The man
was dressed in a light blue polo shirt with a zipped grey overcoat. In his hand
he had a hat which he sat down on the table near the front door. His shoes made
small squeaking noises on the hard-wood floor as he took practiced steps
towards the kitchen.
It was strange that with all of his preparation
for his usual morning walk—shoes, shirt, overcoat, hat—his pants were clearly
absent. His underwear and high brown socks were completely visible as he made
his way down the hall. This omission seemed even more unusual when compared to
the way he prepared his breakfast. He worked to pour the cereal, toast the
bread, and fill the orange juice to the
mid -point of the glass with measured movements that seemed as though he were
performing a technical dance routine. Each of his motions was intentional and
paced. The house was silent. He sat down on a chair at the table and ate slowly.
Looking about himself with eyes wide, he took in his surroundings.
Every
item or moment he recognized weighed itself in his mind. He thought about each
fruit in the bowl on the table before he let it go. The sway of the trees in
the backyard could be observed through the window from where he was sitting.
And they were.
There were squirrels in the neighbor’s lawn,
he noticed.
All
this he seemed to do naturally while he ate.
Then,
for no visible reason, he let go of his spoon, letting it slide into his
half-eaten cereal. The elderly man stood up from the table and walked back out
to the living room where he sat down in his high-backed, cushioned chair. He stared
intently across the room at the large wooden structure that held his personal
library. He stared as if trying to remember something or read something far
away. This stare continued for a few seconds before he rose and took a book at
random from the top of the almost-full bookcase.
It was a book of short stories and he flipped
to the first one.
He
read:
Exotic Fishes
He
who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment.
-Eckhart
Tolle
This
story isn’t very complicated. It’s about a young man who learns a lesson. He
becomes a better person, you could say. In ways, I’m sure it’s very much like stories
you have heard before but here it is.
The bed was just too
comfortable. Each night he would set an alarm for eight in the morning, as if
he actually planned to rise and begin his productive and fulfilling day at that
hour. At this time each morning the programmed song on his alarm would bleat
its funk-rock tune and he would turn over, stretching wonderfully and shut it
off. He would toss the heavy blankets off, roll out of the cushiony bed and
walk to the bathroom where he would dispose of the morning’s liquid waste.
It felt so relieving to be rid of
all that waste. When he walked the short steps from his bed to his bathroom he
couldn’t see much of anything. His bleary, sleep-clouded eyes never opened more
than a sixth of the way. What was the point of opening his eyes if they were
only to be closed again in a few moments? With nothing to see and eyes blinded
by lack of effort, he would crawl back into his heavenly bed and smile with
sleepy comfort, resetting the alarm for an hour later.
At nine the sun from outside
would be staring straight through the window but that wouldn’t bother him
because he would just inch the pillow farther up on his bed, turn to the other
side, reset the alarm for ten and close his eyes. It just felt too incredibly
pleasing and easy. The feeling of being on the verge of falling back to sleep
was supremely mesmerizing.
When ten would come, most days
he rose and went upstairs and ate a large bowl of sugary cereal. The cereal was
gone in three minutes because he ate, for no ascribable reason, terribly fast.
Most mornings the bowl would get refilled, and would then become empty again in
few more minutes. With his cereal gone, stomach bloated and drops of milk
lacing the hair on his chin he would return to his room, to his bed. Back
downstairs on his king sized mattress, topped with a feather-down mattress pad
and a layering of micro-velvet blankets, he would forget the alarm altogether
and sleep again until whenever his body, or his conscience, or whatever it was
that woke him up did so. Now he would begin to feel guilty for having spent
twelve hours, a half-day, in his bed. This thought would quickly be pushed out
of his mind and he would doze or just lay there for another fifteen minutes or
so until he got the courage to walk upstairs with his blanket where he would
set himself on the couch and turn the TV on.
And do you want to know
something awful? The couch was heartbreakingly comfortable as well.
It was summer, and he was home
from college. So yes, he had a certain unspoken right to be leisurely. Although if I am to give an honest account of
his life in these days, school was cake for him and he was far from a laborious
scholar. He got good grades, and read a lot, but did not exert the kind of
energy that would require a month’s worth of eleven hour sleeps, mid-day naps,
and general idleness.
