the turn
Lucas Rucchin
The senator is midway down the yard path staged by parched grass when the door opens. He does not have to turn around to ascertain that his son is there, watching him from the warm light blooming from the open entrance. The senator does not want to turn around; he doesn’t know what to tell him.
The rose bushes are fed by the wind and begin to taunt him. Over the hills, explosions parade through the streets of Santiago. Red mosaics toss smoke into the sky. The tremors cause car alarms to sing and birds to burst from faraway orchards. His son shrinks back from the open door; his breathing staggers, then steadies; still he watches his father, now all the way down the yard path staged by parched grass, one hand welded to the gate, the other looped through a suitcase packed with arms of fabric sliding out the edges.
The senator tears away from the gate, paces back to where his son stands hugged by lamplight. But his son gargles a sob, and suddenly the senator cannot head in that direction any longer. His shoes scrape against the stone as he stops. Clouds with firm shoulders mow the stars from the east and blind the moon.
His son says, “Where are you going?”—but his lips barely flutter as he does so, and his words are snared by
the wind.
“I’m only going for a drive,” the senator calls. He hides his suitcase behind his back. “That’s all. I’ll be back. Just a short drive.”
His son’s breathing is stumbling over itself. “I want to go with you.”
“No.” Only the outline of the senator’s body can be traced in the dark. “Not today.” “Why?”
A flock of planes is groaning from somewhere above. Tanks roll through Santiago as do Colombian hippos patrolling a river.
“Go inside,” says the senator. “Go to your mother.”
“But she’s asleep.”
Now the senator is back at the gate of his yard. He does not watch his son as he does so, but as the gate is pushed open, he can hear the panicked steps of his son; he’s deciding whether to stay or to follow. One step, two steps. The gate closes. Eight steps, nine. The car door opens. A flurry of steps rock the porch. The car spins away from the house. The haze of dust is still there even as the red lights fade into the fields.
The senator is sure the valleys scrolling outside the car window are angry at him. He sees frowns formed by arrays of boulders, the heads of trees curving towards him as though pointing, deer holding their gazes for too long. He is so frightened of the valleys that he nearly collides with a broken-down car blocking the road.
The senator brakes, swivels his car, sends dirt splaying over the roadside grass. He stabilizes himself and drags a palm down his chest to soothe the burn from the seatbelt. The air stops rattling; the beige clouds sail away; two faces are now looking on from over the broken car.
It is a woman and her son. Their attire has been hurriedly assembled, and the boy appears to be wearing one of her mother’s sweaters.
They approach the senator’s car. They explain that their car no longer drives; they have no means of repair; their destination is only a few hours north. “Of course,” says the senator, and his fingers tap the steering wheel, and the sun glances off the windshield, and the mother and her boy file into the back seats.
After a half-hour of spinning through cauldrons of hills, the boy begins to cry. He tries to stifle it by pushing his face up against the leather that pads the car door. But his mother declares this unseemly, and she pulls the boy away and wraps him in her arms.
“I apologize,” the mother says. “He’s scared. There’s been far too much change in so little time. For my son, Santiago is not safe—we’ll be staying with some relatives in Salamanca.”
The senator’s face is still. He becomes abruptly aware of how bloodless his leg has become from pressing the acceleration for so long. Beyond the glass, a maze of birds flickers between trees; brown stalks swing within a sleeping pond.
“I always told my son,” the senator says—and he must be mindful of the uniformity of his voice as he does so—“that if you ever find yourself unwell in these sorts of trips, you should look to the window, and try to keep your eyes as still as possible.”
The boy turns. As he scrubs tears off his face, he massages sunlight into his cheeks. His head rises from his mother’s lap like a buoyant log swimming from the lake floor to the clouds.
They arrive at Salamanca as the orange sun is flinging its colours across the horizon. The boy waves goodbye as he exits the car. He is smiling as he dissolves into the fields that spill outside the city. The senator cannot bring himself to return his feet to the pedals. He removes the key from the ignition and extends himself across the seat. There is the noise of children rippling down alleyways, of vendors calling a crowd. The senator allows slumber to overtake him; the drive back will be lengthy.
Lucas Rucchin is an aspiring prose writer situated in Vancouver, British Columbia. His work, both creative and journalistic, has been recognized in Surging Tide Magazine, for which he publishes as a staff writer. Outside of writing, Lucas enjoys playing the trumpet in jazz and concert ensembles, cross-country running, and taking his dog on lengthly walks.