A Repose

He set off in the tiny, cheap rental car in a driving rain that pounded at the windscreen like a thousand nails protesting the warm summer air. Pushing the nails side to side, the ragged wipers paced back and forth, back and forth, marching in an endless cycle waiting for some new, less ragged, rubber blades to come relieve them from their duty.

He drove out of the city, out of the park, out of the suburbs, out of the way and onto a road that seemed to stretch forever. The trees got taller, the road got narrower, the cars slowly evaporated leaving him alone on the road in is tin can with terminally ill windshield wipers. The clouds ominously darkened as he drove — deep into the west — the rain pounded harder, harder, harder; the wipers wiped faster, faster, faster — until suddenly — the rain gave up.

It won.

He turned off the road onto a narrow winding street enclosed cavernously by thick foliage. Strewn about the street were casualties from the weather — branches and leaves everywhere like it had been snowing plants.

The car limped up the narrow drive to a brick house that sat comfortably on a hill, surveying tree limbs scattered around it. As it crept to a halt, a collection of dogs sauntered over, barking gently, partly concerned for the driver but also curious if he brought food for them.

There was nothing tasty in the car.

Immediately losing interest, the canine court dispersed as he trudged from the car into the quiet, no, silent estate, up the hill onto a boardwalk occupied by the Host. As he walked, his feet left their best impressions in the path to the house. Invited in, he looked down when he failed to politely remove his shoes, noticing they were fifteen steps behind him clinging to the muddy drive. They’ll catch up, he thought, in due time.

“Power’s out.”

He was shown the guesthouse — a brilliant cabin, inviting and cozy with fixtures for a luxury estate, some chimeric like the Coal Stove Sink. Secretly, the piano that sat in the middle of the room filled it with implicit music sight-read directly from the books shelved on the wall. He smiled.

They took advantage of the break in weather and broke a path to the river with aimless comfort out of a Twain novel — a grown Huck and Tom let the quiet river flow past them, carrying away the conversation with aid from what they drank.

After some time and a blur of events, they had dined and drunk their way to playing pirate.

Yo Ho!

Mount Gay Rum on the high seas of forest and grass! Sailing through a storm and taking over the needless immediacy of the city, far away; looting worry and leaving comfort. The crew of the ship was on top — of the waves, of their marked ships, of their worries, of needless concern, and of tomorrow. Surrounded in the spoils of their enterprise, the pirates looked at the bottom of the bottles and heaps of treasure, feeling fulfilled.

Accomplished, he retired, with spoils of the evening, to his stately quarters surrounded by soft implicit music rocking him to sleep, those chimeric fixtures and a peaceful slumber — a stay in what was exactly everything the city is not. A repose.