It was June of that summer and
he had been home now for 34 days.
Each morning somewhere between
the move from the bed to the couch, he felt a pang of restlessness, causing him
to feel that he must do something
that day.
He could write but that was so
much more difficult than it sounded.
He could ride his bike but that
was often physically straining and the
out of doors seemed to swelter during the summer on those long roads. Anymore
bad sunburns and his doctor said his risk of skin cancer would greatly
increase. He didn’t even know where the sunscreen was, or if they had any.
And he wasn’t going to look for
something that probably wasn’t even there.
Reading was something he liked
to do, something that made him feel like he was accomplishing something. As he
laid down he pulled the novel he was currently chipping away at from underneath
the sofa. What chapter did he last read?
The book hadn‘t been touched since last week so, who could know?
Who could remember?
Outside it looked sunny and the
sky was blue like his eyes. He looked out the window for a few seconds, holding
the book peeled open in his two hands. The decision that it was severely hot
and uncomfortable out there was an easy and familiar one to make, so he
scrunched himself into his horizontal seat, pulled his blanket up and looked at
his book.
Four skimmed pages later, and he
was dozing off again.
When he awoke he felt a little
sickness somewhere in him that told him sternly that he had to get up. He rose
with the inclination that it was definitely time for lunch although he wasn’t
entirely hungry. This excuse of food got him out of the forest green, L-shaped
furniture, and lead him to the kitchen. Here he prepared a ham and cheese
sandwich and grabbed a bag of carrots in one hand and a bag of chips in the
other and walked the comforts out to the living room. Then he went back for his
sandwich and also cracked a can of soda.
There he sat in the easy-chair
watching TV and eating like a breathing American statue, alive, but barely. It
was around one o’clock now.
Food had never been something
that he had had to work for, and therefore it was never something he savored.
Again I say, he ate with a gross rapidity. So when the food was gone he sat
back in the chair and sipped from his can, watching the screen and feeling
wasteful.
When he felt like this, or got
these sorts of thoughts, he would quickly think of something to do that would
take his mind from them. So now he rose and climbed down the stairs, leaving the
bags of food, soda can, and collection of crumbs lying beside the lay-z-boy.
He was about to enter his room
to turn on his video-game console when he remembered the new game he had
borrowed from a friend was still in the backseat of his car. This made him stop
on his path down the stairs and walk out the front door.
When he opened it he expected to
feel a blast of overwhelming heat, a reminder of why he was keeping himself
inside, but he did not. There was a pleasant warmth that surrounded him, that
dissolved the chilled, plastic feel of air-conditioning. A faint breeze came in
from the yard which reminded him of days spent playing roller hockey with his
neighbors when they were all younger, before everyone had jobs, or girlfriends,
or college, or nothing to do.
In fact it was about 81 degrees
outside and a group of bikers pedaled down his country road like a slim school
of fish as he walked towards his car.
It was about now when he saw a
very unexpected something sitting at the end of his driveway.
It caught his eye and he walked towards
what looked like a hefty slice of peanut-butter chocolate cake sitting on a
pink paper plate.
That it was.
He picked it up and examined it,
confused about where it had come from.
It was a flawless pastry and it enticed him. Reasoning that it was
probably a small gift from his mom who often lovingly dropped off gifts for
him, he reached down towards it, picked it up with his hand and tried it.
It was delicious.
At this point, the old man in his
reading chair placed the book facing down on the arm, leaving it open to the
page he was on. He walked back to the
kitchen and saw his bowl sitting on the table. When the spoon was fished out of
the milk he sat down and resumed eating his breakfast. The cereal was soggy. He
ate the cold toast and again chewed as though chewing were a contemplative
meditation. Sipping his orange juice and turning over the words of the story in
his mind, he couldn’t help feeling concern and a little nervousness for the
character in it. Then he heard the front door open.
“Hello?
Are you up?” his wife questioned in a vibrant tone. As she walked through the
living room holding her purse and grocery bag she saw him sitting in the
kitchen. “Still eating breakfast? You must have slept in a bit for once. How
are you?” she said upon entering the kitchen. She placed the bags on the table.
“I’m
very well. It’s been a pleasant enough morning.
Just been reading.”
