A Door in the Mirror
Collected Short Fiction 2010-2014
PW Cooper
Copyright 2014 PW Cooper
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The Softest Thing
The boy sat in the back of the old pickup truck, watching a hazy scarlet sunrise bleed across the horizon. He rubbed sleep from his eyes, all that little grit gathered during the night. He'd dreamed of dust, swirling clouds of it rising to cover the world, to fill his home like the ancient tomb of a forgotten desert emperor. He'd woken in the heat, desperately thirsty. There had been no rain during the night, so there was nothing to drink. Still nothing. All around the empty house empty buckets arrayed with their mouths to an empty sky. His mother checked them all in the morning, every one just in case. He watched her from the window as she bent, stooped and hunched from bucket to cup to basin. He would be given a drink at the work site come noontime. He could already taste it, feel it in his throat.
The last man shut the gate and hopped into the truck. He slapped the side of the vehicle and whooped. The old pickup guttered and spat as it came to life, a raspy gurgle, a sound like chewing rocks. The foreman was driving, as he always did. He pulled onto the highway, leaving clouds of yellow-gold rising behind. The dust drifted to meet the rising sun as the last wisps of cool darkness melted away.
The boy tugged his cap low and slouched in his corner.
Every morning during the season he would make this trip. He used to make it with his big brother Henry, but Henry had moved off. One morning some weeks back the boy had woken to find Henry crouching over him with a pack slung on his back. They hadn't spoken, only met one another's eyes, and then Henry was gone. The boy had watched from the window as his brother wandered away down the road. He didn't seem to be heading anywhere in particular, only away, only going. His mother wept for days after Henry left, and the cracks in his father's stony face deepened.
The boy turned to the soft morning sun. If he could live forever in this dawn he might be happy, in this hour before the light turned hot and angry. He leaned forward on his knees, poking his head out from behind the front of the pickup, into the wind of the highway. He felt it tussle and play at his hair and he forced his eyes open to look at the road stretching out so far in the distance.
One of the workers in the truck was drinking from a flask he kept in his pocket. He would sip at it throughout the day, cradling and nursing. It was his infant child, his treasure. He wiped his whiskery lips and stuck out his wet tongue.
The boy leaned out, looking forward then back. There were no other cars on the highway, no trucks as far as he could see. They might be alone in this country for all he could tell.
He sat back and waited for the sun to burn out the sky. He rubbed his legs and arms. He was still sore from the last day, and the day before that, and all the days which had proceeded it. He looked at his hands, stared at them like he was seeing them for the first time. They'd been so soft once, he could remember his mother taking them in her own hands and kissing them. He could remember her smiling face, the brush and tickle of her rough fingers on his skin. Now his palms were callused and broken, his fingers rougher than hers. He could no longer feel any pain in them; he thought he might hold a spark of flame in his hand and not flinch.
The pickup turned off the highway, rattling and bumping. The men in the backseat grabbed automatically for the edge, for something steady. The boy put his arms out, holding on with both hands. None of them thought of it as they did it, it was deep down in their minds; there were no more surprises on this road.
They drove through the little town. The boy leaned over the side of the truck. He stared at the town as it passed. He wished he could live in a place like this, or even stop here just once. Just to be still in this place would be a dream; he could scarcely imagine it in his waking hours. Henry used to ride a bicycle into town, he would leave early in the morning and ride all day there and all day back. The boy had thought he might do that someday, but the bicycle had broken and there was no money to fix it or to buy another.
The town had no name, and some of the men scoffed and spat to hear it called town, but the boy was sure that it was. It was more of civilization than he'd ever seen elsewhere. It took only a few minutes to drive through, but they were minutes which the boy treasured more dearly than any others. He hung over the edge of the truck and watched it go by, a yearning in his heart to which he could not put a name. He thought it might be love.
They drove by a little pop stand on the edge of town. A man in a pinstripe uniform stood mopping his brow and scraping the ice off his cooler. The red piping of his uniform made him look like an enormous piece of candy. The boy's mouth began at once to water, though he could muster only the faintest moisture. There were a pair of girls sitting on the bench beside the man, bottles of pop in their smooth hands. They were laughing, drinking slowly, soft lips pressed to cold glass. The boy stared at them. He wished more than anything that he might be near them, hear the sounds of their voices, their laughter. He wished he could touch their long lashing hair, comb his fingers through the golden waves of it. Then they were gone, away in the distance.
There was a church just over the edge of town. It had been freshly painted, and stood startlingly white against the world beyond. The sun reflected fiercely off it, shining so bright it might blind a person to look too long. The boy turned away, hiding himself from the gleaming spire of the steeple.
