Angus Craddic was in a barrel.
He hadn’t always been in a barrel but now, in this moment, he was vividly aware that he was, without a shadow of a doubt, sitting in something that very much resembled a barrel.
How Angus became trapped in this uniquely horrible boat, bobbing its way down a river, was left to the haze of a night forgotten -a haze that must have involved whiskey…lots of scotch.
This very same scotch, now filtering itself through his socks, was intermixing with small leaks of river water that had pooled inside the barrel and was wafting a very stale odour upward; Angus held onto a fleeting hope that the odour wasn’t coming from him. But he hoped a lot of things.
Time rolls onward and so all things continue as they ever do: with total linear brutality.
Unleashing a guttural technicolour yawn directly into the river helped Angus reclaim some of the screaming moths that were making up his frayed nerves.
That was new, that was progress! Alas, it had led him no closer to safety. his attempts to paddle towards the bank almost led to several capsizes and so it was ruled that any physical exertion was almost impossible.
Never claiming to be a swimmer, Angus’s self described aquatic mastery was much like an anchor trying out backstroke for the first time. He couldn’t swim, he’d never swam and in fact he didn’t even particularly like drinking water. So it was then, that this entrapment not only became unfortunate but existed as a very specific type of cosmic joke, bespoke and hand delivered via the medium of a brick to the kidneys.
Eddy currents swirl, doubling backward towards the shoreline. Tiny whirlpools seize lost leaves in their grasp, flailing the immobile greenery to and fro without reason. Angus prayed for reason, he would even take an unreasonable miracle. But the day moves slow when stuck in a barrel and reluctant sailors never wake with the clearest of minds. So the defeated Angus slouched down inside his predicament and tried to go back to sleep.
It’s been said that the river’s bend will always trick a blind man and, it’s amazing how quickly problems resolve themselves when waterfalls are involved.
In the flailing terror of the barrel’s sudden loss in buoyancy Angus was thrown backward and sent tumbling into free air like an idiot bird. His coat, stolen years ago from the local pub, had luckily become snagged on the branch of what must be one of the world’s most well placed trees.
Feet now kicking at the thirty meters of distance below him, Angus had a profound moment of inner calm. He saw the sun softly glinting golden flecks through the mists of falling water. He felt a breeze, warm from the Sandseas of the West that swayed him softly upon his branch. The gully beyond swept down and wandered away from him like a memory that he could never hope to recapture. It was truly beautiful.
Only the sound of a snapping tree branch could detract from this view.
An hour or so’s drift down from the falls rest a small riverside tavern with an impossibly quaint pier.
The bartender of this tavern was currently attempting to explain the events of the past afternoon to a town guard.
At a guess, the man had clambered out of the river and proceeded to vomit up an entire fish onto the pier. He then removed his coat and draped it over a fence as he made his way up to the tavern. Stumbling over the knee high gate, he collapsed, tumbling heavily into a garden bed, where he then lay for a bit as he either took a nap or suffered from temporary concussionial absence. Waking and finally reaching bar, he ordered a hot scotch, sat down and quietly died.
Unsure of what to do the ever professional Bartender fetched the coat from outside and hung it up to dry. He then carried his deceased patron to one of the comfier couches in the parlour.
He had decided not to charge this man for his scotch.
Jacob McCray
-2019
Sunday Short Stories 