It was a happy enigma, sitting between the 1950ish housing and modern hi-rise apartments, now partially hidden behind the newly built firehouse 55. Roughly, an acre in size, and very muddy with its tiny springtime imperfections, it resembled an orphaned football field, but without the lime stripes and goal posts. Its rain craters made it resemble something out of one of several urban films, shot on location perhaps in Montreal or Los Angeles, yet this was Ottawa, and the field somehow looked out of place here.

It was miserable that April, in fact more like one of those black Novembers the area was so used to seeing, before the snows of December would brighten things up. The smell of Spring however was indeed in the air, and the combination of the two effects brought an indecisive quality to the buds of the deciduous trees and shrubbery. The blossoming of the flora would at best be slow, but this did have its advantages. For in the openness of the firemen’s field, as it would slowly come to be known, the wind blew northwesterly, proud and stubborn, itself a facetious old man who wisely knew his days were numbered, yet still chose to laugh at this naïve child, Spring.

This kind of condition was best for kite flying, and so drawing on his experience as a small-town boy, the father knew that the field would be prime liftoff territory, with its openness to the wind and lack of troublesome hydro wires. In addition to this, the taller trees stood only on the outer edges of the field, so with a bit of care it would be easy to avoid getting caught in them.

The reason for the lack of trees in the center of the field was simply because the firemen’s field had not always been there, but in fact a huge gaping hole with sheer rock sides. In short, a quarry. Earlier in the century, the limestone rich countryside had been used for the reconstruction of the center block of parliament, the first having been destroyed in a fire in 1916. What remained was an eerie looking crater. At the time of the digging, that portion of Montreal Road still lay outside the built-up portion of Ottawa, but gradually as the city grew, more and more people moved into the area. And so, as a precaution, the quarry was fenced off to keep the curious from venturing too close to its fatal edges. A few however did manage to get over the chicken wire, losing their lives in the process. And so, after enough pressure had been brought to bear, it was decided that the inactive quarry should be filled in.

Excitement built in the five-year-old just from the sheer exhilaration of doing something different, having recently escaped that particular kind of hibernation common to northern bound humans. The father instructed him to hold the bat winged flyer in front of him, while he himself walked backward, unraveling its soon to be freedom. Waiting for the right gust of wind, the larger of the two children, quickly shouted, “Now!”, and pulling back, the kite catapulted upward upon release. A look of both glee and wonderment filled the young boy’s face as he watched the curved wings of the bird-like figure drift upward as the father gradually released more twine.

A certain artery in the father’s head pulsed, as it always did when old forgotten memories were reactivated, and for a few brief moments both he and his son’s spirits became one as they marveled at this simple miracle of flight. Closing his eyes, once more the father was that small-town boy, who years ago had flown his first kite on the sprawling grassy front lawn of the Playtex factory.

Ensuring that the kite was safely airborne, he passed the string to his son, as the kite moved back and forth from side to side in the shifting wind.

The kite tugged on the boy’s arm from the empty spool as if it were a real animal, plying for permanent freedom. Without warning, the wind suddenly lost momentum, the kite plummeting toward the ground in a steep dive. “Run toward it!” commanded the father, calling on experience, but the boy responded too late, and the bat hit nose first into the field before them. Luckily it had survived.

Once more preparing to get the kite airborne, this time, father and son reversed roles, allowing the boy to hold the spool of string, while Dad held the kite’s wings. Waiting for the right gust of wind, the man gave his son the command to run backward, as once more the kite shot upward to a comfortable altitude.


© 1988

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11/19/2019

Author's Note: As stated in the title, this is the original Fireman’s Field, written in 1988, then filed away. In the years that followed, I attended various writers’ workshops to hone my skills, and so, in early 2019, I tried to locate it...unsuccessfully. Recalling that it had been a fairly good piece for its time, despite the work, felt it was worth rewriting. I did finally relocate the original, and so thought it would be cool to input and post for comparison with the 2019 version. Aside from a few typos and grammatical errors fixed up, it remains essentially unchanged. Also, of note is that there was no Internet in 1988, and thus no easy way of researching the quarry. I had originally stated that the Parliament fire took place in 1914 (an educated guess based on memory), when in fact it had been in 1916. Finally, note that this version was written in the third person (he, him, his), whereas the 2019 version is written in the first person.

Posted on 11/19/2019
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