Breaking Down

Finally, my heart rate started to slow back down.

In the cab of my semi-truck, I wondered if I’d run something over, picked up a slow puncture someplace, or something else.

Ultimately, though, how my tyre had blown out didn’t matter a damn.

Not when it’d caused me to block the Consulate Bridge in both directions: the sole road route from the mainland across to the new Bolstrovan consulate offshore.

Fuck me…

I’d been truck driving for years, travelled who knew how many tens, hundreds of thousands of miles, and never had I ever so much as had a fender bender, never mind a full-on jackknife.

And what a damn fine, perfect place for that first time to happen.

I was so screwed. Nothing I could do would fix this, no matter how much I wanted it.

No matter how much everyone honking their horns around me wanted it.

All that I could do was sit on my hands in my driver seat, wait for recovery, and thank whoever or whatever had helped me avoid hitting anyone or anything on the bridge.

What a nightmare.

What an absolute fucking nightmare…

“Calm it, wolf,” I told myself after taking the deepest of breaths.

My mind, my thoughts, were racing away here, there and everywhere, and my hands, my nerves, were trembling away with no sign of stopping.

I needed to get them and myself straight.

‘Cos this was happening, whether I liked it or not.

And at that point, I just needed to get myself through it as best as possible.

I’d phoned this incident in, told them about the pure chaos it was causing on this nice, sparkly, just-opened bridge, and in turn, I’d been advised that someone would be with me as quickly as possible.

Quickly… I wasn’t holding my breath on that. The last time I’d had a breakdown, admittedly one nowhere near as disastrous as this, I counted myself lucky to have help arrive within the hour.

Hell, if the recovery service needed an hour to get to me this time, they’d find me long-since yanked outta my cab by an angry, stranded mob.

It wouldn’t come to that, I reminded myself.

And no matter how things played out, again, the only thing I could do was sit there, patiently…

…After I’d locked the doors and sunk down further in my seat.

Being realistic, no-one was about to rush up on me in my cab.

At the same time, I didn’t want to see, or be seen, by all those I was holding up.

A whole bridgeful, practically. At least that’s what it seemed like the last time I felt brave enough to look up beyond my steering wheel.

But even as I hid away, I could hear horns honking away, again and again. Just like they had been from the moment my tyre blew.

I did respect and admire the energy to keep the noise going like that.

Still, they really did need to knock it off and just shut the fuck up.

Because, delayed or not, their day wasn’t, couldn’t be going anything like as awful as mine.

Jeez… My first time delivering to the island, submitting to and passing all those background checks, and this happens, minutes from my destination.

Resigned to what I expected to be a far longer than promised wait, I got myself as comfortable as I could.

At least I had a pretty view of the sea out of my passenger-side window, shimmering as it did in the foreground of a distant, packed-out Zoutestrand Beach.

It offered a necessary distraction from the bridge.

Until I wondered how many of those beachgoers on the mainland were taking notice of the jam I’d caused.

“Shut up,” I groaned out loud.

Dwelling wouldn’t help. I needed a distraction. Something to take my mind off the situation. And to stop it from kicking me while I was down.

Back to the shimmering sea I went, watching it wave like a moving sheet of glass on the brightest of summer days.

A summer day… that suddenly turned a shade darker. Even without a cloud in the sky.

I took a breath. The day grew another step dimmer.

The water stayed sparkling in spite of that. Though the shimmering seemed to shift.

It formed new, faster moving patterns. Ones that spread the more my cab darkened.

I sat up straight, uncaring of how many on the bridge could see me.

Something was wrong with this picture. And hearing the splashing of water below only reinforced that thought.

Splashing… that far out to sea. It made no sense.

It sounded like… someone wading, walking through it.

A lot of it.

The sea disappeared from my passenger window.

The sky and the beach, too.

My heart skipped, stopped, and started as a fluorescent wall of yellow rushed into view, blocking out the blue beyond the bridge’s barrier.

That wall moved again, joined along by one final, roaring whoosh of water.

