A Long Walk

I raise my head to the sky, letting the sun beat down on my face. My skin is burnt and blistered from weeks adrift without shelter, but I don't care. The sun is warm, and I am alive—that's all I need to know.

There is a small peace in the memory of a couple of swallows of tepid beer just now. The aftertaste lingers, coating my mouth with a thin, bitter film. It was easily the best beer I have ever had. I chuckle at the thought.

A tropical breeze drags briny air across my lips, tasting familiar, like margaritas on the beach in my 20s. Nostalgia seeps into my bones as memories flood my mind, overtaking me. I am back on the beaches of North Carolina, laughing as a happy retriever kicks up sand and I grab another Corona. I am young, with much yet to do, and not very good at any of it. Enthusiasm is my only weapon, and I wield it infectiously.

Thoughts of youth bring a smile to my lips. There's not much to do in the world. In the end, there is food to eat, ways to move and engage the body, rules to live by, and challenges to complete. It all culminates in imaginatively recycled ways to die. We are simply experiences, and the world is not complicated. Had I known then what I know now, I would have spent more time drinking on the beach and less worrying about my career.

Cracking rifles wake me from my reverie, the reports sounding over the ocean to nobody. A ritualized waste of bullets. The concept of being far from friendly shores with no clear way to resupply provided no obstacle for the feelings of power that came with tradition. What care do the gods have for things like bullets? The volley answers with its repetition; there will always be more bullets and shooting guns is fun.

A buck crashes through the brush as my grandfather takes another shot. He misses again and curses under his breath before bellowing for another beer. I scurry to fulfill the request, afraid the rifle will go off in his anger and hurt someone. Cold Bud Light from the little blue cooler with the swing-top lid. I reach my hand into the water, all traces of ice long gone, and grab myself a Coke as well.

“Don’t drink and shoot,” my grandfather says. “You won’t be able to shoot straight, you’ll miss your target, and who knows what happens after that.” My grandfather reaches down from the tree-blind to grab the beer out of my hand and cracks it open in one fluid motion. He never missed when it came to opening a beer can.

Despite my grandfather’s “do as I say, not as I do” attitude, he exemplified why it was such a profoundly bad idea. He never got the deer, and he’s had more than a couple “absolutely unavoidable close calls, your honor” moments.

A third volley of rifles rings out, piercing the memory of my grandfather, and he dies again. From somewhere nearby, a lonely trumpet begins to play a few off-key notes of a song I never learned the name of. I feel a sword point slowly skewer my kidney. I know it is time. I hold my breath and step forward, weightless. The wind changes. I find myself surprised at the sensation, and allow myself to think, just for a moment, that perhaps miracles exist. I open my eyes to confirm the sensation, unable to believe that perhaps my fate has changed, and realize too late that I can no longer feel the heat of the sun.

The wetness envelops me as reality sets in with a cruel jest. Simply falling. I was simply falling, and the drop was longer than I realized in my distraction. The saltwater stings as it enters the shallow sword wound. Soon, predators will be drawn to the scent, but in the depths of the ocean? I am weightless. I am free. The world above fades into a distant memory, and I am left with the echoes of a life well-lived. The predators will come, but by then, I will be far beyond their reach, lost in the endless expanse of the sea. I am unafraid.

I sink, swallowed by the icy fathom. I dream of things that happened a lifetime ago and I remember what it is to forget.