There was a traveling preacher who came by their house sometimes. The boy's mother had given him a cup of water when he'd visited, the last of the water. The boy had stared at the cool liquid shifting inside the glass, at the marks in the condensation made by the preacher's smooth white fingers, at the way his throat bobbed as he drank. He'd set the cup down, emptied to the last drop, and told them that they must stay strong and that they must have faith. The boy's parents had thanked him, shook his hand and smiled. The preacher said that god would look down on them and surely he would weep. The skies would open and the rains would come again. The boy wondered why god hadn't seen them already. God saw everything, he'd been told that, so it must be that god didn't care. He was up there in the clouds laughing at them. Not crying, but laughing.
The fields were before them, great waving seas of golden grain and green corn that went on forever. The truck stopped and all the men got out. The boy followed them down to where the supervisor was directing people this way and that, barking orders through his cupped hands. The boy already knew what he was to do.
Years ago his father had been a planter. The boy remembered wandering in the little field, surrounded by cornstalks so tall they blocked out the sun. They had all died years ago. Sometimes he watched his father kneel down in the long-dead field to turn the dust with his fingers, dig his hand into the dry soil and toss it back down. He would stand and sigh and stare up at the sky which had betrayed him.
The boy worked. At noontime he was given a cup of water and an hour later felt it turn to sweat and slide down his back and under his arms and over his brow. He felt like he was drying out, like a fruit left shrinking in the sun too long. He had dreams of waking up and finding himself a wrinkled old man, his mind trapped in a ruined body. He worked hours under the cruel sun until there was nothing but time and the slow arc of fire burning overhead.
He looked up at the house high on the hill, away in the
distance. He could see a girl on the porch. The owner's daughter. He'd seen her before, watching them; she was a few years older than him. She had her hand over her eyes, looking out across the field. The boy wished that he were alone, not down here with all the others. He wished he could stand out and be seen, could meet her eyes and look into them. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, her skin pale as milk, untouched by the sun. He leaned on the cart, gazing up at her, his heart full of worship. The foreman cuffed him and barked at him to get back to work.
The boy wondered where his brother Henry had gone to. He'd moved off was all the boy knew, and that was nothing, really. He dreamed every night of his brother's death, and he supposed it must be a portent. He was not overly given to superstitions or mysticism, but he accepted this as truth: that his brother was going to die soon. Dreams were true things, he had always believe that.
The sun was baking the very earth under his feet. He could feel its heat rising through the worn soles of his shoes. As the day wore on he wandered further and further afield, out to the edge of the cropland.
He stood with one foot on either side of an irrigation ditch flowing with thin rivulets of muddy water. He was so thirsty he thought he might drink it, but he did not – he would be beaten if they saw. He remembered seeing a boy beaten for stealing. The thief had protested that it was only plants he'd taken, just some food, only a plant. The foreman had rubbed cornstalk between his fingers and said that they were not just plants, they were growing money itself, good as gold.
The boy watched the water flow slowly. How long since he'd had a true drink? How long since he'd last quenched his thirst? He could no longer remember any such time. He had always been thirsty, always been wanting.
A fat lizard was waddling in the sandy ground out beyond the crops. It looked back at him and blinked its milky eyes before scuttling on for shade.
The boy turned away. He looked up at the house on the hill. He could no longer see the girl on the porch. He felt the sun pouring into his very skull, filling his head with soft light and turning all his thoughts to mist. He felt himself blink, blink terribly slowly, and he fell. It was as though he were seeing himself from afar, an only half-interested observer watching the boy's shuffling limbs give out, his frail body sway and crumble like a sand sculpture. Dust to dust, he thought, the favorite words of the fat preacher with the shiny new car and the last glass of water in his hands.
He lay in the dust. He could feel the world turn around him, spinning so fast and so slow. His life was pouring away, his years spilling uselessly out, and yet time moved so slow. He would see nothing of its true shape in his days, he knew that now. His was a doomed life.
The boy dreamed an old dream. He dreamed of a girl, a women smooth and pale and full. She looked at him and she pitied him. She held him to her breast and his lips found her and he drank her milk and it was cool and soft in his dry throat. She held him to her and she wept, her tears rained down on his face and washed him clean of everything. And they rose together to go out of this place.
The boy felt a drop of something on his brow, then another, and then a drop on his lip. His mouth opened and his tongue crawled out to lap at the moisture. His eyes opened. He saw a beautiful face above him. The owner's daughter. She held a cup of water and was dipping her fingers in it to flick drops on his face. She was frowning, concerned. He felt his cracked lips smile.
She helped him drink, lifting his head and pouring the water into his mouth. He drank and drank until he could drink no more. He thought it must be the greatest joy in the universe, to be for even a moment no longer thirsty. She touched his cheek. She told him that she had seem him fall and come at once. He thanked her, his words thick and shy. She touched his face again and stood. She looked across the field, and she called to the foreman.
A southern wind came up and set all the crops to dancing, as though they were quivering to be near her, as though they loved her.
The foreman came. The boy was hauled to his feet, his dusty shoulders and backside slapped like an old rug being beaten out. The foreman cuffed him and told him to stop his lollygagging.
The girl scolded the foreman, her voice more harsh than the boy had thought it would be. She said that he was to be taken inside and laid down awhile in the sitting room. The foreman's protest was cut short.
