The Cricket

THE CRICKET

By Simon Habegger

First Smashwords edition

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2011, by Simon Habegger

Original art by Lauren Ross

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I traveld thro’ a Land of Men

A Land of Men & Women too,

And heard & saw such dreadful things

As cold Earth wanderers never knew.

William Blake

I would like to dedicate The Cricket to my son,

and thank as well the following people:

My parents, who criticized the manuscript

Lauren Ross, who drew the cover and more

And my wife, who let me write it.

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Et in Arcadia ego

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Tithon

Epilogue

Author’s note

Prologue 

I come from a family of gardeners, and if I was ever born it must have been in the old stone farmhouse by the river, where we have always lived. My parents named me after the north-western wind and taught me the useful skills of sowing and proper mulching; and they took care as well to warn me against meddling with the world. I followed this advice until I grew bored – which is to say I did not follow it at all – and one summer, rather than weed the garden, I built a raft out of some old cedar rails and floated downstream to see for myself what I might encounter in livelier parts. It only took a few days for the river to carry me farther than I had ever thought to go; its current became broad and powerful as the gentle fields and occasional cottages of my provincial home gave way to a stony, uninhabited country. I started to think about the dreary hike back upstream, and how they would laugh when I limped through the gate; but that night my raft slipped its tether and I woke to find myself borne up on a limitless sweep of grey water, vaster than I can describe and unbounded by any shore. Between the dawn spreading over the pale sky and the titanic ocean were only gulls and myself. They screamed as I pitched there, chilled to the marrow and stunned by the beauty of the world.

* * *

It was the gulls that caught the young woman’s attention. They were calling and circling around an attraction too distant to identify, down on the mud flats beyond the grassy hummocks that marked the edge of permanent land; and since there is little purpose in walking on a beach if one is not willing to heed its denizens, she turned so that her path would take her past them. She could tell long before she reached the circling flock that they had collected around a body, but it was not until she had approached closer that she made out the human form, wrapped by tattered, drab clothes. It lay face down, half-covered by mud and sand and the water that filled the indentation where the sea had thrown it out. The gulls were agitated, leaping up to the body and back, raising their wings to beat the air and yammering with excitement. She stood looking for a few minutes, first at the long barren stretch of the mud and the circling cloud of birds, and then the torn shirt and thin limbs, the tangled strands of pale hair whipping in the wind.

It was the lively hair that drew the young woman forward, as the birds parted around her and took furiously to the air. Thinking of it being buried in mud by the incoming tide saddened her. She walked up and knelt beside the body’s head. There’s nothing to do, she told the still form. The hair leapt happily at her voice, so much gentler than that of the seagulls. Why did you let the ocean drown you? she asked it. Don’t you think it’s best now that you just lie here? The hair did not agree. Well, I'll see what I can do, she finally consented. She knew that a body is heavy and a drowned body heavier yet, and that she herself was not strong.

She might have rolled the body over; but that would have plunged the lovely hair into tidal muck, and possibly revealed things that were best left beneath the sand. Instead, she stood and tugged at the limbs. The bare feet came free easily and the hands too, one clutching a piece of splintery wood; but she recoiled from the thought of grabbing the head and forcing it up, though there was something reassuring about the hair’s refusal to lie sodden on the scalp. She knew that she did not care to see dark water and sand running from the dead mouth, she did not want to know its final expression; and so in the end the woman simply stopped considering possible courses, stooped down to hang one arm up over her shoulders, and heaved the torso free while lunging seven or eight meters up the oozing flat to solid ground, focusing on the mud that rushed into her boots as she sank up to her ankles and most certainly not thinking about the face that rested against her cheek.

There, she gasped as she staggered into the sharp beach grass. Thank you. You weren’t as heavy as you could’ve been. Now we can take our separate ways, and may yours be straight and peaceful. As she laid the body down a gout of water poured from its mouth and she turned to look at the face to bid it goodbye. It was a young man's, caught in quiet repose, and he lacked the tortured features and black, protruding tongue that books had taught her to expect of the drowned. In pity she wiped the mud from his brow, more water gushed from his nose and mouth, and as she watched his lips parted slightly and pressed together again. From that moment, rather than perversely interfering with the ocean’s final benediction, she was saving a life. It never occurred to her that she might fail – if he could manage to twitch after burial in the tidal muck, it was not possible that he would die now, resting on dry ground with her to wrench the water out from his body, hammer his heart, and force air into his lungs. There was no one moment in which he changed from the moment before, but when she paused after some minutes to pant, his face had the slight animation of life and there was a thin wisp of pale breath trickling like smoke from his lips.

