CHAPTER 1
Lifting, forcing, struggle I must to open my heavy eyelids. Awake I am at last. Rays of sun penetrate the grey billowing curtains behind my head. The warm comforting breeze continues its travels across my loft. With that invigoration I slide my feet to the floor and let the blood flow to my extremities. I arise and begin my day.
I dress and prep and ready myself or should I say steady myself. Is it the whiskey from the night before? Nope...it’s my nerves. The anticipation of a meeting, a continuation of a connection with a someone is the cause of my unsteadiness. I stand in front of my mirror and the image that reflects back is that of a man named ‘Huck’. It’s the identity of this human soul that I am. I am a guy who lives in a flannel shirt and a faded, torn pair of jeans. I am a man who lives with passion and I am a man who is attempting to create something out of this canvas called life.
I head down the steps and sunshine envelopes me. The clear, warm, incredible day is before me like an unwritten manuscript. The city before me is bustling with motion. People scurry and scamper off to careers and professions that some may actually love but in all likelihood most do not. It’s time to walk, time to move. I must in order to meet her. Who is this that I speak of? Her? It’s been only me and now she? Yes...she.
It all started with a smile. A smile from across a crowded cafe. A smile innocent and fleeting but at the same moment soul shaking. A smile that melted the icy darkness where my heart resides. A smile that breathed an enveloping wave of needed tranquility over the neurotic zeal of my own passions. A smile that was accompanied by powerful aesthetic features that each contained their own unique ability to overwhelm my own sentience. Piercing sky blue eyes, blonde hair kissed by the southern sun and cheekbones sharp and defined. She was a siren calling me to this place then and calling me now. There are places and points in life that you are brought to for a reason and this is one of them. I don’t know why but I know how. I followed an urge, followed a longing to be at this location here and now.
My walk brings me to that same cafe. A desire brings her there too. The time we planned to meet is immediate. As I walk this glass filled concrete jungle to our cafe rendezvous I see her down the boutique and shop lined avenue. My heart skips and flutters at the thought of seeing her again, seeing that serene smile, knowing that smile is for me and none other. I long to sit with her and talk about our future, our life together. I take a nervous, giddy step onto the cool, grey concrete of the avenue lined with bright green leaf filled trees dancing in the afternoon breeze. I start toward her and then the absolute unthinkable happens...
Searing, savage white heat. There are not words nor letters known to this life that we call humanity that can begin to describe the experience of and exposure to a concussive, life ceasing vaporizing blast. In an instant it was gone...completely gone. The cafe, the structure and every living soul within a distance as far as the eye could see was incinerated by wave of super heated blinding, boiling pain so instantaneous that they never knew their life and earthly existence had vanquished. In a nanosecond heart thumping life ceased and instant black death began. She was gone. Not even a trace of her remained. It’s as if she never existed. I felt the instant soul crushing pain of a shattering heart. A heart that severed into infinite pieces upon the death of her. Pieces that could never be replaced or regenerated for she was gone forever.
How my life remained I know not why. I was alive in the midst of inescapable death. I was alive when every fiber in my soul said I should not be. I could see the death laid bare...ever present but I was free and unblemished. I felt no physical pain over my body. Every synapse and nerve ending was firing but no trigger of the sensation of pain. It’s as if a force chose me to survive...to remain. Why me?...who the hell knows. All I know is that I need to get out of this burning, barren, flattened ruin of a city that was now devoid of all life except I. My heart was the only bloody organ beating in this entire world for what I knew, which was absolutely nothing. For all that I know I am the only one that remained.
Chapter 2
Dark golden whiskey stains the rocks,
blood begins to numb,
purple white smoke lifts skyward,
lungs burn from the biting, burning taste of clove,
brain gains clarity of thought,
worry falls like saline tears on a cheek,
peace enters as calming wave.
I take another breath of calming smoke and swallow a few more drops of dark burning warmth. Momentary tranquility envelops me. I stand on a deserted rock lined shore and ponder. The shore is devoid of humanity except for I. It is free, free from influence. It is natural, serene and ethereal.
I am peaceful, alone and remarkably focused. I am allowed to think, feel and absorb as all life is behind me except for I. Life has perished. A life of pain, anguish and suffering. I am the only one. It rests on me and my.
I must move. I trod my feet upon the rock that is soft and smooth from many watery kisses. My feet are numb from the length I have stood...or is it the cold.? I wiggle my toes but can’t feel the movement of bone, tendon and ligament. I see my nerves following the commands of my brain but I long to feel and experience the synaptic life given to my toes.
Cold...oh it is so cold. Frigid to the core of this sack of bones that is I...shivering and shaking without control. It’s as if electricity is coursing through my body involuntarily firing every nerve I have. It’s the wet, humid strength sapping cold that enters your core and depletes you of any ounce of warmth that your heart attempts to circulate to the outer reaches of your body.
Move I must. I walk and continue this desolate journey bestowed upon me by names and forces unknown. To my left are rich dark green trees of pine. They are towering, mature and a source of protection from the natural forces present. As I lift my head and shift my gaze to the right, the expanse before me is a body of water. It is of size greater than the eye can see. This dark, desolate cold liquid represents more questions than I have answers for. It contains a limitless depth, black and infinite like the pain, sorrow and mystery in my soul.
