Tokata Fuga

UFO Mountain Trail Story

2017-04-23 by Marius Mikulėnas

One. Two. Three.

1,2,3 – “Stone”. I sit. Bench. In stone. “Cold As Stone”. Not he, my husband. Me. Stone. Me.

1,2,3 – “Paper”. My eyes had dried. So is my mind.

1,2,3 – “Scissors”. Cut. Thousand pieces. Apart. Let them fly. Around. Away from heart.

Traces in forest sand. My childhood. Still alive. Under the firs, pines and cedars of this valley. In its trails I can hear my feets, bumping the trunks by my stick. My laughs and my joys. No FBs, no Tweets, no “Google On”. Today I ask. Only me: “Are You Me?”.

I let the breeze catch my hairs and showel it around my face, to make me feel the dance of the green queen of this evening scenery. Pines, Firs and more Pines.

“Hilary! Elwyn!” – a thunder struck me off. A wide muscle man in the middle of rugged loggers. Waving hand. “Me?”

“Elwyn!” – the man shook his hand in the air: once, twice, on three he balled his fist. “H”? Is his smile growing wider?”. The man shook his hand again – one, two, three – he stopped his palm flat down. “I? H.I.? HI? Noway!”

-        Elwyn!

-        Nick? Riki?!

I don’t see the man. I see a slim 12 year older with the shine of his teeth from cheek to cheek. Snow white as the snowdrift on a fir, before it goes down under my worn collar. I see us going down the trail to the elementary school of “Mdm. Laurey”. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I see us biking, hiking, hiding, swinging, mushrooming and fishing. Saturday. I see us in the church. Sunday.

* * * * * * * *

He was back from the mountain woods at “Oregon”. His head full of cedar chips. It took 4 hours and 8 man to put a single cedar down. A day to celebrate. He joined his fellows for a glass of beer. He is still outside the “Old Otter” tavern, making prats about the last year’s contest of loggers, about the League, about the coming contest in Luisville. They should make a team and go for the prize. Aren’t they the smartest loggers in the “Devil’s Staircase Wilderness”?

“Who is that?” he saw a young woman in violet T-shirts and white jeans sitting on a white stone bench by the far end of conifers’ terrace. Fresh flesh. Full Blood. “What is she doing?”. A woman shook her hand and balled her fist. “Strange”. A women shook her hand again. Fingers straight, palm down. She turned her face to him. “Elwyn?!”. The woman shook her hand and moved two fingers apart mimicking scissors.

“HILARI. ELWYN.”

1,2,3 – he closed his eyes. He saw the same 11 year old Elwyn, the daughter from hippy Hilaries’ family who used to grow weed in their small garden. Long before the smoking had been legalized by the State. Before some of the local bed & breakfast tapped into the lucrative niche of marihuana trail tourism.

1,2,3 – he opened his eyes. He saw them going to “Mdm. Laurey” elementary, then into “Laurey” middle grade.

1,2,3 – he saw her watching him from the backseat of their old rusty Dodge Caravan, leaving him on the blue Trophy 250 bike behind the cloud of dry road dust. Nebraska. He never heard from her again.

Hilari! Elwyn! – He caught her gaze. He raised his hand to shake three times. He hoped the surrounding mountains will echo his will to meet her: ELWYN!

* * * * * * * *

The sound of rough pebble stones crushing into each other beneath the rubber tires of Jeep coming for a beer&snack @OldOtter Inn. A dozen of loud voices. Hungry for Adventures in the “Devil’s Staircase Wilderness”. Some of them witnessed a young man and a woman sitting on a bench at far end of terrace. They couldn’t see two fountains of hidden joy suddenly erupted and overflowing the heart of that old stone they sit on.

-        Hi, Riki! Hi, Elwyn! What a surprise! – A sudden shadow with long white hairs woven into a hundreds of braids with colorful beads lumped his ass into between them.

-        G.A.R.R.Y ? - Elwyn said.

-        Asshole! – Riki said and gave more space to him. “Grrr.” Riki’s old school memories are back.

-        What’s Up? Are you together up for a search of the fallen UFO? Same as all of us here, too?

-        WHAT? – Elwyn opened her brownish eyes wide. The deep blue sky reflected from her eyes as the ocean surrounding two lonely islands. – What you talk about, Garry?!

-        Bullshit. – Riki was faster. – See those fleet of Jeeps, BMWs and other off-road metal garbage? They had caught the virus – the message over FB how the UFO crashes upon the slope near Devil’s Staircase Trail…

-        … It is not a bigger Bullshit than to find you, Riki, working as a lumber jack. What happened to your drive for astrophysics?

-        Shut up, Garry. The guy who uploaded the video claimed he has retrieved the file from the digital camera he found in the abandoned Lincoln some 3 miles from here. Do you believe that? See how steep road is coming here? Can you imagine limousine driving here?

-        Actually, once I had been planning the wedding on the plateau in Great Smokies at Appalaches. The Bride demanded a 24-seats limo to drive her right to the podium of white doves. That was rough. But I did it.

-        The white doves or the Podium? – Garry asked. Face white as birch.

-        Alone? – Riki stopped shriveling.

-        Yes. I had organized. Everything. Including the log cutting service to make the last 200 meters through the forest.

-        Now, Riki, do you believe UFO could crash here? – Garry lit his smile. The scarf on the left corner of the top lip lifted up. - Are you Up for Ufo Hunt?

One, two, three. Fist in Ball. Paper over. Scissors. Cut.