Skia Oura

Skia Oura

(The Tail’s Shadow)

A yawning November soul on a cold morning of that most melancholy month, eyes still clearing from the fog of medicated sleep (and no less grateful for it), scraped the crust from their corners and rubbed them into focus after a first sip of all too necessary coffee. An Ethiopian blend, full bodied, boozy and rich, with notes of chocolate and dark fruit; berries, blue or black. Of his many addictions, java ranked high among the favourites. Very little social stigma, a wonderous elixir for both mind and body.

Not at all like the cigarettes he now inhaled so slavishly. What pleasure they once held long since lost to chemical dependence. Desperate craving, a fleeting moment of satisfaction, and then the guilt that descended at his attempt to stub it spitefully out. More smoke rose from the makeshift ashtray, a soup can half full of burnt matchsticks and butts, its label worn blank but still adhering to the ridged and dented metal. He glared at the cherry’s crumbling coals as they burned away on the frozen muck beneath the debris, and smeared the ash that had missed its mark into the well worn plank beneath his boot.

Vague memories of the night before floated in fragments through his pounding skull. Putting the thumb and index fingers of his right hand to the bridge of his nose,  eyes closed, he tried to rub away some of the shame and regret that began to descend. Things had started off normally enough, he recalled. A perfect pint on the sunny Bishop street terrace of a cozy pub. Predictably, one perfect pint led to two, to three, and so on. Downing shots with a rowdy but jovial bunch at a nearby pool hall was the last solid image he could place. But there had been more. The aroma of a cheap vanilla perfume, too liberally applied, hit him suddenly. A pang of discomfort bubbled in his guts. Feeling the bruises and scrapes of where he supposed he’d fallen again as he stood, he shuffled into the bathroom to vomit.

After cleaning himself up halfheartedly, he poured another cup of joe, and tried to distract himself from the dilemma of the cycles of abuse that so clearly, presently, and dangerously trapped him with such frustrating regularity. The mug, a survivor in this home’s collection (having seen many of its compatriots come and go-lost to clumsiness, fire, filth, and theft among other killers of pottery), was placed carefully on the corner of the balcony banister in the back yard. He admired its simple design. A plain speckled tan curving almost imperceptibly inward before widening again at the brim, with an abstract flower (a tulip perhaps), achieved by the graceful strokes of six or seven green arched lines and a single three-pronged brownish-red bulb above them. A handle that cradled the index and middle fingers comfortably. He begrudged the cold as it evidenced itself in the steam spewing off the top.

Splash. Though still far from alert, an increasing wakefulness pried the eyes wider, slightly, as he scanned for the source of the sound. The pit in the neighbour’s yard that several decades earlier had been an in ground pool sized to accommodate 2.5 children and a small cluster of friends, now sat lifeless, decaying in years of built up grime and time’s persistent paling of its long neglected corrugated plastic sheets which lined the edges evenly. Puke pink, bile green, and cirrhosis yellow, six inch gaps between each. He questioned its source, and then its authenticity. Auditory hallucination, or a lingering fragment of forgotten dream, perhaps?

He momentarily contemplated rolling a joint. It would quell the nausea, ease the headache, and generally contribute to a greater sense of well-being. A twang of anxiety struck as he wondered what remained of his stash after the evening’s proceedings. Trying to avoid it, he decided he’d investigate the source of the sound and then smoke a small one. Just enough to incite the appetite. He was pretty sure he still had some bacon and eggs in the fridge. Maybe. He wasn’t sure.

Curious, he cautiously made his way down the winding wooden staircase, each of the roughly two dozen steps squeaking uncertainly as he did so. The corner of one of the pool’s makeshift walls was loose, and banged an irregular rhythm in the wind against its rusted frame as he approached the fence that separated the territories against the unfreezing but far from pleasant breeze.

More faint water sounds, like a handful of tiny pebbles being tossed into a shallow pond rapidly, one after another. The gate had long since warped past the point where the straightforward lever mechanism had held it fast, and it gave in easily to a gentle shove.