It was a hard struggle home for both of them that night; for even as he seemed to grow lighter with each shallow gasp, every next step found her weaker than before. The world's night rose over them as she laboured inland, stopping more times than she could count to recoup her strength; and laying on rough grass under the faint stars his face relaxed and seemed to pass into sleep. She noticed that he had dropped the broken spar. Tide and the firmament turned in their accustomed ways, and were kind enough to see them safely to her home.

It was an old warehouse, set far enough from the sea to remain dry as the ocean rose and close enough to have been abandoned when people left the shore. The young woman’s arms were shaking and her back and legs burned with strain, but she kicked open the door and did not lay her charge down again until she had pulled him into the far corner where a small fire could be lit. He lay there, his weak breath her personal triumph, while she dragged a thick army blanket over to the grate and arranged him carefully on his side with a dirty pillow to support his head. She kindled the fire and when it had caught she sat for a few minutes watching it flicker, regaining her breath and rubbing her arms and trying to decide what it was she had done. In the end she left the thought for the morning.

His clothes were ruined so she cut them off, their soft cloth parting like wet paper at the touch of her fish knife, and dried him roughly, hoping that the towel might wake him. He never stirred under her care, and she had the leisure to look closely at her find as he lay in the small pool of firelight. He was slender and very pale, with ragged hair that came down just to the top of his shoulders, his hands thin and his face sharp in a manner that defied familiarity. Resting nameless on her grate, barely breathing, his life seemed too insubstantial to leave alone under an army blanket by a sinking fire; and after a few gulps of lukewarm stew she lay down on the floor herself and pulled a sleeping bag over the both of them. Good night, Ishmael, she said to no one, and fell into a profound sleep, her warm young breath flowing out of her body and over his.

Chapter I

Gruel and stew are what I remember best during the time it took me to emerge from my oblivion and find myself alive on Hana’s hearth. Before I met gruel and stew I dreamt I lay in the embrace of a restless fire that was trying to thaw the bitter cold that had sunk into me; but most of that dream escaped my memory, even though I woke from it occasionally to be fed fish broth and boiled wheat. An urgent whistle that I couldn’t identify sometimes cut through my sleep, and once I think I felt a warm sponge rubbing my face; but I remember very clearly salty chicken stew and the pleasing texture of milky cereal in my mouth. When I was fed my eyes began to open to peer at the fingers holding the bowl before closing to dream again of the fire.

I slept on an army blanket laid down over the rough, darkened boards in front of a small grate. Hana’s fireplace had a chimney above but no real boundaries besides bricks, and it lacked a damper to block the weather. Sometimes the fitful wind from a summer squall would drive down it and blow ashes and cinders over my bed; these sudden invasions from the outside world excited me as I lay dreaming in the murk. This was a peaceful, measureless time during which I mastered a few necessary skills; the telling of night from day, coughing when I swallowed soup incorrectly, the best way of blinking to clear my eyes, how to listen to a human voice.

You’re a stubborn one, the voice said. Try to eat a bit of fish. Shall I mash it for you? I think I shall. Its words surrounded me like a hot summer night about a lilac bush, humming with bees; but for the lilac bush the comfort of summer darkness and attentive bees are its natural due, and it pays them no mind.

Are you warm enough? You still feel so cold. I’ll put a bit more wood on the fire. I’m afraid it’ll spark on you again. The chowder’s a little thin tonight, but I’m too tired to make any more. I forgot we were out of potatoes.

At first I thought the voice belonged to the food I found in my mouth; but it came at other times. Warm light sometimes washed me, and with it gentle words as well, but eventually I understood that the one was the dawn and the words were not; and likewise with the evening that brought both darkness and an occasional song.

Did you ever hear tell of sweet Betsy from Pike

Who crossed the wide plains with her lover, Ike

I lay with my eyes turned upwards and words fell on me like the rain, stuck me like grass seeds, ran across my skin; and I began to understand that they were meant for me and trying to pull me into the world. Words came and came, until I began to think I might answer and wondered what I ought to say.

There was a beautiful full moon tonight, but it’s too late for you to see it now. Another bank of storm clouds is coming in and it looks like we might be socked in for a while. If you don’t wake up soon the summer will be all gone.

When are you going to speak to me?

Someone misses you, Mr. Won’t Talk, someone’s missing you tonight. I bet they cry when they wonder where you are. Why weren’t you more careful? Life is precious.