I grabbed my steering wheel. The edge of my seat. Whatever I could get my hands on.

The scene outside shifted once more.

Downwards.

That bright yellow wall. That… jacket. It disappeared down behind the bridge.

Replaced instead… by a face.

The face of a fox.

A huge fox.

A huge, fluffy-cheeked, red-furred fox wearing a grey cap.

And a broad smile.

“Hey there,” he called, voice muffled by the closed window. “I’m here to help you out.”

This giant fox… here to help?

“Y’know, I gotta say, I never got this up close and personal with the water back home, even when I worked at the harbour.”

He was so bright. So chipper.

And so much bigger than me!

“You mind winding down your window, please?” The fox gave me a close-mouthed grin. “Easier to talk that way.”

I didn’t move. I couldn’t move.

What the hell was going on? Why… How was there a very, very large guy hunched down at the side of the bridge?

Everyone else stuck in the jam must’ve been thinking the same, because all that non-stop honking had finally gone quiet.

“Ah!” The giant fox outside made a face like he’d forgotten something. Then, he leaned closer… got bigger… and with barely a whisper, asked, “You’re wearing a Normaliser. Right?”

A Normaliser? I traced my thoughts and memories, upside down and back to front as they seemed to be.

This guy’s big white snout shifted and stopped just shy of my cab.

If open, its tip alone would’ve been large enough to fill the passenger-side window.

Normaliser… The word came back to me, and with it, I remembered the trendy-looking earpieces my boss handed me that morning.

Just in case.

The same earpieces I’d forgotten to put in. Until my last rest stop.

Just in case.

Nodding at the fox was the most I could offer, my head still spinning away in first gear as it was.

But that’d be enough for him to lose that forgetful gawk. “Ah, phew!” And to bring his brightness back, too. “Didn’t wanna go starting your ears ringing if I spoke too loud, like.”

Hurt my ears…?

I guess… a big fox would make for a big voice… Without a Normaliser.

Shit, never mind first gear. My brain had stalled completely.

“‘s all good, though,” he barked, apparently proving what he’d say next as accurate. “Ain’t no need to worry ‘bout that if you’ve got a Normaliser on.”

“...Good.”

“Now…” Back came his full-width, whisker-twitching, cheek-plumping smile. “How ‘bout opening this window?”

Nothing about the position I was in made sense, felt… right.

All I could keep telling myself was that I should get out of there. Get away from that fox who, as I reminded myself, yet again, was way too big and way too close.

I should’ve been terrified.

I should’ve thrown my cab door open and taken my chances running all the way back to shore.

But… I wasn’t.

I didn’t.

And as much as I still felt like my mind was on standby, I managed to move a hand enough to do as he asked and lower the passenger-side window.

“Thanks for that,” he said, resting the edge of his arm on the edge of the bridge with all the confidence in the world. “Name’s Pavel, by the way. I’m with mission logistics at the consulate.”

Pavel. Mission logistics… I think I took that much in, at least.

“I’d love to stick around and chat more, but I think we need to get you and your truck moving, eh?”

And how was this fox planning on doing that, I asked myself. Was he gonna change my tyre and get me back on my way?

How would he even do that at his size!?

…Was this fox, Pavel, really who the recovery service had sent out to help me?

I had so many questions.

Too bad all I managed to say was some gurgling splutter of a, “Huh?”

Pavel didn’t answer.

Instead, he bent down until all but his brown ears were in view beyond the bridge.

Then, just as quickly, he stood back up to leave his snout outside my window, bringing with him some very big, very white board.

Like a surfboard, but not.

A surfboard-but-not… that was about as wide as most cars stretched long.

…Holy fuck.

“Here’s what we’re doing,” the too big fox said, casually as you like. As if he hadn’t just shown me this enormous barge of a board. “I’m gonna slip a carry rod under each axle of your truck and lift it. Then, I’m gonna lower it down onto this here barge board, clamp and strap it into place, and tow you across the water the rest of the way to the island. Easy.”

Barge board… At least it was named appropriately.

