Author: SDQ

Author's Notes: Spring. Um, what else is there to tell?

Rating: PG. Nothing too gruesome here.

The Four Seasons

I once was a very small boy, growing up in a little town, friends with my skates and the woods. I went adventuring with Jake, my childhood best friend, all that I could. I vowed that one day I would go camping in every season with my best friend in the world.

I did.

SPRING

Hey, he says, turning to me after a game in which we have lost to Vancouver, 4-2.

Hey, I say back.

What are you doing this weekend? We don’t practice Saturday or Sunday.

Yeah, I know.

What do you say we go camping? I know a great place upstate, couple three hours north of here. Hike-in, hike-out. I think we should spend our weekend up there, he says, unlacing skate, removing pads.

I nod. Sounds like fun. All my dreams and fantasy of going camping are flying back into my head with all the grace and speed of birds.

He grins back.

Friday we finish our late practice and I go with him back to his car, holding his hand when we’re in between cars and no one can see us. Cool breeze floats through the parking lot, out of place, smelling of clean dirt, cool fresh grass.

We loft the bags into the back of his car, already populated by a tent and backpacks.

What time is it?

Around quarter to four. We’ll get there in plenty of time to set up, I know it.

The tone in his voice makes me wonder if he’s done it before. And with whom. And why.

The highway flips by in flash after flash of bright highway sign and lamppost. I lean my head back into the corner of the headrest, turn and look at him, tapping the steering wheel with his fingers. I do love him. Don’t I? How can I not?

It’s pretty up there, he says. Especially in spring. Ground thaws so it’s easier to set up tents. You’re not averse to walking, are you?

I’d rather skate.

You play hockey. It’s only natural. It’s a good fifty-minute hike from where we’ll leave the car.

I can walk, okay? I camped a lot when I was a kid. I’m not some city slicker, you know.

I don’t think I mean to be testy to him. I don’t think I want to be. I make myself want to cry but can’t, because I’m a hockey player, and a man, and it’s spring. I roll down the window and the air blasts my face, sending any tears in my eyes to go bouncing down the road, sliding into oblivion on the sharp pavement.

What, are you hot?

Naw, a little worn out from practice.

He leans and turns on the radio, spinning the knob over and over. We’ve left the reach of the city’s radio station so he just twirls and twirls the dial, looking for something.

A ‘lite’ station playing Sheryl Crow. A hard rock station playing Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven. I know because I hear a few words of the chorus. He twirls it again and this time I hear a classical station playing something I can’t identify with lots of strings. Some weird song that I’ve never heard before.

I doze off.

Hours, or maybe only minutes later, I hear the engine cut off. Jerk awake, look up to surrounded by green.

Man, how long was I asleep?

Hour, maybe two.

Good job of paying attention to the clock you did.

You know how it is with driving.

I do know what he’s talking about.

He claps the tent on his own back and commissions me to carry the food and other sundry items, which I do. Brief stop in the ranger’s office to pay the appropriate fees and tell them we’re not going to set up a home there and such. The ranger, in his neat brown hat with the dents on the side, directs us down the proper path, which has clearly not been in use for quite a while. It’s covered in brambles and grass grows up down the center, delicate blades pushing up through the wet earth.

We walk for endless miles, it seems, when in reality it’s only about four.

Here, he says. Throw down the stuff and we’ll set up the tent.

I do so. He unfolds a tarp and lays it onto the damp ground, then tosses me a bag of poles.

How big’s this tent? I ask. Three or four seasons?

It’s a MSR Fusion, he says. Two-person, four seasons. It’ll get us through anything.

I nod quickly. The metal poles bang together on the ground as I drop two, and I look up, ashamed. I didn’t mean to drop them. Too late, I pick them up and continue assembling rods.

Sorry.

They’re tough.

But I can hear him sighing to himself under the wind rustling over and through the budding leaves and whipping branches.

I really didn’t mean to do it.

We finish setting up as the sun begins to sink.

How about dinner?

Spam for tonight, I think. The only other stuff we have is dehydrated.

I don’t like dehydrated.

Me neither.

