Daquan Quantum shivered, curling himself into a small ball of coats as he sat with his father and brothers in an old wooden rowboat, out on the lake in the early morning of a cloudy day in fall. He impatiently waited for this morning excursion to be over and done with. He looked over to his brothers, Keenan and Johnny Quantum, also wrapped up in coats. Keenan and Johnny held out fishing rods, alongside their father.
Keenan flinched. "Dad..." he spoke quietly. "I've got that feeling again..."
Johnny rolled his eyes. "Not this again..."
"You're not being watched, Keenan," his father, John, assured him. "It's just us out here. Us and the fish." John adjusted his fishing rod, and squinted out over the lake. "Hopefully there's fish."
Keenan looked around nervously. "No, I swear, someone's watching us. I have no idea why. I didn't have the feeling a minute ago. And nothing's happening right now... But something always happens when we're being watched... so what's gonna happen now..."
"Oh!" Johnny pulled his fishing rod up. "I've got a bite! That what's gonna happen, now!" He reeled in his catch. "I win!"
"It's not a competition, junior." John patted him on the back. "Good job, though."
"Was it not?" Keenan asked. "Then why am I fishing?"
Johnny reeled up his catch, a small rainbow trout.
John Quantum retrieved a small digital camera and snapped a picture of his eldest son pridefully showing off his catch. "Alright. That's another one for the books. Let it go, now."
Johnny prepared to release the fish.
"Well now hold on," Keenan interjected. "It's not a competition... It's not for food... So why did you wake me up at 5 in the morning?"
Daquan shivered as he stared out at the lake.
"To bond with your old man, of course," John said with a smile beaming behind his bushy mustache.
Johnny let the fish go, and he watched as it swam away.
"Bird!" Daquan pointed.
A bald eagle swooped down from the sky with a high pitched screech and snatched the trout, flying off with it.
"Huh." Keenan stared. "Hilarious."
John Quanum maneuvered to the back of the boat and revved up the small engine. The old wooden rowboat was one his father once owned, passed down to him. He had modified it, adding his own Quantum flare to it, opting against manually rowing the thing in favor of modern technology. The boat shook as the engine flared up. It started to cut through the water.
Daquan flinched and shuffled closer to Keenan, afraid of the sound.
"Don't be a baby," Johnny scoffed.
John looked over the lake, proud as he controlled the old wooden boat. It slowly crept forward. Despite the terribly loud roaring engine, the boat was moving at a snail's pace.
"You know," John yelled over the sound of the engine. "This baby can go up to 1 mile an hour! That's pretty fast!"
The boat crawled along the choppy waters of Big Bear Lake.
"Yeah." Johnny nodded. "Impressive," he said sarcastically.
Keenan stared out over the lake, mesmerized by the speed of the boat as it rode the water like a dirt road, swaying side to side, bobbing up and down. He smiled.
His smile faded as he no longer rode the boat, instead standing outside his cabin home a few years later, sporting a stubbly approximation of a mustache, and wearing a printed tuxedo t-shirt. He stared at a tarp covering the old wooden rowboat in the front yard of his cabin, under a tree.
Johnny Quantum marched up the hill behind the cabin, crossing Keenan's path with an arm full of firewood. "What are you doing out here?"
Keenan said nothing. He looked off to random spot in the yard and furrowed his brow, before turning his attention back to the old boat. "We haven't gone fishing since Mom and Dad died."
Johnny glanced over at the boat under the tarp, then back at Keenan. He sighed. "That was sort of a Dad activity. Kinda just went when he did."
"You didn't like it?" Keenan asked.
"You did?"
Keenan said nothing as he kept staring at the boat.
Johnny shook his head and entered the home.
Moments later, Keenan pulled up to the docks of the lake in his truck, towing the old rowboat. He dragged the boat down to the water line, which had receded quite a bit since the last time he had been out on the water.
He stared out at the lake, his face scrunched up. "Why are you here?" he said, to no one. "I'm having a moment, okay, can you leave me alone?" He tried his best not to tear up as he pushed the boat into the lake, and struggled to start the engine.
Keenan floated out to the center of the lake, and he looked around him taking it all in, and sighed.
A small blue butterfly fluttered across the lake, landing at the front end of the boat.
Keenan stared at it. "What are you some heavy handed symbolism?"
The butterfly didn't leave.
"Get out of here, you're ruining my solitude." Keenan waved his hands around the butterfly, shooing it away. He slumped down into the boat, and crossed his arms as he stared up at the clouds. The still waters reflected the sky, mirroring it, providing the illusion that Keenan was floating alone in his boat in the middle of the sky, flying free.
Keenan sighed. Living with his brothers in Big Bear felt like living on an island in isolation. He had nowhere to go - nowhere but this small town. Even sailing the waters confined him to the basin on the mountain, with no outlet to the sea.
Keenan stared at the clouds. One day he'd bring this boat to the ocean, or, somewhere. It was unfortunate, the timing of his life. Born too late to explore the world, and too early to explore the stars.
If only there were something more.