“You ready, wolf?” he asked, letting that big board of his tip and fall. A wet slap and hefty splash soon followed. “Since I reckon everyone else up here on this bridge is.”

I nodded again…

I actually nodded.

On one hand, my reaction surprised me. On the other… what else could I do?

I had to get moving, and whether I liked it or not, having myself, my truck, and my cargo manhandled by a fox large enough to do it all at once was my only option.

While I took a tour of my thoughts, Pavel had taken my acceptance at face value and got his recovery efforts well underway.

I watched him slip his so-called ‘carry rod’, basically a gigantic, spoked plank of wood, beneath the rear of my trailer. In the process, he and his yellow jacket blocked my view of the rest of the bridge, and the now-silent queue formed atop it.

Something he had all my thanks for.

A grinding over the asphalt below grew louder the further he fed that ‘rod’ under my truck, lasting until it reached what I assumed was the front end of my trailer…

Further along the bridge than me and my cab were, thanks to my incident.

“Alright, that’s the trailer set,” he said with a brightness to match his jacket, bringing both it and his face back my way. “Now for the rest of your truck.”

I braced for an explanation about how he was gonna go about that…

But as it turned out, I should have been bracing for him to go right on ahead and do it there and then.

With one big heave and deep, throaty grumble, Pavel lifted the front end of my trailer with a staggering, frightening ease.

Bringing me in my cab along with it.

“Hey!” I grabbed hold of something. Gods only knew what. “What the hell!?”

“Chill,” he replied with a calmness that I sat the polar opposite from. “I’ve gotcha.”

Whatever way this fox had ‘got me’, I pushed back into my seat hard, gritting my teeth in the waiting hope for some sort of end to come.

In that wait, I came damn close to shutting my eyes to hide away from it all…

And if I had done, I’d have missed the view beyond my windscreen change.

Away panned the bridge behind me, as did the mainland, a smiley white snout taking their place.

In turn, that snout was soon replaced by the bridge’s opposite end. Along with the immense, plain grey consulate buildings beyond.

As suddenly as I’d risen, I dropped back down to the road, landing with barely more than a bump.

A clear, empty lane towards the consulate sat ahead. The other lane, meanwhile, heading away from the island, resembled the jammed-up carnage I’d caused behind me.

“Like I said.” Pavel pulled his hand away from somewhere below, face now hovering outside my driver’s side window. “Easy.”

A word of warning would’ve been nice, I thought, opening this other window of mine before I’d realised what I’d done. Not that I minded too much. “If you say so.”

“I do say so,” he quipped right back. “This next part’ll be, too.”

Again, Pavel left little time or space to be questioned.

He side-stepped away from my window, creating loud, forceful splashings of the sea below us.

In my wing mirror, I could see him beginning to prepare at the side of my trailer.

With my own eyes, directly, I watched his outstretched arm return and pass as he reached beyond the front of my truck.

“It’s a bit of a stretch,” he said, strain in his voice and a grimace on his twitching snout. Neither sat well with me, even after he’d suggested, “But I’ve still gotcha. At both ends now.”

I kept my full focus on Pavel, frozen up in anticipation for his starting of ‘this next part’.

Was this really about to happen?

Was he really about to do this?

With a thunderous grunt, and a stiff, teeth-chattering tremor, Pavel answered that with a resounding ‘yes’.
The asphalt, the vehicles, and the people started to sway and sink as me, my truck, and everything in it began a slow lift from the bridge.

In my mirror, I could see his biceps bulging beneath his sleeve, and outside my window, I could imagine his forearm doing much the same as the swaying and tremoring grew stronger.

I didn’t feel too concerned right away. Pavel hadn’t put a foot wrong up until that point.

But when the tremoring turned into full-on shaking, and the slowing lifting stalled completely, I grabbed hold of my door, my steering wheel, and cried out, “Hey, hey, easy now, easy!”

The whining of metal hit my ears and sank my heart.

I could still see him grimacing harder in the mirror, eyes squeezed shut, teeth fully on display.

His arms began to tremble, intensifying the shaking, loudening the metallic screeching.

