joonsooyoon

Cloaked in inky darkness, the boy traced the swirling planets etched into the shutters. The wood was rough beneath his fingers. Faded blue paint flaked off like falling leaves, illuminated by shards of light from the closed window.

Sometimes, the boy’s hand lingered on the shutter’s edge; sometimes, his eyes hazed to a cloudy blue; sometimes, he would not think at all, letting the world beyond the blinds disappear, as perhaps forgetting was better than remembering.

Tiring, the boy slid down onto the carpet, leaning against his bed’s cold frame. He slipped a hand into his pocket. Fumbling past a bit of twine, some lint, a folded bottle cap, he found the stone. Holding it up to the light, the stone’s translucence bled red as it sank into his fingers. Its broken surface resembled splitting rose petals under the glow. The boy felt its weight, pulling, connecting him to the ground.

He sat there, Ezekiel, the watchman.

Yet soon, Ezekiel began gazing at the shutters once more. The stone dipped to the carpet.

He could hear them now, the doves.

Rising, Ezekiel slipped the stone back into his pocket. Through the slits between the shutter’s folding blades, he could hear them: flapping wings as whistling sharp beats of drums, sweet songs as melodies of peace. They were doves, he knew. He could see them if he opened the shutters. But seeing them would make them more real than they already were. And to him, nothing was worse than what was real.

Ezekiel turned away. 

He went out.

Behind him, his door shut with a gentle click. Ezekiel was covered in a deep ember glow. He could hear the crackling flames from the fireplace downstairs. An oaken stairway spiraled down across the hall. Another white door, identical to his own, sat to his right.

Ezekiel stepped softly onto the floor. The wood stayed still. Before long, step by step, he continued down the hall.

A sharp breath broke the orange glow.

“He is just a boy.” It was a woman’s voice, catching, high, swift as a sparrow’s.

“He is just a boy.” This time, a man’s voice, deep, dark, full as an eagle’s wingspan. “How long, Miranda? Nine years, he has been a boy.”

“I, I… I don’t know…” Her voice, wings cut, dipped. The boy, whose foot had risen off the ground, withdrew, silent.

“Three seasons gone by.” A sharp clink of glass pierced the hushed silence. “More than I had…”

“You were young then—”

“I was young. But I still regret it. Philip, he, he would have wept if he saw me so then….”

Ezekiel stopped listening. The stairway was still too far. He turned to the white door on his right and grabbed its brass handle. It was cold. It was bitter coldness, one that came from something long forgotten rather than from winter. He entered.

There was the same metal bed, the shuttered window, the carpet. He stepped through, cautious. It was then he saw the stones. In all manner of nature’s shapes, they sat upon a shelf opposite the bed and shutters. Some were red as his, but others were starry purple, oak brown, blends of orange and cinnamon, grass and sea. Where the light met their surfaces, rainbows poured out in spirals.

He approached the stones. Like soldiers lined up for war, they stood sentinel over the room, its memories. Ezekiel surveyed the stones one by one, each of their contours, blended shades, and angles. But reaching its end, he saw a gap between two stones. Ezekiel knew that it was his.

He took a deep breath. The room felt like the stones, comforting, weighty, sure of its presence just as its owner had been. His brother had been like a raven, Ezekiel knew. Isaac had been so sure, so grounded. Ezekiel’s hand fell into his pocket and tightened on stone.

But he had stayed too long; memories threatened to slip into his mind. The doves had come. Ezekiel could hear their approaches, their cries.

And so he left.

Shutting the door behind him, Ezekiel heard his mother again.

“—orgets. How will he understand? He’s just a boy. H—”

Ezekiel made his way further along the hall. Under the shifting shadows, he reached the mouth of the stairs.

He gazed down, tracing the stairs to the bottom that led to the front door. His shoes lay upturned and strewn forth. He could see the dusty soles of another, cloaked in a small nook. 

“Minister Joseph will help. He’s known Ez, surely—”

Ezekiel began down the stairs. His foot sank into the step, and he listened. 

