The Visitation

Evelyn and I got down in the long grass and rolled back and forth all morning. Like logs, we were. After lunch we did it again in the spots where the grass had bounced back up. The meadow looked finally like a wet hairdo someone had slept on. The plan was to bring Ev’s daughter out here and describe an alien visitation to her. She was passing through on her way to Montreal and Ev hadn’t seen her in months. We had no money and so the idea was to act out a scene for her. We had it all figured out: “Bright lights appeared middle of the night,” we’d say, faking astonishment. “And you see that dead tree dead centre? Well it was healthy as you like two days ago.” He was rooted to the spot, Ev would say about me. “He was held in place by some tractor beam thingamajig that arrowed between the distant sandbar willows. It had him there like a goddamn deer.” Ev would grab her girl’s arm. “It was as if they were toying with us, Sue,” she’d say, wide-eyed. “As if they were just proving they could.” Of course, however damn funny it was, there was no telling anyone else. The kids from by-law were always looking for a reason to move us on, to rip our tents from the clearing beyond the bare sumacs, to hoof our belongings into the yellow dumpster at the park gate. No, this prank was just for family, a way of showing we still had a sense of humour, and could imagine a world beyond our own circumstances, a world smarter than the cold and dumbass one we had to call home these last few hundred days.