My heart was pounding. My breath was short. Like I was having my accident all over again.

It made it impossible to shout anything beyond. “Fuck, don’t you drop me! …Please.”

As huge as this fox was, and as strong as he must’ve been to have shifted my truck at all, finally, thankfully, he gave in.

The shaking, swaying, and squealing all ended once my wheels made contact with the road again. My heart kept to its racing at top speed, and my hands maintained their vice-like grip on the steering wheel and door handle.

Outside, ahead, I could see some of the other drivers on the bridge, standing and watching from beside their cars and other vehicles. A few had their phones held up in front of them.

Even as I sweated bullets and gasped from whatever breath I could find, I couldn’t deny how picture worthy this whole scene must’ve been.

“I’m sorry.” Pavel brought his reluctant face back to my driver’s side window. “That truck of yours is way heavier than I expected.” 

What a sentence that was to hear. It took me a good moment to find a way to properly process the idea that a guy would find a truck, a whole, godsdamn fully-loaded truck, ‘heavier than expected’.

…I then remembered how his snout alone was big enough to fill my window.

“I’ll need to call for some help from a coworker,” he explained, lifting a two-way radio into view from below the bridge.

A radio about the size that I was.

“I could do this alone,” Pavel added. “But with the length of your truck and the weight along with it, it’s just too risky. I don’t wanna damage anything. You included, of course.”

“...‘course,” I replied, switching to Meerlander to speak from my slowly settling heart. “Works for me… Stars above us, I nearly pissed myself.”

“Hang tight,” he said with a flick of his big brown ears in regular Polcian. “It’ll only be another minute or two.”

And with that… I had no choice but to wait a little longer in my cab.

The situation I’d found myself in still hit like some kinda fever dream. A dream that felt realer than real, but seven shades of fucked up all the same.

Thanks to Pavel’s equipment, and his failure to properly move my trailer, the bridge remained blocked in both directions.

On top of that, thanks to what Pavel had attempted with that equipment, I still hadn’t fully settled back down from the stress and panic.

In contrast, the fox beside the bridge remained so damn bright and jolly. To the point where he’d shifted a short way along the barrier to engage with some of the others stuck there.

“It’s all okay,” he said to a far smaller fox standing next to their car, voice super soft and whisper quiet.

“Relax, don’t panic,” he then told the delivery otter fidgeting beside their van. “A few more minutes, that’s all.”

What a sight that was… this gigantic fox, leaning and looming over this bridge and everyone on it, like something out of some monster movie, or an old film about The Great War… offering happy, friendly reassurance to those nearby.

A situation that hit like a fever dream? Understatement of the decade right there.

Pavel made his way back to the truck not long after, soon striking up a conversation with me about the glorious summer weather we were enjoying and how likely it’d be for it to continue.

You know, the mundane stuff that felt anything but mundane right then.

I’d have been lying if I said it hadn’t helped, though. He’d definitely put me more at ease than before… but I was still a long way from fully relaxed, that’s for sure.

After all, never mind the ordeal that was having me and my truck hauled up and rattled around like it had been… I had what must’ve been a fifty-foot-plus fox right there, standing next to me. A fox the size of an honest to gods building… casually chatting away like we were sitting in a pub together.

Not a chance was I gonna get my head around that anytime soon.

“Hey, listen,” Pavel said, raising one of his giant hands with its palm out towards me. “You’ve got nothing to be worried or nervous about here.”

Had I been that easy to read? I doubt he could’ve seen the way my tail had pressed itself to my thigh, and my ears felt pretty normal considering–

“There’s no charge for this,” he confirmed with a whisker-perking grin. “No need to explain any unexpected costs or anything like that to your boss.”

I couldn’t hold back a rumbling snort at that idea, returning to Meerlander to grumble some more. “Worried about my boss? My boss isn’t the one as big as this truck…”

“No need for worry about me and my size, either,” he replied.

In near-perfect kind.

‘What the fuck?’ was my first and instant thought. My face must’ve said much the same based on how Pavel followed up with a switch back to Polcian.

