The Cliff in Mount Vernon

Chapter 25 - And then

FALL OF 1993

Soon I find myself sprawled on the ground, peeking through the lens of the telescope I made out of my hands. The sky has gotten brighter, that I am sure of, although I could not really make up my mind as to how bright it has become. I guess light is something you can never measure, with just human faculties. I strain my eyes, gaze with only my right, and then with just my left, checking whether I am seeing two birds in flight heavenward, or a single one distorted only by my sense of sight. For the last few minutes, I have been munching Abe's brownies—flavored with the forbidden elixir of life, like the fruit in the Garden of Eden, the holy grail of youth. I do not dare question him about it, as to where he had gotten it and why he had brought such. I just go straight ahead to have my fill of dessert. Meanwhile, as I lay on the skin of the earth, he is leaning on the rock gain, smoking still, one after another, and my pack of Stormfly is almost running empty. I do not mind it at all. Momentarily, I would focus my telescope hands on him, and then back to the sky, and then back on him, and to the mountains. The only thing I cannot look at directly is the sun. For obvious reasons.

The drug I have been ingesting starts to kick in my system. The euphoric feeling seems to overflow from my very core, radiating outward in concentric circles. It has been years since I last tasted Mary Jane in my mouth, that kind of an icy kiss you will never forget even in the darkest and coldest night, full of energy and anticipation. It seems like yesterday when I had had the pre-graduation party with my university friends, when all that ever lingered in our souls are the flames of immortality, vitality and enthusiasm. No thoughts about dull, black and white office walls, mechanical typewriters and probing bosses. It is amazing how a moment four years earlier could feel like it just happened a split-second ago. And unfortunately, you cannot go back. Time is something you seal deep inside your mind forever once spent. You are then confined inside the white-tiled enclosure of reality. Of what is happening now.

At the back of my head, I rest my forearms, continuously gazing at the heavens. It is still and quiet. I could hear my own breathing. I could feel the beating of my heart through my shirt like the calm pulsation of the ground just before an earthquake would start. Abe speaks not a single word. I see him still smoking, back on the rock, eyes fixed on the horizon. There seems to be something odd about the lad, although who am I to say what is what while I myself appear dysfunctional. So sudden then, the Russian girl gets back and steals an empty room inside my brains. Her face pops up, just as a nanosecond would pass, so abrupt and tragic as a volcanic eruption. I do not solicit any of this, at least consciously, but stoned and half-awake, sprawled on the ground with no distraction other than the serenity that hovers over Mount Vernon, thoughts from the unconscious seems to flow spontaneously, creating a grand torrential current of emotions, epiphanies and realizations.

Despite her sudden visit in my wakefulness, my temples are not shattered. I close my eyes and feel the rush of air in and out of my lungs. I let her in my mind, nurturing the images that come flashing like a hologram in a pulpy sci-fi comic book. I try to remember the contour of her face, the roundness of her eyes, the bridge of her nose, the taste of her mouth, the curves and edges of her body. Then it dawns on me how everything is now a memory, a fragment of a whole that is now only existent in the realm of invisible and incomprehensible consciousness. She has left and she tells me the sweetest goodbye, a song a muse could only sing, an art even the most prominent nineteenth century Parisian impressionist could not paint. A doubtful shadow still lingers, like a ghost refusing to leave an abandoned manor up the hill. Whatever the reason is, what has been done is irrevocable. The music that once startled my ears and taught me how to listen are only faint whispers now, stifling the sobs trying to escape and betray my lips. The image of the Russian girl vanishes, joining the pool of tragedies too innumerable for my fingers to count. The videotape inside my head reels back again, playing the film of the last four years.