“It
looks more like eating to me. Not to mention, in your underwear.”
He
looked down and noticed for the first time that morning that he had failed to
fully complete his dress and said in response, “Ah yes, I suppose I did forget
those. Luckily I haven’t left yet to take my walk. I got tied up in reading,
and yes, breakfast as well.”
“Well
that is a good thing. What are you reading? And are you really eating this,
it’s cold.”
“I-I
don’t.. no I am finished. Just about to clean this up. I have yet to take my
walk so I’ll be off shortly,” he said.
“I’ll take care of this for you, but put some pants on, please,” she said with
a laugh and a smile. He kissed her as he stood and walked out of the kitchen to
head upstairs. However, on his way through the living room he saw the book and
then found himself back in his chair, reading.
He
continued where he had left off:
It
was delicious.
Now he battled the messages his
stomach was sending him about being full, not wanting more food, and so forth.
He took another bite, and then it happened.
A pain like ripping flesh, like
separation, like separation of cells, like separation of membranes, tissues,
muscle, fat, like the separate deaths of every atom, came through his cheek.
The piercing was lightning-bolt
fast; it happened in an instant. First
the finely sharp end of the giant hook poked through his mouth and then the
second prick, that of the barb, further opened the hole and the entire metal
curve was through his face. All this in a flash, a wink, a bite.
It pulled up, yanking him by the
side of the head.
I can’t record with words the
momentous hurt that he felt in his cheek nor can I describe the flurry of
thoughts that rushed through his head as he was lifted off the ground. Whatever all those frantic transient thoughts
were, they added up to about this: Wow!
The first thing he noticed was
everything. His eyes darted around in a hundred different directions and he
noticed a spot on the top of his car where the paint was wearing thin. He
noticed the perimeter of the house across the street formed a pentagon. What a
strange shape for a house, he thought. He noticed dogs barking in adjacent
yards, cows in the field down the road, and birds on the telephone wire that
nearly touched his head now. One of his neighbors, Mrs. Addleson was out in her
yard, bent over her garden. He hadn’t seen Mrs. Addleson in over a year. Somehow,
these things occupied his racing mind more than the pain in his cheek.
He could not focus on the pain,
only his surroundings and how everything seemed in its right location.
Everything was at a different angle now and it was all very impressive.
After this fleeting feeling
passed he brought his attention to his unfathomable situation and began to yell
for help and grab at the hook that had him.
When he pulled on it and tried
to lift himself off it he found he didn’t have the strength or the leverage.
The more he pulled and moved, the more the wound grew. Higher, higher he was
pulled. Further, further the wound tore. It ripped slowly and continuously like a
never-ending band-aid being peeled back forever.
When he yelled he managed to
obtain only the attention of the neighborhood dogs. They barked but their barks
did not help. In the middle of the day,
on a Wednesday, most people were away at work and there was really no one
around to hear his cries. Mrs. Addleson looked around herself briefly but then
went back to her tending. Higher, higher he was dragged up into the sky.
You are probably thinking that a sight like this must have been pretty
comical. In a way it was. I mean, I chuckled when the dogs kept on barking,
offering their futile help, as he kept getting smaller in their eyes. But
honestly it was more sad than funny.
Even if people had seen him
caught and writhing on the line, they couldn’t have done much more than the dogs. No one could help him now and I admit that
was certainly pitiable.
But there was hope for him yet.
There was always hope.
Now as he was looking down,
terrified, he saw the town he lived in growing out from below him. Cars drove
down the streets. Some lawnmowers cut through grass as usual. Life in the small
suburban community continued without him. There were a lot of houses for what
he considered to be his little hometown. There were a lot of buildings he
didn’t recognize from up there. Everything looked bigger even though he was
being pulled away from it. There were all these expansive fields on the
outskirts.
There was so much he hadn’t seen
before. The junkyard that sat sprawling through the southern end of town looked
new and dense. There were so many things, so much stuff left there that only
needed the hands of someone courageous and determined enough to go into that
goldmine and dig it out.
The woods he used to stare at through the back
windows of his middle-school were so much larger than he remembered. Dark green
trees folded out for miles. His mind wandered to the trees for some moments and
he thought about all the things that could be in there that he’s never seen,
that no one has ever seen. Goldmines.
