Before the Storm

by abernaith

Summary: Kazuo and Carl both have their own way of talking, and it doesn't involve words.

Disclaimer: All characters in this fic properly belong to David Guterson. This is merely a tribute to the book; no money is being gained from it.

Note: A ficlet based on the book Snow Falling on Cedars. These two characters trigger the events in the book, and the main story basically revolves around their last interaction. It is a wonder then that the author chose to have these men speak the fewest words in the entire book, and that he was able to pull it off. When I began writing this ficlet, it was with the intention of having them speak the words that went unspoken. But then, to my surprise, things turned out differently.

In these spaces between the sounds of rowing, and breathing, and rolling wave, I can hear the silence of our hearts slowly growing. Here, in our small wooden island, saltwater gently undulating beneath the warped wood and moss-covered hull, there is only the stillness of peace in his soul and mine. There is no need for us to speak, nor to look each other in the eye. Our silence holds all our thoughts and feelings, and all that needs to be shown is already shown in each synchronized row.

He sits to my left, and I with right oar gripped with two hands, match his left oar, row for row. Each time, the oars break through water together, slicing cleanly and smoothly with minimum effort. I look to the east, at the distant sun, still struggling to break free of the sea's embrace. I let my gaze drift aimlessly, skipping across the grey swells like a ghostly dolphin, until finally my eyes come to rest on my own oar. A little blue-green froth bubbles up as the oar churns the surface of the water. To my eye, the swirling colors were a startlingly beautiful contrast to the stone-grey surface of the calm morning sea. My thoughts move my lips before I could stop them. "Look," I say. My head turns automatically to Kazuo, but he does not turn to look at me. Rather, he casts his eyes to his own oar, and I know, instinctively, what he sees. "Yes," a breath, hardly disturbing the silence that surrounds him familiarly. I know then, too, what he feels, and it gladdens me, for it is also what I feel.

Later, with the boat still as a rock on a calm morning sea, we fished in silence. Kazuo had the stillness in him necessary to become a good fisherman, but I had learned early on that he had not the luck nor the favor of the sea. In this we are opposites; I having been blessed with the latter. Now, sitting with Kazuo and sharing in his stillness and inner peace, I can say that I am grateful for my own blessing. If I had not earlier discovered my own impatience, and had not Kazuo been witness to it, I don't think we would ever have been more than distant neighbors; merely children peering at each other from behind our fathers' sturdy backs.

Today seemed so closely linked with the past that I wondered if, blinking, the years would suddenly slip away and a younger Kazuo would be sitting beside me now. I fancied that the mind can travel at amazing speeds beyond space and time, leaving its physical shell on a little wooden island out at sea. Should my mind be able to do that, I imagined I would have traveled to distant lands free from war, free from hardship, free from scornful, discriminating eyes set on the faces I saw everyday. In those lands, there would only be stillness and silence. There would only be beauty. I imagined Kazuo would be there, too.

Watching Kazuo, I had come to learn that stillness and silence are more permanent than the world. The noise and the turmoil of human hearts--these things, on the other hand, are impermanent. This bond we share, I and Kazuo, is also impermanent. Who knew, after all, what the future held? In the end, we would all be swallowed by stillness and silence. But for now, I am content to let it wash over me, sitting beside Kazuo, on our little boat. I on the stern, Kazuo nearer the bow, a tin bucket between us, our fishing rods facing the calm waters, and Kazuo's stillness, and my own luck. In this way, we drew the fish to our peaceful wooden island, unwitting to the hooks behind our curtain of peace.