Surface Area

Afternoon, July 14, 2022

Plink plinkity plink. Bits of gravel and dust fall onto my head, roll down my neck and shoulders and drop some 100 feet below me. My entire body is dripping with sweat, my bare shoulders and neck collect the dust into a grit-filled mud. Dust and grit and mud, things I hate with a loathing usually reserved for murderers and thieves. Little did I know that this would be a trivial problem compared to my new reality. I was about to discover a stark reality of barrenness and emptiness on the “surface” of what is now the earth and would soon exist below my “surface." I would soon realize, deep inside my core, at a depth I have never examined, that I was truly alone.

At the top of the shaft, I use all the force I can muster to heave the huge hatch-like door up and over. The dust and gravel become like a heavy rain from a summertime storm. However, this storm does not leave me refreshed and renewed like the rains of a distant Kansas memory. This storm of dust and rock leaves me dirty, angry and with an empty pit in my belly. This is the point where the loneliness truly begins as I look back on that frightful time. How did I get here? Where was here? What has happened at the “surface?" I hope I can muster the strength and the courage to get through this tale as I lay on my back with that hatch behind me in time and space. The brilliant sun seems to scorch even my inner depths. I continue clutching the thing that would drive my very existence from one agonizing step to the next. I know each edge, each line and each beautiful curve of this heart in my hand.

July 12, 2022

The recent scourge of an earth-wide pandemic was in the rear view mirror of our daily life. The world has returned to automatic mode, and it’s not-so-fantastic day to day mundaneness with people killing people and persistent natural disasters. But the people I see through the window of my van seem oblivious, not happy but at least accepting that life is "normal" once again. I hop out of my camper van and join the mass of people moving everywhere but in reality getting nowhere. I saunter off to my kiosk at the corner of Main St. and Sycamore, my shoe shine kit under my arm, a small smile on my face. When the pandemic hit a few years ago, I had a job; like the masses now moving and ebbing like a super tide, being pushed to their offices by an unseen force. My job got axed and I began to shine shoes at the corner of Main St. and Sycamore.

Jack is a a small, robust man who usually smells of flowers and mints. His shoes are a beautiful cordovan, made of handmade Italian leather from some bygone era. But he loves those shoes and because he's so fond of them, I am too. It isn't only the shoes that I enjoy as I rub and brush and shine till the sweat drips from my brow; it's the man himself. He always has a fantastical story to tell, of far-away places or people he has seen. But today he smells of must and dust and his story is not about anything wonderful and fantastical, but of urgency and importance. His eyes cast furtive glances over my shoulders, with the speed of a frightened deer that wandered onto a busy interstate. His breath comes in short gasps and his voice is low and measured. “Skip, take this locket, it means the future of this planet. Keep it, do not lose it, do not let it out of your sight." He thrust a heart-shaped locket into my shirt pocket, jumped from the chair and with only his left shoe shined he disappeared into the sea of humankind.

Now, I sit on the soft leather chair in my camper van, mindlessly caressing the mysterious locket. My mind wanders far away as I listen to the crashing waves relentlessly pounding the ever-changing coastline. This is a wonderful by-product of living this way, living rough in a camper van. My backyard can be whatever and wherever I choose. Today my van hugs the rugged coastline of the Pacific Ocean with its relentless curtain of fog and off-shore breezes. My gaze fixes on the fingertips of my right hand, colored in black, brown and cordovan while my left hand firmly holds the golden locket. Was my conversation with Jack just my mind wandering... a daydream or maybe a nightmare? Jack's words start playing and replaying in the back of my mind. What does it mean? What is this heart-shaped locket? I have been looking with my fingers. I know very soon I will have to take a closer look with my eyes. But not yet. Maybe tomorrow.

July 13th, 2022

The fog rolled in during the night making the morning damp and hollow. I sit and listen to the waves and watch the drips sliding down the window. I know what I have to do. The angst builds within me, my mouth turns dry and my palms grow sweaty as I slowly walk to the captains chair. Reaching for my shirt, still draped over the chair-back, my hands slowly feel their way through the left pocket, nothing. As alarm rises within me I reach for the right pocket and as the shirt slips to the floor I’m certain it isn't there. I fumble as I reach down and shake the shirt, searching and hoping. Gone! The locket is gone!

