Wrapped in anxiety I am in code-red scramble mode. The cargo ship is about to leave and I am still frantically packing my things into the van that I will drive aboard. It is the end of a tour of duty and I am heading to a new adventure. But I need to wrap this one up before anything new will appear on the horizon like hope rising as the morning sun. I toss books from the shelves, clothes from the closet, utensils from the drawers and files from the cabinet into a box that is already over-stuffed. I can feel how fine the line is between patience and panic. I hear a siren sound in my head announcing that, as of this instant, we are not going to make it. I have, as they say, screwed up royally.
I decide that I must make the boat at all cost and manage to dead-lift the huge box out of the room (it looks like my BOQ), and into the van. As I do so I notice the things that I have decided do not merit consideration for emergency evacuation. My stereo, records and tapes, the hanging art that once spoke to me so lovingly now watches with empathy and sadness and my house plants. I cannot even give them a proper good-bye. This is no time for emotional sentiment and second-guessing I shout to myself, keep moving.
I get to the boat thanks to some risky navigational choices and a lotta luck. As I watch in shock they close the ships bulkhead doors just as we, whomever my passenger is and I are about to load. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
My passenger, it now appears is someone with clout. He rushes out of the van and approaches a deck hand, showing a document of some sort that he has produced from his shirt pocket. I see the hand examine the document, look at the van, at me, and then towards the bridge. He says something into his radio as I watch with equal parts amazement and hopelessness. I remember everything that I choose to leave behind, to let go of, to sacrifice for this moment. I sit on the teeter-totter of a crushing nightmare of failure and the hope and faith of another chance. ‘I can do better, and will, next time, should I get the opportunity’, I hear myself vow.
My mysterious passenger has returned to the van and buckled in. I am still trying to understand what the heck is going on, what the document was, as I first hear the unmistakable creak of a two ton hinge and then see the huge iron gates beginning to part.
This whole sequence has played out in less than ten seconds. The impact on my deep consciousness is such that I pop up, bolt upright, needing to unravel the mystery of the subliminal communication, fast, before it fades like so many other flashes of cosmic input into the ozone, lost forever. I sense that a footprint, suggesting to my soul that a visitor has left a message, one garbled by the static of time and space, is waiting for me to decipher and, in response, act. Now. It is important that all this happens immediately. Anything longer will spell doom.
As I sit and strain to decode the message and its meaning I see the LED clock announce that we are at 0300. I am asking the universe for a clarification. Just one question, If I may, please. I hear the wind dance with the maple trees from the wide open skylights and hear something softly moving in the attic. I am half in and half out, part asleep and part awake, the murky middle of nowhere. I feel movement and look to see the cat push open the attic door, stick his head in and look at me with his huge marble eyes.
He is asking too.
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