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Tales of Adventure pt3
2003-05-27 - 3:35 a.m.


before/after
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Tales of Adventure

part 3

"what-ev"

So I pulled down the road, past the 'bear trap' cafe', past the store, and the crazy woman who wears a beekeepers hat I swear I've seen in front of the store every time I've come here, the store being the only building in 'Melstrand'.

Resonating in my head was the reptitive thought, is this it?  Is this the last time?  And why the fuck is she wearing a beekeeper hat?

Dark confession:  Even before I left that question rang throughout my head.  I have fantasized very often about throwing myself from these cliffs.  Such an easy and poetic way to die.  Absence of pain, flash of beauty, cold watery grave.  Was this what I set out to do?  Would I do it?  Was this a quest to find the heart that still beats inside of me, or was this my final act?  I still didn't know as I pulled down the long dusty road to get to the parking lot of the trail head.  I had to find the courage within to understand life or forsake it.  In any event, answers would be had.

The parking lot was largely full.  People often took one of the trails to either of the beaches.  A few always hiked the entire coastline, or try to, anyway.  I was the only one that day up for the ten mile trial.  The only one I've ever seen attempt it alone.

Anyway, I got out of the car, put on my trusty Doc Marten hiking boots, made sure I had all necessary supplies in my black back pack and off I went. The trees were full of gorgeous birds of all color and sound.  Chipmunks abounded.  Life heaved around me and simply was.  Gorgeous, green and lush.  The canopy loomed far above my head and underneath was widely open.  No fires here, no logging.  Just the long effects of shade trees on undergrowth and the complimentary low emerald green carpet that results from it. Lovely.  I wanted to roll in it, but I knew the resulting rashes, bug, and animal bites wouldn't be worth it.  It was nice to think of it that way, though.

After I hiked down the trail for a ways, maybe a mile I stopped.  I wasn't sure why so I just stayed quiet, and I listened.

ABSOLUTE SILENCE.

The type of silence some dream of, but never experience.  Not a car, not a hum, not another person.  Even the bird and the chipmunks, which literally infested the virginal forest were silent.  It was as if nature held its breath and I was rewarded with a moment of transcendent auditory beauty.  The forest held its breath as I penetrated its towering depths.

I relished the quiet for a moment, then trod on my way, pleased that things, however they were to end up, had reached this point.  It is seldom that one can find such quiet in one's lifespan.  Always a car or other humans.

And like any moment of respite and sanctuary, it was not to last.

Shortly behind me came huffing and puffing.  No, it wasn't the big bad wolf, but it might as well have been.

Some guy with his pants pulled high, toting fishing poles and his blonde girlfriend trailing haplessly in his wake approached from behind.  He was giant stepping beyond his size, as if to make himself seem larger than he was, and was speaking in loud tones to his girl.  She clearly admired him for the facade of masculinity he had portrayed for her.  He was the epitome of a man wearing boots too big for him.

"GREETINGS!" he boomed at me, spoiling my reverie, "HOW ARE YOU TODAY!?"

He stepped around me.  I let him.

"Fine."  I said, "Still kickin'.  How about you?"

"FINE, FINE, YES!"  he said.

"And you?" I asked his girl.

"What-ev."  she said.

This stunned me into silence.  Its kind of the code in remote places like this, with a certain element of danger coupled with it, that everyone is obsequiously nice to each other.  You really don't know if your survival may rely totally on the goodwill of strangers, and no one fucks around with it too much.  Besides, her boyfriend was an ass, and its normally par for the course for the girl of such a guy to make some sort of half-hearted attempt at apology or to smooth things out.

That, and it was plainly obvious to me that her boyfriend was a puppy.  A guppy.  Someone who had boondoggled her into believing he was a billy bad-ass but really had led a milk fed soft life.  Someone who did not know pain and death, nor ever had to contend with them on any personal level.    Its an alpha male thing that guys can sense about each other. 

What-ev?

It irked me.  But some people are stupid.  What can you do?  I could have easily beaten her boyfriend bloody, bit off his ear and spit it at her saying in a mocking voice, "what-ev, what-ev, what-ev", but what would that prove?  Nothing. 

I try to avoid being complicit in hurting other people anymore. I tend to leave the stupid to their own fates and reckonings.  Getting involved fucks up my karma.

I let it go and let it slide.  They marched away in their tawdry cavalcade of noise and sulkiness.

I tried to find some sense of quiet.  Some return to the reverie I had known just minutes before.

No luck. 

A half mile down the trail, I heard my voice say mockingly, "What-ev."


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