D is for Dragon

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The Hearthside is a blog for the writings of Nathaniel Hart. Check out the sample stories to the right. Check Below for updates on appearances, readings, and current work.

05 September 2013

Short story: The Kindness of the Kettle

I was invited to Rain Or Shine's 2013 author series kickoff event tonight. The event was fantastic, ten authors reading segments of works or poetry, prose, flash fiction, and even an accordion backed prose poem of an awesomeness that had to be seen to be believed. Below, as requested, is the piece that I wrote and read. It is called the Kindness of the Kettle. Enjoy! 

***

The winds are strong but ill disciplined in the spring gale. Their bickering courses buffet the ship, mist breaking over her bow in the driving vernal rains. The cold of that rain is worst in Anser's feet where water seeps into every worried hole of his thick boots, but against his face the sting of it is still potent and punishing. It is an old familiar pain, one that he bears with gratitude like he bears the stab of the sunlight at dawn; that pain which is the proof of another day of living. Anser's eyes fight through the weather and blink back the rain. One hand shelters his view against the downpour the other is gripped firm to the rough nettle line by the forebrace as he stares over the side seeking his quarry. The screws of the ship are a dull roar and play rhythm to the creaking timber, clanging bell, and indeclinable shouts of one sailor to another all around him. Yet, so focused is he that the din is lost on him. All he hears is the rain on his coat and his own breath as it comes cloudy from his mouth. There is the shape below the ship that he has been looking for. First it is a shadow, then a line of shadows, then, he shouts “Heel up and nets eleven off the forebrace” as he recognizes his catch.

The men leap to their posts singing out their ready, the fear, excitement, or resignation of each is clear in his call. Gnarled, frozen hands both young and the old grip tight 'round shafts of the capstans, net-men take up their burden and make ready to cast off on his mark. The flocking prey comes visible as the ship draws her course and Anser cries out the mark. Three hands cast the net over the side, its weights spreading the web of clever knotted line wide and then together, closing like a hand about their quarry. The younger sailors strain the capstans, grunting, heaving at the back breaking labor their feet struggling to find purchase on the wet deck as the cranks rumble round and round pulling the loaded net up to the side. The old hands guide it up the hull as beaks snap at them and then turn the mad honking flock on-board with one heavy sweat. Anser is first to take up his club, well oiled of dark , heavy walnut and the bloody work begins as they set to cull the catch. It was a fine skien, some eighty two head of Canada Geese counted out even as the sailors bring their clubs down upon them one by one.

Soon the deck is awash in bloodied feathers, torrents of rainwater sloughing the gore away, out the gunnels and down, down to the clouds and the sleeping earth a thousand feet below. As the work finishes one and another of the young lads begin to shout at such a haul in one go, but Anser and the older sailors are away to the braces already and to dropping ballast just as soon as the flock is culled. Sky-sailors as old as them know that there will be other catches only if the weights are kept and the ship runs true and high in the wind. There will be other takes that day, but none so large, and the vessel will come back to the docks by the grey cliffs of Suramore-by-Lott laden down and riding heavy on the air. Anser will remember that one, will remember it as experience only can recount.

That night he'll bring a small gander to his wife – she swears the meat is finer on the ganders. He'll kiss his first born son on the cheek as the lad falls asleep in his wheel-chair by the fire side and he'll hug his eldest daughter as she goes out to pour drinks at the pub. One by one the family will drift to sleep, all but Anser. He is an older man in body than in years. The ship sails not again until the weather clears a little, but it is the pain of hard labor that won't let him sleep, that pain, and a private worry. Worry for the other still awake that night.

She comes back home, his daughter, when the moon has already left the sky. She tidies up and warms the kettle to help them both sleep. Then she sits and talks of suitors, of tutors, of the things of town-life she wants more of. Anser nods to it but it is as lost on him as his life is to her. How could it be any different? When the tea is ready that night, and she pours it for him and gives a warm cup into his waiting hands, when she asks him

“How was your day da?” 

What can he say of the bucking air-ship, of the singing of line and pitch sealed wood, of the frantic beating of wings and the mortal crack of club and hand? What can this man say of a life he knows by touch?

“Cold. But a good haul. Good enough.”

And she'll look back, his eldest daughter, the hearth light glinting in her eyes, and touch his wrist. And in that touch she can bridge the gap of worlds separated by gulfs as vast as the airy depths of the clear night sky. And her smile will warm him and she'll kiss his cheek good night. And only then will Asner sleep and only by the kindness of the kettle be contented.  

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