Returning

He had decided today would be the last day of summer, in every sense. Literally, as July twenty-nineth was as good as any other day to declare the season over, but also figuratively summer was over for his life, being sixty, his birthday only two months before, if he calculated the calendar correctly twenty years ago. Life comes in seasons, he’s heard, and fate is insistent that autumn should arrive; a season of change, of harvesting, of preparation, of accepting the winter soon to come.

Returning to civilisation, to the family and world he had abandoned, and leaving the woods he had called home for two decades, seemed to be the hardest thing he would do since becoming a recluse. For him, it was more than the last day of summer. It was the last day of denying the inevitable.

He amused himself with the realisation that this ending began on his fortieth birthday, with an idyllic life. He had a house, a wife, a son, a cat, a car, a Spanish villa, and a lucrative job as an equity fund manager. Gifts, holidays, comfort. He had the perfect life.

Yet still, one day, to everyone’s surprise, he announced his plans to live in the woods.

He loved his family. He loved his career. He didn’t care much for the cat. He loved his life. But it wasn’t enough for him. Many said it was a midlife crisis. Like most men, he called it everything but that. A feeling. A calling. A purpose. A whim. A destiny.

Despite his sudden bout of irrationality, though doctors declared him perfectly sane, he was composed enough to settle up his affairs. He left money for his wife, he gave his two weeks notice, he bought acres of woodland to escape to, a simple cabin to live it off the grid, and enough rations, filters, and tools to live a self-sufficient life. It’s surprisingly easy to run away when you have the money. Even easier to get used to.

At first, the elements seemed so looming and imposing. The cold grates and cracks your skin. The heat swarms and smothers. The nights are alive with the moaning wind, the shrill screech of owls, and the mewing of hungry foxes. But then, once your senses climatise, the wilderness is pleasantly embracing, inviting you to surrender. The moonlight baths soothing. The fanning tree branches cool and shield. And the persistent hush of motorways in the far distance could lull even the restless into slumber.

Even the isolation subsides into quiet self-assurance. There had been attempts to persuade him to return home. Tearful pleads, angry demands, and defeated acceptance were regular occurrences for the first few months. Work were the first to give up. Then his friends. And then his wife and son, who were the last people to be visit him, trying once final time about eight years into his exile. His son would have been ten then. He’d be twenty-two now.

The isolation had brought ease and calm. Very few people really know themselves. He didn’t. Not until he had only himself. His loneliness was paradise.

So why now? Why return now? For the same reason he left twenty years ago and didn’t want to admit. Colorectal cancer. His father had it. He grandfather had it. And his son most certainly has it. It is a hereditary disease. A family curse more like, he thought. His father died in his forties. His grandfather died in his forties. And when his fortieth birthday came, he knew it was coming. Out of desperation, he tried to literally hide from it. By the time he hit fifty, he though he had done it. He thought he had broken the curse. But he was mistaken. His symptoms merely lay dormant.

A few weeks ago, before he was packing up his camp and shuffling down a country lane, starting the long, embarrassing journey home (if he even still had a home to go to), he had shown the same signs all men in his family had; pain, fatigue, bleeding. He wouldn’t bother with treatment. It wouldn’t work. Even if he did, he didn’t want to waste more time. By cruel irony, he has wasted twenty years living in fear. Twenty years that could have been spent with his wife. Twenty years he could have worked on his career and trained the next generation. Twenty years he could have been a father to a young man who would one day, hopefully further in his future than his father’s, have to face the same inevitable fate. The best he could do now is be there, and hope pity would outweigh indignation.

They call them the seasons of your life for a reason. The summer of blissful ignorance was ending. Now was the autumn to reap what had been sown. It was the last day of summer. It was the first day of autumn.

As he walked, a leaf fell behind him.

#HI