Off the Coast of Spain

The snow was sprinkling in the windows like powdered sugar. Charlie had not thought to pull the shutters from storage, so there was nothing to close in order to keep the snowflakes out.
It was so quiet. Charlie quite liked it. Sitting in his whitewashed boat, in a whitewashed world, all wrongdoings absolved, hidden behind the fog and fluffy precipitation falling thoroughly consistent.
He could see his breath in the cold colored air, a warmer gray than it was, and as his ears began to adjust to the absence of audible sounds he started to feel like he could hear the weight of the flakes as they amass.
The wood where he sat no longer gave way under his weight, as it did during the lazy days of summer – it had stiffened with the weather, the moisture within had frozen.

The boat was not made for winter.
Charlie couldn’t stand up in the cabin without hitting his head. He had to hold his shoulders down near his knees when entering or exiting the hatch.
He felt a breeze near his ankles and used his eyes to follow along near the floorboards until he located its source, a hole had punched up through near the corner, and the wood was dark and rotten at its edges.
Something he would have to fix, but not until the winter had thawed and the spring had dried out. The glue would not hold a bond in the freeze or in the wet. The dry, hot summers were the best time for Charlie to make repairs.
He had a peanut butter sandwich wrapped in wax paper in his pocket, one with strawberry jelly. The quiet had been nice but Charlie had lost his concentration.
All he could think about was that jelly, the color of it such a stark contrast against the atmosphere. It was a red full of light, a red that wanted to live, a red that was alive.
He pulled the parcel from his pocket and the rustling of unwrapping banished the silence, changing Charlie’s perception. None of it seemed as empty as it had a moment before and even the colors seemed to warm.
Charlie thought he heard birds now and passing cars.
Maybe it was finally morning, or finally everybody else’s morning. Charlie had been up for hours. It made sense that his appetite would come and that his focus would go when he was no longer alone in the waking.
It was just as well, Marlena would be out soon and then just like clockwork, Charlie heard the backdoor. He heard her boots along the snow.

And her face was peeking in the hatch. She smiled sweetly, quietly, crow’s feet bending at the corners of her eyes. “Hi Charlie,”

“Marlena,”

“Mind if I join you?”
Charlie shook his head, made a sweeping motion with his hand, “Can sit anywhere you like.”

Marlena bent into the cabin, shoulders near her knees, crouched down and sat along the wall across from him. Their legs parallel with one another, Charlie saw a patch of purple cabbage in the blue jean field, all lined up in rows; another thing for summer.

He watched as Marlena pulled a cigarette tin from her jacket pocket. The scene a very cool blue painting: the daylight, the stark white snow, the off-white of the boat, heather grey of Marlena’s eyes, her coat a hungry chocolate brown.

She pout and held the filtered cigarette out between her lips, looking now by patting down her pockets for a lighter. Charlie had one in his coat.

“Thank you.” She mumbled mouth full and bent her neck down towards her chest to light her cigarette, pull in the first lung full. She held the lighter back out for him to take. He shook his head, held up his hand, she could have it. Marlena slid the lighter into her jacket.

Charlie did not smoke and his need for a lighter was very slim, but Marlena made him feel full up like nothing or no one ever had, and it made him feel like a good man to be able to light his lady’s smokes.

That cigarette smell nostalgic, cigarettes a cultural icon and a memory from back home, aunts and grammas and moms sitting around the dinner table or out at the dock wrapped up in a cloud. Charlie had spent a lifetime loving women with cigarettes dangling from their mouths.

Charlie sighed. “This boat is only good for sinking.”

“Well it’s a good thing then, that it’s under three feet of snow,” Marlena grinned.

Charlie didn’t want to, but he smiled back. “I guess it is, isn’t it? Although, you never know, that flood it could be coming and then what are we to do with a boat full of holes?”

“Start swimming?”

Charlie shook his head, “Hot air balloon.”

“Is that what’s next?” Marlena asked.

“Yes.” Charlie answered, now with a full on smile, “I am thinking we can use the drapes. I hate the ones in the kitchen, but I think they would be sturdy enough. Ugh, that heavy eggplant color, but it could be good for when we get real close to the sun. They could give us some shade or we could burn them for fuel.”

“And what for the basket?” Marlena asked. “Should I start bending the planks of the bed frame?”

“No,” Charlie said and spread his arms. “this boat. The holes make it much lighter, we could fit one with a telescope to look-out for good places to land and cheeseburgers.”

“Which way we flying?” Marlena asked and reached for a second cigarette.

“South.”

“mmm” through pouting, cigarette lips. “Now you’re talking. I don’t know about cheeseburgers though – what about fish tacos or burritos?”

Charlie shrugged his shoulders, “sure, as long as you come with me.”

“Of course I will come with you Charlie.”

They sat there in the cabin staring out opposite windows listening as the morning traffic start to stream past. Their house was fairly far from the road, but they could still hear the big trucks and with this weather, the small cars too – all dragging heavy chunks of ice in their wheel wells.