Page 3 of Our Own Light

Oliver pursed his lips and hummed. “Or maybe it was Dmitri?”

“Who are these people?”

“Oh. Sorry. I was trying to make a joke. The Brothers Karamazov?” Floyd silently cocked an eyebrow in response. “Obviously, that only works if you’ve read the book I was trying to reference. Of course, I may not have even had character right, so there’s a chance that still wouldn’t have been very funny even if you had read it.” Oliver smiled sheepishly. “So, I take it you’re not familiar with Dostoevsky, then?”

“I never heard of him.”

“He’s, uh, he’s a Soviet novelist,” Oliver said, a kind of reluctance in his tone. “I read his work in college. Well, some of his work.”

If Oliver had been to college, why was he trying to work as a miner? Couldn’t he be working in the city somewhere?

As though Oliver had magically read Floyd’s mind, he said, “I never finished college, though. I was bored. Or something like boredom, anyway. I couldn’t manage to keep my mind on the material. So, I stayed home for a while after that, but I needed to leave. You know how life is, or maybe how I should say how family is, or can be, with their expectations and obligations and everything.” Floyd watched him blow out a long breath. “Anyway, I needed a change.”

Floyd was staring at Oliver, thinking on how strange it was to meet someone else who had felt forced to leave home, when Oliver removed his hat again. Right away, the sight of Oliver’s soft-looking blond locks wiped Floyd’s mind plum clean. Oliver raked a hand through his hair, nervous-like, and Floyd was nearly overcome with the sudden urge to reach out and touch it.

Quickly, Floyd forced himself to look away. Wanting to touch Oliver’s hair was a reminder—a swift kick in the behind—to hurry up and rid himself of this newcomer.

He started walking again, his feet kicking up little puffs of dirt with each step.

“True enough,” Floyd said. He knew what it was like to feel the weight of family obligations. He had felt that way plenty helping out on his family’s farm as a kid. “You still never really explained your comment, though. About my wife.”

“Well, it wasn’t about your wife, really, but what you said about her nailing your ears to the wall. Dostoevsky had a line like ‘a tiger would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to.’”

“What’s it mean?”

“It’s... well... people are cruel. Uniquely cruel. Worse than tigers, worse than beasts,” Oliver explained. “Or that’s the point of the view of the character who said it. I’m not sure if Dostoevsky believed it himself.”

Well, that was a sad sort of belief, wasn’t it? Floyd had never thought that people—people as a whole—were beastly. Even when he had been forced to leave McDowell County, he hadn’t felt that way. He wondered if Oliver felt like this Dostoevsky fella.

“Do you believe it?” Floyd asked.

Oliver shrugged. “I think so. Sometimes.”

It seemed peculiar that someone like Oliver had such a hard-bitten attitude about other people. He was dressed in Sunday’s finest on a weekday, and his “Sunday’s finest” looked nicer than most any outfit Floyd had seen for some time. Oliver must have had his secrets. Which was fine. Floyd had his, too.

Floyd realized that he must have been wearing a sour expression when Oliver started chattering on like he felt the need to explain himself for that remark about people being cruel.

“Not like my opinion is an enlightened one, though. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to have some kind of revelation about the inherent goodness of mankind or the importance of faith or something, but I never felt any of that. Maybe because I never finished the book.”

Floyd saw an opportunity to lighten the mood.

“Sounds like you tend not to finish things.”

Oliver smiled at that. “Yeah. Apparently not.”

Floyd couldn’t make himself keep up the conversation. He couldn’t really talk about Soviet novelists. Or most novelists. By now, Oliver had stopped talking, too, which meant that they could enjoy the sights and sounds of nature.

While they walked the path that ran alongside the train tracks, Floyd noticed Oliver looking beyond it, his eyes fixed on the mountainside, which was really something to see in the springtime—near every inch of the hills covered in lots of shades of green. Seeing Oliver captivated by the sight had Floyd’s chest swelling with pride. Wherever Oliver was from, he likely hadn’t seen the kind of beauty that nature had to offer out here in the mountains.

Minutes passed. As Floyd was listening to the chirping of birds in the surrounding forest, like the high-pitched cheep-cheep-cheep of the song sparrow, he was happy to realize that Oliver could, in fact, keep quiet for a while. Not that there was nothing wrong with Oliver’s rambling, but Floyd had become comfortable with silence, especially when on his walks through town or in the woods. Most of the time, Floyd kept to himself. He had come to like it that way.

As they neared Donohue’s place, Floyd could hear children playing over in the fields, and soon, there was a sudden series of whistles, one after another after another, like everyone was singing in a round. It continued on and off for a bit.

“What’s that?” Oliver asked.

“Dinner time. Moms whistling to call their children home.”

“Ah, that’s nice. Wholesome, even,” Oliver said. “I was never permitted to roam like that. Farthest I had ever been was our backyard. So I spent a lot of time inside reading. I still read a lot, though I tend to abandon books when I’m three-quarters of the way through. I mean, I can typically sense how they end by that point, so...” He shrugged, and there were a few seconds of silence. Floyd was wondering whether Oliver wanted him to say something in response to that when Oliver picked right up talking some more. “Reading is my favorite activity, I think, aside from piano, though sometimes I wonder if I really enjoy piano or if I only like that I’m not too terrible of a pianist. I’m inclined to say that I like it, though. It’s only been a week since I left home, and I find myself missing it already.” Talk, talk, talk. Oh well. At least Oliver had a nice voice, one that wasn’t bad to listen to. “What about you, Floyd? Did your mom whistle for you to come home when you were little?”

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