by Emily Brewes
A fish would surface to catch a fly, and that’s all we saw. Hours and hours of silent communion in a place that might just as well have been on another planet. Then at some hidden signal, we packed up and went home.
AT SOME POINT between the gnawing hunger and desperate thirst, I look up from a rocky patch of dirt to see the vista that spreads out before me. Behind me, the sun has risen high enough to shine down from overhead. Purest white light glints off glossy foliage, spread like a textured green blanket across the slope. Here and there, large boulders hunch their shoulders up through the trees. Far below, a wide lake covers the flat land from foothills to horizon. It shines white and blue.
For a moment I could believe it was the ocean. Gulls wheel above the shore. The wind drives little white-capped waves as it blows across the surface. It smells entirely different than saltwater, though. Soft and smooth. With an undertone of decay?
There’s plastic sheeting over my face.
I can’t — I can’t breathe!
Help me!
A hand on my shoulder sparks panic in my heart. I’m alone on a mountaintop, so whose hand is that? Looking up, I see the kindly face of the woman who’s been caring for me. Every breath is like pulling air from water. It burns with effort.
Without words, she tells me to calm down.
“Where’s Doggo?” I manage to gasp through the pudding in my lungs.
She shakes her head and leaves again.
IT’S QUIET WHEN I come to. The sun is setting over the lake, burning the tips of the waves red and gold.
“Red sky at night,” I say aloud.
There are no trees here at the top of the world. Low scrub brush digs its toes into lean soil, hunkered against an unjust universe. I reach over and pat the spiky twigs that shoot out the occasional glossy green leaf.
“The struggle is very real, my friend.”
The place where I sit seems darker than the rest of the world. The world of the sunset. And even that world is being dimmed, minute by minute. Eventually, we’ll all end up in the same darkness as one another. Alone in company.
“It’s okay,” I say. Maybe to Doggo, though I’ve not seen him for a bit. Perhaps he went back to the house. Or back Underground. I wouldn’t blame him. It’s tough out here.
Maybe I’m saying it to myself. And I’m startled to discover I believe it. I’m not lying or joking or martyring myself. I’m just here.
And it’s all okay.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’D LIKE TO THANK the Brampton Festival of Authors for creating the opportunity to connect with publishers. Also, everyone at Dundurn: Scott Fraser, who took the time to chat at BFOA and who liked the first thirty pages enough to ask for the rest of them; Rachel Spence, who thought enough of my manuscript to pitch it for publication; Sara D’Agostino, for patiently walking me through the contract signing process; my editors Jenny McWha and Julie Mannell; and Stephanie Ellis, Laura Boyle, and Elena Radic.
I’d also like to thank Peter Rowley for the use of his professional’s eyes, the kind staff at Second Cup 324 Bloor Street West for letting me spend far too much time putting in “office hours” for the price of a coffee and muffin, and, of course, my husband and dogs, without whom I wouldn’t be here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EMILY BREWES grew up in the wilds of North Bay, Ontario, where she learned to be afraid of nature, especially bugs. Her writing career exists to spite her second grade teacher, who accused her of “getting help” on a creative composition that was perceived as being “too good.” Many years on, Emily attempted National Novel Writing Month several times, one of which produced The Doomsday Book of Fairy Tales. She lived for some time in Toronto, where she learned to write wistfully of Northern Ontario’s rugged beauty and haunting landscapes, but she has since moved to Kingston, Ontario.