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Farhead Among the Erratics
"What am I doing here?" Farhead said groggily, peering out through the one eye he could get open but could not keep open long.
"We think you ought to join our club."
"Club? What club? What's going on?"
"Why, the Erratic Pack, Farhead my friend. As for what's going on, eh, tell us what you remember."
His home country, Iran, seemed unimaginably far away, his adopted and then abandoned Toronto terribly far, and even the ring of laughter occurring somewhere above and around him so distant here in Nova Scotia that he might have been floating in another galaxy.
"Well ... I lost my job. So I went down to the harbour to tell Mr. Driver not to put in a mooring for me, that I would not be buying a boat after all. And he said he was sorry and he served me a drink. And then, sir ... sir, my memory is very much not with me after that."
"Here, boys, hold him up. Pull down his mask and rub some snow on his face. There, there, both eyes open now! Now you see who you're lookin' at. It's me, Driver. And I'm sorry for playin' a trick on you. That tall drink I gave you, that was moonshine. Pure moonshine as strong as they make it. And you drank it all. You said it was very tasty."
The ring of laughter resounded again, slightly closer this time, maybe only on the next planet.
"So Farhead, you're having a hard time. So are we. And I like you. So we want you in the club. Now I'm gonna have to explain something to you, and that's why we brought you here. You focusing yet? Good. Look up. You see that rock up there? All alone on the top? You've probably seen something like it before. Well, my friend, this is the Granite Coast. Free-standing rocks like that are all over the place here, like God sprinkled 'em down on a day he was bored with the rest of Creation. They call 'em erratics. The glaciers scraped 'em up in an Ice Age and then dropped 'em wherever, you know, when everything thawed. Lots look like a little push would knock 'em over. But they been there for thousands of years without budgin'. No matter the weather, they refuse to be moved.
"Long story short, that's us. That's all of us. We got dropped here on this Granite Coast we don't know why. Life here ... well, you might as well laugh, 'cause it beats cryin'. So that's what we do. We get together and we have a laugh. None of us has less than three jobs. Because it's hard to make enough. Now, you don't have any. But that's all right. We're going to find you some. Till then you'll be an honorary member. What do you say, my friend Farhead, from so far away? Is this Paradise or Paradise Lost? I know you've been through hell to get here. What's a little more cost?"
He went through a little more hell when Nearheart found out where he'd been. She thought it weak for men to drink to cope. And she made her thoughts known in a most painful way, loud and cutting to rival a chainsaw.
He knew, though, she was just afraid. He knew what it was like to be afraid. That was why he had left Iran to be dropped at last along this unforgiving Granite Coast. And he would not be moved. He was a member of the Erratic Pack now and he would not be further moved.
As a token of his membership, he wore, on a leather cord around his neck, a penny a train had run over. He pulled it out of his pajama top and rubbed the flattened copper between his fingers, a worthless thing given new value.
His wife slept with her back to him. He waited till he heard her snoring and then he moved over so his chest and the penny pressed against her. That way when he put his arm around her, he felt doubly sure that he could protect her forever, no matter what the cost.
31 January 2022
Texas Jim
Peggy's Cove Preservation Area, Nova Scotia
www.granitecoast.ca
Category:Scenic
Subcategory:Landscapes
Subcategory Detail:
Keywords:Area, Canada, Cove, Erratic, Nova, Peggy's, Preservation, Scotia, boulder, cliff, free-standing, mountain, rock, sunset, trees