Almost Light (A Shannon O'Day/Otis...story)

Almost Light
((A Shannon O’Day/Otis Wilde Mather story) (1953))


Chapter One

“Does a dog dream?” No, better yet, does a wolf dream? And if so what’s he dream about?” asked Shannon O’Day, to his pal Otis, laying in the still of the night, in his brother’s cornfields—(1953).
“I knows a dog sleep with one eye open sometime,” said Otis, “and I done saw him spooked in his sleep, so I reckon he dreams some.” Otis knew Shannon wasn’t really talking about a dog—or referring to a wolf, not really, not genuinely, nor was he just talking to talk, he wasn’t a talker per se, not a loose talker anyhow.
“I like seeing Gus and Mabel sitting in their lounge chairs out there in their front yard, watching the fireflies, and swatting the mosquitoes, listening to the stray hounds in the far-off distance—running in the wild. I like hearing the frogs at night, and the noisy owls.” He said.
He knew, Otis knew he wasn’t talking about nature per se, he saw the whites in his eyes—with the light from the gas lantern, that told him something. He looked carefully, stopped all his movements to listen to Otis. He looked through the corn stocks, towards the cozy small porch attached to Gus’ farm house, it was empty, and evidently Gus and Mabel had gone to bed.
“Aint nobody around over there by your brother’s porch I see, except some mice I expect, I reckon they all went to bed,” said Otis, parroting Shannon, unsure why he was, as if reassuring Shannon that that is what he saw also, what he deciphered from the scene. “I don’t know for sure, but that’s what it sure looks like, I reckon.”
It was as if—as if though Shannon wanted to say something, as if he was waiting for the right moment, to say something to remind Otis of something else. And on the other hand, Otis was waiting for Shannon to explain what he was trying to say, by not saying it, or what he meant by not saying what he was waiting to say.
By sunrise, both woke up to see Mrs. Stanley (Alice Stanley, Gus’ neighbor), looking out the window as often she did. All night Shannon woke up at strange hours, intervals to see how things were, drawing his concentric looks at Otis, and the farm house, as if expecting something, something anytime that might befall the tranquil evening stars.

All that day—they drank in the cornfields (as they had drunken all that previous day, and half the day before), it was the third day that is, and they often spent two to three days in a drunken spree. When noon came on that third day they walked down to the country store, a café and store molded together, with just an entrance between each other, and one gas pump outside in front of the store, and bought a loaf of bread and a half pound of cheese, sliced and two quarters of Windsor Whiskey, and went back to the spot they had been drinking to watch the birds drop down into the stalks of corn and disappear with the crows, a few sluggishly walked the ground got lost and ended up at Shannon and Otis’ little corner of the field, and flapping their wings desperately to avoid direct contact, zoomed to a higher level, to perch on top of the stacks of corn and observe from a distance, drying out the inner parts of their wings as if yawning.
They made their sandwiches and ate; Otis looked at Shannon, and watched, realizing Shannon was tugging at some thoughts, something silent, darkness behind that something silent. Otis waited a moment before he asked, “What is it? (Curious on what that something was)”

Shannon now had expected Otis to ask, so he whirled himself upward from a lying position, as Otis moved forward to listen; overhead the crow and a sparrow, and another funny looking bird, like a redheaded Mohawk, perched gazing downward as if to write—like a scribe, the details of the confrontation, the day was getting hotter and brighter, Stanley’s window was empty.
“I was worried last night Mabel might come out drunk looking for you to rekindle a candle, for old time sake,” said Shannon suddenly.
Otis dropped his sandwich abruptly, a tear came to his eye, he turned his face—his teeth shinned, he could feel the hurt, surge inside of Shannon for his betrayal, taking advantage of his sister-in-law, some—nearly some three years prior. Thus, he got up, kicked the dirt—again he kicked it, “It’s easy to forgive, but hard to forget,” said Shannon.
Evidently there was a level of trust lost, and that needed to be worked on, still worked on after three years, or the relationship, buried—once and of all, so life could go on for all involved. Otis didn’t say a word, just a “Yep.” And evidently that meant, it was worth working on.

No: 663 (8-6-210)
Written in Lima, Peru