Penumbra
by
Larry Winters
A tangle of branches poked at the gunmetal sky. The cold a blade held against the exposed flesh of Simon's forehead. The thirty below temperature made the windblown trees rattle at octaves he'd never heard before. When Simon started walking, the snow squealed under his boots like he was crushing small rodents. The hair in his nostrils froze and ice was caked on the outside of the scarf he'd tied over his face. Simon had seen no one on Mountain Rest Road for miles. The two houses he'd passed had lights on but no one was outside; there were no kids playing in the new snow; the cars in the driveways still had snow on them. Standing alone under the night sky, the darkness was his.
Simon had things to think about. He'd been struggling all last night and the whole day with what happened during yesterday's afternoon nap. He felt desperate to sort out the vision that had come before him. If his mother was still alive, she might have been able to explain what it all meant; but she'd died on Christmas day two years ago. She would have had some idea what the specter standing before him was, and why it smelled like someone had peeled an apple in the room when it left.
Simon had rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands, but it was still there, a soldier in battle gear. A bolt action rifle hung over one shoulder, mud on his knees, a bandoleer of rounds draped across his chest. Simon had blurted out, "What the Hell are you doing here?"
The soldier stared at him and said, in a cockney accent, "They sent me to look for a tree, a Christmas tree."
"Who sent you?"
"The sergeant did! We got three men who've been gassed. They won't see Christmas tomorrow?
"Come on man. I know it's Christmas tomorrow, but you're talking like there's a war in my backyard."
"I need a tree now!"
Running his hand through his hair, Simon asked, "Do you know where you are?"
"Verdun!"
"No, man, for God's sake, you're in New Paltz NY. It's 2007 and it's the coldest day in 100 years."
"Listen, I don't have time for your jokes, there's a war going on. Have you seen anything green, I've got to bring something back for these men?"
"Wait here a minute." Simon got up from his chair tugged his coat on and went to the garage. Taking the handsaw off the hook, he ambled through the frigid air into the back yard to the edge of the forest. With a few powerful stokes he cut down a scrawny white pine about three feet tall. Shaking the snow from its limbs he carried it back to the house.
When he walked into the living room there was no one there. Where the soldier had stood there was a pool of water and some clumps of mud. He looked at the tiny tree in his hands and walked to the back door and tossed it into the snow bank, writing the whole thing off to a dream. Sitting back down in his comfortable chair, he pulled the blanket up to his shoulders. As he was dozing off a sharp knock on the back door startled him. He heard the door open and, "Thank ye, good man, may God bless ye, he sure as hell has forgotten the likes of us this Christmas."
Throwing off the blanket, Simon leaped up and ran to the back door, the tree was gone; there were his footprints and another set leading towards the mountains.
This must have been the tenth time he had let this remembrance run through his mind. He was now in a section of road where there were no houses and he cast his eyes to the heavens searching. Before his mom died she'd pointed up at the night sky and told him, "I'll be looking down on you, so don't get yourself in trouble. When you look at the stars on a clear night one of them will be me." He didn't think much about this because she'd always been weird, but he let his eyes hunt the winking stars.
Suddenly he smelt apples again. He then remembered his mother telling him how his grandfather couldn't eat apples, because it reminded him of the smell of gas in World War I. Looking towards the mountain he saw a penumbra surrounding the Mohonk Tower. There were flashes coming from the far side of the mountain like heat lighting in the clouds or heavy artillery blasts. He lifted the ear flap of his hat and thought he heard distant rumbling.
He thought being in the cold would clear his confusion, but it was growing worse. Something inside him knew that his mom was watching. He remembered one cold winter when she told him, "When it gets really bitter cold strange things can happen with how we experience time." Looking straight into his eyes, she said, "You've heard how the sounds of whales travel a single layer of molecules in the ocean water and can be heard hundreds of miles away. Something like that can happen when it gets really cold. Eskimos know about this, when it gets down to a certain temperature they can tell when something important is happening to a family member miles away." He remembered making a joke and saying, "Yeah they make a cell phone call."
She smirked and said, "That's not what I'm talking about. Why don't you open to what's right in front of you? There is so much more for you to know only if you would allow it. Stop trying to fix everything and just be. Another thing you should know is that time can become so condensed from the cold that the past and present can become frozen together. History and present day get pressed so close they blend into one another."
"Right Ma, you mean after you die if it's really cold, I might get a chance to see you again?" He was trying to make another joke, but suddenly felt bad that he'd mentioned her dying."
"Maybe," She'd whispered.
Simon wondered if that was what was happening now. Was the apple smell from deadly gas lingering on the soldier clothes? Was history and present forced together by the chilling temperatures? Should he be paying more attention to the fact that his country was fighting in two wars right now, and that men and women were going to spend tomorrow's Christmas day like the soldier who'd stood in his living room?
Looking back at his footprints he knew it was time to turn back towards home. Warm in his jacket, he now understood all that his mother had wanted him to.