A pitiful sight, not pebbles but two front paws paddling desperately at the dirty water’s stagnant surface, struggling to maintain the common grey squirrel’s head just above it. The poor beast clawed uselessly at some fallen leaves floating near the pit’s center. It whirled back frantically to the pool’s cement edge, away from the filthy tangle of tiny, muddy sticks and sludge, but to no avail. The water line far outreached the critter’s grasp. He scratched audibly at the cloudy blue embankment momentarily, then whirled again towards the middle. They locked eyes, and there was a perceptible decrease in the speed of the rodent’s stroke.

Dashing back through the open gate to the shed in the opposite corner of his own yard produced a momentary panic at the realization that the sought after shovel wasn’t in its usual spot. He glanced around and spotted it leaning against the bottom flight of the stairs, in anticipation of the season’s first snowfall he remembered. He snatched it mid stride and loped back to the pool. The varmint’s nose and eyes bobbed back and forth above and below the surface. Only the talons of its feet fought a frenzied battle to barely stay afloat. Eye contact again as he lowered the black plastic scoop of the snow shovel towards the wretch. Without hesitation it sunk its nails into its edge.

Bracing his left hand as close to the scoop as possible, he pulled the handle down and back. The squirrel lost its grip and fell fully submerged below. He thrust the shovel like a spear vertically into the water, then leveled and pushed it forward simultaneously.

A motionless heap of soaked grey and reddish brown fur rolled into the deepest part of the scoop as he pulled up and back, and gingerly deposited the contents onto the hardened ground beside the pool. Shallow and rapid, and no other movement save the terror in its eyes, but unmistakably, breath. Delicately he covered his rescue in some nearby leaves, dry and brittle, but he supposed, better than nothing for the moment. Racing back into the house through the basement entrance he flicked the electric heater in the small bathroom to full blast, and grabbed a discarded towel off the floor. Not until he was back outside did he notice the cloth’s dampness at one corner, and cursed himself for his negligence in leaving it lying next to shower that dripped for hours after each use.

Scrunching the moistened section in one hand, he folded the clump of small mammal into the dry portion and folded it over. Save for the wet fur and twitching whiskers, it could have been a premature newborn child. He cradled the bundle under one arm and walked back indoors, stroking it lightly and attempting to make comforting sounds, ignoring the potential peril of disease that occurred to him. Arriving again in the bathroom he lay the sorry heap below the heater and continued his whispering,

“Shhhh…shhh…it’s okay…it’s going to be okay. Don’t die,” he pleaded, “please don’t die.” Cooing, he did his best to calm the squirrel, and poured water from a nearby cup, the multiple old toothbrushes it had held for years now scattered around the sinks cracked edge, around the edges of its mouth. The lips moved ever so slightly at the liquid, though most fell to the floor. There was light in his new friend’s eyes still, and he rubbed it lightly from nose to ears between them for a few minutes more. He glanced at his watch and regretfully continued,

“You’re okay, you’re going to be okay. I have to go now, but I’ll be back. You’ll be fine.”

After a few more pets of reassurance he left the room, and bolted it from the outside. The lock a remnant from a previous zoological encounter. Preparations for house training a puppy. A far more pleasant and less nerve wracking one, he reflected, though that too at the time had seemed a difficult and unpleasant task. With exasperated exhalation he composed himself and went about the mundane tasks and errands that the day demanded. Phone calls, meetings, groceries, long overdue laundry. The fate of his little friend popping regularly into his thoughts, and the good deed he’d done garnering confidence and pride. A long absent spring in his step as he strolled through city streets, he even thought he even felt the corners of his lips crease into a momentary smirk at one point.

Arriving home again an hour before dusk, he unburdened himself his belongings and didn’t bother to remove his coat as he marched back to the bathroom and unfastened the bolt. The squirrel lay static in the same position he’d left him, the towel undisturbed still covering half his torso. The speckled grey body was peaceful, the rise and fall of the white underbelly still. The limbs were rigid, and the flicker of life in the eyes was absent. He sighed, and picked up the inert lump in both hands, carrying it back out to the yard.

The ground was not fully frozen, but hard enough that the spade he used to dig the grave could barely delve a foot below the ground. He placed the corpse into the shallow hole and covered it over, patted it down. A pretty piece of coloured glass unearthed in the process served as a grave marker. He told no one what had happened.