Keep The Fire HotAct V

WIN isn't wearing socks and the blister on his ankle rubbing against the inside of his weathered boot reminded him with every step — he is limping again through dark woods.

CASSIDY drifts in and out of awareness, slung over WIN's shoulder.

MARA, carrying a pack on her back and one on her front for CASSIDY, places a hand on them both at regular intervals as they navigate the dark terrain.

On their left through the tree tops the confrontation of light and dark has never been more beautiful to their eyes.

As the dark is pushed away they come to a meadow and for some distance they can see where a forest fire has cleared a long path towards exposed granite mounds.

We'll stop up there at those.

I see it.

The pace has slowed and regular breathing has returned.

WIN reaches out for MARA's hand and she uses his hand to pull herself to him and they walk as a unit until they reach rocks they can climb and sit on.

CASSIDY now deposited and comforted with blankets, WIN and MARA sit nearby and face the direction they came from.

We can see for miles here.

And be seen.

I'll walk ahead while you rest.

There could be a cabin along the river or some small lake nearby.

I already miss that bed.

Yeah.

Is that..?

Looks like a drone.

There were a few before when I was on the road.

I saw them in the woods.

There's another.

I count five.

All along the treeline of the woods they just left WIN and MARA watch the unnatural bob and weave of the drones.

Maybe we set up on the other side of these rocks instead.

Damn good idea.

Sunlight off the river glares right into WIN's eye.

His right foot slips off a rock plunging it into the river giving him a heavy soaker.

Fantastic.

Indifferent to his grief, the landscape is empty of threats and laid gentle upon the Earth in a painted Eden.

Further downriver, peeking through magnificent old trees, is the front porch of a wood cabin.

Getting closer WIN can see the windows are all blown out.

The door lays face down on the porch, blown out of its frame in what looks like a fireless explosion that pushed everything outward.

Walking up the steps and onto the door to lean inside, WIN can see all furniture, lamps, pictures, candles piled up at the edges of the walls with clean, dustless floors in between.

Looking to the kitchen floor, and this time, no head in a helmet.

He picks up a book-end bust of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien with a shake of his head.

Through the house and through the back door is a wooden shed with the door still on it and a heavy lock.

WIN walks towards it and is lit by a stream of direct sunlight as he walks.

From a shortening distance, WIN waves to MARA and CASSIDY.

CASSIDY raises her arm with a real wave and smile and she is happy to see him return and WIN smiles with a lightness that feels alien after the day he's just lived.

MARA grins a relieved grin. She wasn't sure he was coming back.

He is becoming important to them both, he knows it. And it feels good.

What did you find?

Shelter.

We'll have to put up some boards over the windows and block the doors.

Not sure how I feel about hammering nails right now.

Because of the noise?

Exactly right.

CASSIDY and MARA put away the ropes they were using to practice knots.

They had dug a deep pit for a fire, a Dakota fire hole, so the scent would be less likely to be picked up by the wind.

MARA pushes dirt onto it to snuff it out watching the smoke twist and evaporate with distant, haunted eyes.

Poking at the logs of a new fire in the fireplace of the cabin and the haunted look in MARA's eyes hasn't left her.

WIN and CASSIDY make hooks from assorted sharp things trying to push things into soft wood without making noise so the windows can be covered with filthy blankets.

CASSIDY eyes an axe by the fireplace that could make their work easier.

The back door has been put back into place and one hinge pin slid into place.

That and an upturned table will keep it closed overnight.

Are there more sheets of plywood in that shed for the upstairs window?

There is nothing in that shed.

Not what I asked.

WIN stops and turns to smile at MARA before continuing on with his work.

No more plywood. Lots of dirty blankets to keep the wind down, though. I'll get them tomorrow.

Start with the master, the other bedroom window has a dresser sticking half-way out of it.

I'd ask ..

Yeah, I can't even imagine what happened here. No idea.

But it was bad.

And now we're here.

Something bad has happened everywhere.

Every inch of this prison planet.

But some good things too.

Focus on right now.

I'm trying, Win. I'm really trying.

MARA and CASSIDY huddle together on the bed while WIN lays on towels and old clothes beside the bed. The wind is loud in the trees. The air is cool. And no one is asleep.

WIN faces the covered window.

CASSIDY and MARA face each other. The house creaks.

(quietly)

What's on your mind, sweetheart?

I don't know.

It's too much. Too much to hold on to to say.

I have so much hurt for my friends who died. But I also.. I know I can't love anyone anymore. That makes a …calm feeling. My head is all over the place. I don't know.

Do you love Win?

Yes I do.

Fuck yeah!

(laughing)

But you know he's going to die?

Wait, what?

What do you mean?

Everything we love is going to die.

WIN picks himself off the floor with a sigh.

MARA struggles to find words.

WIN shoves CASSIDY and MARA apart, crawling over MARA to lie between them.

It feels good to be close. Doesn't it?

Yes. But tomorrow. Or the next day.

We can't live in the past or the future.

(crying)

We have to live right now. And for each other. Or there is no point to the suffering. No point at all.

You have us now. And we have you.

If you can't make it great for yourself, do it for someone else.

Every great thing that's ever happened in the history of the world started with just this.

Just hang on to this as long as you can, ok?

Ok. Yeah.

OK.

With wet eyes, all three somehow managed to sleep, huddled together, surrounded by darkness.

