Still

Fiction

Growing up in the city there were always people around.

The rare vacations we took were to amusement parks where there were even more people.

Got a union job for my 18th birthday. My dad gave me a cigar when I got my first paycheck. Puked in a trashbin. 

I remember all the people laughing.

Twenty four years and the plant shut down, moved all the jobs to Mexico.

I was mad, bitter, I guess you’d call it, wanted to go the opposite way.

Went to Canada, up through Ontario, over to Manitoba. 

Met a guy who knew a guy who worked for a guy who had a cabin for rent.

Not shit to do up there but fish, lay around.

It was the first time I had ever been in that much solitude.

Started to go a little crazy, but I paid for the whole month and wasn’t about to leave.

Took a walk one day, not knowing where I was going. Just walked and walked, and waded through creeks and saw a bear and a moose, and not much else but trees I didn’t know the names of.

I saw a guy.

He was sitting by himself, his back to me.

I started to call out to him.