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thefirsthumor · 2 years

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Egg #2

The kayak slid smoothly across the dark surface of the lake, leaving gentle trails in its wake. As I twisted my torso back and forth, I could feel the familiar pressure of my paddle against my hands as it pushed through the water. The only sound to be heard was the flowing of water as it rushed to restore the lake’s serene flatness. A fog was starting to set in, and I looked down to see droplets of water forming on my windbreaker. My hands looked pink from exertion and the biting chill of the air. It must’ve been cold.

It was just a little bit further. After a few long pushes of the paddle, the shoreline came into view, trees arching over the water forming a little alcove. I let the kayak slide into place with one final push, coming to a rest against the soft lakebed underneath. I climbed out and sat down in my usual spot, leaning against the willow tree and facing the lake. I closed my eyes and listened for a good while to the murmuring of water caressing the shore, brought along by a gentle breeze.

“You’re back so soon,” a rumbling voice sounded behind me. I opened my eyes.

“Yeah, what would you know about time, you’re a tree,” I responded, without looking.

“There is the passing of seasons.”

I let out a sigh and watched my breath waft up into the air.

“She’s leaving me. Says it’s too much. That I haven’t been the same since the accident. That I’m crazy and I scare her.”

I looked up at the chaos of leaves and branches overhead, waiting for its voice. Hearing none, I prodded a little bit. “Is there something that scares you?”

A pause. “Fire. Flames,” it said.

“Me too.” That thought left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I turned my palms up and looked at them absentmindedly. “But you’ll be fine here.”

“I’ll always be here. I’m alone.”

“Yeah. That makes two of us.”

There was no response for so long I started listening to the water wash up against the shore again. “Am I crazy?” I said, as an afterthought.

“No...,” it trailed off.

“No,” I repeated slowly, but confidently. “I’m not.”

Silence hung thick in the air, like smoke filling our lungs, not letting us speak. The fog was getting so heavy that I let my eyes instinctively draw closed.

I don’t remember much from that day. When people ask me out of their own hesitant curiosity, I try to put on a brave face and say I don’t remember. Then they nod slowly and move on, but their eyes linger and my image lingers in their heads. In truth, there’s a lot that I do remember. The dull but incessant pattering of raindrops hitting the hood of our car. Drowning out the radio I was trying to hear, that wouldn’t turn up any higher. I’d catch bits and pieces of the voices of familiar sports reporters and media figures before I found myself listening instead to the cars outside, and their tires splashing on wet pavement. Sometimes there would be a bunch of cars, and then the sound of their wheels passing by, slick with rain water, went on forever. And then it would stop.

It all happened so quickly. What sounded like a casual rainy afternoon turned into a horrible storm of screeching tires and loud voices. I got thrown forward and in the surreality of the moment, it felt like a second part of me got separated. I was looking down myself, watching our car get crumpled up like a ball of paper. I screamed, but couldn’t scream loud enough because no one nearby looked at me. The smell of gasoline punched through the crisp rain. I could see the flames reaching out to me, but I didn’t feel any pain.

Everything felt so far away. I felt cold concrete meeting my face, but at the same time I saw people getting out of their cars and I thought why are they getting outside? It’s raining, they’re gonna get wet. Feet hit the ground near me and splattered cool street water onto my face, and when their shadows were upon me and I felt myself getting dragged up by my arms. And it was the worst pain I’d ever felt, like my limbs were getting ripped off. But I couldn’t look down. All I could do was close my eyes.

And I remember feeling so incredibly sleepy in all that chaos. The sleepiest I’ve ever been. Like nothing else in the world mattered except that I could retreat into my own ahead and let my body get carried away.

“Ed. Eddie!”

My eyes snapped open and I saw my brother walking down the gravel trail to my right. He was bundled up in a winter coat and a hat. I looked around. The fog was gone, and it looked like the sun was starting to set. The ripples in the lake reflected a fiery orange glow back into my eyes, blinding me momentarily. I felt beads of sweat on my forehead.

“I knew I’d find you here. You almost ready to go?” He looked at me inquisitively.

“Yeah,” I replied, giving a quick nod toward the kayak. “I’ll meet you back at the house.”

