Free In Fond Remembrance of Me by Howard Norman Page B

father used to say, lay down—perhaps. Perhaps took her clothes off, to hurry it along. How cold out. You’d get numb to feeling quite quickly, right? Anyone knows that. There’s a lot of good sense to what she did. I should pay attention to that. I didn’t witness it for nothing—”
    â€œWas that the last anyone saw of her?”
    â€œIt wasn’t spoken about.”
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    NOAH GOES ON A SEAL HUNT
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    This happened, this happened, and three people from away died, because a big wooden boat floated into Hudson Bay. It floated out on the horizon. The whole village saw it.
    There was a rough wind. Gulls-blown-around wind. It was a rainy wind. Rain became snow.
    â€œLook—out there!” a man said. “It’s some kind of boat!”
    â€œLet’s go out to it,” another villager said.
    â€œYes”—and it was agreed.
    Some village men, women, children, a few dogs, all paddled out to the wooden boat. On the deck of this boat stood a man. Next to him stood his wife, his son, his daughter. Behind them stood animals such as the villagers had never seen. Strange-looking animals—one villager said, “I wonder how they might taste!”

    â€œHey, what’s this boat?” a man called out.
    â€œIt is called an ark,” the man on the deck shouted.
    â€œWhat is your name?” another villager shouted up.
    â€œNoah.”
    The villagers moved the sound of this name—Noah—around in their mouths. Noah, Noah, Noah, Noah.
    â€œNoah,” a village man said, “look out to the horizon. What do you see? It’s something you should learn about—quickly!”
    â€œI’m looking,” said Noah. “But all I see is the horizon.”
    â€œLook more closely.”
    â€œI see the horizon, that’s all,” Noah said.
    â€œSquint your eyes.”
    Noah squinted his eyes and looked far into the distance. “Still—nothing,” he said.
    â€œYou see it,” a villager said, “you just don’t know what you are looking at. That’s because you are not smart about things up here where we live. In this place. You are ignorant about things here. Maybe you’re smart about things where you come from, but not here!”
    â€œTell me, then, what’s out there?” Noah said.
    â€œIt’s winter. You are looking at winter, gathering. It is heading this way. It is moving in fast. Look—there—see those gulls getting wind-tossed? Blown around—blown around. Watch out!”
    Just then a seal flew in and landed next to Noah. It was now dead. “Look—the wind hunted a seal for you,” a villager said. “Go ahead and cut it up and give some to your family. There’s good seal-oil, too.”
    â€œNo—I don’t know how to eat this seal,” said Noah.
    â€œTry the flippers, try the oil—don’t eat the nose or whiskers,” a village man shouted.

    This made the villagers laugh.
    â€œI don’t want to eat a seal,” said Noah.
    â€œWe’re hungry, though,” Noah’s wife said. “We’re hungry,” his daughter said. “We’re hungry, though,” his son said.
    â€œWe still have some food,” Noah said. “Some of our kind of food. Eat some of that.”
    â€œRoll that seal off your boat, then,” a villager said. “Let us have it. We’ve never seen the wind hunt a seal like that before—it’s luck. It’s luck! Let us have it!”
    â€œNo,” said Noah, and he rolled the seal off the other side of the ark and it sank away before any villagers could get to it.
    â€œA man travels a long distance just to turn down a gift from the wind—a wind-hunted seal, the first one I’ve seen in my life!” said an old village man. “This Noah is unusual.”
    â€œLet’s paddle away from this unusual man,” another villager