Thom's First

Hello All,

Together again at last. I have to say that I was thrilled to be invited to start reading your work on the blog. You guys have some fantastic stuff here.

My turn.

I've deliberated a bit about what to post first, and due to the incomplete nature of my current project, I've decided to start with a piece written about a year ago. I'm sorry for it's length, but rest assured that future posts will be much shorter.

That being said, I hope you enjoy this very simple introduction into the fiction of Thom Gulino.

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To Walk by the Sea
by Thom Gulino

Ronald, your feet are very heavy, said the voice. The half-slumbering man heard a bell toll through the morning fog and rolled over under his sheets.
Ronald, you are weighed down to the earth. Your feet are so heavy. His eyes opened abruptly. Yes, there really had been a voice. At first he had thought it to be the mere illusion of dream. But now he was quite certain that someone had spoken. The whispers had been quiet and cold, without any pretense of emotion. He clutched his blanket tightly for a moment, then chuckled. What nonsense was this? He was acting like a child—afraid of the whispers of ghosts or goblins. These were not things for a man of his advanced years to bother about. He put the silly words from his head, noting that his feet did not feel heavy at all. They were fantastic, in fact, what with his daily walks along the coast and all. He grinned and rolled back over, having no reason to rise on an early Sunday.

It was nearly ten o’clock by the time he rose to make himself breakfast. Eggs and toast was always the order for a Sunday morning, and he ate it over the daily paper. He ruffled slightly moist pages, the headlines trying painfully to arrest his attention. Modifications to national taxes, the prime minister making an important address to parliament, and the scandalous news on rich actresses and their equally-wealthy counterparts. He did not really have to read the articles, he thought, to know just what they said
He abandoned the paper and looked outside, noting the fog, come newly off the February sea. It was often like that around this time—a sort of lonely limbo between seasons. Wet and misty, vision veiling and smell obscuring: he liked it all, strangely enough, finding it adventurous to walk outside in such mysterious weather. He would perhaps make an extra long walk today.
It was already noon by the time Ronald prepared for his stroll. The fog had only thickened, and he donned a cap and overcoat, taking his cherry wood cane from beside the hearth. He had readied the fire a little after breakfast, so it would not be difficult to get a warm blaze going when he returned. It was all part of the routine; he’d come back, hang up his coat, lay his cane by the wall and sit down in his high-backed chair, tea in hand and fire at foot. It was invariable. That little section by the hearth, he mused, might just be the most well used part of the small beach cottage.

