Short Story: The Rink Before Sunrise

Six o'clock at Birchwood Park

This is an original short story. The characters, Birchwood Park and the events are invented.

Tomás stands at the gate of the rink and does not move. The morning is a cold blue bowl, and the ice shines like a dark window. His borrowed skates feel as heavy as bricks. Fear is a cold stone in his stomach.

Behind him, the parking lot is almost empty. A tall floodlight hums on its pole, though the sky is turning pink at the edges. "Go on," says Dad. "I'll watch from the fence." He holds a steaming cup of tea, and he looks small and far away already.

On the bench, a woman in an orange toque is lacing up her skates. A sign behind her says SATURDAY LEARN-TO-SKATE, FREE. "Morning!" she calls. "I'm Ms. Okafor. First time?" Tomás nods. His voice has gone somewhere far away.^[1]

Along the boards

He steps onto the ice with both hands on the boards. The wood creaks and grumbles under his fingers, as if it is complaining about the cold. The wind nips at his ears.

He tries a tiny shuffle. The blades scrape and whisper. A little boy in a puffy red snowsuit tumbles beside him, pops up like a cork and keeps going. Tomás's cheeks burn, even though the air is freezing. He wishes he could be a cork too.

A girl his age zooms past, laughing. Other skaters glide by like swallows. Tomás slides one foot forward, then the other. He is a snail in a race of rabbits.

"You're doing it!" says Ms. Okafor, skating up backwards. "Now comes the hard part. You have to let go of the boards."

Tomás shakes his head. "The boards are my friends," he whispers.^[1]

The tiny invisible chair

Ms. Okafor does not tell him to be brave. Instead, she bends her knees and sinks down, as if she is sitting on a tiny invisible chair. "Try it," she says. "Sit on the little chair, hold your arms out like airplane wings, and take three small steps. Penguin steps."

"When I first learned," she adds, "I held the boards so tightly my mittens got splinters." Tomás almost smiles. It is hard to be afraid of something that frightened a grown-up too.

Tomás bends his knees. His legs are wobbly noodles. He lets go with one hand, then the other. One penguin step. Two. On the third, his skate slips, and he sits down hard on the ice.

For a moment, nobody breathes. Then Tomás starts to laugh. The cold ice tickles through his jacket, and the stone in his stomach is gone.^[2]

Gold on the ice

Ms. Okafor skates over and holds out a mitten. "Everyone falls," she says. "The trick is getting up. Roll onto your knees, put one skate down, then the other." Tomás pushes, wobbles and stands.

Over the trees, the sun climbs up and spills gold across the ice. The whole rink seems to wake up and stretch. Tomás takes three penguin steps, then four, then ten. He does not touch the boards once.

On the other side of the fence, Dad has forgotten his tea. He is clapping in his big winter mittens, and it sounds like soft thunder rolling across the rink.

At the gate, he hands back the borrowed skates. "Will you come next Saturday?" asks Ms. Okafor. "Yes," says Tomás, and this time his voice is right there, big as the morning.^[2]