by John Spivey

Created on: January 25, 2010

Soff Carson was a hermit that called home a roughly built, but rather large one room cabin, deep in the swampiest area of the state. Only five of the surrounding acres belonged to him, left to him by his parents and them by his fathers parents. For miles in any direction there was no one. Outside of Soff's piece of land there was little to no solid ground. What there was was too small to build much on and was only accessible by water. There was the odd fishing camp, but no more than a handful. None of them accessible by road. Soff's place was. Well, to a point. Then you had to walk.

Soff had been there alone for nearly 25 years. He had lived there with his mom and dad until he was seventeen. Then his dad died of pneumonia after spending two days and a night soaking wet while he tried to make his way back home after his boat sank deeper yet into the swamp. He was checking his traps in early February and the temperature hadn't been above thirty four degrees in over a week. It was a wonder he even made it home, and when he did it took Soff and his mom half the night to get Pete, Soff's dad, warm enough that he was coherent. Or even really aware of his surroundings for that matter. He was in a daze, nearly catatonic save for the fact that he was in actuality still moving. That was, at least up unto the point he reached home. Then he simply collapsed in the doorway. Sort of spilling in the door itself and sprawling face down in the kitchen.

Soff's mom, Shelly, was home alone. Soff of course had gone to look for his dad and returned shortly after his dad showed up. By that time his mother had Pete wrapped in several blankets on the bed while she heated water on the wood stove for a hot bath to soak him in. Soff remembered the bluish hue in his daddy's face. How the skin around his eyes and his lips seemed almost black and shrunken, sunk in looking. He watched his daddy shiver and tried best he could to understand the faint mumblings coming from his fathers lips. They were soft, but Soff remembered to that day how uneasy they made him feel. He couldn't understand a thing Pete said, but the undertone, the inflexion one might say, told a story all of its own. The sort one could not quite put its finger on. Like a brief wisp of a certain smell that is here now and gone an instant later before you can put a name on it, bringing with it a feeling of deja vu. A memory conjured up and forgotten before it was even acknowledged. A memory that has significance and leaves you

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