“You sure you don’t want a ride?” he asked. “It’s getting dark and it’s cold out.”

“No, I’ll take my time,” I said and gave him a quick smile.

“Alright, I’ll be waiting.” He walked off, and after a while, I could hear the engine of his car start somewhere in the distance.

I got up, brushed off my pants and walked over to the water’s edge. It looked pitch black. I cupped some of the water in my hands, but I could still see the scar tissue running across my palms. Before too much of it trickled away, I brought the water up to my face to wash away some of the sweat. I did that a couple more times before I climbed into the kayak and set off, watching the sunlight dancing on the ripples of the water.

By the time I got back to the house, the sun had disappeared from view and the front porch lights were on. I stepped onto the driveway just in time to see my wife leaving. My brother was bringing out the last of her suitcases. Looked like everything was packed and ready to go. She stepped up to me with her arms outstretched for a split second before she decided to back away and settle with a tight-lipped smile.

I tried to smile back but it felt like I forgot how. It felt like I was just seeing her after being apart for a lifetime or two.

Her car backed up out of the driveway and disappeared down the road, leaving me standing there with my dirt-ridden jacket still in my hands.

I set my things down by the porch and reached for the doorknob before something stopped me. I stepped back for a moment. Our front door looked a lot older than I remembered it being. Some of the wood had chipped off from the wear and tear of being opened and closed for so many years. It was discolored in some places. The glass insert could’ve use a wash years ago, and the door frame was starting to crack.

I took another step back and looked at the roughness of my outstretched hand. I turned around and saw my brother standing in the driveway looking at me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, let’s just get some food before we do this.” I just realized I hadn’t eaten anything all day. I wasn’t even sure what I was so busy with that I forgot.

He nodded and started up the car again. We didn’t talk much during the drive. At one point he turned on the radio. I just tried to tune it out inside my head. He also coughed a bit. Something about a cold.

“Still going out on the lake, huh,” he said. I saw him sneak a glance at me through the corner of my eye.

I didn’t respond.

He looked over at me again, longer this time. “You sure you’re gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I think it’ll be nice being alone for a bit,” I said. It was strangely hard to get those words out, like my tongue had swollen to twice its size or something and I was trying to avoid biting it.

“You know, it’s okay if you need to move in with us for a bit. Just until you get back on your feet. We have plenty of room.”

“Hm,” I replied, as if I were considering his offer. I wonder what his wife Karen would have thought about that if she could hear him. They’d just had two kids, and I don’t think she likes me a whole lot. She didn’t know me before the accident and we don’t talk much to each other aside from formalities. And it wasn’t like I had the will or patience to fill her in on it. Like that would even help her understand.

“Maybe,” I said, trying to put the conversation to rest.

“No seriously, it’ll be like old times. And it’ll be nice to have another guy around,” he said brightly, with a bit of a laugh.

“Yeah, like old times,” I mused. I did miss that, but I knew it wouldn’t be anything like old times. I’d be an intruder on their textbook, young couple family dynamic. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish.

“Hey, how’s this, let’s go back to that diner we ate at a bunch with mom and dad, remember? It’s a ways away but it’ll be worth it, yeah?”

I did remember, I remembered it was across the road from this quaint little mall where we spent our birthdays a lot as kids.

“Yeah, that sounds good. I could use a pick me up,” I said.

“Alright,” he said with an air of success in his tone, pulling over by the sidewalk to turn the car around.

It seemed like the mall was doing more than fine, it was a lot bigger than I remembered. The street lights were on, illuminating kids running around with their mom and dad in tow.

The diner was lit up blindingly bright, reflected off their oldschool white kitchen tiles. There weren’t many people, and we got a spot right next to the windows. Some light music was playing to fill the silence in the restaurant. I sat down and realized my clothes were still soaked from earlier. I hadn’t gotten a chance to clean up.

We both glanced at the menus to see if anything piqued our interest. It didn’t look like much had changed since we’d last been here.

I looked outside. It had started raining, but kids were still running around outside, unperturbed. I was surprised their parents didn’t scold them for splashing water around in their careless playing.

“Did you bring an umbrella?” I asked.

