On the second, and final, balmy night that visited Billington's Cove during that slice of summer, Mr. Apotienne wanted to walk home alone after the showing of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, but wanted more to have someone with whom he could commune about - things. The choice of movie was a tradition, as was Hitchcock for the first night, followed by what The Reading Man and his companion in the newness of all this, Mr. Guscott, experienced as a sacred ritual. It was an interpretation that bypassed their minds and rooted in their deeper and more ancient regions. The tradition, ritual, call it what you will, involved setting adrift on the then-still sea, boxes the size of a half graham cracker, built up with rails and a flat bottom like one of L. Frank Baum's chicken coops on its way to Oz. They were constructed of perhaps bamboo or a combination of natural woven fibers, each holding a lighted votive candle, and watching them group themselves into flotillas of light heading out toward deeper waters moved the two men and others in the crowd to silence, a wish for companionship and solitude, and tears.
The two men remained kneeling by the tide line with Gloria and many townspeople, standing up only to have a better view of the candles as they gathered with each other, sentient beings tasked with keeping the flock together, seeing that none flickered out, none was left behind, their numbers retaining brightness though the distance from the beach grew. No words were required, a not unfamiliar state among the trio, and they shifted their watching from the water's surface to the sky, recalling the movie they had just seen and the suggestions it offered about the infinite, so visible, to which they knew they belonged just then.
NOTE: The story will backtrack, we will not skip over the rest of that first day or the hours before the moments described here. This seemed to be the place they all wanted to resume the tale. xo
6 comments:
i love the descriptor "the size of a half graham cracker."
you choose so carefully, making images that are new to us, and yet completely familiar.
Susan - Thank you. On a densely foggy Monday morning, thoughts and words that seemed near and magical at 2 a.m. now feeling beyond reach, thank you. xo
lovely visuals.
dreamy
I can almost hear the gulls crying and the waves gently lapping.
I might add that I'm very jealous of the fog. I do my best daydreaming in the cool mist.
Seeing "Close Encounters" wreathed in fog must be a very ethereal experience indeed.
And remember things beyond reach in the fog are often very close.
Erin
Lisa - Thank you. I will hold you in my thoughts just now, our third morning of thick fog even this far inland. Images of light on water call to me. They wanted to be part of this. You do so need to live at the beach, a soul match. xo
Erin - That would be quite a wonderful way to see/not see the movie. I think of the London fogs described in fiction, all they hide, how they confuse. Perhaps what you've said is true in other circumstances, reassuring, about what seems beyond reach often being very close. xo
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