John Hind – B.E. Nugent
John Hind lay stretched on his back with his head against a rock. The evening dew had settled onto his shirt, shoes and trousers. His face and body glistened under the full moon, its light captured and returned by the droplets of moisture that pooled on his ashen skin and dark beard. The dew on his black hair twinkled in concert with the heavens, as though a miniature cosmos had taken refuge in the dark material. The moonlight was captured, then returned, but altered, reduced and dulled. Around him, all was still. Hushed and bated, waiting for the morning sun to crest the peaks that rose high on the other side of the valley.
John Hind lay stretched on his back. His head rested against a rock, his thin body cushioned by tufts of short grass. He was perpendicular to a low stone wall that formed the border of the field. No road; a dirt track ran roughshod outside the wall, a track that had brought him here, from which he climbed the wall and rested awhile. The track was flanked on the other side by coarse grass that marked the entrance to a dense woodland. It was quiet now, silent only for the sighing branches, the secretive whispering of trees. A hush had fallen, like a breath held in anticipation in this moment when nocturnal creatures withdrew to nests and sets to make way for their diurnal brethren.
John Hind lay stretched on the grass, his arms rested on his chest, his legs extended and his feet crossed. His overcoat spread open, splayed beneath him, absorbing the moisture from the dewy grass and morning mist. Sodden and heavy, it caused him no discomfort. Like the cloak of a languid superhero, it reminded him that greatness can be found in the ordinary and that, for some, simply being alive was a superpower. And John Hind was alive, never more than this moment looking upon the mountain peaks that had become his challenge. One day, he would reach that summit. This day.
John Hind lay upon the grass. His head rested on a rock and, behind the rock, there was a satchel that contained those essentials to meet his challenge, to master that climb, to reach that summit. His hands touched lightly on his midriff, in the right he clutched his phone. On the third finger of his left hand he wore a golden band, a reminder of promises made and promises broken, half-truths that hung about him like the chilled mist of early morning.
John Hind lay stretched on his back in a field of undulating hills that rolled gently under the gathering fog to the mountains that lurked a short distance ahead. His eyes opened, the sun shot a luminous glow through the low-hanging clouds, stirring the sharp twitter of early rising birds and the low flutter of small rodents and other grass-dwellers. A crow swept overhead, its croaking caw announcing the dawn. A wren, king of birds, perched on the low stone wall that defined the field. His chest puffed, he sang proud of his trickery on the day of his coronation.
John Hind lay stretched on short grass within a broad meadow of undulating hills, perpendicular to a stone wall that framed the field. The ground fell sharply from where he lay, raising his position from horizontal to almost vertical. Before him, the panoramic vista of grass, wall and hedgerow, grass, wall and hedgerow to the base of mountains that lifted the horizon. Beneath him, herds of livestock staked their preference for lowland grasses, more plentiful and less arduous.
John Hind lay still in a field a short distance from the lonely path that brought him there. Behind him was the wall. A small collapse marked his point of entry, a tiny avalanche of dirt and pebble and rock that traced his staggering intrusion to this place where he lay to rest against a rock in the ground. Follow that trail, meet John Hind where he sat for a breather as he considered his task, his forgotten cloth cap left behind to shelter a small scrap of stone. Go further, leave the trail onto the road and down to the town. There’s a spot, an unremarkable place, where John Hind held lodgings and argued continuously with a landlord who viewed him entirely as a waster, a landlord who was little satisfied by the solitary obligation that John Hind owed and that was to pay his rent promptly, who labelled John Hind a transient, in error because John Hind lived in the town where he had always lived and yet, somehow, the town that managed to forget him. This same landlord who stood beside the locksmith as the locks were changed on this retreat from broken promises and dreadful half-truths, and considered what must be done with the few black refuse sacks that contained the earthly possessions of John Hind. The same landlord who had snorted contempt when told that John Hind would stand one day at the highest point on the highest peak of that range of mountains.
John Hind lay silently on a hill, his head leaning to a rock that protruded from the earth. Beside the rock was a torn and ragged satchel that spilled its contents onto the hillside; four cans of cider, a sodden mush of what had been a pack of cigarettes, and a disposable lighter lay beside a length of rope, coiled loosely like a serpent in the grass. Strong rope, braided from three strands and long enough to throw over a branch of a tree when descending the mountain. John Hind had always wanted to climb that damn mountain before he died.
The snow fell on John Hind as he lay on the ground, lodging quickly in the absence of any warmth. It fell around him until John Hind lay on the grass on a steep incline in a field facing the mountains under a blanket of snow.
John Hind lay on the grass, where clumps of white held valiantly to the frozen ground, from which the early buds of spring flowers pushed through, having waited their turn. His eyes were open to the splendid vista of hills and mountains. His right eye was glazed and dull, the blue turned glassy grey. The left was open to an empty socket, its contents pilfered by the wren, the king of birds who was blessed with more than one trick. The left eye pilfered and wretched, picked and consumed until regurgitated for the nestlings to pick again, consume again, in wretched frenzy. This caused John Hind no discomfort.
A car at the foot of the hill emptied its occupants onto the trail. Two women stretched their limbs, clad in running shoes and lycra, they were dressed to hurry. And hurry they did, back away from the place where John Hind lay restfully on the grass, away from the opened eye of glazed grey and, the other, black with a corona of faded red, away from the rock protruding from the earth with its star-shaped crown of dried blood. They hurried back to the car and on to the town where their newspapers would tell of misadventure on the mountains’ foothills. On page seven, some days later, a paragraph mentioned that the identity of the remains discovered by two women during their morning run had yet to be established. The talk of the town, yet still he stirred no recollection, not even in the mind of the erstwhile landlord. And, had he remembered, it would have only confirmed his assessment of the unknown John Hind. Mary Wilson, 36, and June Lester, 34, made the gruesome discovery on a little-crossed path that led to the mountains. They would be treated for shock but would make good recovery. Authorities would remain baffled as to who the deceased man was but would conclude that he had stumbled when entering the field and incurred grievous injuries when his head struck a rock. Referenced as John Doe according to accepted practice, it would be noted that his remains were largely preserved by the seasonal snowfall, though some wildlife did begin his degradation. Preliminary investigations would indicate that he may have survived for some days before passing. His phone would be recovered from the scene, but would not yield any useful information, as investigators would discover the contact list was empty and there was not a single missed call.
B.E. Nugent is Irish and relatively new to creative writing. This is his eighth short story to be published and previous credits include Kleksograph Magazine and Howl anthology of new Irish writing. He and his wife have two adult children and live in Co. Limerick.