The air out of doors was not quite as cold as he had expected and he began at a brisk pace, feeling with his cane for the familiar rocks and humps on the ground. With this fog, even his well-trained memory faltered in recalling an image of the land ahead. The water, he knew, was only a hundred meters or so to his left—he could hear the slow tide—and up to the right was a small cops of conifer where some costal birds nested. The land rose up steeply away from the shore, but along the water’s edge it was flat. It was in that direction that he headed, sniffing the grey air.
“I’ve taken this walk not a few times,” Ronald said to himself. “And has it ever changed? No, but it has not yet grown old. And that is the only thing that has not grown stale. All else is so weary: the small restaurants don’t serve any new food, and the shows at the cinema are always the same. But this tradition is still young. How would I keep my wits without this one path to tread? ”
With a start, he became aware that he was talking to himself and quickened his pace to occupy his mind. Nevertheless, his thoughts stubbornly wandered again and he began to recall how he had first begun taking the walks. It had been an especially tough day at work, he remembered; his supervisor had given him hell for missing several embarrassing mistypes in the textbook he had been proofing. He had compensated by slowing his reading pace, and proceeded to fall drastically behind on his schedule. Returning home that day, he had rather felt like thrusting his teapot through the back window. Instead, he let the teapot be and headed outside and down the shore. That was the first time he had ever noticed the scenic beauty of the place. There was never anyone out there, and past the coastal surf, he could glimpse a horizon veiled in mystery.
A crow squawked nearby, breaking him out of his reminiscence. He did not mind the interruption, though—he had patience for animals. They never meant to bother you he thought; never hollered at you for mistakes at work or elbowed you for brushing against them in the crowed rail stations.
Animals would listen to you as well, a skill that humans had not yet quite mastered. He suddenly wondered why he did not have a pet. The thought had not occurred to him before, but it might be nice, having someone at home to return to, someone who would not start making demands as he entered the door. A lab perhaps, for cats were a bit too independent. It took him only moments to resolve to stop by a pet shop on the next business day.
That decided, he began to wish that he could see out past the fog. He was passing over a shallow scoop in the land and began to make his way closer to the shore. The waves were steady, though the fog still subdued their sound.
Some gulls were floating on the surf, not deterred by the chilly spray. “Hey you out there,” Ronald called to the gulls. “How is the water? I’d rather like to test it out for myself.” They of course did not answer, and he thought of how strange it was that he should try to speak to gulls.
It was then that the memory of the voice returned, suddenly and without prompt. He shivered at this inexplicable recollection and clenched his left hand. He had decided that the voice was a nonsensical figment of sleep, but now the memory of the words jarred him. You are weighed down to the earth, they had said. “No,” he quickly muttered, and shook his head twice.
Ronald tried hastily to calm his nerves and remonstrated himself again for acting like a child. He did not know why the memory of the dream voice had upset his mind so. A grown man should be free of imagined anxieties. Perhaps exploring around the bend of the next land rise would occupy his mind. He could not quite remember ever having gone around there.
Reaching the bend, he passed a giant moss clad rock and looked up to see the steep rise of a dune. Straight before him, as he stepped onward, was more beach, all mist-shrouded. He indeed could not recall having been this far, though he liked the feel of the land: he had the distinct sense of stepping out of his little English homeland into some uncharted place.
“Well if this isn’t quite the adventure,” he said, and then stopped abruptly. Just as his words had fallen into the mist he had heard the faint clink of metal and the sound of deliberate movement through the water. “Who’s there?” He peered on into the chill air, mindful of his cane moving over the stones. The metallic clink came again, then repeated in time with the tide. The sound of thrusting through water followed again and Ronald thought he could glimpse a faint light by the shore. “Who’s there? Who’s there I say?”
“I am here,” said a voice. Ronald was taken aback. He had not actually been sure there really was someone ahead.
“Who are you?” Ronald asked, failing to harden his own voice. As he awaited an answer, the dim form of a boat materialized out of the mist. It was a very simple vessel, though beautiful in a way. It was grey, with light carvings all over its curved bow. A lantern hung there, its chain clinking with the tide. “I am a friend of the sea,” the stranger replied at last. “I am a mariner.” Ronald could see the speaker clearly now; he was standing at the fore of the vessel, a grey oar in hand. He was dressed in a long, slate-colored cloak, and, though his hood was raised and the fog still lingered between them, Ronald noticed two bright eyes. He was very tall and his voice, though that of a mature man, was smooth—almost youthful.
“I am sorry to have shouted.” Ronald said. “But I have not been out this far before and the fog made me timid.”
“There is no need to apologize.” The stranger returned. “And you need not be timid out here. The land is peaceful in this place. If only that were true of the rest of the world.”
“Is the world not peaceful?” Ronald, of course, knew the answer to that. Were there not write-ups of the wars every day in the paper?
“No, there is little peace for people here. And there has not often been rest for me. My dreams are ever troubled.”
Ronald found the stranger’s talk of dreams and a lack of peace unwarranted and uncomfortable. He resorted to asking plain questions. “What brings you out rowing on such an overcast day?” he asked. “Isn’t this inconvenient weather for boating?”
“Not at all! In fact, I should think it would be a worse day for walking. However, as to why I am here, I am going on a long trip, away from this coast.”
“A long trip? In a boat like that? Do you have a sail, or can you row all the way to where you are going?”
The man smiled. “I have not far to go in this little boat. My ship is harbored nearby and that vessel is well able to make the voyage.”
“And exactly where are you going?” Ronald felt a sudden and keen interest in this person’s trip. The mysterious man was lucky, he thought, to be free to sail away.
“I will go westwards,” he said. “It will be a long trip, and adventurous. But it will be a sad voyage also.”
“Sad, how so? I should think you are very lucky to be off somewhere. I wish I could do the same—travel ‘westwards,’ or anyplace, for that matter. But I don’t think I will ever sail.”
The man looked suddenly puzzled, and his brow furrowed over his gleaming eyes. “You would not consider joining me then? You speak as if you are bound to stay here.”
Ronald stepped backwards. Join him? What was this sudden madness? Here was a total stranger, and he was speaking as if he expected this poor passerby to come along on a vague westerly voyage. But there was another sentiment aside from Ronald’s astonished discouragement. An ambiguous spark of hope seemed to take form in him; it had leaped up with the stranger’s invitation and now asserted itself as he made to speak.
“How can you ask me to join you?” he asked. He paused and looked at the ground, not understanding what he said next. “Of course I’d like to; I’d like to go with you, that is. I’ve always been restless here. Like you say, there really isn’t much peace in people. Everyone is so un-intimate, and everything is so very bland. It’s all stained for me. The stores and the shops…and all the rest. I can’t even describe it all. You know, I’ve just been thinking about those very things today as I walked. But to what better place in the world might you take me? Tell me again, where are you really going?”
Ronald, looking up after his short speech, cried out in sudden alarm. As his eyes had remained cast down, the boat had begun to float slowly away. It was now almost out of reach. Still, the stranger called to him in response to his last question.
“I am going to the Deathless Lands, friend. You may still come. There need be nothing to weigh you down here.”
And suddenly, with great terror, Ronald remembered the cold voice of his dream and knew its words to be true. “Oh stranger!” he called out, trying to wade forward into the water. “My feet are too heavy. Friend of the sea, I am weighed down, weighed down to the earth.” He kicked at the sand beneath him and called again, despairing. “Oh mariner, my feet are so heavy. I cannot come.” He ceased crying out, but repeated to himself the mortal phrases. The mariner did not speak to him again. He merely watched Ronald from those bright eyes and held out his hand in one final invitation. Ronald stumbled forward into the water and fell, floundering. He glimpsed the hand disappearing into the mist, along with the light and the faint clinking of the lantern.
Ronald sobbed silently, soaking in the water, unmindful of its February cold. He could not understand why he had not taken the invitation, for he had suddenly desired to leave this land with a passion he had never before known. But he was bound, it seemed, to wait in this middle place in an unchanging life.
He finally rose and made the walk back to his home, thinking of nothing on his way. It took a shorter time than he had expected and he soon arrived by the back door. He reached for the knob and entered into the kitchen. There was the hearth, with embers still glowing red. He looked at his armchair and sighed—he had forgotten his walking stick, for he had dropped it when he fell into the sea. By now it was probably being pulled out to the wide expanses, if it had not been beached on land. Perhaps, he hoped, it might make it to wherever the mariner was going.
He thought of sitting down in his chair, by the familiar hearth, ready to forget the strange occurrences of the day. After a moment of consideration, however, he walked instead to the window and stood for a long time thinking, dripping and chapped. He looked out on the sea with its white gulls calling overhead. The surf’s foam leaped up in rhythm, and the ebb of the tide remained as a steady metronome for some unheard music. The fog still lingered, though lightly now, thinning in places to give a glimpse of the far, grey merging of sky and sea. Ronald thought for a moment that he could make out a tiny, grey vessel sailing westwards. He wondered what lay there—beyond the shore, the waves and the horizon—in the West.