The Longest Night

by K. M. Gibson

  He only came up to the bar to order occasionally. He usually placed orders with the waitresses, and that was when I decided to transfer to a server’s position. I wanted to get to know him, and I didn’t know why. I had never experienced such a desire to get to know someone more before.

  After I started serving, I saw more of him. Every Friday night he was there, and every time it was with the same friends. Eventually they recognized me as their Friday night waitress, and we all became more friendly. He never spoke much to me. It was mainly his friends who did the talking. But after a few weeks, he started to warm up to me as well, and I never remembered being more enticed for a person to speak to me.

  It went on for months until one Friday, he nor his friends arrived. I spent the whole night staring at the door, willing him in to give me his lopsided smile, but he never showed up.

  I had had crushes before that had simply fallen through the cracks, but I had never been shattered over something like this before. I was thoroughly convinced I’d done something to set them off, and none of them would return to the pub. I was nearly done my degree. I was going to be moving back to Fort McMurray and I was sure I would never hear anything like his laugh ever again.

  I came in to work a Thursday night for a coworker, which was an unusual shift for me, and found the entire pub to be dead for all but one patron. And there sat your father, a beer in hand, gloom hanging over him like a single rain cloud. When I saw him, my world reignited. When he saw me, he gave me his lopsided grin and said, “Life likes to take big shits on us, doesn’t it?”

  Not one other person came in for the rest of the night. He and I spent the entire time talking, him going on about how he was laid off his job. There was a resounding problem for overseas workers around that time. Funding poured in to bring them to Canada but little was done on their behalf to secure their position. He was from Ireland on a work visa and his residency was in limbo while he had no work. I didn’t know what empathy truly meant before that.

  After closing, he walked me home, and he asked if he could see me again before either of us left. We saw each other several more times before I finished my exams and he bought his plane ticket home.

  I saw him off at the airport, and he said he would keep in touch. I think we both knew what happened between us would never happen again, but I also felt that both of us would never remember any better time spent with another person. I wondered whether I would actually hear from him again or not. I very much would have liked that.

  I would like to say he didn’t think our overseas conversations would keep a friendship alive and that’s why he never reached out, but I found out a few days later that a connecting flight between Toronto and Dublin had crashed. I tried to find every bit of evidence I could to tell me that it wasn’t him. Sometimes I firmly believe it was a different plane and he is alive and well, and sometimes thinks of a girl who was just too far to maintain the bridge between them.

  Just thinking on him makes my throat constrict. I can still feel the dread of reading about that plane. I still love him, wherever he is. Letting go is harder than holding on.

  My advice to you would be to pursue happiness. Do not let him slip through the cracks. You may look back and regret what you did not say. I live with pain today over the man I pursued, but if I hadn’t, I would have spent the rest of my life wondering. Don’t wonder your whole life, Catherine.

  Mom

  6: mokṢa

  Night had fallen. She could barely see anything but she could feel the vehicle turn down another road and slow.

  The van rolled to a stop, and the soldier sitting in the front exited to open the door at the back. A flashlight beam flooded the van from outside and hit her square in the eyes.

  Another man was there. “Fort McMurray?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No shit.”

  He turned off the flashlight and clicked it into place on his belt. “Come on,” he muttered softly to the woman sitting across from Catherine. Nothing moved for an uncomfortable amount of time until the refugee tentatively grabbed his hand. He helped her down as if she were breakable. Catherine gently folded the letter together again and stuck it into her pocket. The soldier was helping a little boy when she slipped out on her own.

  It was new moon, the darkness oppressing. A single street lamp in the near distance lit up a small portion of the yard, revealing an outpost.

  “Welcome to Wood Buffalo National Park,” Ackermann said from behind her. “Your new home.”

  No, never a home. I haven’t been home in years.

  “Just wait here a second until we get everyone gathered,” he said to her from over his shoulder. “We’ll show you where you can sleep for the night.”

  She turned to observe the other part of the facility. As the last person stepped off one of the vans it was driven forward into a garage, passing the truck. Two men stepped out from the back of it carrying her tarp, her blanket thrown over it to cover his face. They placed him gently on the ground. She wanted to see him again but soldiers gathered around and blocked him from view. She started to imagine that they would pull back the covers, as if to prove everyone wrong by revealing his waking, very alive eyes. Except that they talked amongst one another before picking up the tarp and carrying the body inside the outpost. Everything throbbed.

  Ackermann approached but her eyes stayed glued to the spot where the soldiers had disappeared. “Come on, Catherine.” Reid must have told him her name. “We’ll get you set up.” She felt his firm grip on her shoulder again and he led her with a gentle forcefulness. She craned her neck to keep the structure in sight. He brought her into the garage without even noticing, not even knowing just what he was taking her from. How could he not know?

  They formed a line through the garage, stumbling over their feet even as they looked to their shoes. There was a man in line holding the hand of a little blonde boy, who constantly snapped his head around like danger was coming from every angle.

  At the very back was a storm door. A soldier opened it for them and another led the people through. There were lights on in the hallway beyond. There were lights. They had electricity. She heard weeping.