“The future of the planet." I am trying to put some meaning to these words as the waves crash against the cliffs of this isolated stretch of sandy beach. I walk back and forth from one end of the beach to the other as the moon waxes further and further into the night sky. It’s just a sliver of a moon tonight, making the cliffs cast eerie, dark shadows at my feet. I just can’t wrap my mind around the meaning of this. Was Jack just another crazy man, living in some fantasy world with no roots in this one? No! He was trustworthy and grounded even when he told his fantastical life experiences. They were all true, of this I am sure. I walk and ponder my current situation, as I curse myself for the loss of the heart-shaped locket. With all my attention turned inward, I didn’t see it coming. Whack! Someone turned out the lights.

Morning July 14, 2022

I awaken on a concrete floor in a silence so deep, I am sure that this is death. But as soon as I hear the beating of my heart and feel the ache on the back of my head I know that this is still life. I gently stretch, taking stock of each part of my body as it reawakens from its forced slumber. Soon I am sitting as I try to focus my eyes in the dark. Nothing! Not a whisper of light to assist me. Where am I ? What happened? These questions are my only companions. Then as if by some unseen force I remember the locket and Jack's words: “This locket means the future of the earth." It all comes rushing back to me. The conversation with Jack, searching my shirt for the locket, walking alone on the beach and then nothing until now.

I work my way to my hands and knees and begin to grope all around. Behind me there is a wall, cold concrete, with metal rungs that start at the floor and travel upward out of the reach of my extended arms; undoubtedly a ladder. After some time and several bumps on the head and scrapes on the knee my reconnaissance of this strange place is complete. The only thing here is me, a concrete floor and a cold steel ladder that goes only one direction: up. Option 1- lay down, give up and wait for my end. Option 2- go up!

I go up: one hand over the other, one foot then the next, my head pounding and my heart racing. I lose count at 125 rungs. I don't even know much time has passed. My hand reaches up to find the next rung, as my legs burn and the sweat pours out of me. But this time my hand strikes something different, no longer a cold rung but the underside of a warm hatch. There is a handle and a bar between me and .... I hesitate, my hand on the bar, ready to put it into motion. What will I see when I open this hatch? What will I feel? My arms tense and shoulders heave as I thrust the bar up and to the side. There's an audible click and an instant sliver of light that forces me to look away as if looking directly into the sun.

Late Afternoon July 14, 2022

I walk, one agonizing step after another, in what I hope is a straight line in search of something, anything. The afternoon wears on, the fireball in the sky begins its decent toward the horizon. I move forward, babbling to myself, pushing myself, willing myself to keep going. Nothing! There is nothing left! There isn't even a ripple in the land: flat, lonely, desolate. It is absolutely flat and brown with nothing but the horizon in front of me, next to me and behind me. I hear a noise suddenly, so suddenly that I am startled and jump and twist to see from where it comes. But to my horror I realize that it is me, screaming and screaming from deep within.

Then I see it! A little glint in the flat brown landscape that stretches endlessly before me. A glint, a sparkle of something laying in the sand and dirt. I pick up the pace, my breath quickens and my mind races. Soon I am on top of it, a look of complete insanity spreads across my face. I stand looking down at my shirt. The shirt that hung over the chair in what seems like another lifetime. My shirt! And on top of my shirt sits the heart-shaped golden locket. I fall on top of it, grasping it with both hands, feeling its every curve and its every nuance. This is the same locket that was lost from my pocket.

I collapse to the sand and lay on my back looking up at the scorching sun, grasping my only companion, that heart-shaped locket. I made it out of that shaft and on to the surface area of what I hope is the earth. The surface is devoid of everything. Not a tree, not a rock, not a blade of grass can be seen in any direction.

The sun is still above the horizon as I lay on my back looking up and wondering. What was this locket? Who was Jack? How could I save the planet? It seems a little late to have these thoughts since nothing seems to be left. And as I sit and ponder this locket and these questions, a shadow passes over my legs, up my body and soon covers my eyes. Too tired and weary to raise my head and look, I hear the most beautiful voice and the most beautiful words that I have ever heard. “That locket belongs to me," smiles the voice of a woman as she stands over me. I look up and see a beautiful, brown-haired beauty, a smile on her face, "That locket belongs to me."