“I get that look a lot,” he said with a prideful smile. “My grandparents were from Meerland originally. Geerdorp, near Viervelden, to be exact. They taught Meerlander to my dad as a kid, and insisted that me and my sisters be taught it, too. It’s a fun language. Like Polcian in some ways, but not in a lot of others, y’know?”

“...Yeah.”

“Oh, man!” Pavel sighed out loud, a picture of joy as he said, “You’re easily the friendliest, chattiest person I’ve recovered from out on this bridge.”

Friendliest? Chattiest? I hadn’t said more than a few words to this fox and that was his opinion of me? “...Thanks?”

“It makes this part of my job so much nicer. Barely a job at all, like. Just like when I used to see all the new arrivals from Polcia at Sturanja Harbour back in the day.” He grinned as his eyes glazed. “I shocked more than a few over the years when they saw me approaching, waving. Good times.”

Amid his distraction, I dared to take another look at the scene past my windscreen.

The traffic queuing to continue their way back to the mainland hadn’t thinned any.

How could it, with me, my truck, and Pavel’s lifting tools still blocking their route?

I sank into my seat. At least before his help, I’d only had to see the chaos I’d caused running in one direction…

“You okay in there… uh?” Pavel asked with a slight cock to his head. “I didn’t catch your name, my friend.”

“...It’s Mike.”

“Mike, gotcha!” His head straightened. “Glad to meet you.”

The way he bellowed out my name for all to hear didn’t sit too great with me. Especially when considering how many might not have been wearing a Normaliser as I was.

It’d be just my luck for that to come back to bite me in the ass somehow.

Maybe the boss was someone I had to be worried about…

“Also…” Pavel’s snout closed in on my open window. “I’m glad that you didn’t end up pissing yourself.”

I cringed so hard I almost folded in on myself, remembering only too well my speaking from the heart a few minutes before. “...If I knew you spoke Meerlander, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

“Hah, no shit you wouldn’t!”

In the vain hope of putting all the nervousness and embarrassment out of mind, I had a go at moving things back to the there and then. “How many vehicles have you recovered from this bridge, anyhow? It’s only just opened.”

“Uh… yours is the second, actually.”

“...Oh.”

“But the other’s owner was a real dick, like. Some stuffy, demanding weasel in a flash suit. He was someone important over in the town apparently, but… imma be honest, I stopped listening to what he was saying real fast.”

“Sounds painful.”

“It was!” Pavel threw a paw to his shaking head. “I was just happy to get him and his bodyguards, or whoever the bears that were with him were, over to the consulate as quick as possible.”

“...Can imagine.”

“But you.” He jabbed and pointed a finger bigger than my arm squarely at me. “You’re more than making up for it.” Then, with the sunniest smile, Pavel switched back to Meerlander for a moment to say, “Plus, you are the first people– uh, person to let me practise this.”

I smiled.

Smiled wide, actually.

There wasn’t any shaking the sense of being overwhelmed by this massive, imposing fox standing right next to me and my truck.

But massive and imposing or not, I couldn’t deny the guy had an infectiousness about him. And really, I was very much, “Happy to help.”

Pavel’s gigantic brush splashed a torrent of water up into view as it swept up above the barrier.

An awesome, unsettling display of power, softened in no small part by the warmth of his lasting smile.

Not that he’d give me too long to dwell on it all before racing right on to the next topic.

“Who are you delivering to us from anyhow?” The fox leaned back right about when he finished, leaving me no time at all to reply before confirming for himself. “Ooh, Prijsmarkt.”

He bent closer to me and my cab again, way happier than I’d have expected over a supermarket delivery. I couldn’t say much in response other than, “...Yeah.”

“I sure hope you’re carrying plenty of butter cakes in there,” Pavel said, finishing on a short chuckle. “All the Maleni on the island, at the weather station, and the consulate, they love ‘em so much. Ten times better than what you can get back home in Bolstrovo, apparently. Too bad you don’t make ‘em in Visoka sizes for me to try…” He drifted off, went misty-eyed, smile shrinking and thinning. “Heh, maybe someday.”