  As she crossed the threshold a grinding groan caught her ear and heat embraced her. The lights were a pale, sickly blue that made their skin look dead and rotten. They were led through a doorway near the end of the hallway to a large hall filled with cots, blankets neatly folded on the end of each. A soldier came down the line with a giant bag and began handing out water bottles and wrapped food to everyone. “This is only temporary,” he called out over everyone’s heads. “We’ll be moving everyone into their own individual rooms tomorrow.”

  The man who handed her a sandwich made her jump but she tried to accept it like nothing had happened. She took it into her hands, her skin relishing the heat. And the aroma. There was meat inside. The soldier then passed her a water bottle, and she took it, muttering thanks as he attended the next person. Within minutes, her water was drank. A rush of shame accompanied it. Ration, ration, always ration. But she knew she didn’t have to. Not anymore.

  “Everyone, grab a bunk, they’re up for grabs,” Reid announced, walking into the room. A few people flinched. He was so loud. “If any of you require assistance, there will be two men posted at this door at all times.”

  A timid silence followed. No, not again, she thought. The RCMP, the school, the community league, the internment. This gripped her until she looked to the soldiers he had mentioned. They smiled. It was foreign to see. It was a sure sign, though. This is not Fort McMurray. This is not then.

  The man with the little blond boy sat down on the nearest bunk to help him eat. Others followed suit, some collapsing in exhaustion. Catherine looked upon the nearest open cot with tired eyes and sat, opening her food package. Had roast beef always smelled this way? She took a hungry bite and forced herself to chew slowly, appreciate every moment. And so she did for a grand total of forty seconds. She crumpled the paper package and
put it in her empty pocket, though garbage pails were in four corners of the room.

  No one was talking but the sound felt like a concert hall. One or two others had already fallen asleep. How could anyone sleep after this? There was too much there. Except when she touched the blanket on her cot she felt the pull. Before she had draped the blanket over herself properly she was asleep.

  It could have been five minutes or fifty, but eventually the lights flickered out with a loud clack. She opened her eyes. Though she could see nothing she could hear everything. Deep and even breathing. Wheezing. Crying. Sounds that summoned memories of the last few days. Each moment was small, seemingly insignificant, but she clung to them desperately, despite the new pain it caused every time she thought upon them.

  He knew her name and he kissed her back.

  She balled her fists against her mouth and she bit her lip, trying not to sob out loud. Tears spilled out the corners of her eyes, making her face ache; so many tears had been spilled, but they would not stop. Catherine thought they might never stop.

  Time felt compressed as she lay on the cot, for it felt like mere minutes had gone by. Suddenly there was a mechanic and rhythmic beep that filled the room.

  “Midnight,” a soldier whispered quietly to the next. Hours had passed since Fort McMurray.

  “Merry Christmas, man,” the other replied.

  *

  She awoke slowly to daylight. From where the sun hung in the sky, morning was well on its way. Her body felt old and tired, like a band stretched far beyond its limits.

  She turned her head. Some had left their cots, though many still remained asleep. She went to sit up and the world rolled wildly though she remained still, and she had to close her eyes and hang on to the cot. The ache in her legs made her think she was losing them. The back of her head felt like it was constantly exploding. Her face and throat felt as if they had been cut and her hips felt as if a hot iron was being pressed against them. She had been broken and beaten, but most of all she had pushed too far, carrying him all that distance.

  The sudden thought made her pain seem far away. He’s dead, she thought once more.

  She sank back into the cot, motionless, breathing slow. She did not move.

  A soldier’s legs stopped by her cot. He knelt, looking her in the eye. “My name is Goran. How you doing?”

  No answer.

  “If you want, the mess hall is across the way,” he said. He had a Slavic accent of some sort. “Or there are showers through that door,” he pointed to the back of the room. Showers.

  No answer.

  “You want me to take you?”

  “No.” Her voice was even more restricted than it was the day before.

  He lingered awhile. “All right.”

  He left her. She remained. Why did you go? Come back.

  Further she sank. Hopefully she would sink right through this cot and stop existing for a while. Raw tears filled her eyes. You need to get up. You won’t die just by hoping. Maybe she was meant to survive for the rest of her life.

  Her life. She thought about the letter her mother had last written her. She thought about Jeffries. Don’t let him slip through the cracks…don’t spend your whole life wondering. If she had died before she found him again, before she showed him how she felt, would it have been worth it?

  She did not believe in an afterlife. But she couldn’t help but think about a world where she could go to be with him. Would any of it have mattered if she had died that day on the road during the earthquakes? If she had slit her wrists and let them bleed out in a lonely gas station off a highway? Would she have been spared the pain of his death?

  And what if she had survived, only to never find him? Nothing would have ever gotten better, nothing may have gotten so much worse. But nor would there be those fleeting moments that she had with him, the beauty he gave her life by a simple look. The truth would never have had a chance to breathe out in the open.

  Memory recall. Just the ability to think up his face, his voice, feel it flutter in her stomach – that was her keeper.

  It would matter. If she died now, it would. He would be forgotten, no one would know the things she knew about him.

