Théodora Armstrong - Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

“Okay.” She shrugs again, taking a detour into the office with the plate before heading back to the table. Susan comes out of the office and surveys the dining room. Before Rose even reaches the table, the well-heeled boomer wags his finger as though he is scolding a small child.

“He wants to talk to you,” Rose says, dropping the plate on the pass-bar with a clatter.

“Charlie,” Susan warns, as he strides past her with the plate, the steak sliding around dangerously, nearly becoming airborne several times. Martin has detected the tension mounting in the dining room, his eyes darting from the dissatisfied table to Charlie to Susan while he picks at the scab above his lip.

“Good evening, sir,” Charlie says, flourishing the plate before lowering it to float right under the boomer’s nose. Rose runs a wet rag over the tabletops while Martin jerks around the room throwing down fresh cutlery on the empty place settings, both of them attempting to get close to the action in anticipation of the drama about to unfold. “Perhaps in this dim light it’s difficult to see, but I can assure you your steak is cooked to your specifications.”

“I already told the waitress I won’t be paying for it.” When the boomer speaks he does so without looking at Charlie and gazes at his wife instead, a calm, satisfied smile on his face. “And honestly, my wife’s meal isn’t very good either.”

“We simply won’t come back,” the wife says, limply dangling her fork over the food. The man seems relaxed, as though he weren’t that hungry to begin with. Charlie studies his profile for a minute and recognizes him instantly as his Chef de Partie from Le Remoulade, a slightly older, more distinguished looking version. When Charlie first started there as a Third Cook, the man took him under his wing, helped him advance all the way to First Cook.

“Do you know who I am?” Charlie says looking into the man’s face.

“Should I?” The man smirks, misunderstanding, ready for a game. The wife crumples her napkin and places it definitively on top of her seafood risotto. “We won’t come back,” she says again.

Charlie stares at the man, giving him a chance to let his features register, but the man shrugs, bored of the game already. “I give up. Who are you?”

A snort escapes Charlie’s nose as he drops the plate on the table. “No one.” He turns to head back to the kitchen, but his legs fail to communicate with his torso. “I’m a ghost.” His last words are lost in the clatter as he falls over one of the empty tables. Suddenly Rose is under one of his arms and Susan the other. A shattered wine glass twinkles in the carpet. “Okay, Charlie.” He can’t tell who the words come from, but they are gentle.

“Thank you,” he says, shaking the women off of him. The gratitude is tinged with both sincerity and reproach. “Give your steak to your dog for all I care,” he shouts over his shoulder at the man and his wife. Charlie walks to the bar and motions to the glorious bottles of liquor behind Martin.

“Why don’t you take a breather,” Martin says, stacking pint glasses.

“I’m not looking for anything,” Charlie says. He’ll make his own drink, he just needs Martin out of the bar. “Get those people a doggie bag.”

But instead of walking behind the bar something draws him away toward the windows. In the reflection of the glass he can see Susan and Rose placating the wife, her bangs floating up from her forehead with each angry puff. Her husband is already out the door. Anyone left in the restaurant is making a hasty exit now, pulling wallets out of their pockets, sliding visas in billfolds. The storm has taken on a new dimension, one Charlie has never seen before. Below he watches the boomer lean into the gusts of wind as his wife scurries to catch up to him. The ocean looks as though it is reaching out, trying to take the restaurant into its insatiable belly. He stands close enough to the window to feel a chill over his face. The wind is buffeting the glass, trying to find any crack where it can sneak in. The pane rattles a few millimetres from his nose. “Charlie.” Susan’s voice floats somewhere behind him. “Phone for you.” He doesn’t move. The rattling is a distraction. He snaps out of his daze and saunters over to the phone, swaying slightly. When he picks up the receiver, he expects to hear his father on the other line: “Ça va, mon petit fantôme?”

AS SOON AS HE opens the back door of the restaurant, Charlie hears the ocean. The wind whips around his head and he pulls his toque low over his ears, making a dash for his car. The Douglas spruce towering overhead dips unnaturally, creaking and groaning as though it might come crashing down on his head. He watches it cautiously for a moment before climbing into the front seat. Down the way, one of the binners that frequent the alley behind the restaurant weaves between the garbage cans and falls on his knees in a large puddle, his hair a tornado above his head. The evergreen branches scrape across the roof of the car. “Shit,” Charlie says, putting the car in gear and peeling out of the spot. He slows down as he approaches the homeless man, worried he’ll roll into the middle of the road or leap in front of the car. As he passes, the man looks up at Charlie, and it’s Topher on his knees, his eyes dark and menacing with booze. Charlie only considers stopping for a moment.

As he drives down the empty streets strewn with tree detritus, Charlie can see the waves pounding the shore. The road swims in front of his eyes. How much did he have to drink tonight? More than usual — seven, eight, maybe nine drinks? Could’ve been more, he wasn’t exactly counting. Less than Topher, for sure. Baby’s early, Charlie. It had been Aisha’s sister on the line, her disembodied voice cutting through the telephone.

Charlie can see the generators exploding in the distance, bursts of cartoon-radiation green. The lights are out around the bridge and in the city, a gaping void where there should be the glittering of illuminated towers. The causeway through Stanley Park is covered with a blanket of broken branches, the trees swaying like pendulums. Charlie comes around a bend and slams on the brakes, the car skidding perpendicular to the road. A massive pine is down, blocking the entire causeway.

Rain pelts the car, a constant barrage sliding down the windshield. Charlie pulls off his toque and blinks at the tree, rubbing his head as if trying to conjure an intelligent thought. He searches his pockets for his phone before seeing it in his mind’s eye, sitting on the prep counter next to the cutting board. He forgot it in his rush to get out the door. Out of the car, the rain pours over him like a cold shower. The street is deserted. Fear nestles deep into his belly, lifting the haze of alcohol he’s been swimming through the entire evening. In the distance, Charlie can hear the sound of sirens, the sound of waves crashing, the sound of someone yelling at him, You’re awake, Charlie. You are wide awake. It’s not like a light bulb illuminating his brain, it’s the kind of frickin’ bolt of white-hot lighting that brings Frankenstein’s monster to life. Charlie scrambles over the tree and starts to run.

THE CBC IS REPORTING that a red cedar estimated to be over a thousand years old was felled by last night’s winds. The largest of its kind in the world, the reporter says, now lying prostrate on the forest floor. Charlie can’t imagine something of that size, something that had survived hundreds and hundreds of years, uprooted and toppled in the dead of night. The tree must have made a terrible noise as it came down, shuddering and groaning with Godzillian force, a mythic reptile slain.

The ocean is dead calm now, cool, steely, shimmering in the early morning light, circling the tall, shut-eyed buildings of the city like a sheltered lake, without a hint of the rage from the night before. Charlie stands in the middle of the empty restaurant looking out across the mouth of Burrard Inlet at what is left of Stanley Park. The entire west side has been ravaged by last night’s storm. When he drove through the causeway on his way to work this morning, the forest was noticeably thinner, ocean appearing where trees once grew tall and dense. He sips his scalding coffee and surveys the altered landscape. He has a headache from his hangover, but it feels far away, like an afterthought. The fire hasn’t been started in the oven and the restaurant is cold. He can see his breath. Martin is sleeping on the leather couch in the lounge, snoring lightly, one of the patio blankets pulled up under his chin. Charlie lets him sleep and walks out back to collect the firewood. The winds have piled garbage into one corner of the parking lot and seagulls are pecking away happily at a loose scattering of soggy french fries. He piles a few logs into his arms and trudges back up the steps to start the fire.