A wall

A WALL

L.A. Bostian
In truth I was not unhappy. Indeed neither hardship nor sorrow stood in my way. At 26 I had a small band of innovative cohorts with whom I could laugh and commiserate as occasion required. I had money enough to see me through the daily foray—not extravagantly by any means but comfortably and thus, to my mind, quite well enough. And I had surrendered to love not once but thrice in my brief interval, wonderfully ambitious ventures of equal measure tumult and grace (and while forced in the end to quit the field each time it was, I adjudge, with a minimum of permanent injury). All in all, or so my occasional assessment ran, a perfectly fair and decent life. Indeed just the sort that I had every reason to view with contentment.
Yet while not unhappy, I lacked a sense of overall satisfaction nonetheless, though I could never quite put my finger on exactly why. If asked—and on several occasions, actually, I had been—I could not pinpoint the wellspring of this discrepancy, could not convey in fact what it was exactly that might be wrong at all. During self-accusatory periods I would interpret this inability to express what I felt as a simple, straightforward deficit in the clarity of my inward vision. But then, just as frequently did I feel an absolute betrayal of this conviction and put great stock in the obverse: that what I felt was by its very nature gossamer-like and indefinite, and therefore quite beyond the ken of verbal illustration. In either event it was a bane—no, much more simply a nettling irritation—that I could no more rid myself of than, say, lint on my socks.
By way of dismissal I reasoned with some confidence that such minor dilemmas are borne by us all. And frankly, though I make something of it here in actuality I allowed the whole thing to weigh not at all upon my overall approach or personal behavior. Perhaps justly at times I was accused of being morose, but at one point or another have not each and every man-jack of us been hauled up squarely to the exact same bar? And there were instances—I see no reason not to admit it—when I derived a sense of irony out of situations that others found simply amusing. So what? Differentiation of response is in fact a boon to the species. A varied reaction to common stimuli is what makes us human after all. For my part, though unsatisfied in some elusory fashion I got on, which would seem, in the end, an eminently reasonable bottom line. My bills were paid. And I treated by far the vast majority of individuals with whom I came in contact with a laudatory courtesy (the rest, well, frankly just got what they deserved). At times I cast spare change over the little white fence surrounding the city's wishing well and hoped for things outside myself. I even took my neighbor's garbage to the curb on Thursdays when her scleroma made her frail. Frankly I expected no credit for the lot of it. For myself, what I did was, I took long, solitary rides into the countryside when the schedule permitted. I would simply park on some little-traveled lane and walk round.
It was this walking-round part that eventually helped put me in an unusual bind. However, until that point in my life where circumstance conspired to alter what might have been a fairly normal existence I derived a great consolation from meandering about, more or less aimlessly. I would walk and think; ruminate and, trite as it may be, smell the wild roses when they were in bloom. For one thing the exercise put me in decent shape. And, sometimes, I imagined the insinuation upon that fecund landscape of something that both piqued my curiosity no end while addressing this aforementioned minor lack of fulfillment in such a way as to hint at some type of ultimate resolution. Indeed at times I would seem to perceive a thread running through the fabric of things, a filament drawn from a most fabulous and at the same time most elemental skein. It bespoke beauty to me somehow. It carried the scent of that lovely, brown-eyed girl I once passed by in the train station, that I imagined at the time I could happily spend the rest of my life with, if only things were a little different. And it sounded of a breeze through the maples out front of my parent's old home. Simultaneously, and perhaps even more to the point, it was as a star seen out of the comer of the eye, which vanishes when viewed straight on. Bottom line it was one of those minor vexations—like the socks—is what it was. It beheld for me a seductive appeal I could neither effectively shake nor with which I could equitably come to terms.
I would lie in a field far from the city and the silly transparency of this something would simultaneously mock and console me as it hung in the air. Odd as it may be it was as reassuring as a debenture, issued from a most trustworthy institution and cached away in the back of some drawer, that I could not bring myself to liquidate for fear of relinquishing the primal goodwill it represented as it just lay there. I would marvel at the inconsistency of it all and then wonder about myself, and whether what stood just beyond had any true substance, or whether it was simply the constructive folly of a foolish bugger left to his own, ultimately deficient, devices.
And then one afternoon, whilst lying in just such an aforementioned field, I was drawn up with a start. What to that point had been merely a nagging uncertainty in a brief instant became palpable and real. The realization, indeed, nearly took my breath away. For there, extending up at horizon's edge and giving the illusion of infinite space stood a wall.