Some of the voice’s questions raised my attention, and I began to have conversations with it; but these were confined within my own thoughts, though I didn’t realize this for some time. What would your name be, if you were the sort of thing that had a name? it asked me one day after a meal of oatmeal, and I replied Corus, as I had already replied many times; but now I heard my own voice whispering, rougher and weaker than the one that spoke around me, which sighed deeply and said:

Corus. Corus. So, I’m Hana, Corus. Say something else to me. I went to sleep then, but in the morning when I opened my eyes I felt more ambitious and thought that it might be good to try rising. I was lying on my back and couldn’t even imagine mustering the strength to sit up, but with an extreme and exhausting effort managed to roll onto one side. This took me off of my blanket and onto the chilly floor, nearly into the ashes that I now saw heaped in a pile next to my bed. The morning was chilly and I missed the warmth of my dream. I tried to push myself back into it, but my left hand just collapsed in front of my face, poking itself into the cinders. Hana leaned over from behind me so I could see her. Good morning, foundling, she said. Shall I put you back into bed? And not waiting for a reply, she brushed off my hand, easily rolled me back onto the blanket, and pulled it up over my chin. She lay down again on a blanket next to me, propped herself up on her right arm and looked in my face curiously and happily.

How do you feel? Hana said, laying a hand on my forehead. You’re warmer, Mr. Not-Quite-Drowned. Would you like some tea? She took a twist of hay, laid it on the cold ashes and piled twigs over it before lighting it with a match and blowing it into a fire. It’s so good to see you awake. You’ve been lying here for a long time. I was afraid you’d never come to. Hana crawled over to one wall where there was a sooty kettle which she put on a hook over the grate, and I learned the source of the whistle that had puzzled me as I slept. I lay and listened to her making tea, to the fire burning, and the birds flitting around the eaves outside in the morning.

Here you go, Corus, she said, setting a tin mug half-filled with warm tea on the floor. Let me help you drink it. She sat behind me and pulled me up until I was sitting and she could hold the cup to my lips; looking at her hands I remembered the spoonfuls of food interrupting my dream. The fresh tea, bitter with dried rose hips, tasted so strong in my mouth that my lips burned and the rest of my body felt numb. I drank it and after a minute she laid me back down.

Time, I whispered. Give me time.

Is there anything I can do to help you? Anything that you need? Do you want me to try and get you to a hospital? she asked.

Time, I whispered, and shut my eyes. I could do nothing else. I lay there all day on my mat while she cleaned up around the kitchen, hauled water, and finished little tasks here and there about the room. She talked to me more now, but asked fewer questions. I rolled back or forth as my strength permitted, watched the fire burn, upset the mug, and slept off and on and off again. In the evening Hana boiled potatoes for dinner and mashed them into a crispy fried paste for me to eat. Chewing this filled me with such an aching hunger that I nearly fainted. I asked for more and she gave me some sweet tea.

That’s all the solid food you get, Corus, she said. I’m giving you your time. Tomorrow you lie there and eat more and the next day we’re getting you up.

I could eat more now, I whispered, but she gave me sweet tea instead and stroked my greasy hair until I went to sleep. That was either the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning of my convalescence, and within three days I was able to drag myself around the World which I had come through so much to see, and find out what manner of place it was.

* * *

At first the World was Hana's home, which could not have been truly abandoned as long as she lived there. The warehouse was more than a hundred years old, built out of heavy timber, uninsulated but well-coated with creosote tar. It was on the outskirts of a port town that was not really a port town any longer. It was Hana’s, as long as no one else was rude enough to want it more. She had come walking up the beach from the south, found the solid building standing close enough to the town that she would not be dangerously isolated, far enough from it that she would not be much bothered, and decided to stay. Where were you going? I asked her once. I didn’t know, she said, a convenient answer that I commandeered and later applied truthfully to myself many times. I was tired of walking. There was no need to ask her why she had chosen the warehouse for her home. Atlantic storms, a rising ocean and the slumping land had done cruel work on the modern, pressed-metal structures of the beachfront; the old wooden building stood behind their flimsy wreckage like a carved throne surrounded by crushed cars, its heavy beams and deep stone foundations holding off the elements. It was a warehouse that deserved to be inhabited as long as it could endure. At first I thought I would just stay for a few days, she told me. But there are places to fish, you can dig clams, grow a few things, and the community kitchen is close enough to walk to if that’s not sufficient, which it normally isn’t. So I stayed a bit longer. It looked good enough for the summer; and then you appeared. She furnished it with driftwood and wreckage from other buildings that could still be put to use: crates and a door for her sleeping pallet, a bucket for washing up, a gutter and a barrel to collect the rain water that we used to drink, a small iron brazier to supplement the firelight in the evening, and extra clothes and blankets donated from a local church. Hana had been living there for a month or so before I washed up on her beach and was salvaged by her as well, as close to wreckage in my own right as it is possible to come.

