Tales

It was sunset. Resting below an overcast sky, foggy shadows swimming over its frame, was a solitary gravestone, too perfect in shape and form to be more than a few months old. Softly, a man, walking on a single crutch and breathing heavily from one side of his mouth, approached the stone. The man was getting near the end of his years, his body fragile and broken from overuse and his eyes almost useless at the level of his cataracts.

"Hello, old friend," the man said quietly, leaning down carefully and calmly to support himself as he sat down next to the stone.

Once on the ground, his back using the grave for support, he put his crutch by his side and looked up at the sky. He took a deep sigh and reached into his jacket for the bottled water he kept there.

"I'm sorry I didn't make it to the funeral," he said, "But you know how hard it is to get around these days."

He took a long, delicate sip of water and then offered the bottle to the grave.

"Yeah, I know," he said, screwing on the cap and putting the bottle back in his jacket pocket, "But that's about all I can drink anymore."

The grave remained still and silent, stubbornly refusing to be anything but a grave. The man was also silent for a time, switching his gaze from the ground to the sky and back to the ground again before speaking.

"What's it all about then, old friend?" he asked, "I know what I believe, but I don't know exactly how to explain it. To me, I think it all boils down to little moments, you know?"

The grave did not reply.

"I just mean that there have always been moments where it all comes together, where it all fits into a content little sprinkle of time."

The sun was fading quickly, and the man remained quiet for a few more minutes, staring out at it. He was exhausted from the short walk from his car, trying to breathe slowly, calmly, lest he have another heart attack.

"Maybe it's silly," he said, "But I can remember so many moments.

"The first happened when I was very young, perhaps only eight or so, and I went for a hike in the woods with my friend Bobby. He was the same age as me, give or take a few months, and we had decided to get away from our parents for just one afternoon. We ran off into the woods behind his house, carrying with us cupcakes that we had swiped from his mom.

"We got to this little creek that neither of us knew about, with a little waterfall and a great broken log to sit upon. We had raced each other, coming to a stop there to catch our breaths and eat a cupcake each.

"As I bit into mine, Bobby turned and said to me, 'This is great, you know?'

"'What do you mean?' I asked through a mouthful of sweet chocolaty goodness.

"'Just being young,' he replied, 'Just being able to run away by ourselves and have fun without having to worry about anything.'

"I was barely listening to him, but it struck me that what he was saying was making sense to me, that being eight years old was a great age to be. I shrugged my shoulders, though, and kept eating my cupcake.

"'But grown-ups don't understand us,' I argued.

"'Yeah,' he said enthusiastically, 'That's the point! Would it be any fun if they did?'

"I nodded, accepting his logic and finishing the cupcake, and it was after that brief little moment that I began to seriously think about life. I began to wonder what the purpose of it all was and I shrugged it off, deciding that I was still young and probably incapable of understanding it yet. I was young, and, like Bobby said, it was great just being able to have fun and never worry about things the way grown-ups did."

The man took the bottle out of his jacket again, readjusting his collar when a breeze began to fluster it. He took another long, slow sip of the water, exhaling loudly when he was finished. Then, letting the bottle rest on his lap, he looked over to the grave and then back at the ground in front of him.

"There was another time, too," he said quietly, "When I was in high school. I had started experimenting with myself, as teenagers tend to do, choosing one ego after another as if each were a different set of clothes I could put on in the morning.

"And one day, just out of pure foolishness, I skipped class with this girl Marie. I had always had my eye on her, but I never actually did anything about it; I was too shy and too inexperienced, I think.

"Anyway, we skipped class together and ran out to a little playground down by the beach. We spent all of fifth period there, just staring at the children and adults having fun in the Florida sunshine, knowing that neither of us belonged there.

"'Isn't it weird,' she said, 'That we find ourselves in the middle like this?'

"Not being the quickest car on the lot, I replied, 'What do you mean?' and she answered with, 'The adults are out here, and so are all the children too young to be in school. It's like this is a world where we are out of place, where we're still trying to get through the transition between these two ages.'

"It was a profound thought for me, and I said to her, 'It is kind of interesting how we're being taught how to live by being taken out of life and put into school.'

"She nodded, looked at me, smiled, and started running into the water. I watched her as she ran, staring at her ass since I was young. Well, actually, who am I kidding, right? I'm just an old horny man now; not much different, really."

He laughed and took another drink.

"But it was an important little conversation, and important little moment for me. It was as if I were able to define that exact moment in life as an entity that was universal. It all made sense, just for that one brief moment.