Doubtless I would have overlooked the thing entirely, just as I had countless times before, were it not for the fellow hanging off it. He could not have been even 50 meters from where I lay. In a moment I had twitched myself up off the ground and begun to approach him with an ever more rapid pace. I reached him quite soon. It was, I recognized as I drew near, none other than Teddy Longfellow, great-great-grand- something-or-other of the famous poet, an insurance salesman or something in the city. (I did not know him well; in fact had only overheard a conversation he was having with someone at a party once.) He was dangling at perhaps shoulder-height above the ground.
Though I approached him with a certain degree of alacrity I feel it important to note that my greeting to him was well within the bounds of reasonableness and even, considering the circumstances, quite restrained.
"Hullo," said I in what I still believe to be a perfectly conventional tone. Yet it soon enough became apparent that he had been startled, for straightaway from this introduction he began to disassociate himself from the edifice as would a label from a jar. First one corner detached itself, and then the other, at which point surrender to the strict offices of gravitational theory was inescapable and he began to fall.
"Numph!" he emitted as he gained closure with the earth.
It had not rained in several days and the ground had grown parched. His descent, or more precisely his impact, sent a great cloud of dust into the air, though I must admit I hardly noticed save for the way the particles glanced off this wall.
It was iridescent somehow, translucent. Close up it was in appearance something like the glass-block that industrial modernists use to minimize partitions (and the paranoid use as windows) though without the seams. It had an unusual, fine-grained texture, a cross between obsidian and basalt, and stretched off in either direction as far as I could tell. And it reflected, or somehow transmitted, light from the sky with perfect trueness. One had to be very nearly on top of it to even know that it was there. I ran my hand across it.
"Scared the devil out of me," Longfellow commented feebly from behind.
"Hmm? Oh, sorry." The surface was uneven. Here and there indentations presented themselves to the touch, doubtless the means by which Longfellow had managed to draw himself up.
"Believe I hurt myself," I heard him say.
"Not surprising. Quite a tumble," I sympathized. Indeed these indentations were arrayed in a randomly propitious manner. By putting one hand just so and then the other, and then planting one foot, I was able to draw myself up directly onto the face.
"Guess nothing's broken after all. Hope I didn't worry you," old Teddy muttered at some further juncture, with an inflection in retrospect that may have carried something of an edge.
"Quite all right. Thanks for the thought." I must confess it was exhilarating, to a degree I had not experienced since sometime in my youth. In only minutes considerable progress had been made up the thing. And it felt good. The entire process was a study in calculation and response, with a fair measure of honest exertion thrown in, almost as a bonus. Momentarily I was quite buoyed. That is until Longfellow left me with what should have been recognized straight away as his parting shot.
"Show-off!" he exclaimed with an affectational vigor which seemed to belie any true prior injury.
Yet his tone was peculiarly blunted; so oddly subdued that I arrested my ascent then, twisted round rather awkwardly, and looked down.
He was moving off at a fair clip, his shoulders stooped slightly, his jacket still stained here and there with the dust of the fields, heading toward a little lane I myself had traversed many times in the past. His departure briefly mattered little to me. It was rather his diminutive perspective against the lane and the backdrop of trees just beyond that in an instant made my blood run cold. For in the few minutes that I had so cavalierly labored I had managed to progress not just a few meters up--or even a dozen—but more like fifteen or twenty! I was, for want of a more concise descriptive, at that moment totally transduced by fear.
It is odd, the variability of equations under whose precepts humans attempt to operate. Take for instance a fairly broad joist. Placed on solid ground all but the least intrepid among us could scamper cross as if down the Esplanade. It is, after all, child's play. But place the thing ten or twelve stories up and between us who dares? A very select—and mostly foolhardy, I should say—few, among whom I readily warrant I would no wise be numbered, given even the slightest bit of free will in the matter. Yet there was I, not twenty stories up perhaps (though not all that short of it either) but far enough still to abhor the slightest error. I did all that I could under the circumstances.
"Hey! Hey, Longfellow," I called. But there was absolutely no chance he could hear me from that distance. It was a tremendously feeble attempt anyway, wholly lacking in vitality; for the sum total of my energies were rationed toward a singular purpose: to remain stuck fast to this vertical face. I had nothing left over. All I could do really was follow him down the lane to the point where finally he vanished beyond a hill.