“—n’t. How can we make him see, Miranda? I was older when my brother passed, and yet I, I…”

Ezekiel continued traveling down the stairs.

“If is not enough!” His father’s voice rose. ”I wish I could go back, back. But… there is no returning. What is lost is lost.”

“I know, I know…”

“I still remember his face, I cannot forget… I suffer still. I cannot forget.”

There was a silence.

“After Philip, I suffered.” His father’s voice cracked. ”I won’t let my boy suffer.” There was a break. “Isaac is gone.”

Ezekiel froze.

There was a weighted hush; then a moment passed. As though the stone in his pocket was a chain, Ezekiel sank down. Piercing the silence, the wood groaned. But Ezekiel merely waited, his mind forgotten, as he tucked his head into his hands.

Quiet whimpers from his mother flew overhead.

But it was from his father that the silent cries came. Deep, shuddering breaths, they echoed around the home. As though a great statue collapsing, each trembling inhale pierced and broke. There were no tears. It was their absence that filled the cries.

Ezekiel had never heard his father grieve before.

He could hear the doves in his father’s cries.

Ezekiel turned and ran. Up the stairs and into his room, he collapsed onto his bed.

He sank into the covers. Forming a tight ball against his chest, holding his stone even tighter, he shut his eyes the tightest. He did not cry.

As he fell asleep, his father’s cries slept beside him.

When Ezekiel awoke the next morning, his shoulder and eyes ached as he uncurled. His feet fell like soft raindrops on the floor as he stood, looking around him. The shutters were silent.

Thump went the door, and soon it opened.

Wearing black satin wrapped around her as a shield, his mother strode forth. Her mouth set in a straight line, she approached Ezekiel, leaning down to meet him.

“Come here Ez,” she said, her arms outstretched.

Ezekiel did not approach, and her arms hovered between them as a wall. She drifted forward, pulling back slightly, before moving forward again to hold Ezekiel in her arms. They stood there, the two, and Ezekiel could feel his mother’s warmth pulsing around him, relaxing as she melted. To Ezekiel, they felt like ropes, tugging with their heat.

He pulled away.

He saw his mother’s lips falter, then rise, as she tried to smile. He did not look at her eyes. She turned away, though Ezekiel did not know why. When she turned around, a smile on her lips, she reached out a hand.

“Sha, shall we go Ez?”

Ezekiel nodded, slipping his small hand into hers. He could not see her face as they made their way across the hall and down the stairs. There, they met his father and Minister Joseph. 

Ezekiel’s father sat with his arms crossed against his suit, deep, stout, sun-tanned. Minister Joseph was a tall, thin man balancing on the balls of his feet as his upturned head swept around the home. A faded blue shirt spilled away from his sides.

Minister Joseph approached.

“Ezekiel,” he said. His voice was warm, thick, like light. “My dear—how have you been? The school has surely missed you, the children too.”

Ezekiel nodded. He stared at the man. To Ezekiel, Minister Joseph’s smell of chalk dust, his tired smile, the marks running down the Minister’s fingers were from old, old memories. He looked back upstairs, but managed a small smile that Minister Joseph replicated.

“We’ve all missed you,” he said again. “Me, the children, Moss. That old hound waits for you still, you know, by the gate. He is getting old.” The Minister chuckled. “But still not out of energy yet.”

Ezekiel remembered the other children. He had seen them last pressing their faces on glass as they smushed their faces flush against his front door. He remembered the old hound, too, an old mastiff whose paw had been ripped away from a roadside accident. He had greeted Moss every day at the fenced house across from his school. Moss had been more friend to Ezekiel than most.

“The pastures are good for playing, the trees are full in bloom,” Minister Joseph said. “It’s just as you left it, the playground, Mr. Nobel’s orchard—everything is the same.”

Ezekiel looked beyond Minister Joseph to the front door. A wooden mahogany, carved into four panels and inset with shimmering glass, it was heavy and forefront to the home. Beyond it was the outside.

