The ritual of crossing into Arkansas marked the beginning of Seth’s weekly journey to his own slice of paradise. Traversing the Mississippi bridge was an event in and of itself. Although he held a certain adoration for his hometown and would not consider living elsewhere, city life brought its own problems. Driving his beat-up ’87 Pathfinder down those two lanes of I-55 seemed to lift a weight off his shoulders and free his mind of anything and everything he dealt with on a day-to-day basis.
Seth had two loves in his life: First was his beautiful wife of seven years, Cheryl, and coming in a close second was the lifelong affair he held with duck hunting. However, if Seth were to be completely true with himself, duck hunting would be an easy first, yet he decided long ago that Cheryl should not know this. The kill was not what lured him to the blind, but rather the oneness he felt when the fast world around him disappeared and he reconnected with the circle of life. Ever since he began hunting with his father years ago, Seth yearned for this sensation and was incapable of finding it anywhere else in his busy and crowded life.
Now as he closed the distance between stress and freedom, Seth could begin to make out the narrow dirt road indicating the final leg of his voyage. Normally he would venture to the same nondescript town outside of Jonesboro he had frequented for the last twenty-three years, but this time was different. In a will left by his late Uncle Jason was this patch of land he had arrived at now, minutes before the break of dawn. Never before had his uncle mentioned the property, and Seth certainly had heard nothing of the duck blind he had been given specific directions to find.
As he stepped out of his truck, he felt his worn leather boots sink into the thick Arkansas mud. Reaching for his chest waders in the rear of the truck would prove to be an obstacle. Several strenuous steps and a lost boot later, Seth finally donned the footwear along with a camouflage Carhartt that had kept him warm for over a decade. Completing his routine, he snagged his decoys and ammo bag as well as the shotgun his father had surprised him with one Christmas morning in his early teens.
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By now his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so he trudged down the levee hugging the treeline, per his uncle’s instructions. Seth trekked the hundred yards until he arrived at a weathered post, marking the turn he was to make into the flooded woods. With the nearly freezing water rising up to his knees, each step became easier as the ground loosened beneath him.
Seth had waded only a short distance when he was shocked by the sound of ducks’ wings already flapping in the water. The sun then broke across the horizon and he discovered a one-man steel blind, painted brown and surrounded by brush, planted on the edge of an opening in the engulfed woods. At the other side of this hidden gem was the real prize — mallard after mallard after mallard; an endless pool of drakes and hens.
After entering the steel box and taking a seat on the solitary bench, the cold water rested along his waistline and the top of the blind just below his field of vision. Although the sun was rising behind him, Seth continued to sit in the cold until the point that he developed a small shiver. Still, all he could do was sit and watch in awe at the wonder in front of him. Mesmerized by the abundance of life before him, Seth did not even load his gun. How could he dare pierce the sky and interrupt this beauty as a whole? This is what he truly had been yearning for. So there he just sat.
As the sun rose little by little, light began to shine into the blind. On the inside wall beneath some caked-on dirt, Seth noticed scratches that seemed not to belong in the rusted steel. Freezing his hands in the water while he washed away the Arkansas mud, he revealed a message left not too long ago:
May this spot be an escape for you as it was for me — a chance to slow down and notice the life and beauty around us every day.
Uncle Jason
January 11th, 2016
SHORT AND SWEET (or not-so-sweet), the Very Short Story Contest welcomes entries of up to 750 words, maximum. Writers are encouraged to incorporate the city into their work. Winning stories will be published in Memphis and archived on memphismagazine.com. Whereas the fiction contest was in the past a once-a-year event, the Very Short Story Contest will recognize ten winning entries annually, every month except February and August.
The Very Short Story Contest is presented by Novel, Memphis’ newest independent bookstore. Interested in submitting your work? Please read the full contest rules, then send us your best stuff!