And then I was alone. I wondered for a time about the possibility that for some reason Longfellow might rethink his departure, might turn round again and return. However, though it was I must tell you my one fervent hope at that moment my rational core afforded the notion exceedingly long odds. He was quite gone. I also judged the breeze blowing against my back and questioned whether it would pick up. And it is fair to say I was rather harshly judgmental toward myself just then. But above all else I grappled with the logistical requirements of a successful retreat.
Getting back down again was not nearly as simple as one at first might suppose. Indeed there was something about seeking a lower point of support that simply and utterly I could not bring myself to do. Something about the extension required, or the shifting of gravity’s center. Whatever. I could not do it. In some ways I was like a cat stuck in a tree, though there were differences major enough that the comparison sold me short. Foremost there stood beneath me no concerned master in a position to call the Fire Precinct on my behalf. And quite frankly I have seen cats reputedly stuck in trees. They have at their immediate disposal a most utilitarian set of claws and a wonderful sense of balance. They come back down again in fine fashion as soon as they get hungry. Furthermore seldom are they all that high to begin with. They've got sense enough to monitor their limitations as they go along and instinctually strive to remain well within them at all times. As opposed to, well—damn it all!
I spent perhaps a quarter hour attempting to edge back down. Or perhaps it was an eternity. Time lacked proportionality just then. Its passage I had neither the means nor more importantly the volition to extensively reconnoiter. What mattered was that there might exist a dependable toehold below the one to which I was presently anchored. And there was just such a one. I located it perhaps a dozen times with my right foot. But to reach it demanded that I extend my arms fully, and once that was done further proceedings ground to an immediate halt. For to release one of my handholds then, in that tenuous position, was more than I could bear. The image of old Longfellow leapt to mind every time I considered it, and the way imperceptibly fractional forces, once allowed to go unbalanced for even a moment, multiplied exponentially to lead to catastrophic detachment.
As absurd as it may be, in the end I began to climb. Ultimately, however, I simply reached the end of a shortlist of viable alternatives. It occurred to me that immobility becomes, at some point, just an elegantly simplified version of long, drawn-out resignation. I climbed until the far side of the little hillock beyond which Longfellow had disappeared revealed itself. He was not there. Farther still my car came into view, and I must say that the sight of it gave me pause, the way it sat with such stalwart patience for my return. And then finally, yet farther up the lights of the city began to spread beneath me, shimmering through the haze, a stark tableau. It was only then I realized that night had fallen.
And still I clambered upward.
It would be impossible to more than partially elaborate the thoughts that ran through my mind during this ascent. It is quite as Johnson once suggested: one's observations are never so clearly delineated nor their points of focus so fully appreciated as when one is finally drawn before the motley ensemble composing the firing squad. I missed my friends. My former lovers. Level ground. All with a sense of intimacy and a degree of passion I never would have believed myself capable just hours earlier. I laughed out loud several times at the situation and my position juxtaposed so onerously within it. The sound ricocheted back to my ear with a timbre that would have been unsettling had it come from someone other than myself; was unsettling, indeed, origins notwithstanding. Over and over I formulated in my mind a cautionary tale of frivolity and caprice that I would bring pro bono to schools and civic groups, if only given the opportunity. Throughout I believe I tasted the bitter residue of despair, though perhaps it was simple perspiration streaming off my brow. And once, while resting briefly, I attempted to calculate the point at which terminal velocity would be reached when inevitably my grasp of this infernal wall failed, for beyond that point, I reasoned, things could finally get no worse.
Inevitably weariness began to overtake me. My arms began not so much to ache as rebel. My lungs perceived every breath taken in as if it was coarsely ground silica. Vision began to blur. I would have failed soon had I not come upon this ledge.
It was perhaps a meter wide and just half that deep, but an oasis like no other to this desert traveler. To have found it, given the extremity of my condition amidst this expanse and in the darkness was and remains a bit of fortuitous happenstance imbued to some degree with a mystical significance: that is to say, I got lucky. I pulled myself onto it with the last vestiges of my strength and then sank into a vast reverie of exhaustion that spanned perhaps an hour, during which time I neither moved nor even thought much, existing merely in that state located somewhere twixt simple physical collapse and overt unconsciousness.
