excerpt
darkness and silence, currents of air on his skin, the scent of the
apples surrounding him. I am floating in space. I am with my
mother, in her arms. I am safe inside her, waiting to be born, fearing
to be born, wanting to be born. The perfume drifting down
from his apple trees became the fragrance of his mother, the breeze
the dark swirl of her hair falling around him. Without my silence I
could not hear her laughter. He saw her laugh, felt her laugh, heard
her laugh, listened to her laughter echo down the years.
When he opened his eyes, the moon was clear of the ridge and
yellowing. The smoke of a cooking fire spiraled near the tracks and
Poodie wondered if anyone he knew was among the hobos in the
jungle. As he fell asleep, the moonlight etched the pattern of the
window across the foot of his bed.
He awakened hours later to a shuddering of the earth. In the
dimness, he saw a dish fall from the table to the floor, land on edge,
roll to the wall, stand against it for a second, fall flat and shatter.
He pulled the covers over his head and readied himself for another
shock. It did not come. He lay still for a minute, then eased his way
out of bed and across the floor. He opened the door slowly. Just
beyond the hobo jungle, he saw a red glow, and smoke. He pulled
on his clothes, went outside, grabbed his wagon and headed along
the path toward the tracks. It was as bright a moonlit night as that
one so long ago when the three men dragged him out of his cabin
and beat him. A hundred yards south of the jungle, a locomotive
was on its side, cars twisted off the track behind it, the one nearest
the engine capsized and on fire.
Poodie left the wagon and hurried down the tracks. Liquid from
the burning tank car flowed off the grade in molten rivulets, igniting
the brush between the Gellardy orchard and the tracks. He
caught sight of a big man clambering up the side of the overturned
locomotive. Twenty feet from the wreck, he walked into a wall of
heat. When he reached the engine, he looked up to see the man
gesturing to him to climb into the cab. He was saying something,
but Poodie could not make out what it was. The man grimaced,
waving him forward, and in the light of the flames Poodie saw…
Hellenic Canadian Literature 