Tag: David Plante

One story from David Plante’s Essential Stories – published by Grey Suit Editions 2022

THE CANOE

They were talking about a pine tree in the woods that was struck by lightning.

Father and son were on the screened-in porch, the screens seething with a warm breeze from the lake, then his son, saying nothing, went out through the screen door, and his father accepted that his son could walk off, after a silence between the two, to go he had no idea where.

 Then he went out and down the rough path to where there was a narrow beach, and he sat on a bench made of a thick plank supported on rocks.  The breeze caused low, long waves on the lake,

Once, his son had expressed the loose idea of becoming a priest, and this his father thought was one with his many loose ideas, but, again, no mention was made of the idea.

As the sun set a stillness spread over the lake, and a faint mist rose from the stillness, and fish broke the stillness in widening circles, the widening circles, he thought, of immortality. 

            He saw a canoe out on the lake, gliding towards the far shore. He was sure his son was in the canoe, which, from time to time, he let drift.

            He stood, his behind aching from sitting on the bench. He was a man with short, bristling, grey hair, and in the shadows his face appeared gaunt. He slowly climbed the path from the lake to the house, and as he passed the woods that began where the path ended, he stood back when he saw his neighbour, a girl, standing among the trees.

She was wearing a loose white shift and she was barefoot, and her slender arms and legs were bare. She had walked through the woods on a path to come, she said, to visit, and she was just about to return to her parents’ house when she saw him. She followed him to the door of the porch, but stood outside when he went in and switched on a light.  He held the door open for her, but she didn’t enter.

            Did you see the pine tree that was struck by lightning? she asked.

            No, but I think I saw the flash.

            I saw it too.

            She was a simple girl, perhaps simple-minded, whose parents were among the few old generations who lived around the lake, parents who might have been considered poor trash, if they were considered at all by the people from  the city who had built houses on the lake.

            The lightening cracked the trunk of the tree right down the middle, she said. It was that strong.

            I guess it had to be that strong to crack the tree right down the middle-

            Hesitantly, the girl asked, is he around?

            He’s out in his canoe.

            I was just wondering.

            She was, she knew, soft on his son, in her simple way.

            He said, why don’t you come in and wait for him? I’m sure he’d like to see you.

            Oh, I don’t know.

            Sure, he will. He likes you. He likes you a lot.