I managed to collect myself only fitfully and at some length. My body was a jumble of aches. The slightest movement elicited stern censure from a variety of pain centers. I moaned rather a lot. And I thought about food. My last meal, a fine little plate at Nick's, must have been had some ten or twelve hours before. Every crumb of it was recounted several times over in my mind. Yet, most incongruously what I craved above all else was a simple candy bar at that moment, chockablock full of nougat and caramel and smothered in great gobs of chocolate. I would've gone to war for a good candy bar just then, though in my condition I dare say the offensive would have scarcely raised the concerns of a small schoolchild.
And then out of this culinary preoccupation I was drawn with a lurch. During one of my restive repositionings on this little projection my hand came into contact with a small pool of liquid, and such is the human instinct to imagine the worst when things are already bad that instantly I visualized it in the dark to be a pool of my own blood. A frantic search for the source of effusion was begun, all the while memories of health class were ransacked for the proper tourniquet techniques. Quite distinctly I resolved that I did not want to bleed to death on this ledge and have myself picked apart by birds—the whole idea of it became a macabre driving force. Yet following an arduous personal inventory I was brought in the end to the positive conclusion that I was, if but only slightly, better off than I had been just minutes before. I was trapped on a small mantle an enormous distance from the ground, without a renewable source of sustenance and with absolutely no way of getting down. All that remained certain enough. But I was not bleeding to death after all. It was, in a relative sense, a heartening discovery in several respects. Foremost, it meant I had discovered water.
Perhaps a hand's-breadth wide, there was a little depression at the back of the ledge full of the stuff. Plunging my finger into it I determined that as much as a cupful lay at my disposal. Then I remembered that I had picked up a packet of matches from Nick's that day. (While not a smoker one never knew when such things might come in handy. Indeed there was something Jungian about the ability to make fire at a moment's notice that had always held for me some allure. And they were free.) I drew the pack from my coat. Yet before I could strike one of the little firebrands the question arose: how intimately did I truly wish to know the contents of this tiny pool? More precisely, even if the active materials contained within had somehow grown to visible proportions, would it deter me even for a moment, or simply put a damper on what I had every intention of doing anyway, no matter what? Ultimately I put the matches aside, bent down and began to partake of the vital fluid as would a boor from a cheap tureen.
It was brackish and more thick than I would have liked. There seemed to be some sort of vegetative residue around the edges with an odor reminding me of my grandmother's old cellar. Yet every molecule became a part of my little incorporation.
Then, once done, I settled with my back against the wall and my feet dangling into the abyss, content. And just there, though it would not occur to me until sometime later, is the very rub with contentment. It is wholly relative, an annulment of circumstance, a pallid middle ground devoid of any sort of greater perspective. Where just a little earlier every moment had been swelled by an infinite range of passions, with terror and longing, giddy wretchedness and profligate wonderment (at the awkward fix I had so unwittingly put myself in), each of the most exquisite extent, now, sitting with a belly full of rancid rainwater I might have been a manor-lord just removed from his table. Or on the other hand some arctic prisoner marshalling his extra stinking crumbs in some cold and dingy corner. Either way, silly creatures the lot of us I suppose: doomed to view things each from one’s own too narrow prospect. And for all of that all too easily grown accustomed to it.
My hand at some point fell upon the pack of matches earlier set aside and, picking it up, I lit one. The ember cast a garish glow across the ledge. I found a penny that must have rolled from my pocket earlier, but aside from that no more fortuitous discoveries were to be made, though I noticed that I had worn a hole in one of the knees of my new cotton twills. Then, as it began to burn low, I cast the match into the chasm. Quite a significant impression was created as it fell. I took another and in one stroke lit it and threw. It blazed across the sky in a magnificent parabolic arc. I threw another and yet another still. It occurred how this little pyrotechnic display must be interpreted from the ground, how in various far-flung provinces just now my little frivolity was being greeted with a combination of wonderment and delight. It brought to mind how at nine or ten I would lie in my own back yard at night, the grass cool against my neck. I remembered the transport I had felt whenever a falling star passed fleetingly across the little sensory pane out which was viewed a world most mysterious and deep.
And then I thought about my father.
Though I had loved him most dearly I would have preferred not recalling him just then. By doing so instantly what semblance of equanimity I had managed to establish was lost, as it turns out, forever.
