After the Past

by Nick vanOuwerkerk

The office had a glassed-in porch and though it was the middle of January, the girl, all ten years of her, stood with her arms outstretched soaking in the sun. The warmth on her face and forearms made her think of the wood stove from home and how she used to stand in front of it until her skin was red. Her mother used to say she would melt away if she kept standing there but she did it anyway. Her whole body lit up now with the memory of home but she was completely still, eyes closed like a little black-haired Buddha. Beyond the windows of the porch, the snow stretched out flat and wide and unbroken and when she opened her eyes again she thought that maybe spring would tilt its way toward her a little early this year.

“Did you hear about the eclipse?” a voice said from the doorway behind her.

She didn’t move or respond. The warmth of the sun left her skin and she shivered.

“It’s going to be the first solar eclipse around here in five years.”

“Is it going to be total?” she asked, still facing the window.

“Partial I think. Seventy-nine percent covered.”

“Boring. When is it?”

“Today.” He looked at his watch. “Actually in about a half hour from now. Why don’t you come back inside and we can continue our chat? We’ll come back in here after and watch how dark it gets. It’s only partial but I think it will still get pretty dark.”

The girl turned toward him and stared at him intently for a moment. Her eyes were as light as her hair was black. They called her “Wolf” at school and she could never figure out if they were complimenting her or making fun of her. She told the man about the name and he said he was sure it was a compliment–wolves are strong and intelligent after all–and she tried to believe him. His hulking frame with its perfectly tailored three piece suit and thick-rimmed eyeglasses scared her less than it did on her first visit. There was something about him now that made her feel calm and talkative.

“Do you know if spring ever comes early?” she asked him.

“Early?” He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “Well I suppose it could if the weather is right for long enough.”

“But what about for sure? Like you know how every four years February definitely lasts longer. But with spring. And earlier.”

He smiled and in his smile she picked up a hint of pity.

She frowned. “I don’t like it when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make it seem like I’m someone who needs a sad smile.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” He bent a long way down so he was almost eye level with the girl. She pursed her lips and tilted her chin up slightly to meet his eyes. “As far as I’m aware,” he continued, “spring doesn’t for sure come early in any predictable increments.”

“I thought so,” she said and walked around him through the doorway back into his office. She sat on a dark leather loveseat under a painting of an old farmer loading a cart with hay. There was natural light in the office but it felt dark. It was a nice kind of dark. Not the kind that made you unable to see, but the kind that made you feel like you could be honest. The colours in the room mostly ranged from dark brown to purple, and there was a model of the planet Jupiter on the man’s desk. “I’m ready to continue our chat,” she said.

He sat in a low back swivel chair opposite her. He put one leg over the other and she noticed that he had on two different socks. “What would you like to chat about?” asked the man.

“Why are your socks different?”

The man looked at his socks and then adjusted his glasses. “I think it’s a conspiracy. The sock companies want you to think you have to wear the same socks so that when you lose one in the dryer you have to throw the other one out and buy a new pair. I won’t stand for it.”

The girl looked at her own feet, on which were a pair of black boots with matching socks peeking over the top of each. She frowned again.

“Would you be willing to talk about what happened at school? Now that we’ve got the important stuff out of the way,” the man said.

“They pretend to be sad but I know they’re not. I think they just don’t know how to act around the new me.”

“The new you?”

“Yeah. I used to be known as the piano player in grade four. I was really good and I could play any song by ear after only hearing it once and all the teachers talked about it and so did my friends. I would be walking in the corridor and people would shout songs at me from their classrooms or the bathroom or the office. I would shout back, ‘not right now I’m walking!’ Now I’m the girl whose parents died. They don’t remember that I played piano and no one shouts at me anymore. They just stare at me from down the hall or around the corner and when I pass them they give me the sad look and keep their mouths shut.”

“Do you think this new identity is the reason for all the recent trouble?”

“It’s not like it’s my fault. They gave me the identity. It’s easy for them to do it when they still have both of their parents. They don’t have to feel the way I do so they make it seem like they’re sad for me but really they just don’t know how to talk to me anymore.”

“Is that why the fight started?”

“She’s supposed to be my best friend. She knows how I feel but she kept asking me in front of everyone. She kept asking ‘are you ok today,’ ‘how do you feel now,’ ‘do you want me to get you some milk.’”

“Have you ever told her that you would prefer she didn’t ask you those questions?”

“She’s supposed to know! She’s my best friend.”

The girl started crying and the man handed her a box of tissues and told her she was allowed to cry. He told her that crying was a necessary part of the grieving process and that eventually, she would be the piano player again and that even though it’s hard to see, her friends were wounded too. They needed time to heal. That’s what friends do. They hurt when you hurt and they laugh when you laugh and eventually they see you for who you are again, and not what has happened to you.

The room started to dim very slightly when the man finished talking. The girl looked up at the lights and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Your lightbulb is going wonky.”

The man smiled at her. No pity this time. “It’s the eclipse,” he whispered. The man left his chair and went into the glassed-in porch. “Come in here. Quick!” he said with some excitement in his voice. The girl bounced off the couch and into the porch. She slowed before the doorway so it wouldn’t seem like she was too excited.

He handed her a pair of funny looking glasses and she sat on a rocking chair next to him as the room continued to dim. He told her that if she put the glasses on she would be able to look right at the eclipse. She wondered what percent of the sun was covered per second. Someone smart had probably figured it out before but she realized she didn’t care actually. She noticed the darkness coming in fast. Faster than she thought it would. As if someone was controlling it with a sliding light switch. She put the glasses on and went to the window. It looked like someone had taken a perfect bite out of the sun, but the bite was growing and the world was getting darker. She took the glasses off and stretched her arms out in front of her again. She closed her eyes and the warmth of the sun was still there like last time but she could feel it cooling with each passing second. Past her eyelids she’d sensed the room getting darker, like it did on summer days when fluffy clouds would block the sun for a moment. The man stood up beside her and stretched his arms out as well. She remained focused on her own skin as it cooled and the harshness of the January landscape entered the room. She began to shiver as the rest of the light and warmth left her body.

And then it started to return. The shivers calmed and the warmth returned to her fingertips first, then her hands and arms and finally she felt it on her face and knew the light was back in the room as well. Her whole body was warm and calm again. After a while she opened her eyes and noticed the man beside her. She looked way up to his face and saw that his eyes were still closed and his arms straight out in front of his body. She smiled and felt happy and closed her eyes again.