Push, Push, Glide
FLASH FICTION
I got up at sunrise to clean up the mess before the kids came to the lake to play hockey.
I love watching these pre-teens. They race from one end of the lake to the other, chasing the puck and one another. Some hotshots skate backward, ready to play defense in a defenseless pond game. They eventually have to face the front to get at the puck. To capture the prize and keep it moving. Always moving, these pre-teens, their bodies strong and wild.
They skate for hours, immersed in themselves, the cold, the ice, and the long shadows their bodies make on the ice at three on a winter afternoon. They go up and down the one-mile lake, free and untroubled.
Until yesterday.
I watched them from the big picture window, still dressed in my housecoat. Good god, where did I get this? Was I morphing into my grandmother? Why have I let myself go? When was the last time I showered or wore something other than this old lady sack?
I spotted a gaggle of the kids huddling over something. Did one of the kids get hit by a stick? What are they doing on the side of the lake where the ice is always thin? Did someone fall in?
I took out the binoculars for a closer look.
A dead otter was on the ice. His eyes were already gone, and its guts were splayed open.
I went out to the deck and heard the kids. Voices carry far in five-degree weather.
“Oh my God, what happened to it?”
“Is it dead?”
“Ewww, don’t touch it.
“Hey,” I yelled, “get away from it. Now. Leave it.”
The kids skated to the edge of the lake in front of my house. I keep a bench and an old milk carton there so they can change into their skates and store their boots someplace dry.
They’re excited, a jumble of voices telling me about the otter.
“Who would kill a playful otter? That’s like my favorite animal. My crazy great-aunt says it’s my spirit animal.”
“Why were the eyes gone? It’s so creepy. “
“Could something come and attack us too?”
I tell them what happened.
“I saw the otter crawl onto the ice this morning with a fish in its mouth. A bald eagle swooped in and killed the otter. It ate the fish and then started on the otter’s guts before the lake got busy with all of you. You must have scared the eagle away. The eagle plans to pick away at the otter carcass until there's nothing left. Stay away from it. The eagle is circling and likes to get its way.”
The murder story killed the skaters’ Saturday joy.
“That’s intense.”
“The poor otter.”
They’re quiet, taking in death. Taking in the things that are beyond our control.
Finally, a young redhead wearing a Red Sox ski hat breaks the silence.
“I got a new game. Anyone want to come to my house and play?”
Resigned, they unlaced their skates, shoved their feet into their boots, and trudged through the snow to the street.
I watched the eagle peck away at the otter carcass all day. This is nature. I know this. But I want joy and kids screaming fun on the lake. It makes me feel alive. It reminds me of my kids years ago. These skaters help me forget the recent deaths.
The next morning at seven, I went down to the basement and found the white figure skates I hadn’t worn in 30 years. I also grabbed a broom with a big rectangular brush, good for sweeping garage floors and piles of moldy oak leaves, and for what I was about to do.
I sank into the wet snow as I walked to the bench. I laced up my skates and stepped gingerly onto the ice. Please, no falling, I whispered to my unsteady self. If I break a bone, I’ll lie alone on the ice for a long time, like the otter.
Holding the big broom helped me gain my footing. Push, push, glide. My eyes watered from the cold and my lips already felt numb. Push, push, glide. Push, push, glide. I skated tentatively until I got to the other side of the lake.
The otter’s dead face looked at me as if to ask, “Why?”
“Sometimes, there are no good answers,” I told the dead otter. “Death is sneaky.”
I swept the dead otter off the ice and into the open water, pushing its body under the ice with the broom’s long pole. I did not want the eagle to find the otter, nor did I want the kids to be spooked by the carcass this winter. I wanted to spare them the sadness of life for a little longer.
When I got back to the house, I took a hot shower and threw the housecoat in the bag for Goodwill.
I was back to the land of the living.
Art/Photograph: Gregory Crewdson