One Hundred Steps

By DJ Atkinson

The gulls woke him before the light reached the windows, their sharp cries slipping through the cedar shingles into the narrow bedroom.

He stared at the knot in the wallboard above the bed — shaped like a closed eye — and swung his legs over the side. The cold boards creaked in their familiar pattern. The air held that early coastal bite, the kind that seeps in even when the windows are latched.

Kettle filled. Switch clicked on.

He moved without hurry, without waste — each small action in its place. Two mugs in the cupboard, though he only ever used one. The same one as yesterday, set on the counter.

The bed came next — pulled tight, quilt smoothed until his palms squeaked over the cotton. Pillows squared, towels aligned, dishes washed and stacked, boots paired by the door. Even the key dish sat empty.

It was the kind of morning where nothing was left undone, the kind where the house seemed to ready itself for absence.

Steam rose from the kettle, clicking off. He poured the water into the mug and drank it plain, letting the heat press against his teeth. When it was empty, he rinsed it, dried it, and put it back in place.

Outside, the air was washed clean by the night wind. Cedar bark and saltwater met him at the porch — a scent you didn’t notice until you’d been away and come back. The sky was pale, edged with the promise of blue. Somewhere to the north, someone was splitting wood, the thock carrying across the quiet.

Stepped off the porch, the gravel shifted under his boots — steady, even, like a metronome he couldn’t turn off.

Past the tall Douglas firs, their trunks straight and shadowed. Past the arbutus with their curling strips of red bark. Morning light slipped through bigleaf maple leaves, dappling the ground in coins of gold.

At the bend, he passed the community mailbox station, its metal doors catching the first glint of sun. Beyond it, the yard where deer bedded down lay quiet, the grass still pressed flat.

The bus shelter came into view, with its old red UK phone booth painted bright against the weathered tones of the island.

That’s when he heard gravel shifting behind him — slow, even, matching his pace.

He didn’t turn, not at first. Then the sound drew closer.

“You heading to the water?” a voice asked, calm as the road itself.

He looked over. The man was his height, his build. Same jacket, same boots. The face was older — eyes lined deeply at the corners, the kind of lines earned from squinting into sun and wind for decades. His breath clouded briefly in the air between them.

“Yeah,” the younger man said. “Just walking.”

“Mind some company?”

A pause. “Suit yourself.”

They walked side by side. In the angled light, the younger noticed the deep fold between the brows he sometimes found in the mirror, the one that came when the wind blew straight from the harbour. There was a familiarity in the set of the man’s mouth too — as if they’d been holding back the same words for years.

They kept on toward the boat launch, where the ramp sloped toward the tide. Ahead, the concrete pier reached over the water.

“This your usual route?” the older man asked.

“Every day. It’s a hundred steps to the end. I count them.”

“That so?”

The younger nodded. “Concrete. Ramp. Wooden dock.”

They started counting aloud together. “One. Two. Three.”

At “Forty-five,” they reached the top of the ramp. The tide below pulled at strands of kelp, the tang of salt thickening in the air.

The younger man hesitated.

The older man rested a hand on the railing. “Mind if we stop a minute?”

“Why?”

“Because sometimes you don’t rush the next step.”

They stood looking out across the harbour. A floatplane droned far off toward Vancouver.

“You know the old swing rope on the east side?” the older man asked.

The younger gave a half-smile. “By the sandstone bluff? Yeah.”

“I almost didn’t get to see them take it down. Parks guys fought the tide for three days. I sat up there with a thermos, watching gulls mob their lunch scraps. Didn’t plan to be there. Just… was. One of those small things that sticks.”

“Another time,” the older man said, “the tide was low enough to walk across to Saysutshun. Water warm against my ankles, clam holes bubbling underfoot. Walked to the dance pavilion for an ice cream — the kind that melts faster than you can eat it — and came back with the salt drying on my skin. If I’d gone when I almost did, I’d never have known a tide could carry so much light.”

The younger looked down the ramp toward the dock.

The older man went on, “Or the winter the ferry didn’t run for two days. Roads iced up on the mainland, power out over half the island. Beacon House opened its doors, ran the generator for light, hot coffee, somewhere to charge a phone. People brought muffins, played cards at the long table. If I’d gone when I almost did, I’d never have known a place could hold the dark that kindly.”

“Maybe you were just lucky.”

“Maybe. But it wasn’t all luck. Some of it was just staying long enough to see what was coming.”

A heron lifted off the rocks near Gallows Point, wings slow, deliberate.

The older man nodded toward it. “You know they stand so still you think they’re statues — until they move, and you realise they were just waiting for the right moment.”

“Not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it? You’ve been waiting too.”

The younger didn’t answer.

The older man smiled faintly. “We could keep counting if you want. Or we could stand here until you know what the last step’s for.”

The younger looked back along the pier toward the beach, then out over the water. “Let’s finish.”

They started again.

“Forty-six. Forty-seven…”

The ramp gave way to the wooden dock. The sound changed — boards giving a hollow, slow knock under their boots. Salt and creosote rose up sharp.

“Seventy-one.”

A seal surfaced — round black eyes — watching them for three breaths. Then gone.

“Ninety-seven.”

He slowed.

“Ninety-eight.”

They stopped. The end of the dock waited — two paces away. Step ninety-nine would take them to the edge. Step one hundred would leave nothing in front but air and tide.

The older man said nothing.

Gulls circled over Gallows Point, their cries riding the wind.

“You’re not going to tell me what to do?”

“No, the last step’s yours.”

A gust pushed at their backs. The water rippled.

“I keep thinking,” the younger said, “if I go forward, everything stops. But if I turn… it doesn’t stop. And that’s the harder thing.”

“Harder’s not always worse.”

The dock creaked. Water slapped the pilings.

Then the younger stepped back. Ninety-nine became the first step away from the edge.

He turned toward the island — the firs lifting into the sky, arbutus bark gleaming in the sun.

One hundred.

By the time they reached the top of the ramp, the younger glanced over his shoulder at the dock.

“Bus shelter’s still up there?”

“Still there,” the older said. “Still waiting for a bus that won’t come.”

They walked on, the sound of boots folding into the island’s morning — the distant hammer, the rustle of maple leaves, the steady breathing of the sea.

Past the Douglas firs. Past the mailbox station. Past the deer’s flattened nest.

At his porch, he slowed. The road was empty. No second set of footsteps.

He stood a moment on the top step. The same wind that had carried salt and cedar earlier now held the faint sweetness of arbutus bark in the sun. Even the gulls’ cries — sharp before — seemed farther away, stretched thin over the harbour.

Inside, the kettle still sat on the counter. He filled it again, turned it on. The bed was still neat, the towels aligned. He left them that way.

When the water boiled, he poured it into the same mug. Sat at the table. Listened to the kettle tick as it cooled.

On the porch rail outside, a single ribbon of arbutus bark lifted, hung for a breath, and fell.

He didn’t know what tomorrow’s hundred steps would bring. Only that he’d be here to take them.

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