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Into the night air I dance
and breathe in the star’s radiance.
Yet, I still hunger.
Eagles soar by light of the moon
and heat thermals of mid-June.
Yet, I still hunger.
Clouds cling to reaches of Earth
and distant glow leads the sun’s birth.
Yet, I still hunger.
Yet, still, I hunger.
(Verbal Poems of the Avitorians)
(Eight years later.)
The two kayaks drifted slowly along the shore of Burrows Island - smooth wakes radiated out from the back of the kayaks through the water and formed a large M where they met. Puget Sound was unusually calm this morning. A light fog hovered along the distant coastline of Lopez Island to the west. Leif gently dipped a paddle into the water and smoothly pulled it through. Lifting it out at the end of the stroke he laid the paddle across his lap and leaned back in his seat. “Is it whale sign dad?”
Ben’s kayak drifted off to the right and slightly behind. He held a pair of binoculars to his eyes and scanned the water to the northwest. “Nah, it’s just a couple seals.” He turned and pointed the binocs at a large dried out tree extending from an outcropping of rocks along Burrows Island. Two bald eagles peered out from the tallest branch. One scanned the water for any fish daring to hover near the smooth surface while the other one groomed its wings. “The eagles look nice though.”
Leif turned and looked up at the treetop. Normally the sight of the majestic birds would bring a sigh of awe, but not this morning. They only reminded him of his own longing. He uttered a condescending “yeah”, lifted his paddle, and gave the water a graceful stroke.
Ben stowed the binocs under his buoyancy vest, grabbed his paddle, and stroked the water to match his speed with Leif’s kayak. “Yah know, if I wanted this much quiet I could’ve come out here by myself this morning.”
Leif really didn’t feel talking about it, but he knew his dad wouldn’t let it go until they talked.
Ben stroked the water then turned the paddle sideways to stop from passing Leif. “Isn’t the new job working out?”
The job? Leif thought. Dad never could read me the way mom does. “The job’s great! I’m writing physics routines.”
“Physics? I thought you were working on a game?”
“I am.” Leif responded with a slight chuckle. “It’s a game in space and I have to calculate the movement of objects through space based on mass and velocity. It’s actually pretty generic mathematics.”
“I never could handle that part of math. Flowing electricity I can handle.” He paused while giving the water a gentle stroke with the paddle. “So, the job is great. I know you’re making good money. You’ve got a nice set of wheels and a pretty cool pad.” He smiled at himself for trying to sound hip. “So, what’s with the mood?”
He looked around to make sure there were no fishermen or someone within hearing distance. “I hovered again last night.”
“That’s great, Leaf!” he replied while looking around as well.
“No, it’s not great.” Leif replied. He reached down into the water and let his hand drift through the water. “That’s all I ever do. I wake up hovering. I can stay there but as soon as I try to do anything I fall back down. I’m getting tired of waiting, dad.”
“Ah,” was all Ben replied with. He never spoke without giving his brain a chance to formulate first. “You never met your grandparents.” He paused. It was not a topic he would generally bring up due to the pain it brought to Francie. “Your grandfather didn’t fly till he was twenty-four.”
“Whoa! Twenty-four?!” He didn’t like the thought of having to wait another four years. “I’ll be old and gray by then.”
“Hey!” Ben used his paddle to splash some water at Leif. “I might be a little gray, but I’m still far from old. I mean, look at Georgeo. Now that guy is old!”
Leif laughed while wiping water off his sunglasses. “Yeah. Uncle Georgeo is old.”
Ben took advantage of Leif’s distraction with the sunglasses. He dug in with his paddle in a strong and smooth stroke through the water, followed by another on the opposite side of the kayak. Left side, right side, left side, right side - he managed to get a good five strokes before Leif could get his glasses situated and the paddle back in his hands. While his dad had smoothness and finesse with the kayak, Leif had the strength of youth. It didn’t take long for him to match Ben’s speed. He followed along in the wake of his dad’s kayak - looking for an opportunity to try a pass.
Ben continued to pour on the consistent paddle strokes through the water. His kayak kept a straight line through the water without any rocking from side to side. Leif didn’t care about smoothness. He leaned into each paddle stroke, rocking the kayak from side to side, and swinging the bow in a zig zag as he plowed through the water. It wasn’t very graceful, but he was closing the distance quickly. Ben took a quick look over one shoulder at Leif. Ben stretched his strokes out behind him while keeping the paddle gripped aerodynamically along the length of the kayak. He bowed his head down toward the front of kayak, almost touching the brim of his ball cap to the surface of the kayak. The speed of the kayak increased slightly and added more distance between him and Leif.
