Trial by Water

Trial by Water

They looked down not on the circumstance, background or consequence of my birth, but on its method. It was, and still is, a tiny town of no more than two parallel streets and two large fields with a ring of woods and a dwindling, shallow river. Few babies were born by ‘the pool’, as they called it, underwater – others preferred the term ‘trial by water’ (which would brighten up my childhood days like a supernova). But then few babies were born.

Although in reality the percent of the town’s population that made up elderly men and women must have been considerably small, in my memory their presence was so huge and looming that for years after I left the town, I always thought they ruled in majority. Well, not ‘huge’ – but like these trudging, hollow ghosts whose ultimate bland indifference encased in the centuries of repetition and tradition, felt in their creaking knuckles, seemed to seep across the streets and swallow the town like a clear fog that makes you deaf instead of blind.

So you see that while I stayed in the tiny, isolated town for only eight years, it left a great, drowning impression on me.

I also remembered that each one had lived, for years, alone, in their huge empty houses. This turned out to be mostly false. That’s childhood memory for you.

As I was the youngest citizen of my Birth Town, by the time I was sent to school across the country, almost every resident of the town gathered at the church gate to send me off. Thinking back on it now, I’m always surprised. I remember being almost scared. Very scared. Not of leaving, though.

It tells you all you need to know about tiny towns like my Birth Town when I point out that there was a fairly large church built, but no school. The percentage of children was not that small, although when I returned to my Birth Town years later, I realized something about the new children that had been in the atmosphere for all eternity but that I had never been able to put my finger on before: very quickly the younger could only be told apart from the elder by appearance.

I never spoke much in my school years, across the country from my Birth Town, having next to nothing to say. I got in very few people’s way and was only ever lashed for repeatedly not knowing answers that should, their upturned noses and sharp slaps implied, have been instilled into me years before. But I had been taught by my mother up until then, and obviously not up to their standards.

I received many handshakes before leaving my Birth Town, many a gruff “good luck to yeh” and from Mr. Lanegan the baker (whose two older sons took a favourite in the infamous ‘trial by water’ term), a watery-eyed man of respectability, “Yeh’ll do well to represent our town to all them wordly folk.” He kept his hand on my arm, took another look at me and added, “Sure, it’s a queer choice fer us all. But I s’pose the Lord has his reasons.”

I was summoned to the capital at sixteen – reccomended for my ability in medicine, I was told. I always held the conviction that from the start, they were desperate. Though I wasn’t half-bad.

A lot has changed from the gruff handshakes and looming, ghostly old people of my Birth Town to my rain-stained train window I stare from now, six days after my twenty-second birthday. I’m being sent as a doctor, but no one in the part of the country I’m headed will take my medicine. Fine thing, for I’m only really here to pick up another package, another negotiation.

You can’t even buy a pint here in peace. Christ. But I expected as much. There is a storm coming outside and the loud rattles of laughter and conversation in the bar quiets down when I enter. It’s the fucking uniform. They couldn’t even give me a doctor’s uniform, for God’s sake. Out of the corners of their eyes, it seems like a thousand pupils blaze at me. I am back in Birth Town again. Miles and miles away and I’m still in Birth Town.

As I sit down, a middle-aged woman behind me screeches, “Sure, would yeh wash the same blood off in Pilate’s bowl? Come here to preach to us, have yeh? Come to stuff yer filthy half-promises down our throats?” More have joined in. I don’t think she’s read much into Pilate. Neither have I. “Take your traitorous dirty contracts back with yeh!”

Attention will be drawn to me to a fatal degree soon. Among the disgusted army of faces surrounding me (I almost love them, for once it’s simple honesty), the lad I’m waiting for is not present. I haven’t touched my pint before I think Fuck it and leave.

The rain is lashing. I walk briskly across the bridge outside, pausing just over the river, trying to light a cigarette. Jesus. And if the son of a bitch doesn’t show? They’ve dispatched me here with such ease. Jesus. My cigarette isn’t lighting. I am weary, and then I suddenly, casually toss my lighter into the river, for the sake of something unexpected. Although it’s pitch black now, I see it glint within the waves. I stop and see it glimmering, like a pale wolf tooth. A gunshot is fired.

I was the last child baptized in Birth Town’s church ‘till another eight years had come and gone. People sucked in their breaths when they saw how the trial-by-water baby did not utter a single cry as he was annointed by the priest.

The Lord has his reasons.

There was still a long way down the bridge before it reached land again, and it was straight and narrow. It was dark so the gunman had missed, but he wouldn’t for long, going down a straight line of fire. The only think I thought of as an option – though I didn’t really think about this – was to go sideways instead, and jump into the river.

Of course, the river in Birth Town was so shallow. I never learnt how to swim. I didn’t think about that, actually. And it didn’t take that long.

The lightning of the storm finally arrived. High up above, I could see the silhouette of the gunman, with his head cocked to one side. Ah. So he turned up after all.

He sucked on his lighted cigarette and tapped it right above where I floundered in the water. I felt the burning ash baptize my head.

Then he riddled my body with bullets, and the water took me back.