Knots are tried and tried again.

The bannister of the front porch makes a solid post to trial on.

MARA and CASSIDY practice and smile together.

The river slaps in the mild breeze.

The western sun paints the Earth in gold and WIN picks rabbit out of his teeth, watching the landscape and watching the girls.

Their hair still wet from the after dinner swim in the river.

You're pretty quiet this evening, Mr. Flimsy-knot.

You mean I'm knot good at it?

I mean what I say and I say what I mean.

Truly, the rarest of people.

All people are rare now.

Ooof, Ok Miss puppies-rainbows-and-kittens.

Boo. Come on.

It sounded darker than I meant.

There's still more people than you can count.

Much More.

Back is sore, this will be the last one for me, honey..

Ok, I'll pull these apart.

Wild mint tea and sleep on the menu?

Yeah.

This is our 6th night here.

What even is time?

Beats the shit outta me.

It really does, doesn't it?

The smile on MARA's face fades, WIN sees it and loses his. A deep breath and he gets to his feet and goes inside.

All three are in their favourite spots. WIN in the middle, CASSIDY on the protected side of the bed closest to the wall, MARA on the outer side of the bed.

This early summer night feels good, and all are comfortable in light clothes.

The Emergency barrier on the window is removed and the blankets adjusted to hang like curtains and pushed to the window sides held by hooks letting in the night air and the night itself.

WIN drifts with the quiet breathing of his companions, his eyes mostly closed.

The steady moonlight spread across the floor is broken and then after a moment, broken again.

His eyes open and his head turns to the window. There is no sound. No creaking of wood. No sounds of the house settling or branches scraping against the roof.

WIN looks to CASSIDY and then to MARA and slowly lifts a leg over MARA and moves from the bed.

A careful walk to the window.

Cool moonlight, broken by fires lit on the ground.

The Ojibwe are making a circle of fire.

Standing in the middle of the circle their Sioux companion is getting his eye tattooed by GUTTERBOY using a vibrating tattoo gun with a dangling power cord connected to nothing.

Black ink pours out of the gun into his eye as the vibrating needles drag shaky lines back and forth.

From the open door of the shed the skins of a man, woman, and young woman, come dancing and shuffling out, animated like clothes on a moving clothesline.

They float into the points of a triangle within the circle of fire while GUTTERBOY and BINBOY move outside the circle.

GUTTERBOY throws the tattoo gun onto the lawn where it disappears in the long blades.

WIN, bathed in firelight, window-framed in a dark room, is transfixed in horror.

(to himself)

We have to run..

He turns to wake his companions but only MARA is in the bed.

Where CASSIDY was just laying is only ruffled blankets.

Outside on the lawn, emerging from outside the house underneath him is CASSIDY holding the fire axe.

Mara! MARA!

He doesn't wait to get MARA out of bed, WIN is racing down the longest stairs and down the longest hallway and cannot get to the door fast enough.

By the time he is standing outside the back kitchen door …BINBOY is running towards CASSIDY.

To greet him CASSIDY plants her feet and extends her arm out in a straight jab with the axe, hitting BINBOY in the face with the top of the axe, shattering his nose and teeth, sending his head to the Earth and his feet to the sky.

VENDETTA floats above the earth.

SKANK and GUTTERBOY's plastic faces wail silently at their fallen playmate.

Keep the fire hot, Binboy

He might have been Sioux and a wannabe, but he was our Sioux.

He was our Sioux, He was our Sioux!

MARA, pistol in hand, is hitting WIN to wake up or get out of the way and let her into the yard to get CASSIDY.

Around her the cabin is starting to burn along with the brush and shrubbery of the overgrowth at its foundation.

The tree tops are starting to light.

MARA pushes past WIN who cannot take his eyes off of VENDETTA.

In WIN's hand the closest handheld object through the kitchen was a metal spatula.

MARA is held in the air from her leap towards CASSIDY.

The axe has dropped to the ground.

CASSIDY floats into the fire circle while the skins dance their floppy dance.

It is first her hair that starts to pull then the cuts begin from the top of her sweet head and when the skin is pulled down off her face all the fires are extinguished and the yard's sudden darkness is a concussion that knocks WIN and MARA to the ground.

They can only stare at the now vacant space in the lawn where CASSIDY was just standing.

As the sun rises behind the cabin pushing shadows to the river, MARA lies face down on the porch, splayed out like the door when it was found.

In the river to his knees WIN shivers and sways and descends into a grief so profound a thousand angels tied by bright white cables to his heart could not lift him out.

The golden light that touches everything around them tastes like flat soda.

Only their suffering is pure, all other sensations are like vapour.

The river's waves lap against its edges.

The wind bends blade and stem in mysterious patterns as far as the eye can see.

The blankets are thrown off as soon as WIN covers MARA's shoulder with them.

She faces the wall in the position held by CASSIDY only hours ago.

WIN holds his aching guts from a hunger that comes upon him fast.

Avoiding the backyard WIN walks out the front and follows the river while the sun sets.

The breeze is mostly light, sometimes bold enough to wrinkle the river water.

The fish weir he made for fish to swim into and get stuck in has three fish in it. Two large Walleye and one small Yellow Perch.

Held up to the blue sky, struggling for breath, they bring a fresh flood of sunset-golden tears from his weary eyes.