Application, I suppose.

[Izabella]

The seasons of my childhood were precious, golden things that seem quite far away now, preserved in delicate gossamer nets of imagination and childish embellishment. When I look back on those days, they are surrounded by a kind of haze, like the summer fogs in Newfoundland. Images are blurred along the edges, faces are distorted, and my memories seem to run together like wet ink. But spaced throughout the chaos are moments of crystal clarity that stand out like beacons. Some of my memories are so perfect, so real, that I can close my eyes and be there again, living in a moment that has come and gone. For the most part the ones that stand out aren’t always the most special, the most life altering of all the things that I have experienced. Some are so simple that I wonder how they could be important enough to deserve such thorough preservation. One of my earliest memories is a walk up the Back Way with my Uncle Wish when I was little more than a toddler. I remember the smoky, honeyed flavour of the sun and the tart sweetness of a raspberry bursting in my mouth. I remember throwing rocks at the water tank and being astounded by the sound, the reverberation of metal against a thousand litres of water. It was like making thunder with my own two hands. But of all these memories, of all the pin-pricks of light and blasts of sound that stand out in my mind, the most important is the first trip I took with my grandfather on the Honda.

My grandfather was the single most important person in my life when I was a child. My father was gone and Pop was the closest thing I had to a replacement once Uncle Wish married and moved away. All of Raymond’s grandchildren loved him more than anything else in the world, sometimes more than we loved our own parents, and we would battle with each other over who got to ride shotgun in the car, or who got to share his big, rickety armchair at night as he watched The Raccoons with us. My first cousin, Jonathan, usually came out the best in these bouts. He was the oldest, but more importantly, he was the only grandson Pop had and thus immediately owned a special place in his heart. I remember evenings in the winter with the woodstove crackling, and heavy thuds startling us as the junks burned and settled. We sat in the little bungalow, Pop and Johnny in one chair, Nan rocking away by the window, with Mom, Ashley and I on the couch. We watched the CBC News, The Golden Girls, Babar, and then, finally, The Raccoons. We waited for Burt and Cedric all week, not just because we loved them, but because they always heralded a trip into the woods the next day.

After Pop retired from the boats he settled into a routine around the house that we grew to know quite well. Everything had its day, and he and Nan were adamant that their schedule not be interrupted, come hell or high water. Every Saturday, Nan scoured the house from top to bottom while Pop made pea soup and salt beef for supper. On Sunday, they put their heads together and concocted the most sinful, most life-threatening, most amazing Jigs Dinner Newfoundland has ever seen. On Monday, which was usually pension day, they disappeared in the car and came back with a trunk-full of groceries. And on Tuesday, Pop went for wood.

It was Tuesday that we all waited for with baited breath, wondering, hoping, praying that this week would be our week to go. I was still young, just making the jump from seven to eight, and I had never been on a trip into the woods on the Honda. I envied my older cousins, but I knew that Pop would take me along when he thought I was old enough. Still, it couldn’t help but gall us all to see a lucky cousin being carried off on the huge slide behind the Honda.

The slide itself was a big, sturdy contraption made from rough-hewn timber. Coarse bark still covered the wood in places, and the long green lashings of twine rope, lying haphazardly across the planks, made us all a little apprehensive. Many of us had gotten slivers of that rough twine embedded in our fingers or under our nails; the experience was no picnic, and so we all learned to be careful of where we sat and what we held onto. However, nothing could impact our desperate desire to be the one chosen to sit behind Pop on the huge leather seat, or to ride on top of the load of fresh-cut spruce on the way back.

My first ride on The Honda was the highlight of my Christmas. It was the day after Boxing Day and I had gotten a toy stove and a snowsuit from Santa Claus. I still remember the excitement of hearing my grandfather dragging that monstrous plastic oven in from the backroom, and placing it under the Christmas tree. I had huddled in my bed, trying desperately not to swallow my tongue from the terror and exhilaration of encountering Santa Claus. Two days later I was playing with Ashley, filling the sink and washing our imaginary cabbage (we were Newfies, after all) when the rumour started in the shed and came whistling in through the house, causing a torrent of activity. “Pop’s going for wood. He just hitched the slide to the Honda.” We stumbled through the house in a ball of anarchy, grabbing hats and mittens, gloves and boots. I made it to the porch first, dragging my snow pants on over my jeans, hauling on my coat and hat as I stumbled outside, past the bright red storm door and into the yard, heading like a shot towards the shed.