Chapter II

I slept for a long time on Hana’s hearth, which became my place in the warehouse. I lay down there in the evening as the fire went out, and rose before her to blow the cold coals alight for cooking breakfast. Hana set up four pumice blocks in a dry corner, laid her door flat on them, and slept there; hanging lines of twine supported diverse grimy articles of clothing; and we had a low table with a variety of pots and knives and useful odds and ends. Washing up became my chore, and since I wasn’t strong enough to haul buckets of water in from outside Hana did this for me, cursing when it slopped into her shoes. She complained daily that I was obsessed with cleaning. What’s the point of living on the beach, Cor, if we’re going to spend all day washing things? This isn’t a kitchen. Throw the dirty dishes in the clam tub.

I don’t want to bother the clams.

The clams like it. Stop washing things.

I lay outside with the potato plants, which Hana had started in no pattern around the warehouse grounds. Their tubers were swelling up out of the earth, and I crawled between these to lie and watch insects and birds, and reacquaint myself with the feel of dry land and warm sun. On hot days I sat under the warehouse eaves and observed the plants growing. After a bit I was strong enough to lurch through the sharp grass to the beach and watch the waves, though Hana would follow me there and bring me back up the path before long.

In my memory this time lasted for months, and each single day exhausted me as a week of ceaseless activity might; but figuring later it seems that it was not even a fortnight before I had largely recovered.

One day when I could manage reasonably well I went out with Hana to help her collect driftwood for the fire, wearing the odds and ends that she had found for me in a church thrift store. She had already scoured most of the beach close to her warehouse for wood, so we had to walk a fair distance along the dunes. Hana chose a path between the edge of the beach and the beginning of the pine flats. There was a brisk, cold wind blowing in off of the Atlantic, but the sun was out and this and our movement kept us warm. Vast numbers of shore birds swirled overhead, piping and shrilling about matters of greater interest than us. An occasional freight liner passed far out in the ocean, making their slow headway through the waters. When I tired we sat quietly and looked at the sea.

Castaway . . . Would you like me to explain where you’ve washed up? Hana asked.

Please. That would be nice. I hadn’t thought of this so far; but realized that it made sense for the people who lived here to distinguish one part of it from another.

Cape May is about forty miles down that way. Hana pointed south along the beach. That’s where most of those ships are going, to Philadelphia. I came walking up from there at the beginning of the summer. The weather was nicer then. She thumbed back the way we came. Farther up that direction is Atlantic City, and if you keep going you’ll get to Hoboken and what’s left of New York City. The beach is really dirty, though, and there are a lot more people.

And where are we? I asked.

Nowhere, really. It’s sort of in-between. After several hurricanes hit, most people moved away from the ocean.

It’s really beautiful here, Hana. Empty. I understand why you chose this place to live.

You don’t, but yes, it is. I chose this place because I didn’t have a reason not to. There are plenty of people around here, but you won’t see them until you go inland a few miles. They may have left the waterfront, but this is still New Jersey. And there are other bums besides us on the beach, you’ll run into them sooner or later too. Not that you need bother, I’m the best of the lot. You’re lucky I’m the bum who found you, since not everyone will nurse a castaway for weeks and weeks. How does it feel to be out and about again?

It feels good. I’m still weak, though.

That’s natural enough, she said, "seeing as you should be dead. Are you sure you’re warm enough in that sweater?

I’m fine.

It was the thickest thing I could find, though completely hideous, unfortunately.

I like it, I said. It itches.

Good, Hana said. I’m glad you’re warm. And if you wash away again you’ll be very easy to identify in that. Help me tie up these branches. I held the pile of sticks together while she wrapped a cord around it, and tried to help her heave it up onto her back. Let’s get going, she said, and lurched forward; the bundle was too large and she staggered under its weight.

Why do we need so much wood? I asked. This is far more than what we burn at night.

Winter’s coming, Corus. It’s not going to be easy in that warehouse, with the storms blowing off the Atlantic and the temperature below zero. I don’t know where you’re going, but I’m not ready to move, yet. I’ve got to prepare for the cold. She swung the bundle down, looked at it irritably and sat on it instead.

Do I have to be going? I asked.

No, Hana said, half-shaking her head. Of course you don’t. Not if you don’t want to. But most people have some place they’d like to go. She ran her sandy hands through her dark hair and looked at me. Where’s yours?

I don’t have one, I’ve nowhere to go, I said. And I like it here.

Ah . . . Hana puffed out her cheeks and exhaled, looking over the breakers at the far horizon. "Castaway, listen.