  She pulled herself up slowly, subduing the pain for another time. She would continue. I will not stop. I will never stop.

  It was hard to stand. Everything felt like hot rubber. But she pushed herself forward to the showers. I never thought I would shower again, she thought briefly before she opened the door.

  The entire bathroom looked as if the deadline for construction had come too quickly. The walls were still slate grey from drywall, and only half of it was tiled. There were people there already: two women and a man. They kept their heads bowed, just like the day before. That was how she knew that they weren’t doing it out of privacy for each other, but out of misery and shame from the past two years of their lives. That would stay with them.

  She walked towards a shower in the far corner of the room and slipped off her coat, then her sweater, boots, and pants. She folded them neatly on the floor and turned the tap hesitantly, as if she was expecting it to be a hoax. But water poured from the spout and splashed against her skin as soon as she touched the tap, and she tilted her head back, letting it cascade down her chest. The pain across her body felt as if it subsided grudgingly from the warmth, her neck and hips pulsing with relief. It was liberating. She rubbed at her arms and face, untangled the knots in her hair, scraped away the grime, but a distinct layer of dirt remained, no matter how hard she rubbed. She knew it would take a while before she would be completely washed clean.

  She grabbed a towel from the rack by the door and dried herself off before putting her clothes back on. She focused on putting one foot in front of the other as she limped to the mess hall.

  Breakfast was on the long tables, served out of tin foil packs. Hard boiled eggs and brown bread. A soldier stood guard in front of a door at the back. The food.

  I’ve been spoiled with our food supply at the park, he had said. The sound of his voice echoed. She would call it back, again and again, a masochist. I’ve been spoiled with our food supply at the park.

  “Here,” Reid said from behind her. She turned to him, slightly caught off guard. He held a tin foil pack and a bottle of water out towards her. “Eat.”

  “Thank you.” Turning to the closest bench, she sat and unfolded her meal. She took a tentative bite out of the brown bread. Oh…holy hell. The bread fell apart on the tongue like snow, and it tasted like ambrosia. She could never truly appreciate just how much of a miracle bread was before the world ended. Her eyes closed as she chewed, but she could feel Reid still standing behind her. She didn’t look back or acknowledge him. Eventually she heard him walk away. She hadn’t the room to feel guilty about it.

  She finished her meal and left the mess hall. When she stepped into the long hallway, she realized she had no idea what to do next.

  A soldier standing at the door behind her boomed, “Wondering where to go?”

  Those who had not lived out there did not know what it meant to be quiet; everything they said was loud enough to shatter the damned. She turned to him, trying to hide the anxiety he gave her. She nodded. “Next door on the left. You’ll get a private orientation and an apartment.”

  “Thanks.”

  She approached the ajar door and stepped inside. A few people sat on plastic chairs just outside another door, which had a glass frosted window and a piece of packing tape across it that read DR. ANDERSON. She sat on the next available chair and waited her turn.

  Only twenty-four hours had gone by and now the world had lights, heat, food, water, doctors and scientists, soldiers, hope, love, joy. She bowed her head. Not anymore. His face was so clear behind her eyes…

  “Miss? You can come in.”

  She looked up. The others were gone and the door was open. A dark haired man was sitting at the desk inside, beckoning her. He was broad shouldered, healthy looking, but had a pale complexion that
contrasted with his messy black hair and the dark circles under his eyes. When she entered his office and closed the door, he said, “My goodness, what happened to you?” He had a soft, deep voice. Like his. He stood. “Has someone here hit you?”

  “No,” she answered quickly in a thin wheeze. Though he was in the mess hall, it wasn’t really him anymore. “I…no.”

  “Has anyone taken a look at that yet?” he said, circling the desk and standing a foot in front of her. She instantly backed up a step, but he didn’t notice the gesture and closed the space between them. He looked at her with a knit brow, investigating each of the bruises and cuts on her face. “You look like you’ve been through the ringer.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Regardless, we still have to disinfect those cuts,” he said sternly, going back around the desk. Once he brought it to her attention that she was very badly injured, the feeling that she was standing inside an 8 ball that someone was shaking ruthlessly intensified. She toppled before she even noticed that her legs gave way.

  He rushed back to help her to her feet and into the chair. “Did you hit your head or anything?”

  “Yesterday.”

  He checked the back of her head and tittered. “You’re going to have to get some bed rest, and I’m going to make sure you do. It’s a good thing we found you when we did. Otherwise you could be…in big trouble.”

  As he spoke, he fished through the drawers in his desk and pulled out an antiseptic, some rubbing alcohol wipes, and a few bandages. “This might sting a bit, but it’ll be for your own good, I promise.” He then continued to mutter under his breath about how ridiculously careless the personnel were for not sending a visibly injured civilian to his office to treat wounds. She directed her eyes to the floor as he applied the wipes and creams to her face. It stung, but she was too far-off to show notice. Sometimes stars sparkled in her peripherals.

  “So, for your orientation,” he said, applying antiseptic to another cut, “my name is Doctor Anderson, and…well, no one seemed to care less about why we’re here, or what we’re doing, but would you like to hear the details?”