I must continue my journey, my quest for an answer, a revelation to why? Why me? Why am I left? Why did I survive? Little do I know that the largest question remains unspoken, hidden in the depths of my being. So on I go following the leading of a force unknown, pushing me to a destination I know I must arrive at yet I know not where. I know this journey and existence are not my creation but I embrace it with all my being because it is survival for me.
The wind is blowing from my right. It gusts fierce daggers of cold. Those pieces of pain are the beginning of rain. Cold driving pellets of moisture that saturate me, my clothes and my soul. This cold, wet misery is depleting my body of warmth I need to survive. Shelter I must find and soon.
I walk this deserted shoreline in search of a place of refuge. Step after step I walk. I know that there has got to be something ahead. I lift my head up out of my jacket and there in the distance is a structure...a hope, maybe an oasis from the forces of nature that attack me. I can make it there and find comfort Just maybe I will find hope to continue on. It is getting closer, just a few more steps. It stands before me. My refuge for the time being. I can get off this God forsaken shore...this endless shoreline of rock, water and mind numbing wind and rain.
The structure is a cabin amongst the tall dark pines that line this shore. The pines look to provide protection to the cabin, a protection that I wasn’t so sure about. The tall ominous pines I feared for the dangers within I know not what. But this cabin amongst them will be my refuge at least for the duration of this ridiculous weather.
Before me stands grey. Grey weathered wood. The cabin’s wood looks to have withstood many a gust of wind and many a patter of rain. You may see old and abandoned desolate wood. But I see refuge and hope...at least in the temporary. I place my hand on the door and push but it does not open. I muster up strength that I have been saving...saving for a time when my survival depends on it. This may be that time. I need to get inside to recover all the heat I have lost to the rain and cold. So I push with all my strength and the door moves. It opens slowly, creaking, scraping and grinding in its hinges and on the floor. It’s black inside. I can not see in. I trust that no danger lies within. So I slowly step across the threshold…
As I step in the silence and calm overwhelm me. There is no more rain, no more wind. Only silence and calm...silence and calm. I feel to the left and there is a shelf of on some sort. On it is a candle. I reach into my right breast pocket in my jacket and feel for my matches. Are they still dry? Hell yes they are! I light the candle and an increasing glow fills the room like the sun appearing from behind a white misty cloud. The glow provides an illumination to my refuge, my temporary sanctuary. It is what is illuminated before me that overwhelms me. I am overcome by the means of survival in front of me. I can’t contain it any longer. Tears run down my cheeks and drop onto the dusty dry floor. My emotions which I have contained thus far are now displayed bare and unchecked. I cry. I weep because before me is survival. Food! Cans of food! More than month’s worth at least. And longer if I ration smartly. A bed is to the right of the door and clothes, warm dry clothes hanging. To the left is fireplace with wood, dusty but dry wood.
The tears don’t stop for the realization of survival combined with the acceptance of loneliness are what touch my inner being. That is what brings these saline drops of liquid from eyes to the earth. I have changed into warm clothes and start a fire. Warmth envelopes me with waves of heated air like a expansive heated desert wind. I lay in the bed next to the comforting heat of the fire. The bed is comfortable, soft and small. It is covered with a patchwork quilt of odd color. There are holes and tears but it provides comfort and peace. I close my eyes and let go and begin to drift off to a place of warmth and contentment.
Chapter 3
It wasn’t a dream. It felt more like a nightmare. A masterpiece of confusion and emotion all wrapped up into a giant bundle of enormous pain. Pain of my shattered heart and pain of my warped mind. This reality I’m in is truly a bleak reality. The relief and joy I felt when I found this refuge has evaporated into the grey billowing cloud covered heavens. That is the sight that greets my eyes when I look out the grime covered panes of glass. The storm has subsided but the grey is still there. If you could only understand the depths of the grey. It’s as if the world is colorless. Color removed with a giant paintbrush of monotone. I guess a vaporizing blast will do that to the sky. As much as I want to stay in this sanctuary of warmth I must step out into the cold and move on.
I walk a path but I know not where my feet are taking me. I follow the leading of hand unseen yet present. The path I take has moved from the rock covered desolate shoreline to a mysterious forest shrouded with enormous needle covered branches. It’s as if I am walking through a tunnel scented with pine and fused with wonder and fear. This tunnel of foliage is devoid of sound except for the beating of my own heart. The ever increasing thump of my blood filled life sustaining organ is what fills my auditory senses. The tunnel grows and expands and opens. The branches give birth to a clearing.
The clearing is wide, large and open. It’s a landscape painted with lunar dust In the center of the clearing is ruins. Before me is a city of concrete structures turned into rubble. The structures have been decimated by something...something powerful and evil. Jagged rock and concrete reaches out in every direction with sharpened tentacles waiting to ensnare anything that passes by. The sky is grey. Biting dust reigns. It is formless and form changing. It has a flow and motion controlled by a central sentient thought yet turbulent like a crashing wave. The particulates of dust are a murmuration of starlings chaotic and beautiful in their symbiotic unison of choreographed movement.
I would be lying if fear did not tingle my spine. It started at the bottom and slowly and methodically crawled up each spinal disc with broken black nails. My body shook involuntarily from the scratching of the claws of fear. As I stepped forward I thought about how devastating it would be for my life to cease now. The thought of permanent darkness falling over my ocular orbs like the extinguishment of lunar light by a midnight storm made my intestinal organs want to extrude themselves through my throat.
It was silent. The lunar like dust seemed to absorb all sound. It felt like walking through a vacuum. Life appeared to be sucked out of the scene before me.
to be continued...
