Jonas had been waiting, waiting for longer than the usual person likes to wait. He had found something in himself long ago. Jonas liked to wait. Waiting was trembling with the branches, feeling the current of time through his veins. Sometimes, at the peak of his waiting, he felt as if an ocean tide were pulling him deeper, into the woods, or into the sky.
One day, the old man from the rock garden asked him to wait. Not with words, or a note, or a melody, but in the way he opened his front to door, stretched over the porch to touch the ferns, and retreated inside as if pulled by his own tide. At first, Jonas stood still at the end of the lane where he’d been waiting, and stared, thinking the old man would open the door and change the message, at least subtly alter the movements he had made. Jonas leaned against the fence post and counted the leaves of the ferns that he could see from across the road. The sun rose high, and the man did not change his message. Jonas began to watch other things, looking for messages telling him to wait. The buzz was tingling through him as he stared around, finding the movements in the coned clouds, twisted grass, and a romping lamb with its mother. He waited, running his tongue over his lips as if to still them.
His mother called from the garden behind the house, but he waited still. The road was dusty, and when a carriage went by, it made him choke. The carts went slowly, and he could wave at them, but the carriages screamed the opposite of ‘wait’, with their stiff, fierce horses and tight reins. Every time a carriage went by, Jonas shrank against the fence, and hoped his waiting had nothing to do with it. The corner was abrupt before his house, and they often caught him by surprise.
Still his eyes roved, searching for what he was to see. To the right of the old man’s rock garden, there was a small hut. Jonas knew that a tiny girl and her mother lived there, and they did the old man’s cooking and laundry. The little girl was like a stream of sunshine, caught upon the carpet and bound into a short white dress. She capered as if she were made of light, and Jonas’ waiting had often ended with her. As a serious boy who had seen twelve summers, and she a ray of light who had only seen five, she was a perfect girl for a sister. He hadn’t asked her what she thought of it, but once, she had tripped across the road when she saw him waiting, and asked in her sunshine voice if he was lonely.
The old man’s door opened, and Sunny peeped out. She smiled, though it was tiny, and the waiting seemed to explode into something vital. Jonas couldn’t smile back, with his heart pounding like a sped-up ocean against his chest. She frowned when she saw his wrinkled forehead, and danced down the steps. Jonas wanted to hold her in my arms, and run away down the hill to the creek, but Jonas wanted her to stay in her own house more. The road. The road was bad. Jonas stared at the dusty road as her black shoes neared it. It was tan, ordinary. This waiting was strange. Jonas took deep breaths, and suddenly stopped. The warm air was not silent. A rumble was growing louder. He edged forward. It sounded like a snobby carriage, but it was different. He opened his mouth the call to Sunny to go back, but she was running, her blond curls bubbling behind her. A carriage exploded around the corner, its horses twice as proud as all the others.
This was the waiting.
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