April 03, 2024, 03:28 PM
Ahead and slightly to the west is a mantle of land on the water. Home.
He crosses the half-sunken bridge to a jetty. It is so much smaller than he remembers. It is quiet. The sea is still.
Here was the last place he’d seen mom. She’d had tears in her eyes. She’d promised to come back for him. But that was a lifetime ago.
Swaths of sea oats part beneath lopsided footfalls. Here is the rise along the banks where he’d promised @Ava Amara they’d stay together.
It is the shoreline where he and @Dinah had laid on their backs and scouted the stars for secret scriptures, and where down in the surf he once skipped waves with @Anathema.
A forgotten footpath ascends from the coast. The boy follows it until he hears the purling barks of @Saint and @Abel Elam coming from the mouth of a hollow. The Green Hills.
This is the den where @Simeon had held him through endless nightmares; the place where @Malakai had gifted his shell, and promised they’d never part.
But that had been a lifetime ago.
Now as the path rounds atop a mount overlooking the sea, there is a pasture of lavender, with a grave in its center.
He knew.
For months now he’d known.
He hears a keening sound.
Deafening, wild.
He realizes it’s himself.
Did God know his father?
Did He know how he was clever and peevish,
wistful and gutsy, voracious, doting and faithful?
Or that he was hopeless and broken, lonely, disheveled, terrified,
at the end of his short rope?
Had God ever sat beside him like a statue
and listened for his wisdom?
Or seen how he mamboed with mom,
And acted a mount,
Just so his son could build a little more confidence?
God didn’t know these things.
If He did, he wouldn’t have taken his dad away.
The boy collapses in a heap on the dirt that was his father. He cradles the earth against his chest and makes one last promise: never to rise from this place.
He crosses the half-sunken bridge to a jetty. It is so much smaller than he remembers. It is quiet. The sea is still.
Here was the last place he’d seen mom. She’d had tears in her eyes. She’d promised to come back for him. But that was a lifetime ago.
Swaths of sea oats part beneath lopsided footfalls. Here is the rise along the banks where he’d promised @Ava Amara they’d stay together.
It is the shoreline where he and @Dinah had laid on their backs and scouted the stars for secret scriptures, and where down in the surf he once skipped waves with @Anathema.
A forgotten footpath ascends from the coast. The boy follows it until he hears the purling barks of @Saint and @Abel Elam coming from the mouth of a hollow. The Green Hills.
This is the den where @Simeon had held him through endless nightmares; the place where @Malakai had gifted his shell, and promised they’d never part.
But that had been a lifetime ago.
Now as the path rounds atop a mount overlooking the sea, there is a pasture of lavender, with a grave in its center.
He knew.
For months now he’d known.
He hears a keening sound.
Deafening, wild.
He realizes it’s himself.
Did God know his father?
Did He know how he was clever and peevish,
wistful and gutsy, voracious, doting and faithful?
Or that he was hopeless and broken, lonely, disheveled, terrified,
at the end of his short rope?
Had God ever sat beside him like a statue
and listened for his wisdom?
Or seen how he mamboed with mom,
And acted a mount,
Just so his son could build a little more confidence?
God didn’t know these things.
If He did, he wouldn’t have taken his dad away.
The boy collapses in a heap on the dirt that was his father. He cradles the earth against his chest and makes one last promise: never to rise from this place.