’t. This is like no land I’ve seen anywhere else in the world. It is so fresh and pure I couldn’t even begin to put it into words.”

  “Sumac Pacha,” said Charlie.

  Matt took two more paces before it dawned upon him.

  “What did you say then, Charlie?”

  “Sumac Pacha; they are the words of my ancestors.”

  “You’re a native descendant of the Americas?” asked Matt, his mind beginning to engage.

  Charlie found Matt’s observation amusing.

  “Yeah, I kinda thought the colour of my skin sort of gave it away,” he said with a smile.

  Matt apologised but the driver light-heartedly waved away the Englishman’s protestations. On reaching the bus, Matt turned sharply.

  “What does it mean in English, Charlie, Sumac Pacha?”

  “Beautiful Mother Earth,” he replied.

  The response froze Matt to the spot.

  “I could kiss you, Charlie.”

  The driver’s face screwed up in obvious confusion, then in fear Matt might actually carry out what he had threatened to do, before giving out a polite smile. Matt could barely conceal his elation as he clambered into his seat and grabbed at the laptop. By pure chance he had stumbled upon the key to the puzzle. After hour upon hour of frustrated effort, all he had to do was ask a bloody local.

  Memories flooded back of the European city breaks he and Dave used to take, and how his friend would fill the long journey times by burying his head in all manner of books about ancient civilisations. The tomes seemed to both enchant and entrance him in equal measure; to an extent he became monosyllabic. It was one of the abiding memories of their formative years, Dave’s fixation with the past and all things natural.

  Matt cursed himself for not making the obvious connection sooner. His excitement rose as the display page settled into view and the original message appeared, Sumac Pacha. All he had to do was type in the English translation.

  As the words boldly shone from the computer, an orange light began to glow on the base of the screen. Warning, low battery, read the message.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” cursed Matt. “You’re not helping much are you?” he said, looking to the sky.

  No sudden formations of dark clouds appeared. There was no lightning or sudden downpour of rain, no thunder.

  “Yeah that’s right, take a lunch break why don’t you. It’s not like I’m under any real pressure,” he moaned.

  Pulling the bus timetable from his jacket pocket he scanned the itinerary for the route stops ahead. An ho
ur at Thunder Bay, not long enough to charge up the battery. After that almost two and a half hours at Winnipeg, arriving around seven the next morning. The place will probably be shut, the voice inside his head moaned. What kind of schedule is this? Don’t they like having fugitives in this country?

  His eyes scrambled down the timetable. There would be an hour’s stop at Regina, an hour and a half at Calgary. Again, not long enough for a full charge. It was going to have to wait until Vancouver.

  Packing the computer back into the case he turned his attention to the newspapers he‘d bought. They were dated two days ago, so were hardly current. Nevertheless he worked his way through each page of the British broadsheets, looking for any sign of a report following up from the TV broadcast he’d watched at Newcastle airport.

  There were no references to a murder in Durham City, but there was an item about the motorway shooting near Newark where Ray Bridges met his glorious end. He considered this odd, to cover one yet not the other. True, these were national newspapers and London editions; but even they would likely carry stories of vile misdeeds out in the sticks. That is, if Government wanted them to be publicised.

  Then again, the motorway shooting had a suspected terrorist aspect, whereas Amy’s death was just a common or garden drug related murder. He needed to get hold of more recent press. Maybe he could buy some papers in Winnipeg, if it was open. For the moment, he could only suffer the long journey ahead as best he could.

  What followed was an educational field trip. Matt expected these to be some of the longest three days of his life, a tedious and seemingly endless road trip; the bus pounding away mile after mile with nothing other than his music and his thoughts to keep him occupied. It was anything but. He sat in awed silence as the colours of the world were presented to him by the unique landscapes that unfolded before his eyes.

  Matt had done the usual touristy things on previous visits to Canada. The major cities, the Rockies on a crowded train full of tourists etc. Granted, the polar bear watch at Churchill was pretty special. This was different, stunningly unique. Space was everywhere. The roads were almost completely devoid of traffic and he had seen all kinds of wildlife. At times the surrounding ground was both rich and green whilst at others it was dusky and prairie-like, followed by views of snow-capped mountains. This had been the first occasion in his life he had really bothered to observe the world around him. He took the time, had the time, to properly appreciate what nature had to offer. Beautiful Mother Earth was the phrase Charlie had used. There was no more apt description. The memory stick assumed less and less importance with each passing mile.

  Despite being transfixed by the sights that surrounded him Matt knew he had to maintain concentration at each scheduled stop, carefully checking that no-one lay in wait for him. No-one was.

  The other drawback was that meaningful sleep continued to evade him. When he did eventually drift off, the dead faces of Dave and Amy re-appeared in high definition focus. These horrifying visions would constantly cause him to jolt back into life. They forced his mind into staying awake, forced him to keep remembering. In addition to marring the journey they prevented him from doing the one thing he most wanted to do, which was to forget.

  Chapter Nine

  Sumac Pacha