He had lived large, had my father, and nobly so far as I am concerned. Just not long enough. Indeed I had never managed to forgive his leaving so soon, though it was probably not his fault. Very likely he had no control over his heart giving out. Very likely it was just one of those foolish little twists in life that even the principle of strict causality cannot fully vindicate.
No, I must tell you that as I sat dulled and aching there on that stupid little ledge I had nothing for it. But out of my wretched weakness my powers of repression failed me completely. I began to recount the day of my poor father's final passing; the hospital and the trip back in the cab. The flowers and cards conveyed by well-intentioned, red-eyed messengers who wandered the house for an interval and then simply disappeared. Recalled finally leading my mother, suddenly become frail, to her all too-quiet room and sitting with her until she had cried herself to sleep. And then I had gone to the back door of the house, for it had been my intention to go out, to lie in the grass and wait for the falling star to blaze resplendent across the coal-black sky as it conveyed my poor, noble father to ... I knew not where. But when I opened the door I found that it was raining—torrents—had been all day. Across the sky had been drawn a darkling curtain this foolish boy's vision would not penetrate. Nevertheless I had gone into the rain and there had wept through what was left of the night.
I put what matches were remaining back in my pocket then. For then and forevermore I was done. I hadn't the spunk for creating illusions. For those devastated and grieving down below, false hope was simply and utterly not within me to manufacture. It would've felt too much like lying.
Perhaps I slept then, or perhaps out of blessed self-consideration my consciousness simply opted out. In either event the balance of that night evaded further comprehension. My next recollection was of the sun warming my back, the left side of my face ground into the filth of the ledge, my body curled into a rigid sphere of physical discontent. I nearly fell as I uncoiled myself. What had seemed such a vast refuge the night before revealed itself in the light of day a miserable little space. And there was hunger. The Danish I greeted each morning with was somewhere down below gracing someone else's plate; my cup of tea was being swilled by someone without the slightest clue how good he had it. And I was in no mood to continence it without being bitter. Certainly there was a part of me that understood full well that malignancy got one nowhere in the end. It just didn't matter.
Very likely the full extent of my predicament, viewed in the harsh light of day, cast me into a state clinicians would consider plain and simple depression. However, were I presented with the diagnosis likely I would have begged to differ. Much more to the point I believe I suffered just then from an oppressive state of clarity. I had got myself into an uncomfortable little bind and plain and simple there were precious few alternatives left at my disposal. Indeed in the end there stood only the clear path preordained for us eons ago, before higher consciousness intervened to obfuscate the pristine landscape with its little diversions and primrose hedgerows. In the end I chose the course with the least sense of finality.
Not that I felt that much like climbing anymore. Simply pulling myself erect was a tortuous enough affair. What had seemed such a lark down with Longfellow was now a most complicated business. Every movement required deep decisions. Every foothold was put in question. My hands, raw and stiff from the day before clung clumsily to the wall. Yet climb I did. Haltingly, to be sure, but with a perseverance I would have believed myself incapable only a day earlier. Indeed I was most narrow-minded in my purpose. No grand strategies cluttered my point of view. I considered neither how high this rampart extended nor what might stand atop it. What I wanted was another handhold, then another, and then a sure place for my foot. Just that, over and over. I very likely clambered for several hours without admitting the least extraneous thought or consideration.
But, as the night before, at some point I began to tire. At some point I was made finally to deliberate a severely limited set of alternatives. Ultimately what bothered me most was that I did not want to glance off my little ledge when finally I lost my grip and fell. Indeed what constituted the vast majority of my dread was in the end not the fall so much—for out of the near delirium of exhaustion and hunger unconsciously I had already begun to accept this final disentanglement as my lot. Rather, I did not wish to recite the final verse while injured and in pain. So I resolved that when finally the time came, when finally fatigue overwhelmed what drive I had left, I would push off from this infernal face and soar undeterred.
Oddly enough with this resolution came peace. No longer did either anger or fear cloud my judgments. I no longer even begrudged the fellow down below sitting comfortably over my teacup. Indeed when I looked I found that my city itself had disappeared, swallowed up like Atlantis by a bluish haze across which white, cirrus breakers scuttled, driven by the gentle breeze. And the air—it smelt of freshly laundered linen! And the sky was infinite above!
It came to me then, what I should have seen those final days when I had looked into my dear father's eyes: it had been fascination with the fall. What I had perceived as fear had been merely my own reflection in them, that I had been too thick, or too self-involved, to look beyond.