“Hey, that’s cheating.” Leif called out.
Ben laughed and sat back up. He stabbed the paddle into the water to slow the kayak and to turn slightly for blocking Leif’s approach.
Leif dug his paddle into a reverse stroke on the left side and managed to slide the right side of his kayak alongside Ben’s kayak. “No fair flying your boat there mister,” he laughed.
Ben took his cap off and dipped it into the cool water, shook it off, and placed it back on his head. “Okay, okay. You caught me.”
They both paused to catch their breath and to take in the scenery. Leif figured they were about a hundred yards off the coast of Burrows Island. It was just enough to pick up the northerly current flowing up to Rosario Strait. The water was still pretty smooth. There wasn’t much wind for creating any chop to the water. The fog was starting to burn off the coast of Lopez Island to the east.
“Well, that was fun.” Leif stated. “But it’s going to be...”
Ben looked at Leif and interrupted him. “Shush!” He looked around and put his arms out while scanning the water around the kayaks. Shallow plumes of water appeared in a circle around the kayaks. “Quick, grab on!” Ben grabbed his paddle and stuck it out for Leif to grab onto.
As soon as Leif managed to grab the paddle Ben thrust one hand toward the front of his kayak. His kayak lurched suddenly into reverse. Leif had to tighten his grip on the paddle with one hand while trying not to drop his own paddle. Suddenly a large grey fluke of a whale appeared in the spot where the kayaks had been just a few seconds earlier. The whale rolled and slapped it’s fluke in the direction of the kayaks. One huge eye of the whale appeared to be watching them as Ben tried to get farther away. The top of the whale’s head rose several feet above the water and a huge plume of water whooshed from its spout with a tremendous rush of air.
The spout of water poured on Ben and Leif as they struggled to get their kayaks several lengths away from the cresting whale. It’s head dove back into the water followed by it’s huge curving back. Ben ‘flew’ his kayak along the water, dragging Leif’s along as he tried to gain more distance. They both kept their eyes on the arch of the graceful beast as it’s back narrowed into the tail. The horizontal slab of it’s tail rose up out of the water and poured a trail of water off as it curved and gently entered back into the water with hardly a sound. Several waves of water rocked the kayaks as Ben and Leif both stared in amazement at the restless whirlpools and vortices of water left behind by the beautiful grey whale.
“Did you see that?” Leif shouted. “That was amazing!” He let go of Ben’s paddle and shook his own paddle in the air. “Whoo hooo!”
“Wow,” was the only thing Ben could utter as he pulled off his cap and ran one hand through his hair.
“You okay dad?”
“Yeah,” he replied while putting the soaking cap back on. “That was close.”
“How did you know?” Leif asked. He remembered the look on Ben’s face when he told him to shush.
“I could feel it. The electricity.” He replied while looking around to see if there was anyone who might have seen their narrow escape. “I don’t know if it was from the friction through the water or from the whale itself. It was just a mass of power directly below us.”
“Wow.” Leif laughed. “I’m impressed.”
“He’s heading north. Looks like he wanted to get a closer look at us. See if we’re edible,” Ben joked.
“I don’t know. I think we’re a bit too crunchy and bigger than a shrimp.” Leif added with his best Monte Python accent.
“Well, whale watching doesn’t get much better than that. How about breakfast at the marina?” Ben asked while turning his kayak toward Anacortes. He dug in with the paddle while adding, “Last one to the marina buys.”
***
The bald eagle was back and staring at Leif from the top of his dresser. Everything was the same as before. The window was open and a cool breeze was making the moon lit curtains dance along the sides of the opening. Leif drifted over to the eagle and reached out to stroke its head, knowing he would never make contact. The eagle moved to the edge of the dresser and gave out a piercing call while looking at Leif. It spread out its wings and coasted over to the window ledge.
Leif’s heart raced with anticipation of what he would get to see next. Just like the hundreds of times before, he drifted over to the window. He watched as the eagle took off. Its mighty wings stroked the crisp night air with a whoosh. It flew to the top of the tallest evergreen tree in the back yard. Leif drifted half way out the window to get a better look. His breathing almost stopped as he gazed at the blonde haired girl standing in the top of the tree next to the bald eagle. She reached out and stroked the head of the eagle while gazing back at Leif.