The boy was still dizzy and reeling when he was lifted and carried across the field. His cheeks flushed to be treated so, to be borne before the men who already saw him as less than they. He wanted to speak, to demand that he be put down, but he was not sure that he would be able to walk, so he said nothing.
He felt the shadow of the great house fall heavy upon him. The sun burned right through the slat roof of his own home; he'd not known shade so true in all his life. At once the dry air seemed cool. His skin seemed to drink it in.
They brought him inside and laid him on a couch beside a great window. He marveled at the glass, never having seen so much of it in one place. The girl shooed the men back out and they went reluctantly, clutching their dusty caps close. She pulled the drapes and they fell lace-like across the glass.
The boy thought he might still be dreaming. The opulent sitting room whirled about him, all aglitter and flickering with light. The colors were so bright and so many that they hurt his eyes. He hardly knew where it look, it all seemed so fine and terrible.
The girl darted into the next room. He heard a strange liquid gush, of something being poured out or sloshed. Running water, he realized. He craned his neck to see the faucet, but it was out of sight. Then she was back, folding a damp cloth over her hands. She instructed him to lay back and placed the cloth on his forehead. He felt pinned by it, as though it weighed a great deal. A thin droplet of water rolled down his brow.
She told him that he was being worked far too hard.
He shook his head a little, not wanting to seem so weak, but unwilling to disagree with her outright.
She stroked his face, and he shivered. Her hand was the softest thing he'd ever felt, he was sure of it. The girl spoke, words tumbling out faster than he could make sense of them. She spoke of things he had never known, of places and people and events so far beyond his understanding they may as well have been taking place on the moon. He lay on his back and watched her lips moving. It was an immeasurable delight to see the way in which they formed words.
A man came into the room, pausing at the door. He asked the girl if this was another of her charity cases.
The girl frowned and said he ought not to be so cruel. She called him father.
Her father. The owner. The boy and the man looked at each other. The man's face gave away nothing. It was a smooth and clean face, like no man the boy had ever seen. Eyes that seemed to move right over you, hair dark and slick with pomade. The man had a fresh false scent which carried even across the sitting room. They two looked at each other, and something seemed to pass between them which the boy could not rightly put into words.
Then the man was gone, with a shake of his head and a soft word of admonition to his daughter. The girl seemed to forget her father the moment he'd gone; she spoke on and on, stopping only to lift the cloth from his forehead and feel it with the back of her slender hand.
The boy gazed at her. He wondered what it might be like to kiss her. Could he ever do such a thing? It seemed impossible. What would she say if he asked? She might be angry, or she might laugh. You're only a boy, she might say. It would surely never happen. But he did wonder.
She asked him if he had heard President Roosevelt's speech.
He said that he didn't know who she meant.
The girl seemed shocked. He felt he'd disappointed her. She said that there was likely to be a war, and all the men and boys would be called away to fight. She said that she supposed he would sign up someday soon, and that she wished she might do the same. She said that she was terribly bored and longed to be away. She said that she longed to fight, though many would suppose it unbecoming. I hate it here, s
he said.
The boy felt a deep dread settling in him. A war. Surely that was the cause of his premonitions. Henry would sign up, for sure he would, and he would die there. Henry had always spoken of how desperate he was to be a soldier.
The boy had never shared his brother's desire. He couldn't say for sure what he wanted, but he'd no desire to fight – or to die – for a man he'd never heard of before. The only thing he knew he wanted was to lay here in the girl's arms a while longer. He gazed up at her. She seemed to him so perfect, so pure.
She met his gaze a moment; she laughed; she looked away. She asked him why he was looking at her so strangely. He told her that he thought she was beautiful.
He thought that would make her happy. He thought that a girl would like to be told such a thing. But her face fell. She stood, and she stepped away from him. He wanted to reach out and stop her, draw her close again. The sudden distance between them seemed immense, and he felt too weak to make the attempt. She asked him a question. Who do you think I am, she asked. He said that he thought she was a beautiful girl.
She went to the window and she looked out. She seemed sad, seemed lonely. You're just like them, she said. Then she came back and took the cloth from his brow and said that she would freshen it for him. Then she was gone, and he heard again the sound of running water.
The boy came to his feet. He thought of his brother, dying so far from home, and he thought of his mother and father, growing thinner and weaker in their broken shack. He thought of the owner, and the cruel curve of his thin lips as he'd looked upon the boy. He thought of the girl, who seemed now so fragile and distant. There was a deep place within him that hated her, for what he could not quite say.
He stepped across the room and without a thought he caught up a fistful of baubles from the table there. Jewelry, shining girly things, clear as cut glass and sparkling with light. They were as pure and fine as ice, like water in his hand. He was sure they were valuable, that they might take him someplace cool and clear and peaceful; a little town, a big city, an island in an ocean of shade and mist. They were hers. He shoved them into his pocket and went at once down the hall and out the door before the girl could return.