Perhaps it was the shock of recognition, or perhaps of reconciliation, that engulfed me just then. For my actions I cannot extend the slightest accountability. Indeed whether it was because of hunger or thirst, exhaustion or a more deep malaise, I must at some point have entered a zone of morbid insensibility. How else to explain my reaching the top without the slightest notion how it happened?
At first I believed I had come simply to another ledge. But as I inched my way up a church spire came into view, and then the top floors of an office building, until finally an entire city opened up before me like some truly first-class, fold-out greeting card sent by someone from whom I had long and dearly hoped to hear. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Very near the edge that I was struggling to surmount ran a low, white fence of a familiar form, and just beyond that a walkway down which an elderly fellow with tufts of graying hair tucked beneath an overlarge cap was strolling. He happened to glance my way.
"Well!" he exclaimed as he caught sight of me. Straddling the railing he came over to where I was. "Looks like you've been through the wringer. Need some help?" he asked, and then he took me firmly by the armpits and hauled me unceremoniously onto solid ground.
He settled me rather roughly on the grass, and then with a look of equal parts bemusement and surprise asked if I felt all right?
"Tell me, sir. Is it possible in this place to suddenly appear, barely able to speak much less stand unaided, and be considered in the slightest degree all right? If you only knew!" I wished to say just so, to assert the obvious in unreasonably rhetorical tones. It came out, I believe, "Nuh-uh." He had established himself over me in such a way that the sun was just beyond his left shoulder. Looking up at him proved discomfiting. Finally I simply shut my eyes.
I very well may have drifted off then, for when next I noticed a small crowd was surrounding the gentleman and me. One young woman among them, with dark hair and exceedingly fine features was leaning over me with a half-filled bottle in her hand. I believe she had doused me, for my face and the collar of my shirt were all wet. As she bent down, perhaps to monitor my reaction, I took the container from her. It was I perceive in retrospect only mineral water, but its actions were as of spring steel as it ran through my veins. When finished, unsteadily I stood.
The reactions of this small group were understandable considering the appearance of such a tattered, unkempt fellow as was I just then. Many took a step backward, a mixture of curiosity and concern in their eyes. I looked around. Some way off, on the other side of the fence, stood a mother and her daughter. While the elder cast frequent, precautionary glances our way the little girl, who could not have been more than ten, was assiduously devouring an ice-cream cone and seemed oblivious to my situation. Her gaze was directed into the abyss from which I had so recently emerged. I took a step back and looked over the edge myself.
Not until that moment had I allowed myself anything more than a glance to where my city lay. As before the intervening distance was a shroud of mists; even the grossest of forms were indistinguishable. Yet I knew what lay so far below and the enormity of the separation I had managed so unwittingly to interpose between myself and there impacted me as would a physical blow. I staggered slightly, only to become aware of the gentle touch of a steadying hand on my elbow. It was the beautiful young woman. I wished to share with her all that was running through my head just then, for I intuited that she might possibly understand. But there was no place to begin, and besides my thoughts were rushing so freely it would have come out as just so much gibberish.
Above all, I suppose, I would have attempted to formulate the extent of the loss so recently sustained: for somehow during the climb I had managed to disencumber myself of all previous sense of contentment. That I might ever regain it again I felt no deep assurance. And additionally there was some further sense of dispossession that tugged at the comers of my awareness, though I could not quite put my finger on just what it was. I thought of my friends, for I missed them sorely. But then I realized that Ned was off to the coast and a new job momentarily. His going-away party was—blast it, I had managed to miss it the night before! Then, Will—married next month. And although I had always liked Sarah well enough they would be getting off to a fresh start together, and I was constantly getting my feet all over the furniture which I imagined would ultimately drive a wedge into things, as those things usually do. I thought also of my job and how comfortably I had grown into it. Not to mention the new sofa I had just gotten for my apartment.
This young woman was still at my side and at one point when the wind turned up slightly a wisp of her hair brushed my cheek. Now there, it occurred to me, was the sort of thing that might make me whole. Momentarily a sense of hopefulness flooded my consciousness. But in the end I could only be realistic. Past experience was a sober guide. While quite enamored with the tumult and grace which love had always elicited in me, I was apparently a poor candidate for that sort of thing, long-term. It always seemed to devolve itself eventually into something too closely akin to ennui.