Would this be the moment? Leif knew he would eventually break the curse of this dream. He drifted further out the window. He tried to will himself to look back at his feet, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Carina. Her long blonde hair drifted with the wind as she continued to stroke the eagle’s head. She signaled with one hand for Leif to join her and the eagle. He boosted himself out the window only to suddenly catch one of his feet on the side of the window sill. He cursed as he tried to lift his foot high enough to clear the sill, but the harder he tried the heavier his foot felt. He looked back at his foot as he began to fall from the window. It was once again the same as before. He fell backward toward the bushes surrounding the back of the house. He rolled his head back to see Carina standing in the top of the tree. There was nothing else he could do. He braced for the landing in the bushes that would never come.
Leif suddenly awoke to find himself hovering a few feet over his bed with his blanket draped over him. He looked like a human tent as he hovered there in disgust. He knew he could stay in that position all day if he wanted, but as soon as he tried to move he would fall back down to the bed. He shifted slightly and fell with all his weight back onto the bed. He threw the covers off, swung his legs over the side, and walked over to the bedroom window. Spreading the curtains slightly, he gazed out at the traffic on the street below and Lake Union just beyond. Kayakers were slowly meandering along the shoreline. Normally it would be a peaceful and scenic view, but Leif couldn’t get the lingering image of Carina out of his head.
***
“The particle projection application programming interface can be accessed with a single collection of parameters passed to the object class. As long as the objectmass property is set to the location of the grouped particles. In this example...” The instructor continued to drone on while pointing out computer source code projected on the movie screen in the large conference room.
Leif was having a hard time paying attention. The frustration of not being able to fly combined with the empty hole he felt inside, and the droning monotone of the instructor was not making it easy to get involved with the presentation. Besides, Leif thought, this would all be in the online documentation anyway. With over fifty employees in the room he figured he could get away with working on a picture he had been drawing on his computer tablet. He feared he would someday loose the image he had of the blonde hair girl from his middle school class who continued to haunt his dreams. The drawing he produced had taken countless hours and multiple false starts with different software packages until he found one that would suit his needs. Carina was never close enough in his dreams to get the image of her face correct, so he relied on what was left from the memory of a single day in home room back in middle school. He felt she’d looked into him, deep into his soul when he glanced back at her. The look of her face was haunting and mysterious. Her smile, barely perceptible as her pale blue eyes pierced Leif, making his heart stop. It was like she was asking ‘When?’ Her look both scared and enticed him. Of all the times he had gazed at her in school - this was the one image burned into his very being. He gave up trying to forget. He couldn’t. It would be there forever - tormenting him.
“She’s pretty,” the whispered statement from the co-worker sitting next to him startled him.
“Huh, what?” was all he could muster as he came out of his tormented trance while turning to look at the young lady sitting to his right.
“The picture you’re drawing. She’s pretty.” She pointed at Leif’s tablet. “Girlfriend?”
Leif looked around to make sure their discussion was not drawing the ire of the instructor or other employees in the room. “Ah, no. Just someone I knew.” He glanced back down at the tablet and closed the drawing program.
“Sorry.” She whispered. “I didn’t want to stop you. You’re quite good.”
“Good?” he took a second to get his senses. “I just dabble at it.”
“Well, for dabbling, it looked pretty good. Maybe you could do one of me sometime.”
Leif let out a short chuckle at the idea of someone actually asking him to draw their portrait. The instructor gave him a look while spewing on about collision detection algorithms.
“Jewels,” she stated while holding a hand out for a shake.
Leif took her hand and gave it a short shake. “Leif.” He recalled seeing her in the office before. Her slim figure was attractive while her long black hair and matching eye liner gave the slightest hint of a Visgoth without being too obvious.
“Leif,” she repeated with a hint of recognition. “I’ve heard good things about you,” she whispered while giving him a slight bump with her shoulder. “Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but the boss is pretty impressed with your programming. Says you have a good grasp of the math.”
He could feel a slight blush coming on, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the complement about his programming or the shoulder bump. “Thanks.” He noticed another glance from the instructor. “I think we better give this guy some attention before he comes over here with a death look.”
Jewels gave a slight snicker. “Alright. Maybe we’ll talk more later about my portrait.” She gave him another shoulder bump.
Leif gave her a smile and a look without expecting her to be looking directly back. Her deep hazel eyes caught him off guard. If there was any doubt about her interest in him from the shoulder bumps, it was now pretty obvious from the direct eye contact. He was glad the only light in the room was from the programming source code listings on the movie screen. He could feel the warmth of embarrassment flush his face as he gave her a silent nod and turned back to pay attention to the instructor.