Story of Pebble Pusher Road

[Steve]

Yellow dust fainted on the tips of my shoes after a long journey clouding my shins. The dirty mist continued and seemed to grow with every step. The ground was dry, the air was dry, and the path was stiff and puckered. There were cracks with no origin spreading like an old farmer’s hand.
i stared at the ground as i walked farther. On occasion i looked up at the sky and paused for a second to see if the storm had begun anywhere. There were stories of them; tales that they were beautiful and stunning like nothing on earth. An old man in town used to drink too much at the tavern and begin telling everyone, or, those that chose to listen, how there were many storms back when he was a boy. How the sky looked, at times in his recollections, was like an easter egg; speckled and swirled with colour. Other stories he told were about the bruises that came from sitting in them for too long. He would wield his fists through the air and punch his thigh or knock his skull to show how he was clobbered.
i continued down the road, my eyes darting left and right, my head jerking up then over one shoulder; shuffling through the thick yellow clouds that began to hide my shoes.
It was a long gorgeous road that separated the woods into two, making the pathway shaded on either side. People had begun clearing little patches years ago, many of them created in need of a quaint place for a picnic, or, to sit un-interrupted by other travelers. Every now and again there would be a small clearing and this time of the year assured wild flowers were blooming in most of them. i had been to a great number of those clearings, sleeping; reading; eating and on occasion the common female companion, but there was one in particular i headed towards; a certain spot that had a large rock in the center.
It lacked any sentimental history. No fond memory of laying in wet lust with a woman’s breast resting against me; it was only in the feeling that this place was a cemetery of sorts that was the intrigue. This eerie sentiment wasn’t just part of my endlessly dismal perception, others wouldn’t settle there for long. They opt to walk farther until an appealing nothingness suits them. There was an X on the backside of the rock that seemed to mark something greater than i had ever felt and this purity, this inferiority to the X, soothed me like a steady hum from a comfortable woman. But even here the flowers would be in bloom.
There was quite a bit of road between the grassy porch and i. My feet caught wind and grew wings to glide upon this new thought. The increase in speed coincided with a song i had stuck in my head and i found myself bopping on the down-beats; no doubt looking foolish. My eyes were either searching the ground or the sky; the ground being mostly so i didn’t fall and the sky for curiosity. The sun was fierce, bright round and angry, and it didn’t appear as though it was going to let some storm come and settle. The sky was his and he was aware of the few hours he still had control.
I dropped my eyes knowing that the ground was still mal-nurtured and powdered beneath every step. Ahead of me i saw where the grass began its infestation of the sickly skin in patches of green rashes, and decided to break for the better part of a minute.
Laying there i felt the cool breeze casually drying the wetness on my chest and legs; the fingers of the grass falling against my neck in a slow tide. Above the clutter of red; yellow; blue and purple flowering clouds an ancient maple hung a hand over the sun and made the entire sky look like the flesh of a fresh split plum.
i must have dozed off; the sun was inches from seeming like an orange rolling towards the edge of a table. i rose and brushed my arse quickly then made my way back onto the road. i stared at the hill that i still had to climb (the nook was on the opposite side’s top) and decided that there wasn’t enough time. i stood for awhile looking around in all compass points and let my eyes fall to the ground. Imbedded into the talcum-dirt was a stone; i dug my fingers and pried it free. It was smooth and lumped like the outside of a squash. There was coldness from it; i placed it against my cheek and all over goose-bumps awoke full and plump from the chill that had passed through me. i placed it in my pants pocket and felt its frigidness rub my thighs. Goose-pimples rose like hard nipples to brush against my clothing. The second chill was worse than the first mainly because of being cold to start off and the bumps felt like shattered glass passed through them: like sprinkles through a straw.
The sun was slowly melting into the horizon; its thick mass being diluted into the black line that grows into night and shrinks into a hair-line crack at dawn that we once believed to be the edge of earth. There was sudden thunder that echoed in the woods behind me like the entire forest fell simultaneously. The sky was still cloudless and the sun was nearly swallowed. Another clap of thunder sent me sprinting back to the protection of the great maple.
The thunder had grown into the monstrous rumbles that sounded as though mother earth had an unsettled stomach. There wasn’t much time between the bangs and the lightening began to stretch a crossed the sky. i sat cross-legged beneath the tree watching for lightening to strike when a stomp silenced the world. It grew humid like i was locked inside a mason-jar, and the damp grass blended sweetly with the moisture of my body; making the atmosphere more comfortable.
From my seat i watched the stratosphere swirl into the reds; purples; blues and oranges of a pyromaniac’s deep sleep and be severed by the edge of lightening. Within the sky, the belly of clouds, electric buzzed and illuminated a portion of the night, which was paler than the rest.
It wasn’t long before i felt what seemed like a small gelatin mold strike my back. i hurriedly turned to the sky; waited or the electric to be switched on so i could see what was falling around me. A claw tore through the evening and i saw the rainbows of refracted light in large nectarine-sized droplets. A golden-white pitchfork was hurled and i saw fists glimmer darkly. The light of the strike reflected other slick dark liquid falling.
What felt like an egg cracked against my scalp and proceeded to make a molasses-paced trip down my brow, where it stopped. i felt the consistency harden, like the way wax cools, and i raised my hand feeling my forehead. It was sticky and had a skin that tore when my fingers tried to peel it away. New wetness emerged then dried. Soon my clothing was weighed down with puddles of the substance and i felt my arms become stiff.
Lightening struck. i looked at myself in the damp light and saw patches of opal and hematite; spots where the two had mixed that were the grey of an old tabby-cat, molded to my body. In the darkness i doubted the sight and began to watch the sky again, my eyes had adjusted to picking out the opal coloured shapes. Some seemed to float as a fisherman’s lure in a murky lake. Another lightening bolt, accompanied by a grossly violent thunder, flashed an image of my body dotted like a Dalmatian.
The sight excited me and i jumped to my feet like a decompressed spring. The extra-weight never crossed my mind as my legs sprinted back to town. A few times my knees grew weak as i peered over my shoulder at the frantic dance of electric.
My pace must have slowed, or my mind finally focused on a thought other than distancing myself from the outside, i noticed that nothing was falling from the night. i looked backwards and saw the circle of pale-energy, similar to a red-light in a smoky room, and heard the thunder only as sleepy-slippered-feet falling slowly down the steps of a staircase.
It was a cool night, typical of mid-September, and there was a breeze that stole my body heat as it dried my perspired forehead. The shirt, no, the entire wardrobe felt more like an Eddie Murphy-80`s vinyl jump-suit than the loose jeans and button-up i wore. A portion of the road where the trees strangely bent away from travelers allowed a floodgate of moonlight to cascade onto the road. In the brightness i saw the cracked and flaking scales and imagined the silhouette of a man scaling fish into the moonlight. The sleeves of my shirt bent only at the intersection where mobility is needed, and the trousers did the same.
i stepped beyond the moon and came to one of the eight paved streets in town and crossed at the corner beside the tavern; half expecting the old man to be there. Somehow it didn’t seem right, the old man passing at the start of that summer; it felt like a cruel joke played on an innocent person. i stopped and bought a beer; drank it anxiously beneath the street sign. With the last bit i sighed in satisfaction. The old man told me one day, at that metal sign (which he called a flag), that i would know what he spoke and understand the beauty. It took forty-two years, but i finally understand why it’s Pebble Pusher Road.