GUNFLINT TAVERN PENTHOUSE JOURNAL

 

GUNFLINT TAVERN PENTHOUSE JOURNAL

 

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022, 0653              

               Just got back. Must put this down.

               Last night, as so often happens I found myself awake. Dead of night. No hope of sleep’s return. Put on my clothing and went fort a walk. See what the village had to offer at that hour.                                Eventually I found myself at one of the points, breakwaters, so evident from these windows. I sat amid some stones there.

                It was cold. The moon having set at dusk the sky was incandescently clear. The village’s lights intruded upon the heavens in that direction. I turned my back on the village.    

                Ostensibly I was to view the galaxy but I, instead looked at the lake, uncharacteristically still, so placid, brooding.

                After an undetermined period my attention was drawn to a minute disturbance upon the waters. The author of same approaching. Steady, determined: Stroke-stroke-stroke-breath-repeat.

                These actions made were of such deliberate and seasoned manner that to witness same was fantastic. The surface barely trouble by the motion which were incisive, lacerating, spare.

                He emerged upon the rocks not more that 20 feet from where I sat.

                Naked, he assumed a crouching position. He was totally without hair, his skin so pale it was luminescent even in the faint light of the village. His head, a conical dome obviously sculpted by hydrodynamic forces. Nose pointed – he was all elbows, knuckles and knees.

                He stood, unsteady, stooped. He inserted a bony finger into an ear which was flattened against his skull – unusually so. He withdrew the finger and shook his head quickly – expelling something from within.

                He did not walk, but, rather, scampered across the rocks, like, well, if you could imagine a long thin spider. Finding a stone he could crouch against he kneeled, peering at the village lights across the bay. His attention rapt, he idly brought his long hand to his mouth. It was then I noticed he clutched a fish. Bringing it to his mouth he bit the head of it off and with a quick motion spat it aside. I caught a glimpse, a flash, of white spiked teeth in a row.

                He knelt and slowly consumed the fish while his attention was fixed upon the village.                              A truck lumbered up the hill departing town, its loud machinations reverberating across the harbor, the lights arcing away into the distance and over the brow.

He followed it acutely. Fascinated apparently. He tilted his head from side to side as if in wonder.

                 I think I recognized in him a feeling of separateness - of being apart – an insurmountable lonesomeness.

                 After a while like that he shook himself and turned. He made his way across the breakwater and inserted himself into the lake.

                 Again I heard the nearly surgical strokes and then one final inhalation followed by a slight riffle.

                 He dove.

                 I sat there inert.

                 It was quite light when I finally stood. I was aching, stiff, cold.

                Did I see what I saw? I wondered. I made my way, shakely, to where he had been. I looked down. There was the fish’s head, its eye staring up at me.

                Or at the sky.

                I left.

                When I had gained the mainland I turned to look back.

                A lone gull circled there.

                It dove.

                It foraged for a moment where we had been in the night. It took wing with something clutched in its beak.

                Flying off over the lake.

                Solitary.

                                                                                                                        -SMITTY, Duluth MN