Unexplored.
Wasted, he thought.
The hook jerked and he moved
faster.
Moving further and further away
from the comfort of his home, that is to say, closer and closer to sky-blue
sky, he began to think about his predicament. He now realized that his
connection to this hook was not going to break unless he could find a way to
cut the string. Whatever, whoever it was that was reeling it upwards was doing
so with haste and constant power. He put his hands in the pockets of his
sweatpants and found nothing but lint. His fingers were cut by the taught
string when he reached up to try to tear it. They bled.
He took a deep breath and looked
up. The clouds were coming fast. Down
below it was all green and he could see dark blue parts where water bodies lay.
“What is happening to me?” he kept asking himself, gasping. Shock had hit him.
He was turning clammy and his body vibrated, his ears rang.
The hook pulled to this side and
that as he kicked and fought to make himself more difficult to reel in. All the
while he worsened the wound in his pale face. Each tug exponentially increased
the pain. It was unspeakable and I will not even attempt to explain it.
The line tugged strongly to the right and the
beautiful weather that he was hanging in began to change. He was moving swiftly
now and the air whipped past his face. The sound was like that of sticking your
head out of a car window. Wind blew and clouds, darkened grey with rain,
gathered nearby above his head. Glancing down from his now incalculable height,
he saw the east coast inching away and the rippled ocean taking its place.
“What is happening to me?”
“Why is this happening?”
“What is going on?”
He kept muttering these
questions to himself, although maybe they were directed at God; or just anyone with
a controlling hand in the lives of humans.
For once he thought that his
hands were what was needed to alter the lives of humans, or at least one of
them. However his hands were bleeding now. Small drops of blood fell thousands
of feet from his sliced fingers into the Atlantic ocean. If only he could reach up and tear the taught,
impossible line.
An instant later a round of
brutal thunder roared out and, from his position in the sky, the sound was
momentarily deafening. He closed his
eyes and heard the sounds which translated to a muffled silence. When he opened
them again he thought he was dead, or waking up.
But unfortunately for him, he
did not find himself in bed. He did not find himself leaning over to reset his
alarm clock. He did not find comfort.
He would not be pinched out of
this nightmare.
The rain came and it soaked him
through. Good news though: his face was numb now and the line began to pull
much more slowly, as if holding him there in the inclemency; washing him off,
rinsing him out. The last thing he remembered before he passed out was the wind
blowing harshly. He was pushed about by the gusts like a flag on a pole.
The storm passed. As did the
night. He hung there, now a dead flag, for hours.
Eventually, the sun came back and puffy white nimbuses gathered
around the unmoving catch hanging by a hook.
I woke him up, stirred him from
his unconscious state.
When his eyes opened I said to
him: “What are you doing down there?”
He was groggy, confused, scared,
wet, hurt, still bleeding, bewildered and angry.
Add sorry. Add crying. Add
sunburned.
He said he didn’t know. I nodded
my head and looked into his weary, wounded face as I cut the line.
He fell for a very long time.
You could have fried an egg in the time it took him to reach the in-ground
swimming pool in his back yard. Do not
ask me how he did not die from the impact. Do not ask me anything. I don’t know
any more than you do.
Isn’t that comforting?
So when he had resurfaced he
pulled his nearly lifeless body out of the pool and he lay in the yard. He
carefully and painfully removed the huge hook from his cheek, feebly tossing it
aside. He lay back in the grass and looked up into the sky for a few minutes.
It was morning.
He rose achingly and sauntered
through the yard to the back door of his home. Inside his room he walked over
to the bed and was about to lie down but he stopped when he saw his reflection
in his window. His cheek looked horrific and there was dried blood all
over.
With fervor and adrenalin he
grasped his queen sized mattress and jerked it up from its location. He drug it
through his room and squeezed it out the door. He had to fight it to pass it
through the threshold of the backdoor.
The bed was flung out into the yard. Next came all the blankets. Then
the pillows. Then the gas and the matches.
Sitting in the yard he watched
the mattress burn. The smoke curled swiftly up into the sky. An awful scent was
released by the fire and it made his face scrunch up in repulsion. The flames
ate the cushion with ease, with one long bite.
That night he slept on the floor
and woke early the next day.