I still found myself struggling with clashing thoughts over how to answer, how to process everything he was saying to me.

This fox was a nice guy, clearly.

Massive and very much in my face and space…

But a nice guy all the same.

Even so, sitting in a seat, in a cab, in a truck that’d begun to feel awkward and undersized, there was only one thought, one question pressing on me to the point that I blurted, “Is that coworker of yours gonna be here soon?”

“Oh…” With flattened ears and the end of what remained of a smile, Pavel seemed to find focus again. Enough at least to find the radio strapped to his vest. “...Let’s find out.”

He reached to grab it. Got those big fingers within touching distance.

When the radio fizzed and sparked into life.

“Stepping into the water now,” crackled a voice. Toneless, even for one coming over the airwaves. “Couple minutes.”

“Understood, Dusko,” Pavel responded in a similar drone, releasing the talk button to then mumble, “Speak of the devil.”

Those promised couple of minutes came and went with a similar awkwardness. The only difference being that I’m sure Pavel shared it along with me.

For the first time since arriving to spook me out of my fur from the other side of the barrier, he stood in a silence that matched the one inside my cab.

No smile. No brightness.

Not even eye contact.

Instead, he’d turned to peer off towards the island, watching and waiting for the huge raven I soon spotted striding through the sea towards us.

I saw others stuck on the bridge tilt their heads upwards as he passed them, many visibly shocked and amazed to see a second giant worker in a fluorescent vest come striding so casually past.

As for me, well, I still found myself deeply uncomfortable, deeply uncertain, but for reasons not just related to that raven’s approaching arrival.

Pavel’s coworker made it to my truck with a mighty, almost booming splash, kicking no short amount of water up above bridge-height as he stopped beside the slightly shorter fox.

Shorter being very much relative in this case…

The raven’s face matched the dour voice from the radio. One that barely shifted in response to Pavel’s brief wave and muted greeting.

At least, I assumed what he said, in what I also assumed was Velikan, was a greeting.

Somehow, that got me feeling even smaller beneath their shadow…

The pair of them soon got to their work with little further sound, Pavel making checks around the front end of my truck, while his coworker did the same towards the back.

They shared a few low mutterings in what could’ve been any language as they went. One maybe two words at a time at most.

The starkest of differences from Pavel’s loud, non-stop cheer before.

If I’d hoped to relieve my discomfort and awkwardness by reeling all that cheer of his in, then I’d failed. Big time.

Checks apparently complete, the fox and the raven quietly positioned themselves to grab hold of each end of the ‘carry rod’ beneath my truck.

I’d anticipated a readying up. A setting, too.

But without warning, they went right on ahead and just lifted…

In a blink, everything jolted, creaked, and trembled hard.

Like the truck itself was trying to pull itself apart.

A heartstopping thought that flashed into mind.

And one that left just as quickly.

Things began to ease, quieten, and still.

Heavy shaking became a light rocking as the bridge gradually lowered, gradually moved.

Soon, I no longer had the asphalt beneath me. And no longer was I between the guard barriers.

I found myself directly over the water, a few soft grunts of Pavel’s effort in my ear as I listened to both my truck and my cargo shifting and settling as he and that raven worked.

The rising stopped. So too did my movement out across the water.

They said something else to each other, and then, after what sounded like a countdown, I started to descend towards sea level.

To say this was a crazy, unnerving experience wouldn’t do it justice at all. But what I could say for sure was that I’d never experienced anything like it in my life.

I doubt many, if any other drivers in Meerland, in all of Polcia, could say they’d had their truck literally picked up by a couple of guys, then hauled around like it was a piece of furniture to be moved.

After seconds that went on for minutes, I had the Consulate Bridge and its supports off to my passenger’s side.

Closest, on my driver's side, Pavel and his fluorescent vest had surrounded and overtaken everything, bending down and hovering over my cab as he was, lowering me to where his thighs met the waves.

