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THE APOCRYFAN
(The Epifany of the Augusthog)
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Prologue
The Summer Visitor
I called myself the Summer Visitor but, if the truth were known, when I first arrived, Bonnyville was in its last ditch attempts to salvage its Summer season during an Autumn that, admittedly, was quite reasonably unseasonable. I think they called these periods Indian Summers in those days. This particular Indian Summer had extended itself beyond all conscience towards November.
Many of the rides and sideshows on the pier were already being boarded up by hairy men who had now apparently become less customer-orientated, especially in their use of language. As I proceeded further along the promenade, I saw some parked dinghies and yachts, their rigging-ropes loudly snapping in the sea-breeze against the masts with a rhythm that matched my stride. I then saw a middle-aged man throw some crumbs from his bag on to the beach and a swarm of gulls wheeled above waiting for both of us to reach a distance: a shorter and shorter distance as they grew more frantic and foolhardy. It was a wild scribble of wings in the lower sky that was almost frightening. But I was strangely aware their noise was rather muted, in contrast to the tangled configurations of pounce and dive.
I decided to walk further along the coast, away from the seasonal attractions towards a more residential area. Simultaneously, the sun was greyed over by mist, making it a dull gold coin above the sea’s horizon. It reminded me of the true end-of-season gloom that such resorts as Bonnyville would normally boast at this time of the year. I watched a portly lady get out of a car and waddle in evident pain with her large hips swinging slowly from side to side as she crossed through a bungalow’s garden towards its door with a heavy Tesco bag in each hand.
I decided to return to the more touristy end of town, determined to become the Summer Visitor I knew myself, at heart, to be. Just because I was late did not change the nature of my identity.
*
As I returned towards the pier, I found a small group (locals not visitors) around a makeshift fresh wet fish stall on the lower promenade. The floppy and the slimy all thrown together on a couple of trestle-tables leant against by crudely chalked backboards indicating prices.
Nearby, despite the lateness of the season and the disappearance of most children schoolward, there was the playful blue train that travelled the lower promenade giving pointless return journeys. Today, it had one paying passenger on board (the middle-aged man of the bird-crumbs) as it started its outward trip. No doubt, a few weeks ago, there had been active queues for such a jaunt.
It was probably its last journey of the season.
I waved to the young woman behind the steering-wheel. She looked odd in the undersized train-cab, one that travelled on tyred wheels like a car… pulling the carriages behind it, between a line of beach huts and the beach. She waved back. As did the passenger. As if we had been fast friends for years.
I hopped on – as an impulse – towards the back.
*
As the ‘train’ trundled in the direction from which I had just returned, I thought back over the many regular years I had been the Summer Visitor. In the early days, I had been accompanied by my late husband. We had been an inseparable couple: a pair of Summer Visitors, now down to just one. A couple of Bonnyville trippers. Now, as I say, just one. Perhaps two in spirit.
The ‘train’ was only due to travel two miles along the lower promenade, before turning upon a concrete ‘winding-hole’ where one could alight at a seasonal café or just go back again straightaway! For most of the journey, the sea was hidden from view by a high concrete barrier. The sea’s own ‘fire-wall’ in the modern parlance, except I imagined it easily breachable, given the thrust of nature. The journey reminded me of life itself.
Thinking of my husband again, I remembered how his very companionship had seemingly thwarted all dangers. Lying in bed awake, with him snoring beside me, I knew I was safe. But, even then, at the back of my mind, I’m sure I knew if there was a cataclysmic storm or nuclear attack or whatever, I’d be no more safe under the covers of that psychologically protective bed within his arms, than I would anywhere else or with anyone else. However, even that thought became as pointless as this ‘train’ journey, for we are all passengers on this planet, our togetherness being no protection against premature or sudden death. No protection, indeed, against natural death.
As I watched the backs of the heads of the driver and the bird-crumb man from my perch in the last carriage, I was disturbed by their air of innocence; their apparent inability to forget the happiness of the moment … too entrenched in or entranced by their escapism of activity. Shaking off such observations, I wondered if I’d be forced to buy a ticket for the journey, having hopped on at the last moment. It was very cheap to buy a ticket, bearing in mind the basic nature of the short featureless journey. But I had a sudden rush of daredevilry when I prepared to hop off again just as quickly, just as gratuitously, so to speak.
A huge low shape passed abruptly overhead towards the sea, sensed as only missing my head by a few feet. Its shadow quickly spread like disease around us, but vanished just as quickly. You would have expected screaming jet engines. But the thing silently met the waves creating a fountain fit for the major attraction in a magnificent modern city. I had not seen whatever it was full on. Only the results. And it was then that real screaming did ensue, if belatedly. Making me forget what I had not seen.
*
I was too old to be the Summer Visitor, they said. Too wrinkled, too old-fashioned, and (not to put too fine a point on it) ‘past it’. More likely, however, the season itself had suddenly changed at the very point of my regular visit that year, causing me to vanish from view in actual transit. It is a commonly unknown fact that the Summer Visitor cannot exist when Summer has ended. Bonnyville was now ready – an empty slate – for a tale of off-season romance and of things I would never know about. The state of the weather was neither here nor there. It was just the turning-point of the seasons that counted.
The train swung slowly round its turning-point. The bird-crumb man got off to have a coffee at the café.
*
Two Tesco bags sat on the kitchen table, their contents either crackling or melting. The lady who had carried them in was slumped against the fridge. Slipped there like a plump wet fish. Luckily her size had broken the fall. Tears were in her eyes. A deep noise vibrated the floor for a few seconds. A common experience in Bonnyville, as the Government regularly tested heavy-duty explosives at an army site not far away on the nearest coast just beyond the sea’s horizon. Nobody local noticed such sounds any more. Only visitors.
The sound of snapping from upstairs kept to its tight rhythm. That was her husband practising. She called to him to help get her up.
*
The bird-crumb man finished his coffee. There were not many visitors today. All the Summer ones had long since returned to their homes. He was probably the only visitor to Bonnyville today. That was because he was the Winter Visitor. Proud of it, too. Not many were given the calling over the years. He noticed a shape slumped on a nearby beach, topped by a querulous gull. The ‘train’ was on its return journey by now and the café staff at the back preparing to shut up shop, perhaps forever. The bird-crumb man got up, sat down again, fingered his mobile, then decided to investigate. His mind was a scribble of wings.
*
Nobody missed the Summer Visitor. It had been a bad Summer, when push came to shove. Rained off most of the time, even on Air Show day … that day of otherwise so many potential visitors.
Bonnyvilleans went about their Winter business, deaf to the sound of the odd paramedic siren. Deaf , too, to the rhythm of their own footsteps. Blind to the pier. Blind even to the sea itself. Nobody noticed anything. They did not even watch for traffic, when they crossed the road.
The last train from Bonnyville Terminus hooted mournfully into the encroaching night. A real train on real tracks. Nobody left, because nobody had come.
CONTINUED HERE:
http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_apocryfan_2.htm
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