A full moon reflected in the water when the canoe reached the bank of the river, wobbling back and forth in the small tide, it looked empty. I saw some kids run down to investigate, three boys, aged around five to seven. Each of them looked into the canoe, and one of them reached in and pulled out what looked like a PlayStation with a single controller. What a PlayStation was doing in an empty canoe, I had no idea, but since it isn’t like we have some neighborhood lost and found in this tiny village, a courier, or even functioning internet - I decided to let it go. The kids immediately ran up the hill toward one of their houses and went inside. Then it was just me staring at the canoe, I started to walk down to the bank of the river, but it was gone after a blink. Did I imagine the entire thing? I don’t have a history of hallucinations, but I supposed that there’s always a first time for everything.
The next day I was proven wrong when Jennifer from the house adjacent to mine came to knock on my door. Standing in my doorway wearing a tiny blue dress, and tennis shoes. Smiling, I opened the door to greet her, and really to see what it is she wanted.
“So, was it you who gave my boy the PlayStation?”
“What? No”
“That’s so odd, I’ve asked everyone else in the neighborhood…” consternation spread across her face.
“Hey, you didn’t happen to see a canoe by the river bank did you?”
“No, but my son told me about it”
“Yeah, I saw your kid take a PlayStation out of the canoe, but then the canoe disappeared so I thought I…”
“what?”
“Imagined it, I guess, I thought I imagined it”
“Well, there doesn’t seem to be any harm in him keeping it, it’s not like anyone can spy on us”
“Out here” I laughed “sometimes I’m surprised we even have electricity”
We both laughed and said our goodbyes.
For the remainder of the day things went on as normal, and though I’m sure you would love to hear about what I made for dinner, the odds-and-ends around my home, or the general ennui of living in a tiny village, I’ll do us both a favor and skip to the more pertinent parts of this story.
I saw the canoe again around the same time I did last. I stood outside looking at the river, it looked back at me, watched me. Nodding its bow back and forth to beckon me. I took a deliberate step toward the river bank, expecting it to disappear before I made it there, but it didn’t, the canoe was there for me. It rocked back and forth in the water reflecting the crystal moon. Its structure and shadow obscuring whatever may be laying, or perhaps, lying inside.
I looked inside, and it was a shaving razor - certainly not as exciting as a PlayStation - but not being one to stare a gift canoe in the mouth - I took the razor and walked to my house.
Jennifer came to my house that night.
“Steven, I wanted to ask if you’d like to join me for dinner this evening” She stood there, in a beautiful satin dress, her hair flowing just past her shoulders. Her eyes gleamed, capturing the moonlight that mirrored my own stupid face back at me. In short, Jennifer was gorgeous. And, to be honest, there are only so many beautiful women that deign to, let alone enjoy, living in tiny villages.
“o-of-of course” I stammered
“Okay, well if you’ll come by my place in about an hour everything should be ready”
“I’ll be there”
“Oh, and Steven?”
“Yes”
“Jacob will be asleep by the time you come over” she flashed a smile, and then she left.
This gave me enough time to shower and prepare, with no expectations, but just in case, I wanted to look and smell as best I could. I walked to the shower, turned on the water, and stepped in. I did my usual routine and then looked for my razor for a shave. It was gone. ‘God damn it, where’s my fucking razor, then I remembered. From the canoe, so I stepped out of the shower and found the canoe’s gift on my counter. Came back to the shower, finished my routine, got dressed, and then headed over to Jennifer’s.
Needless to say after a glass or two of Bordeaux I got to see Jennifer’s body. And needless to say, it was bad-ass. Thanks, magic canoe, or whatever-the-fuck.
Soon enough other people got wind of the canoe. Each night it would park itself on the riverbank, and someone would feel compelled to go down and grab whatever was waiting for them. Common items to alleviate the vicissitudes of life. A hair-dryer, a box of knitting needles, a drill and a drill bit, all sorts of things. Sometimes people immediately knew the use, sometimes they wouldn’t, but they would always find out soon enough. It wasn’t all necessities either, sometimes it was a decent book or some other delightful knick-knack. This was our Christmas Canoe, and we were living in Saint Nick’s summer cottage.
