Days of Rot and Roses

Ma Bertie once told Noah that a diary was for things you need to say but don’t want anyone to hear. So today he was busy doing just that, and in the very diary she had left him that he had continued, and addressing her as if she were still alive to be addressed.

“Ma,” he wrote, “I have got somewhat on my mind. They say I shouldn’t think the things I think nor say the things I say, cause I’m too young. I do, though, and so here I am, right where you said was good to go.

“There’s ghosts around here, Ma. You knew that. So did Daddy Mac. And they ain’t all so bad. Some are, though.

“Remember when old Gully used to get to thinking he was Superman? And anything he wanted was the thing he meant to have? Remember when he left that freezer full of bait to rot out back behind his stage, just so all of us would have to smell it when the sea wind blew? And how he put a chain across the road the others used to get down to their stages, all because he said the road was his? And how he cut the roses down outside Bob Burrell’s house because he said he could because the land was his that they were growing on? Well, that’s the sort of meanness I been seeing coming out of nowhere lately. As if Old Gully had come skulking round and jumped in some folks’ minds. People pulling shotguns on each other, stealing from each other’s traps, telling lies … oh Ma, it makes me sick to write it down, so I’ll stop there, but you know what I mean. They’re meaner than the ghosts you see, the ones that don’t do nothing but appear and disappear.

“Well, there, I’ve wrote it down, and there it is. I don’t know as it’s done me any good. Lord knows it ain’t the news I like to spread around. Maybe I’ll feel better later. I don’t know. I love you, Ma. I miss you and Daddy Mac so much that every single solitary day I get at least a moment where it feels a hand curls up around my heart and makes a fist.”

Later he was walking down the lane along the shore when someone whispered in his ear. He looked around but there was no one there. And yet he swore someone had said to smell the roses. “Smell the roses while you can.” It wasn’t quite Ma Bertie’s voice. Ma Bertie had a husky, earthy voice and this was no more than the gentlest of breezes or the chirping of birds in the morning. Nevertheless, he thought he ought to pay heed. He headed for the nearest bush of wild roses that were what grew thickly there and were in bloom and as full of lovely summer as could be. He meant to stick his nose in one and give it a sniff good and proper. Before he could, however, he realized the smell was there already, in the air, everywhere, not powerfully but inescapably, not like Old Gully’s rotten bait, not like somebody stepping on your head, but just as unavoidable, and light instead, light and uplifting, mesmerizing, so that the more he breathed in, the more that was all on his mind.

He started to whistle, as if a bottle had just been uncorked that had a melody waiting inside.

He wanted to call Betty and tell her. And then he knew he couldn’t. This was only for his diary. If he could even share it there.

And then he was just walking, with the scent of the saltwater roses the only thing on his mind, and that was nothing at all.

11 July 2024
Texas Jim
Prospect, Nova Scotia
www.granitecoast.ca