On Departing Night

The night was settled.
With head drooped and sandy-eyed, the final hours of the dwindling year made themselves ready for the coming of morning, a low-dimmed lonely moon at rest upon the horizon, soft slow drifting clouds underlined with sliver as the windless night exhaled. Suburbia’s dotted hills began slowly switching off their lights, the fading ember of a tired city too began its closure.
It was a time for rest, and a time for inaction. It was a time where conversations could be aimless and warbling in their nature, where the speakers had left behind moments of meaningful fragility, and any sense of purposeful discussion. It was late. A time where a person stopped listening as they spoke, a time where a memory could become a story.  

Upon a porch, upon a hill. Two friends sat on a lounge that had been turned to face the horizon, the chaos of empty bottles, irretrievable cheese platters, and slumbering friends out of mind for the present moment.
‘Friend of mine,’ a voice began with a stone-footed stumble, ‘picked up a tank of helium too quickly this year and ended up floating off all the way to Dundelong. Was a week before he came down. He was clever though, he managed to read the wind enough that he could steer himself into a silo. Said it was why they always paid attention to the forecast in the paper. Just because you never know, you know!?’

‘A week! What did he drink?’ Arthur asked, the wanderingly apocryphal tale had been backed by enough alcohol in both speaker and listener was sure that it was true for the moment.

‘Clouds and things.’ Kate replied knowingly, ‘You’d be surprised how many packets of peanuts a plane loses and you wouldn’t believe how fresh the water is directly from a cloud. Vitalises a person, not a trace of pollution or bird poop to be seen. Just fresh water and a hell of a view.’ Sitting up from lounge, Kate raised her arms up and pretended to scoop a potion of imaginary cloud into her wine glass, sending splashes of the cheap chardonnay onto the peacefully slumbering greyhound asleep beside the lounge. It roused, but only momentarily so.
‘Behold, ambrosia from the heavens!’ taking a sip, she appeared as revitalised as the lateness of hour would allow.
‘But yeah, they’re afraid of balloons now.’

Arthur nodded pensively as if considering all the times in his life that he had nearly been undone by a balloon. The birthdays where he had barely escaped with his life. Was it Madeline who was carried off by the wind or was it her hat..
Dizzied by the skipping thoughts, Arthur allowed the conversation to shift.
‘Well, friend of mine,’ he began while shuffling his back in an attempt to redistribute the comfort of the cushions, ‘they fell off a ferry this year and swam to safety with only the help of a suitcase and a tea spoon. Imagine that, waves crashing in the open sea and you’ve only a ruddy tea spoon to paddle your raft.’

‘Hang on,’ Kate interjected with a moment of surprising sobriety, ‘where did they get the raft?’

‘The suitcase, Kate. It was one of those old square ones and was as buoyant as a buoy. They perched atop it and paddled themselves back to safety, knocking sharks on the nose with the back of the spoon when they strayed too close. Through rime and fog they paddled, not seeing the stars and only hearing the crashing waves. So lost they had become that they were about to give up. I know I would have in their situation, but they knew that within the suitcase was something too important to lose to the sea. Days passed, they began to see visions of dead sailors pulling at their feet, urging them to give up. The sea became silent, the wind could only whisper, they thought they were done but lights beyond the fog began to twinkle, a coast, salvation!’

‘But what was in the suitcase?’

Arthur opened his eyes and looked over at Kate, confused for a moment.
‘The suitcase? Oh, yeah. Documents, letters from his mum, important stuff.’  he said waving the question off as ancillary to his story. ‘They were going to put the spoon on display but he thought it right to return it to the ferry company. The captain was so overwhelmed by the gesture that they said that they would never accept a fare from my friend ever again.’        

‘We’ll they did fall overboard. He was just probably thankful that he didn’t get sued. Wait, can you sue a captain? Wasn’t there a maritimey thing where crimes at sea can only be lain at sea?’ said Kate.

Arthur, who had once joined a yacht club for the food discount, nodded knowingly.
‘Correct, but most courts keep a jar of sea water behind the pulpit for that reason. It’s the first thing they teach you when you get your boat licence.’

‘Hmm.’
The friends agreed in unison before falling to a moment of silence.
Sloping away from the deck the back yard eased down to a dirt road and then the valley beyond. A hills hoist spun lazily holding the ghosts of a drinking game and the drying shirt of an early looser. A waning fire spat embers into the cool air as the dying flames kicked away the last log from the coals, wishing to retire. It was quiet, joyfully so.

‘It’s been a good year,’ Kate said, more to remind herself of what had passed than for conversation. ‘Long, but still a good year.’
Hearing no reply she looked to Arthur who was now happily snoring, his tangle of limbs twisted in such a way that his next morning would be one of aching beyond the rightful pain of a hangover. Standing, Kate lifted her friends legs up onto the couch and then dropped a blanket over him as well as her coordination would allow.
The last one standing, albeit with a wobble and a bit of a lean.

There was a lightness to the air now, noisy mynas twittered announcing the new morning. From inside there was a clatter and a click, the sounds of a stove being lit, mugs being searched for, ugg boots clopping across tiles.

‘Kate! You’re awake.’ A voice whispered in polite shout from kitchen out to deck. ‘Fancy a cuppa? You look like you haven’t slept.’ The voice was familiar, but it’s shape still fuzzy behind the flyscreen.  

‘Mum?’ Kate half-mumbled the abundance of sleep-in-waiting and wine catching up with her. With a shake of her head, focus was returned and she could see her dad tiptoeing through the loungeroom, quietly picking up bottles and stepping over the slumbering mounds where her friends lay.
Seeing his daughter, he gave a short wave and mouthed “morning”  before stalking off to find another room to clean.
‘Thought you could use a hand to tidy up.’ Kate’s mum whispered walking out onto the deck, ‘Your father remembered the mess you all used to make and thought it would be nice to wake up without having to clean. And he had his eyes on the bottle return but don’t tell him I said that.
With a hug, Kate was guided towards the counter and a mug was pushed into her hands. Plates were moved, leftovers packed and put into the fridge. Eggs were cracked and then the sizzle of bacon roused the bleary-eyed who now gathered in the kitchen, the unexpected charity of two strangers in their pyjamas cooking breakfast uniting the house.

‘Here’s to 2025!’ Kate’s dad smiled to the room while dunking his tea bag with the gusto of someone who had been in bed at a sensible hour. The crowd could only mumble in reply.
Patient light filtered softly into the house that had been so filled with noise hours before. The friends sat together as the year began another march across the journey of a calendar, all the while intending to return to this very moment when it expired.                    
  

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J.McCray
2024