The suspension reacted and worked with the fox and his coworker to soften my arrival onto that literal barge board, a brief, slow lurching the only thing to brace against before everything settled.

“Okay,” I heard Pavel say, sounding as downbeat as he looked as his snout moved to hover above my open window. “We’ll fasten the straps to hold your truck in place. Then we’ll go.”

The moment he finished, Pavel shifted away so fast that I couldn’t even think about how to reply.

A far cry from the smiling snout that seemed reluctant to move itself too far from my window.

The lashing of waves against the barge came with the fox extending himself even further above and beyond my truck, starting a rhythmic jerking that only strengthened as I watched him and his coworker do their thing in my mirror.

As much as he’d unsettled, hell, as much as he’d scared me stiff at times up on the bridge… I felt bad watching Pavel work away in silence.

Yeah, the sheer size of the guy was something I still hadn’t fully processed.

Probably as tall as my truck was long…

Large enough to scoop a car up at both ends and hold it to his chest…

And liable to lose me in a jacket pocket if he were to grab and put me someplace…

But no matter how big he was, or how much it freaked me out, I’d killed his undeniable enthusiasm stone dead.

And ruining people’s days wasn’t the sort of thing I was about.

“Hey, uhm, Pavel,” I called through my window, pushing through the tinge of fear and hint of regret to add, “I wanted to say… thanks.”

The strong perk of his sail-like brown ears is what I spotted first.

Next came a water-cresting, spray-flinging sweep of his gigantic brush as his attention shifted away from the security straps and over to me.

“Thanks for coming out here to help me,” I said, doing my damnedest not to shirk back into my cab. “And for being… good about it. It’s appreciated.”

Pavel offered up a smirk of bemusement, quietly shifting himself back towards me and my window.

“And… It was good to chat for a little while, too. To take my mind off all what’d happened. As much as it could do.”

That was enough to help him rekindle that former spark, brightening to the point that his smile practically glowed while he said, “Thank you as well for being far less of a prick than that weasel was.” Then, returning to Meerlander one last time, he added, “I appreciate it, too.”

With the straps all fastened, and with things feeling right as rain between us again, Pavel waded back to the frontside of the board.

The waves he left in his wake started me and my truck rising and falling, rising and falling. Not all that dissimilar to the experience of being aboard a ferry.

Even if most ferries weren’t powered by building-sized foxes whose tails swept up their own water currents.

Scooping up the biggest rope I’d ever witnessed in one hand, stopping in place just ahead of the thigh-high barge board, I heard Pavel say, “Let’s get those butter cakes you’d best be carrying over to the island.” I leaned forward to find him bending down, shining me a grin before he added, “And you, too, I guess.”

That got a good, hard hack of laughter out of me. One that got me comfortable even before I’d settled back in my seat.

“It’s looking good up here now,” Pavel said, quick to resume our cheery, somewhat one-sided conversation as he took that first step through the water. “Traffic’s all moving, clearing. All’s fine and no lasting harm done.”

“Good,” I shouted through my window, hoping to be heard over the intense sloshing of his next water-parting stride. “That’s a relief.”

“Bet you never imagined your day turning out like this when it started, eh?”

Another storm-like crash announced itself, joined by a wave large and powerful enough to lift me and my truck a good few feet at least: all the result of a step from this enormous fox out front, towing me so casually by a tree-thick rope attached to a giant barge of a board. “...Yeah, you could say that.”

We closed in on the shore of the island after a few minutes, not all too far from where the bridge lowered to meet the land.

Their route treated me to an incredible, near unbelievable sight. Normal-sized roads and checkpoint buildings teeming with traffic and people, all set in the shadow of one and two storey structures the size of tower blocks and skyscrapers rising from further inland.

It was enough to take and keep my breath away. To leave my mind blank. Even more so than the knowledge that I’d had the honour of a personal escort there from a massive fox and a huge raven.

All that said, amid the stunning, staggering wonder of it all, I did manage to find the wherewithal to ask Pavel one small question…

“Uh… so who’s gonna change my tyre, anyhow?”