When Ezekiel did not respond, Minister Joseph stretched out his hand.

“Why don’t you come with me, Ezekiel?” he said. “Outside, where everyone awaits?”

Ezekiel stepped back. He looked toward the Minister’s outstretched hand.

He heard the doves.

“You don’t have to fear,” the Minister said. “Everyone is expecting you. They all miss you very much.”

The doves echoed in the home as Ezekiel threatened to gaze outside. Their cries grew as his hand slightly rose. But Ezekiel’s will and hand fell again with their sound.

He knew nothing, Ezekiel, nothing about the outside world. It was day when he thought it was night, night when he thought it was day. And so the doves cried, and Ezekiel stepped away from Minister Joseph.

Slipping past his mother, he went up the stairs and into his room.

He fell asleep with Minister Joseph’s tired smile in mind.

Ezekiel woke once more. He slipped off from his bed and felt the stone in his pocket. He awaited. But no knock came from the door. He did not hear footsteps on the stairs or the steps of his mother as she passed the carpeted floor. He awaited. But no one came.

After a while, Ezekiel left his room.

Under dying embers, Ezekiel realized night had yet to pass. Walking down the hallway and stairs, he reached the bottom in silence.

Giving the front door a wide berth, he turned left toward the kitchen. Past shades of walls, Ezekiel saw in the far distance the scarlet shades of the fireplace. A lone candle lit a corner of the kitchen. There he saw his mother.

With small steps, Ezekiel approached. He saw an open drawer, a round stone glistening within his mother’s hands. It was only when he neared that she looked up. Her hands faltered as they hid the stone, and she kneeled to face him.

“Ez,” she said. “Are you okay?”

Ezekiel nodded. His mother began to speak, but at his answer, gave another smile. It barely touched her eyes, he noticed.

“Go back to sleep, Ez.” She gestured above him. “Everything’s fine. You can go back to sleep.”

Ezekiel gazed at his mother. She gazed back.

“Are you alright Ez?”

There was a silence.

“Are you sad?”

Ezekiel’s voice swam, soft, flightless.

His mother froze, then looked away; she twisted her arms around herself. She looked down, then up. Then, to his right, his left, away, until she stopped. He still did not see her face when she stretched out her arms.

Ezekiel did not know why. But as he saw his mother, hands outstretched, seeking something he had yet to know, he stepped forward into her embrace.

“I love you. Oh, I love you, Ez, I love you.” Ezekiel thought he heard something shattering within her. But her voice came. “I don’t know. But I love you Ez. Oh, my sweet boy, how will you know? You are so small, fragile…” She held him closer. “I can’t blame you, I can’t…”

Ezekiel did not understand her words. He said nothing more as he slipped gently off his mother’s arms. They were warm, Ezekiel thought. But he heard the doves, pulsing, as they approached. He turned away.

Back in his room, the warmth began to fade. Ezekiel still did not understand.

He slept with the warmth of his mother on his shoulders.

Ezekiel awoke. It was sunrise, he noticed, as brilliant hues shone through the shutters. He rose and faced the window. After a moment, he began to trace the lines etched into the shutters. Around and around, he followed the lines as his heart beat, beat, beat.

He could hear them now, the doves.

With flapping wings and crying song, they came again.

Ezekiel knew that the doves were him as much as he was them: they were a mirror to his soul. But they were real, as much as the stone in his pocket, his father’s silent cries, Minister Joseph’s tired smiles, his mother’s arms, were real. He did not fear the doves; Ezekiel knew they trapped themselves as much as they trapped him. Like the formless chains created by his past, his grief, his experience, his love, the doves imprisoned him.

And Ezekiel did not know. He did not know how to escape the doves, himself. He did not understand his mother’s words, his father’s worries.

He heard the doves’ cries.

And so Ezekiel continued tracing the shutters.

There stood Ezekiel, the watchman, the boy for whom the doves cried.