"And I wouldn't have another moment like it until I entered college. I was a freshman, still new to the idea of living without parents, still believing myself to be in a strange sort of limbo between childhood and adulthood. It was a time of stress for me, both good and bad, both positive and negative.

"Right off the bat, I started hanging out with what I knew to be the bad crowd, the potheads and future drug-addicts of the world, going to college because they didn't know any better. I always thought of them as separate from me, though, always told myself that I was incapable of being what these new friends of mine were, that I was stronger and more at ease with myself and my situation.

"And it only took a few months for me to break down and try a little pot. Remember? I went with you into the woods, my old friend, to hide out from the security guards and building administrators. We got there and, man, did we smoke ourselves stupid."

The man laughed, but stopped quickly, cut off by some hint of seriousness. He started to look pained, his eyes crumbling together as he gingerly moved his hand around the bottle in his lap.

"And I asked you when we were out there what it was like to be a senior in college, what it felt like to know that you were on the verge of adulthood. I wanted to know what it was like to be on the brink of breaking the umbilical once and for all, of entering what I called 'The Real World.'

"You laughed and said, 'It's not too bad. It's like I've learned a lot here in college, a lot more than I ever expected to learn.' You said that it had been fun, but that your fun was over and you didn't really regret that. You said it was time to enter the world and make something of yourself instead of holding on to your childhood any longer.

"I in turn told you that I feared 'The Real World,' that I only wanted to keep things easy, that I wasn't ready to 'lock myself into something I'd never be unlocked from.' It was too much of a responsibility to me, too much of a commitment.

"And the thing I remember most about that day was you saying, 'Don't worry about it. When you get to be a senior, you'll understand.'"

The man stretched his back against the gravestone, yawning and cracking a joint in his neck.

"And, of course, you were right. I ended up taking a freshman out to a lake to smoke some pot when I was a senior. To me, it was the last time I'd smoke pot, the last time I'd let myself be young and foolish. I didn't think much when I was there, but the young man with me-you know, I don't even remember his name-asked me the same thing I asked you, asked what it felt like to be a senior.

"I think I picked up on the irony at that moment, and, for some reason, I knew that my life had changed, that I was at a different point, a different realm that I had to work out and define into logical sense.

"I told him exactly what you had told me, almost word for word. But it felt much different, so much more meaningful. 'The Real World' had become, to me, an illusion. I had finally learned the one thing college is supposed to teach you, and that is that you're already in the world, that school isn't some alternate reality where young people hide out from existence. I had experienced so many things in college, and I talked to the young man about them, and I knew that these experiences were the things that would make up who I was and what I was doing with my life.

"'The Real World' was a beautiful myth, and one I'd let go of since coming to college.

"Moments like that were important to me, crucial. I remembered thinking to myself that I had never been any better than any of my friends, that I had just been going through the motions, as they had been, of maturation. I started again to wonder about life, about what it all meant and whether or not I was doing any good in it.

"I started to question death, even though I was only a quarter or so into my life, and I began to question what the measure of my life would be when it was over. Was I destined to be who I was? Was there anything more out there that could define me?"

A slight drizzle began to fall on the gravestone and the old man. The old man looked up and readjusted his collar once more, screwing the cap onto the bottle and drawing his knees up as if it would make him stay dry.

He sighed.

"And, after I met Jolene, it was like I had finally conquered death. She and I shared millions of moments together, each learning something new from the other's perspective of things, each learning the rules of the other's reality.

"It was a night much like tonight, what with the dark grey sky and the stormfront moving in, only a few years after we were married, that she started talking to me about where we stood in life, how each of our lives were now more important than ever, our responsibilities greater and our problems more severe.

"I agreed with her, but told her that I was oddly thrilled by the experience. And I said to her, 'Life is not meant to be easy or simple. If it were, how much fun could it be and how much reward could we expect from simple tasks?'

"She kissed me and we made love like it was the first time. That night gave me everything to look forward to, erased my fears and anxieties about every stupid little thing that I did with myself.

"It wasn't until I had a child to take care of that things changed.

"'Things were getting more important,' I had said to my wife, 'but now we're in a whole new plane. Now we have another life to look after, something that is now arguably even more important than us.'

"'Yes,' she said distantly, 'I don't know how to deal with it.'

"I had nodded, feeling a fear that was intense and spiritual. But then I looked at our baby boy, our beautiful innocent little life, and the fear was gone. No matter what else I did with my existence, I would always have him to show for it, and he gave me more reason than ever to exist and struggle, to fight and learn from experience."