My brother gave me a weird look. “No, wh-”

Before he could finish, the waitress stopped at our table to take our orders. “Hey, what can I get you guys?”

I asked for their steak and eggs with an extra helping of fries on the side.

My brother smiled, as he handed off the menus. “Same old, huh?”

“Same old,” I said.

“She seemed nice,” he thought out loud.

“Who?”

“The waitress. Are you sure you’re okay?” He shot me a look that was half-amused, half-concerned.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Too soon?”

I didn’t bother answering. I looked over to my left, through the windows. Cars were passing by on the road, but I could still see people on the other side, window shopping at the mall. I watched them for a while.

The waitress came back with our food. I cut into the steak and watched the steam rise. It wasn’t as good as I remembered, but I was hungry so I scarfed it down anyway. We ate in silence. I didn’t put my knife and fork down once, and I was done before I remembered to breathe.

“Can I get you anything else?”

I looked up to see the waitress standing over us.

I didn’t hesitate and got a stack of pancakes. I saw my brother raise an eyebrow and let out a chuckle, but he didn’t say anything.

The pancakes were overwhelmingly sweet and coated with syrup. But there was something there that reminded me of a different time. Things were different back then. We were like the families on the other side of the road. We were normal. I was normal, a normal person living a normal life, with normal problems. I cut into the stack of pancakes again, and tasted the now sickeningly sweet syrup.

I looked over at the shopping mall again, but the rain was pouring now and I couldn’t make anything out other than the flashing lights of cars driving past. I could really only see myself in the reflection of the window, my disheveled hair, scars on my face, and wild eyes. Like I had just walked in from the storm outside.

Then, like a scene from a movie, a car sped into the sidewalk barrier and spun out, hitting another car in the process. I could see the vibrations of the collision in the air, like an explosive going off and I was seeing the shockwaves reach out to me. Before I could react, the glass windows of the restaurant shattered into a million pieces instantaneously, and I shouted and recoiled in surprise, clenching my eyes shut in reflex.

“Ed, what’s wrong?” My brother had a serious look on his face.

I looked over at the window to find it perfectly intact. And when did the rain stop?

An old couple a couple tables down from us glared at me for interrupting their meal. The waitress was bringing out some food to another table, but had stopped to see what was going on. The music was still playing in the background.

“We should get you home, buddy,” my brother said.

We left the diner in a hurry. The trip back was just as quiet as the trip there.

“Have you been seeing Greenspan?” he asked.

“Mhm.” I was lying. I avoided that man every chance I had, he made me feel like something was wrong with me.

“You really should talk to him. Maybe figure out what’s making you freak out sometimes.”

I rubbed my sweaty palms against my pants and wiped my brow with my shirt.

We pulled back up into my driveway and I walked back up those familiar porch steps and to the front door. I unlocked it without thinking this time and flipped the living room light on. It felt strangely empty.

“I’ll wait for you,” my brother said.

I walked over to the coffee table where I saw a piece of paper and sat down on the couch. I knew my wife would leave a note, she was always leaving notes for me.

We’ve been through a lot Ed, it began.

I instinctively rubbed my eye and blinked in surprise when my finger came away wet. Tears? I felt a pang of remorse in my chest, and I leaned back. And I suddenly felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

I changed into fresh clothes and put on a pair of shoes that she’d bought me a while ago but looked brand new. When I stepped outside and closed the door behind me, I saw my brother leaning against his car in the cold. He looked up at me from his phone inquisitively.

“Going somewhere?”

“Yeah, you can leave. I’m gonna go for a run.”

“A run?” He looked around as if to confirm that it was pitch black out.

“Are you headed back to the lake? I’ll drive you.”

“No, not the lake.”

“Then where?”

I wasn’t sure, but I turned off the driveway and down the road before I broke into a jog. I heard him call after me, but didn’t stop. I just ran and ran, turning down roads when I felt like it. Listening to the wind rush past my ears. Feeling the hard ground meet my feet on every step. Watching the shadows of trees fly past me. I was determined, determined to run until I could see the sun shining in the sky. Until I could feel its warm rays beat down on my face. And until then, I wouldn’t stop running.

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