I wrote about this story’s long history in The Labyrinth – The Witch and The Warrior (Prologue?). It’s still very much a work in progress, and if you’re familiar with my writing process you know that means this material may go through several more revisions before the final draft is ready for review.
That noted, let me know what you think.
Brian stood on the jetway just outside the doors of the Air Canada Air Nova II. He squinted and raised his hockey stick to shield his eyes from the mid-June, Nova Scotia sun. Jetfuel fumes mixed with a salty, ocean smelling fog and the glistening mist made him sneeze. On the tarmac two baggage handlers came forward and opened the belly of the plane. One of them looked up at him, looked at the hockey stick in his hand then whispered something to her partner that made them both laugh.
Where am I? Why did mom and dad send me here?
“Welcome to Halifax.” The flight attendant came up behind him, a head taller than him and twig thin in her forest-green uniform, kind of a tall, green version of Brian’s mom, Suzanne. His gearbag began to slide off his shoulder and she caught the strap. As he lifted it back up she glanced at the ticket receipt sticking up out of his shirt pocket. “Is everything okay, Brian?” She put one arm around him and her other hand on his arm, placing him in a gentle vice with which to guide him. Her perfume was caught up in the mist and surrounded him in an aromatic, thick forest collage.
Other people came up behind them.
“My aunt and uncle were suppose to meet me here.”
“I’m sure they’re waiting for you in the terminal. Why don’t you go on ahead and see if they’re there.” He felt the pressure in her hands as she moved him along and it reminded him of his mother guiding him at his brother’s funeral.
A tall, broad man waved as Brian entered the terminal. Beside him a woman, shorter, blonde and large-chested, raised her hand and smiled. Both wore faded bluejeans and blouses with red, yellow, and green vertical stripes so wide they looked like circus clown shirts. Their waving made them bob like warning buoys in the sea of other travelers.
Brian took an eight-year old picture out of his shirtpocket. In the picture, younger, heavier, less ruddy looking versions of the man and woman, his Uncle Tom and Aunt Leslie, hugged him around a birthday cake. The woman smiled and the man laughed and Brian blew out the candles. He shook it and the figures started to move. The man whispered something into the picture-Brian’s ear as his arm snaked around to tickle the picture-Brian’s side. The woman stood up and reached out of the picture to come back with a cake-cutter and some plates. The picture-Brian tucked to the side the man tickled and smiled a toothless smile as the man kissed the side of his head. He held the picture up to his ear but there was too much noise for him to hear the tiny voices. He looked at it again and the picture completed its loop, the figures returning to their original positions.
Uncle Tom’s voice boomed through the crowd.”Hey, Buddy. It’s us.”
Brian’s eyes fell on the six-year old Brian in the picture. Somewhere out of the frame were the rest of his family.
The woman came up and rubbed his back. “Hi, Brian. God, look at you. What a heartthrob! You look just like your dad when he was your age.”
Tom shook his hand. “Hey, Buddy.”
Buddy. Brian remembered Uncle Tom used to call him that when Brian was a kid, before Uncle Tom and Aunt Leslie moved so far away, when they used to come and get Brian and his brother, Danny, and go get icecreams.
Buddy.
“Hi, Aunt Leslie. Hi, Uncle Tom.”
They stood there as the sea of people roiled about them, the two buoys silent and Brian listing between. Overhead, boarding calls blared.
Uncle Tom lifted Brian’s gearbag from his shoulder. “Car’s out this way.”
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