Until it happened, and of course, something had to happen, or I wouldn’t have driven out of this village to never set foot in it again. Why I’m here writing about what happened to me here, and not some “wholesome life” blog about magical miracles, thanking the good Lord for his bounty.
David, a lanky, sort of par for the course fellow, walked down to the canoe. If you’d like to keep track, last time he got a canoe gift it was a deck of playing cards. Fitting, perhaps now that this was the beginning of the collapse of our little village.
It was a small bottle with some liquid inside, really an airplane bottle with whatever liquor label scrubbed clean from it. He walked back up the hill out of sight, and presumably back to his house to make use of his gift.
The next day, we all found out that his wife Rachel had died that night. He had given her the airplane bottle as a gift, and she died shortly thereafter. We were all told through the tearful eyes of David how she grasped her throat, and how black coffee grounds spat out of her mouth, the liquid destroying her organs. We consoled David, assuring him it was an accident. Of course, it was.
Sometime later I went by David’s to see how he was holding up, and he had a brand new Cadillac sitting in the driveway. I knocked on his door.
“David, how are you?”
“Oh, I’m fantastic Steven, did you see the new car?”
“…yes, but what about after?”
“After what?… oh yes, Rachel”
“yeah…”
“Well, you see, Rachel had inherited quite a sum of money from her family who passed away last spring, and now, that money’s mine”
“That must certainly help the bruise, but a loss that grea…”
“Oh sure, very sad” and then he shut the door.
It came to light that Rachel had been unfaithful, and although the poisoning truly was an accident, it was a happy accident in David’s unforgiving heart. The canoe had provided him with exactly what he desired, and what someone desires isn’t always the most, let’s say, ethically sound.
We were afraid of the canoe after that, our lips curt, sometimes wincing, whenever someone felt the compulsion to go down to the canoe. To be compelled to the canoe meant fortune, but sometimes fortune for one meant demise for another.
A knife for a jilted lover, a shovel to bury someone after finally truly settling an altercation. One time someone even picked up a crowbar they used to break into someone else’s house and steal their belongings. All the victim could do, really, was hope that the canoe brought him something to settle the score. I’ve learned that there truly is a darkness in man, and that mere little magical items sitting in a canoe on the river bank can destroy him.
We began to lock our doors, fearing whoever was compelled by the canoe. There was no resisting the canoe, maybe nobody could, though I suspect it was just that nobody ever truly wanted to. Good fortune is good fortune, after all.
It was a full moon again when I was called to the Canoe once again. The canoe rocking, beckoning, its shadow waving me in like it always did when it wanted you. I walked down to the canoe and reached in to grab my prize. I stared blankly, it was a gun, fully loaded. The gift frightened me, and I could feel sweat beginning to pool in my hair, there was nothing good I would need a gun for. And I didn’t find it anywhere in my heart a feeling that I could use the gun for personal gain. Nobody I would like to shoot.
Then Jennifer came running out of her house toward me, full clip, while I stood there with my firearm. And I shot her, I’m sorry, but I shot her. I don’t know why, surely she was defenseless, surely Jennifer wasn’t any threat to me. She collapsed onto the ground, blood staining that satin dress of her’s. I admit that I didn’t cry, maybe it was shock, and that’s the best that I can do for myself. If we aren’t charitable to ourselves then whoever will be? She gasped as she lie in the grass, but I knew there was no use, not in our little village. Not in our quaint little wonderland away from the world. And so I watched her die, and whether from bystander syndrome or fear of what might come, all the doors in the village remain locked.
I drove away from the village that evening, and I’ve been driving for the last three hours, I’m stopped at a Waffle House on some lonely highway, enjoying my smothered and covered hashbrowns. My gun is sitting in the glovebox of my car, it has five bullets left. I can’t help but wonder what fortune the canoe has in store for me. I do know that banks open in about an hour.