Why’d we bring it, then?

Not sure, it’s quick, easy, light. Kind of like you, I guess.

I am not!

I knock him off his rock with a shove, and he starts laughing. I feel almost perfect if it weren’t for dropping the tent poles earlier. I didn’t mean to.

He moves for the can and opener while I rummage through a sack and yank out the skillet. Minutes later, he drops slices onto it and they sizzle happily, sending little pops into the air. The smell of cooking meat rises in steam and is carried away with the breeze, now cold.

Here.

I take the plate with its steaming slices and set it onto my lap, being careful not to dump it off and into the dirt.

We eat in silence and I think about the only other people we’ve seen yet in the woods.

They were hiking past on the trail and laughing eagerly, the sound bounced off trees and hills. The girl was pretty—astonishingly pretty, tall, all legs and arms and heavy backpack. Her companion, shorter than her, but he was stockier, carrying the tent and brown hair flopping into his face.

How happy they looked, shrieking with laughter and poking each other, half-hiking half-running to their destination, but journeying half the fun. I almost ran after them because I wanted to have fun again.

I looked back at my own companion and wondered slowly.

I went into the tent and lay down, staring at the beige roof of the tent and watching the flames cheerfully crackling outside. I could hear frogs singing in the myriad choruses that they know and are born knowing, and wonder why humans can’t spend their lives in ease and repose in a pond. Pain and heartbreak and hatred and catastrophe of the soul, that is the lot dealt to us. Vaguely, I remember a verse about humans being the creatures that know and know too much, but it escapes me, floating off with my thoughts, fleeting as air itself.

Later he douses the fire with a bucket of sand and comes into the tent.

Cold? he asks.

No, not especially.

He kisses me and I don’t notice until after the fact.

He makes love to me and I hardly notice, and then I hate myself for it. Who am I? Is this me? Is this, sleeping next to me, my best friend?

Almost instinctively I turn onto my side and try to sleep.

I wake before him in the morning and creep outside, although it’s bitterly cold for someone who just spent nine hours in a down sleeping bag. I can almost see music in the air, as beautiful as the setting is.

I scrape up breakfast from the sack. Dress. Wash up. Finally he wakes up.

Good morning!

Morning, I answer, melancholy.

What’s eating you? Didn’t sleep well?

I slept fine.

Long pause.

Want to hike down to the lake today? It’ll be cold, but it’s awfully pretty. Then we’ll break camp and get home.

Sounds excellent.

We do hike down to the lake, a sparkling blue jewel set down on the hills, and he is right, the water is cold. Nonetheless, we run into it, laughing and splashing like little boys, then crawling back out to bask in the sun once we’re blue with cold.

The couple I noticed yesterday come running along the beach, perfectly in step with one another, lofting a canoe above their heads. The girl’s white-blonde curls are tied back in a ponytail and they bounce against her shoulders happily. The man turns to us, frees a hand and waves.

Nice day, say not?

Excellent day, we shout back. Lake’s a little cold, though. Hope you don’t fall in!

They laugh. Sure is!

Have fun canoeing!

We certainly will!

I honestly hope they do have fun. Half-heartedly I hope for my own fun and know instantaneously that it won’t materialize.

We hike back on a different route, passing trees that have just been uprooted, leaving gaping holes in the soil. Their roots stay in a tangled web, dirt clinging to them and bugs wandering through them. We cross a muddy stream clogged with leaves and other debris, although it’s rushing from the melting snow on higher elevations. He hops onto a stone, then another stone, then onto a branch and onto the opposite shore. I follow his lead, a little less steadily, and hike the rest of the way home in a state of dozy reverie.

I sleep almost the entire way home.

Hey, he says, parking in my driveway, narrowly missing my mailbox. Did you have fun? I love it up there.

I had fun, I reply automatically. What I mean is that you had fun, I watched and looked at the scenery. I pick up my bags out of his car, kiss him, and haul my weary self into my own house.

Shower and fall asleep, the house still dark. I see no need for the lights because I feel as dark as the house.

That is spring. My soul incongruous with the surroundings.