He unscrewed the cap of the water bottle, but didn't take a sip. Instead, he held it up to his lips, stopped, and placed it back on his lap.

"When our boy went to college," he said, "I entered midlife. Everything was suddenly chaotic and troublesome, deep worries penetrated my every waking moment, and I started to think that life was driving by me without even waving hello.

"My boy was doing the same thing with his college days as I had done, and I began to miss that good ol' fashioned fun. I decided that it was foolish to have grown up like I had, that there was no reason I couldn't still get some excitement out of the little things.

"There was a moment in there, when I had gone on a fishing trip with my friend Albert, that I evaluated the whole thing.

"'I feel like a part of me died when I left college,' I said to Albert, 'I feel like I'm missing out on what little enjoyment life has to offer.'

"'It's not so bad,' he told me, 'You grew out of it because you learned what real satisfaction meant.'

"'What do you mean?' I asked.

"'It's simple,' he said, 'You leave college because you learn that you have to go out an do something with your life, that it is pointless to wallow in the simple pleasures.'

"'Maybe you're right,' I replied, 'But then why are we fishing?'

"He smiled and gave me the simple reply that 'Fishing is life.'"

The old man started laughing, but it was cut off with a series of violent coughs that seemed to go on forever. He pulled out a handkerchief and held it to his mouth, not wanting to know if he were coughing up blood.

"Sorry about that," he said when he finally stopped, stuffing the handkerchief back in his pocket, "But you know how it is."

He sniffled and looked back up at the rain; it was still only a drizzle.

"Anyway," the old man continued, "I grew out of the foolishness of midlife almost as fast as I had grown into it. Years later, my kid would marry a beautiful woman and then they would have two young girls of their own.

"I remember sitting with my wife at a park bench, just sitting there and drinking a little wine to ease the day, and I said to her, I said, 'Jolene, we really have accomplished something in this life, haven't we?'

"'What do you mean?' she asked.

"'Well,' I said, 'I always used to worry about leaving my mark on this world, about doing something that was good and important, but now I know that being with you and having children that could grow up to be so healthy and happy and have children of their own is where contentment rests. I know that my life has served a purpose, if in nothing else, then it is in the living breathing souls of our family.'

"'Yeah,' she replied, 'Life is beautiful; any parent should understand that.'

"When she died, it was like losing my anchor. I was once again swept into the void of isolation, and I began to feel depressed and bitter without her. Without Jolene, I had no reminder of life's beauty, of it's kindnesses and securities. Without Jolene, I had ceased to understand."

The old man had started to cry, but didn't hide it from the grave behind him, made no effort to wipe the tears. He simply let the drizzle of rain wash them away.

"And I ended up talking with my son about death one day, sitting in his comfortable little cabin in Colorado. His wife and two daughters were gone for the weekend on some Girl's Scout hiking trip and my son and I decided to spend the time together, drinking manhattans and talking about our lives.

"'I fear death,' I told him suddenly, a little drunk but still within my limits, 'I don't know what my life will mean.'

"He thoughtfully bowed his head, finding the right words to reassure an old man, and he finally replied with, 'Death is just a measure of how you live your life. As I see it, for nothing else, you and my mother both deserve a wonderful afterlife for giving me life and raising me better than any two parents in the world ever could have. I know that, since having children, I believe that it is the one important thing, that love and creation are what give us a happy, fulfilled go of it.'

"His words made sense to me and reminded me of much the same thinking I had gone through at his age. But, even though I'd heard it all before, it was important to be reminded of it. It was important to hear it from somebody other than myself. My son had indeed been raised well, for he was able to show me that death was nothing to fear, by using my own words.

"'Life is beautiful,' he said, 'Any parent should know that.'"

The old man took another long, hard sip of water, emptying the bottle. He carefully put it back in his jacket pocket before grabbing his crutch and rising to his feet.

"So this is it," he concluded to the grave, "I think that this might be the last of these little moments."

The grave remained still and silent, standing proud and awesome as a sturdy reminder of things that would never change. Night had fallen and the sun was gone. The only light emanating in the silence was from the reflection of light pollution against the overcast sky.

"Is there anything else for me to learn from this life?" the old man asked, "Have I reached the last frame of my existence, the last moment? What happens now?"

He blinked a few times and took one last deep sigh. Turning casually around, he began walking back to his car, struggling with his bad leg and poor eyesight. The gravestone, for its part, never said a word.