I looked back over to the mother and daughter. Evidently the little girl had finished her treat for the mother was pressing something into the child's empty hand. I imagined it was a tissue, or napkin, but immediately upon receiving it the girl screwed up her pretty little face in deep concentration a moment and then with an adolescent nimbleness tossed whatever it was over the edge. I realized shortly that the girl had given flight to several coins. The afternoon sunlight glinted off them as they fell. With astonishment it came to me in a flash, the significance of the found money that had financed so many trading cards and bubble-gum blocks in my youth. I watched as the coins tumbled down and down, and gaped in speechless wonder at the transformation taking place before my eyes; watched as elegant hopes and rarefied dreams were, mid-flight, transmogrified into simple pocket-change.
Briefly I wondered if perhaps my little ledge had been so lucky as to catch one as it descended. But the little girl's energy had been sufficient, and my former refuge far too narrow. Surely they had soared unhindered to their destination. They would be found some day as if placed by chance.
As the coins disappeared from view I turned once again to the group surrounding me. Its numbers had diminished by half, many of its members having returned to their various pursuits. I thought for a moment to acquaint those remaining with what had just occurred, for the simple, enormous irony of the situation held me in great sway. But shortly I preempted this inclination and held my peace. Disconcerting these kind people seemed a petty process.
And then it came to me how like I was to these coins: each tossed into the void with the greatest of hopes and high expectations, each in their own time by chance fated to be spent on the most trivial of pursuits. I looked across the fence and then a boulevard to an open-air cafe. It was crowded at this hour with gentlewomen and men intent on civilly dissipating the tensions of their day. Next door was a gallery whose featured artist seemed intent on exploring the discordant values on his pallet; down the street over-arched a church of stately architecture. And amidst this tranquil scene so representative of the modern life to which I had grown so accustomed stood unsteadily a stranger. I felt no part of any of it. It shot a pang through my heart. All the various comforts that had sustained me to that point in my life, all that had so equitably afforded such tender recuse from unhappiness had fallen away and been lost. I stood defenseless. And yet, while I might have expected this perspective to yield some bitter recriminations, somehow along the same way I had simultaneously lost my fear of unhappiness in the bargain; it suggested itself to be a straight up trade. Indeed, somewhere down below lay the tattered remnants of the secular catechism that I had so long ago come to accept without question, that when distilled to its essence equated sadness and pain with a bitter finality. No longer could I buy into it. No, joy and sorrow, suffering and elation—they were, I had come in so brief an interval to realize during my climb, the complementary faces of the true coins of this realm. They were inextricably joined together; not one to be sought while the other avoided at all cost, separate and unequal. And thus to return to the happiness of quietness I had so assiduously cultivated, to stand, that is, once more with a few pennies in my pocket in the dry, pallid middle ground of simple contentment held no longer any great allure. Without surprise it occurred how such a situation would fail to provide any real satisfaction.
Things had begun to take on something of a swirl around the edges then. To bolster myself I took a deep breath and with it came resolve. Soon enough I intended to vault this little fence, to cross the street and find a seat with a view at this little cafe, and there order whatever fare my wallet might sustain without too much embarrassment (for I had undertaken this whole thing without the slightest preparation. The waitress could scarcely hope for much of a tip.) Perhaps even this young woman would deign to join me, were she to prove so understanding as to support her side of the check. And in any event later on I would curl up, it would really matter little where, and trundle off to the deep slumber of the weary, for I had earned it, and dream dreams beyond the ordinary. Of joy or pain, sadness or elation, it made not the slightest difference to me now. What I wanted was more of the double-edged passion that I had felt on the wall, straight-up and unadulterated. And more of the same when I awoke. And when that time came, as eventually I perceived that it would, when passion was ground down once again into the dust of simple pleasure, without any real consequence or price—here I looked one final time into the mists. What had begun with Longfellow so far below I understood would not end in this place.
It was then I was for the fence, and as I did so I looked through the city, to the shops and apartments filled with gentle souls, and then to the slopes of the countryside beyond. As I did so a feeling welled up inside me that I had not experienced for far too long, indeed not since I had lain in the backyard of my youth, the grass cool against my neck, and been transported with exquisite wonder into the unequivocal night. A most profound sadness overcame me at the thought of what I was leaving behind; my future I viewed with both awe and anticipation. And yet I must tell you that finally I was satisfied.
For extending up at horizon's edge and giving the illusion of infinite space there stood . . .