Sure enough, he was sitting on the trike in the front yard, dressed in his oil clothes and windbreaker, waiting to see which of us would make it there first. In my mind I thanked God that mom had gone for groceries earlier and would not be there to hamper my efforts. She had definite views on the safety of the Honda, and was often my biggest obstacle on the road to the wood clearing. I stood for a moment in front of my grandfather, feeling suddenly embarrassed. I wasn’t a forward child, neither with action nor affection, and I felt a sort of shame. My nervousness increased as my cousins poured out of doorways on either side of the yard, but I held my ground, even when Johnny came and stood beside me. He was like the cat sizing up the canary, but finding it a lot bolder in its new pink snowsuit. After a while, Pop nodded. “Well, seeing as you got all your new winter clothes, and seeing as you’re almost eight in any case, I s’pose it’d be fine if you came along.”

I was up on the Honda in the blink of an eye, my excitement barely contained as I settled in behind my grandfather. He reached down and pulled the cord that started the engine, and I turned to wave goodbye to my cousins. We rode down the path that led from our house and onto the street, and from there it was just a few feet to where the dirt roads began. I looked at the scenery as if seeing it for the first time, even though I was familiar with every shrub and tree. I can still remember the way the breeze felt. The smell of gasoline from the Honda was strong and filled my nostrils; the wind was cold and crisp, full of the bite of winter, and the sky was pale and yellow. The snow crunched under the Honda, barely heard under the chainsaw roar of the engine. And surrounding everything was the scent of my grandfather, a mixture of Old Spice and Redman Chewing tobacco, orange pekoe and wood smoke.

He was a product of Joey Smallwood’s Resettlement, and felt all the bitterness that most of the bay men experienced after being thrown out of the islands their families had inhabited for generations. He had left Isle Valen with his wife and three young children, leaving behind a brand new house, only to rent a bungalow from a Yankee landlord in Placentia. There was a regret in many of those who made the trek from the tiny out ports, a feeling of defeat that my grandfather carried with him all his life. When I was older, I would learn to recognize the sadness in his eyes, the searching look they sometimes got as he sat in the living room and stared out across the Atlantic, towards his home.

At seven years old I knew little about my grandparent’s lives before they came to Placentia. There were nights of reminiscence, of course, when all the grandchildren fought to stay awake, to listen to the details of a life we would never experience. To us, a world without electricity was inconceivable, and we certainly had no idea of how difficult, and alternately, how wonderful, life on Isle Valen had been. The only time Pop told us about “out home” was at Christmas, when Uncle Mike and Ronald came mummering and everyone was sharing Lambs and Coke to bring fortune to the New Year. On those nights, surrounded by family and friends who shared his nostalgia, Pop told us endless stories of the way things used to be, and all the grandchildren clambered to hear more. These were magical nights, filled with the mystery and intrigue of a world that we knew nothing about, and all the light-hearted joy of a child’s Christmas. We all wanted to be part of our grandfather’s memories, but none of us really knew just how important we were to him. That day in 1987, my first Honda ride, was the day I began to understand my Pop.

He didn’t take me straight to the wood clearing on the Honda, but instead we rode around in the hills until we came to the highest summit, overlooking the ocean and the beach. He turned off the Honda and I dismounted to stretch my legs while he sat there for a moment, looking out at the dark blue of the Atlantic in winter, at the white caps of the waves and the spray that rose as they ran ashore. When he spoke, his voice sounded distant, not at all the jolly, light-hearted tone that I knew to be his.

“Do you see that darker blue patch out there?” He asked, pointing across the water towards Red Island. I nodded my head, feeling puzzled and a little anxious, wondering why we weren’t at the wood clearing; I wanted to prove to Johnny that I was just as useful as him when it came to loading the slide. “Behind that island is where I grew up. Your mom and your uncles were all born there, and you would have been too.” I opened my mouth to say something, but when he looked at me I closed my lips without a sound. “I told Johnny, and I told Ashley, and now I’m telling you, because you’re Pop’s girl and I know you got it in you to go far. There’s nothing left on them islands anymore because we let everything be took from us. There’s no future out there, and there’s damn well no future in the fishery. There’s just everything that we left behind. I don’t want to see you working in no fish plant in ten years time, nor your cousins neither. You’re going to get the best education this bloody place can give you, and maybe if they comes to uproot you, well, you’ll know better how to stop them than we did.”

I remember nodding in mute incomprehension, not understanding a single word of what he said, but knowing that it was important. He must have seen my astonishment, because he smiled his familiar smile and helped me back onto the Honda. “Just try and remember.” He said as I settled onto the seat. “And don’t worry if you can’t; me and Nan will remind you as often as we needs to.”

