Read Online Sea of Tranquility by Lesley Choyce - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lesley Choyce
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husband is some kind of killer, that they all are. It will be a private condemnation that she can closet away from the world of speech. For sheloves this man deeply, has travelled every twist and turn of thread of thought in his mind that sent him out onto the ice at sunrise.
David is doing this for her, for their children who will never be born. She will forgive him. She hears his ragged breath as he hurries, stepping across one small space between the ice pans, a distance no greater than hopping across the North Brook. She sees the boot land with a hard thwack on the ice. She sees the axe swing free in his hand. She wants to be able to see his face, but she cannot. Perhaps itâs better that way. What would she see in his eyes? Determination? Exhaustion, more likely. Eyes fixed on something a million miles away. Thinking of her, perhaps. Thinking of the island.
David stumbles on a small ice ridge, collects himself, walks on towards the mother seal and her several young ones. The ice is bleached pure and white as white can be. A sound can be heard now as the other men drive axe picks into the skulls of young and old seals alike as their mothers howl and try to defend their brood, only to find themselves butchered too. Something so appallingly wrong with this scene that it is inconceivable to Sylvie that she herself is somehow connected to this. But she is connected, inextricably so. This spectacle is part of her life, will never leave her.
David, she knows, is now sick at heart and exhausted beyond anything he has known before. Aches for his island and home, vowing never to sign on for such a thing as this again. The sun is over his shoulder and he turns to feel the slightest tingle of warmth, warm as the breath of his wife asleep beside him on a winter night when he cannot begin to find the proper channel markers that will lead him to sleep. But he is exhausted still on this morning, his feet are like stone weights in the bottom of lobster pots.
He has learned to read the ice, knows that he can trust even small pans if they have the right texture, the right look aboutthem. He thinks he knows this frozen landscape, but he is wrong. He makes a leap onto a small ice pan, feels it tilt and give. He is amazed as he realizes that his brain had already given him the signal that it was a wrong step. Old instincts working but a split second too slowly, failing him. A steady stance in a dory is not the same as walking on springtime ice. He drops the pick, feels himself sliding, as if he has fallen onto a big kitchen table face first and its wooden legs give. He tries to grab onto something and then realizes the small ice island is upending itself and coming fully over on him.
Cold knives of water fill up his boots and his oilskins and the hard ice comes down above him, shutting out the light and the sky. His hands form into fists and he pounds at it, then tries to push it away, but it has suddenly become a cunning, cruel thing of immense weight.
Sylvie feels the bursting pain in the throat of her husband as he tries to scream, tries to claw his way along the underside of the ice to find the sweet, living air to feed his lungs. She feels the panic, the fear, things completely new and alien to her calm, cerebral husband. Then suffers the immense sadness and regret that comes with his final exhaustion and the knowledge of his foolish error.
Sylvie draws a deep breath and tests her own breathing. With eyes still closed, she can see the surviving seals upon the ice with the morning sun warming their fur. She hears other men shouting in the enthusiasm of their bloody work but she does not turn in that direction. She is looking to the east, towards the rising sun, blooming warm red and yellow over the panorama of the ice field. She makes what peace she can with Davidâs belief that we live or die by chance alone. And envisions what is left of her husband, floating up in the stream between two stolid ice islands, his back to the
David is doing this for her, for their children who will never be born. She will forgive him. She hears his ragged breath as he hurries, stepping across one small space between the ice pans, a distance no greater than hopping across the North Brook. She sees the boot land with a hard thwack on the ice. She sees the axe swing free in his hand. She wants to be able to see his face, but she cannot. Perhaps itâs better that way. What would she see in his eyes? Determination? Exhaustion, more likely. Eyes fixed on something a million miles away. Thinking of her, perhaps. Thinking of the island.
David stumbles on a small ice ridge, collects himself, walks on towards the mother seal and her several young ones. The ice is bleached pure and white as white can be. A sound can be heard now as the other men drive axe picks into the skulls of young and old seals alike as their mothers howl and try to defend their brood, only to find themselves butchered too. Something so appallingly wrong with this scene that it is inconceivable to Sylvie that she herself is somehow connected to this. But she is connected, inextricably so. This spectacle is part of her life, will never leave her.
David, she knows, is now sick at heart and exhausted beyond anything he has known before. Aches for his island and home, vowing never to sign on for such a thing as this again. The sun is over his shoulder and he turns to feel the slightest tingle of warmth, warm as the breath of his wife asleep beside him on a winter night when he cannot begin to find the proper channel markers that will lead him to sleep. But he is exhausted still on this morning, his feet are like stone weights in the bottom of lobster pots.
He has learned to read the ice, knows that he can trust even small pans if they have the right texture, the right look aboutthem. He thinks he knows this frozen landscape, but he is wrong. He makes a leap onto a small ice pan, feels it tilt and give. He is amazed as he realizes that his brain had already given him the signal that it was a wrong step. Old instincts working but a split second too slowly, failing him. A steady stance in a dory is not the same as walking on springtime ice. He drops the pick, feels himself sliding, as if he has fallen onto a big kitchen table face first and its wooden legs give. He tries to grab onto something and then realizes the small ice island is upending itself and coming fully over on him.
Cold knives of water fill up his boots and his oilskins and the hard ice comes down above him, shutting out the light and the sky. His hands form into fists and he pounds at it, then tries to push it away, but it has suddenly become a cunning, cruel thing of immense weight.
Sylvie feels the bursting pain in the throat of her husband as he tries to scream, tries to claw his way along the underside of the ice to find the sweet, living air to feed his lungs. She feels the panic, the fear, things completely new and alien to her calm, cerebral husband. Then suffers the immense sadness and regret that comes with his final exhaustion and the knowledge of his foolish error.
Sylvie draws a deep breath and tests her own breathing. With eyes still closed, she can see the surviving seals upon the ice with the morning sun warming their fur. She hears other men shouting in the enthusiasm of their bloody work but she does not turn in that direction. She is looking to the east, towards the rising sun, blooming warm red and yellow over the panorama of the ice field. She makes what peace she can with Davidâs belief that we live or die by chance alone. And envisions what is left of her husband, floating up in the stream between two stolid ice islands, his back to the
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