Part of a Story Never Written

She was up, like she always was, before the sun peaked over the horizon. She was off, out on the mountain trails, a ritual she never did without. It never bothered me though, waking up to an empty bed. I was never a morning person anyway. I just hoped a bear didn’t get her or a forest fire didn’t burn the wrong way. Forest fires were bad that year.

“Have a good run?” I asked as she walked in.

“Always,” she said, taking a seat at the kitchen table. I came around with a plate of eggs and potatoes. No matter what I tried, it was never as good as the hashbrowns I had in Quebec. Today it felt like I finally did it.

“How are they?” I asked.

“They look great. I’m sure they taste great too.” She began eating.

Today was one of the last days we were spending in Jasper after a summer of countless memories. We walked the trails many times to Maligne Canyon, drove to Maligne Lake, had picnics at Mount Robson and canoed in Lake Louise. Looking back, I could hardly remember my protests about coming.

The decision to move out here over the summer wasn’t an easy decision for me. I had a job already. Not a great one but if it wasn’t waiting for me when I went back, I’d be out a job. Then there was the issue of being on our own for the first time. Maybe I would hate the way she trimmed her toenails. Maybe she would hate the way I shut in on rainy days. All these questions with no definitive answer—not the way I did things.

How she swayed me to come I forgot completely. I imagine it wasn’t much, her blues eyes could cast spells down my spine and I’d dance like a puppet. But that’s what love is, right? Jumping into waters and only knowing (hoping) that the other will help you swim. That, together, you’ll get there. You’ll get there.

When we finished breakfast, I revealed my surprise. I rented a campsite on the far side of Maligne Lake and a canoe to paddle there and back. We would spend our last week in one of the most beautiful spots in the park.

“So long as you actually paddle this time,” she said.

“I will, I will.” I had a habit of snapping photos instead of my shared padding duties.

We left that morning after breakfast. Everything was already back on my end and she never needed much to get by. Within the hour, she plopped her backpack down and looked at me like I was late. She was only teasing.

The day was beautiful. Twenty degrees Celcius with a 5km/h wind from the north. Clean fresh air, enough to cool my working heart. As I’ve already said, I tended to not paddle very often and now that I promised to, my arms were turning into spaghetti. I managed to find a few excuses to stop. Lunch was a great one. There was also a moose at the edge of the lake. When there’s a moose by the lake, you have to stop and take a picture! Right? Right?

Anywho, we made it and set up camp. The afternoon was quiet. I brought my copy of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. It was my goal that summer to dive into the older classics. I was never interested in them as a child and now that I was older I thought I’d have some newfound appreciation for them. And they were good! They just took me weeks to get through.

By the time the afternoon waned and dinnertime arrived, I couldn’t wait to put the book down.

“It’s really neat that people would talk that way back then. Everything sounds the same anymore, doesn’t it?” I said.

“It’s just humanity’s machine, trudging along.”

“I guess it is.”

“As long as it stays away from here, I’m happy.”

“Me too,” I said. I poured her a cup of bean curry I had prepared.

“I’m going to miss it here,” she said. “It’s pretty amazing.”

“You’re amazing.”

She just looked at me. She was never one of many words. But to me, she spoke through her eyes. God, those eyes. I’m sorry to bring them up so much. If a picture says a thousand words then her eyes were a thousand pictures. And each moment I looked into them they sang me poetry I’d never forget. So even when we didn’t talk much, we were chatting up storms.

“You wanna go out?” I asked. The moon wasn’t out yet and the last flickers of daylight sat behind the mountaintops.

“Of course.”

We brought out the canoe and paddled into the lake. Now, I’m not saying that people should do this. The weather is very unpredictable in the mountains. A gust can whip up and a clear summer day can turn to winter. Not an ideal circumstance when you’re out on a lake. Tonight, the stars aligned and we watched them roll by.

I breathed her in. Every second we watched those stars we moments of euphoria. The world had always felt like it was at our fingertips when we were together and here it felt like the world had melted away. We were one with the universe, floating on our canoeship in the sky. It was the happiest moment of my life.

History, for most, involves the world, a moment, something great remembered for generations. In the entire history of humanity, these moments are times of strife, resilience, and achievement. The moment I remember most, however, happened to me and only me. It took place on a cold January night in 2013.

We went to a concert that night, bussing from out of town to the big city. It was a Freelance Whales concert. For those who don’t know them and I don’t imagine are many of you, their an incredible indie folk band whose talent never seemed to catch the ear of the right person. But that is another story.

That night, under snowflakes as large as cotton balls, we danced through the streets back to our bus. It was magic. The bus drove us back and I lay my head on her shoulder. She rested her head on mine. In a spark of fright, I retreated back. It had been so long since I felt the touch of another. When I tried to get the moment back, it never came. In the end, we never ended up together. Now, we don’t even talk.

Maybe things would have the same, in fact, with an instance so small it almost certainly would have. But maybe it wouldn’t have. History tells us there is no certainty to anything in this world. And though history is written in books for the great and mighty, we still breathe down here too, writing our own.