Wee Bench

A change was coming over Noah that made even puberty seem commonplace. His mind was beginning to sort itself out, and he to relish the experience. To revel in it, really. It was more subtle than making love, just as cosmic, and lasted way longer. He knew because of the one time he and Betty had done it, when it was over almost before it started. To register that sort of bliss was like trying to catch the moment a finger snap happened.

The wee bench was where he liked to sit when sorting out was happening. Made of cast iron creased with rust, it really was quite ordinary in size, but the expression had stuck in his mind after he had read it in a poem by Robbie Burns. He was pretty sure it was Burns. Anyway, it looked wee, perched on its pier in the village's harbour, where he lregarded it from the steps leading down with that affection that seems to bubble up whenever what is suddenly familiar and cherished heaves into view.

Today a particular intimacy ensued. The sea beyond the splinters of island that shielded the harbour was lapped in a light winter fog. When he could see forever, his mind sometimes drifted, and the sorting out stalled. The fog was an anchor. Witnessing his thoughts was all there was.

At first they teemed and shifted like a school of flashing fish fleeing a predator. Then they cohered into whales. Killer whales. Betty was gone. College had claimed her. And war, at the farewell dinner to which Betty's parents had invited him, was all they talked about. Unbelievable. Impossible. Yet looming. War.

The pain came crashing. But then, but then ... the waves fanned out on the sand and ran back to the sea. And nobody was there. The world was empty, gleaming clean and fresh and free.

This all happened over and over. By the time he got up, it was, strangely enough, night, and his butt was cold and numb. He patted the bench lovingly and then got out his flashlight and ascended. Coming into his yard, he was careful not to startle the two deer, doe and fawn, that apparently had been foraging there and had fallen asleep by his door.

24 January 2026
Texas Jim
Prospect, Nova Scotia