He was true to his word. From that day on, every report card, every agonizing school play and Christmas concert was dutifully reviewed or attended. And always, always the same mantra from both of my grandparents: “You need a good education these days. There’s nothing you can’t do with a good education.” They believed it, and they made us believe it too.

Pop died a year before I graduated from high school, and he didn’t get to see me go off to University. But sometimes when I go home for a weekend, or for Christmas, I sit in his shed on what’s left of the Honda and think about that day in the hills. Sometimes I listen to The Government Game and remember all the times I heard it drifting from the shed and into our living room. But mostly I just watch the water, like he did. I think of what my life would have been like on Isle Valen, and feel all the stomach-twisting guilt of no regrets.

[purple_shadows]

wow. I can't figure out what to feel about this. it was deeply personal and toughing. It made me laugh, it made me cry. It resonated very deeply. You have such a gift with words. Use it well.

[Regel]

The things that last (at least in our memories) are the important events that dot our life's travels like sign posts. I love the places you grew up. People that I can identify with, people that have been displaced, people with a strong sense of family. Proud people, that believe in their traditions and carry them into future generations by story telling. I can only echo purple_shadows post. Wonderful story and an excellent first post.

[Ayshela]

wow.

 

wonderfully descriptive, and elegantly conveyed. welcome!

[Wyvern]

Enitharmon sighs dismally and rocks back and forth in her applicant easychair, glancing at a nearby grandfather clock and wondering what could be taking the Elder of Initiates such a long time to arrive. Her arrival in the Recruiter's Office now seemed like a distant memory, though unlike the fond memories of her Pops and his Honda, these recollections were filled with gathering dust, sticky cobwebs, and overwhelming boredome. Memories perhaps best left forgotten in some remote, secluded corner of the brain... dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, monotonous memories.

 

Enitharmon suddenly perks up as the front door of the Office creaks open in an eerily calm manner and Wyvern staggers into the Office. She raises a brow as she notices that the overgrown lizards tunic and breeches are tattered and filthy, and that the Elder's eyes speak volumes of confusion. In one scaly claw the overgrown lizard carries a slightly chipped tecquilla glass with a purple umbrella sticking out of it, in the other hand he carries a slowly suffocating octopus.

 

"Mr. Wyvern...?" manages Enitharmon meekly as she cautiously observes Wyvern's appearence, taking two steps back as the lizard hobbles forward and drops the octopus he's carrying. The applicant cringes as Wyvern lunges forward, placing a wet claw on her shoulder and quietly hissing:

 

"Excuse me, would you happen to know the way to the nearest farm by any chance? See, I'm trying to get back to this Pen place that's listed on my business card, but for some reason I can't remember if it was a chicken pen or a pig pen..."

 

Enitharmons jaw drops open as she silently stares at the reptilian Elder, her eyes following his hobbling form as he takes her speechlessness as a "no" response and wanders towards his desk. The confused lizard comes to a halt when he reaches the cluttered desk, and slowly raises a claw to his scaly chin.

 

"Sssssay, this desktop looks vaguely familiar... and so does that octopus lying on the floor over there!"

 

"Actually" interrupts Enitharmon in the hopes of helping Wyvern out "That's the octopus that you were just carrying, and that desk is supposed to be yours."

 

With that, Enitharmon picks up her application from Wyvern's desktop and hands it to the lizard.

 

"Here, read this over... it details my own memory, but there's a small chance that it could trigger something in yours."

 

Wyvern sniffles to himself and snatches the application, reading it over out of curiousity. The lizard doesn't get far, however, as he stops mid-way through the first sentence and suddenly jumps as his full memory returns to him in a flash.

 

"The seasons of my childhood were precious, golden things..." the lizard reads in an amazed manner. "Of course! I'm Wyvern, and this is the Pen!"

 

Having said this, Wyvern happily stamps Enitharmons application ACCEPTED, then rapidly dashes towards the applicant in the hopes of using this moment of revelation as an excuse to tightly hug her. Fortunatly for Enitharmon, the lizard quickly proceeds to slip on the octopus laying on the floor and goes sailing out of the Office door... and directly into Melba's Anti-Wyvern Mallet. Home sweet home...

 

;-)

 

OOC: On a more serious note; a nicely written application piece, Enitharmon. I particularly liked the numerous original details you used to bring the story to life, as well as the realistic subject matter. Certainly ACCEPTED, welcome to the Mighty Pen! My apologies for the long wait in my response... I look forward to reading more of your writing as well as participating with you in group projects. Once again, welcome!

[Rune]

o___o w-o-w

 

That was amazing.