I trudged hard, deeper into anonymity, pushing on until the sun fell when I could hear her voice again. Heavy in the night, an old familiar ring echoed through the woods outside my pod-like tent. It was a call I never missed. It grew unearthly beckoning me.
For several days I hiked into the canyons and along the creek, dipping back into town for water and whatever, always coming back to the indigo expanse. I was usually bone dry. I ambled through every stony vortex and grassy vale, half empty daypack hanging from my wiry slumped shoulders, I reflected on our missed steps prior to the day. How long ago? A month maybe. So many arguments. Maybe it was more than a month.
Delirium...dehydration... distanced me from myself. Decaying self. I started to feel softness. The rays of sunlight through Juniper canopies. Quail cawing and that high and steady chirping of the robins perched, inconspicuous. The waking solidarity of my soothing earth mother, that quickly grew all around me. My nights became more natural in progression. I drifted into sleep. I wanted it all to sleep. Penny. Kayla. Whatever I'd become. All of it.
Then came the night. I slipped into it.
Orange clouds moved like rust stained water across a concrete sky of grey. No way of telling if it was night or day. No sound. Nothing was around me, but something kept on moving when I turned away. I turned to walk, and I was walking to the door of our home. Penny wasn't home. It had been awhile since she was there. I wondered where she could have gone, so long ago. Or maybe it was me. There was no knob on the door. White Sears siding and a ratty old flaking door. The outside entry was closing down around me. Thick reverberations from my heartbeat pulsed and overpowered my senses; Shortness of breath. In that instant, I was inside, the walnut door open behind me. The air was still. This house was strikingly familiar but in such an indescribable way. And in the same way, it was foreign. Maybe someplace I noticed one day. Did I know a friend that lived here? It felt like that place on Wilshire where mom and I stayed for a week when we ran away from Terry. Fuckin drunk. Was I drunk, or was that me? How old was I?
I was in the front hall. Still no sound, but the echoes of my footsteps off of every glossy wall. My feet struck the cold linoleum like gavels with each step in my leather soled black dress shoes. I felt the concrete beneath like iron and ice. Pop tap. Heal toe. Pop tap. The hall grew and grew. Pop tap. I was wearing the suit.
What were those whispers? Was that a lullaby? Mama and her lullabies? Such a silly mama. Be good and go to sleep. Sleep for mama. She needs it.
A grey couch with a black stain sat against the wall by a ragged rocking chair. I remember the feel of the air in there. It was brisk and I shivered as I passed the couch, compelled to stare as much as to look away. I looked forward.
It was raining everywhere but on the lawn outside. I could hear the patter of it against the evaporative cooler for a moment, but then gone. The lawn was dark and dry. Dark green. Green as hell. Flickers of lightning sprayed out like cracks in a windshield, across the night. No rumbles, just the silence and the light.
The volume was high now, of the showers outside; Shhh. It was cold and I was outside by the tree, feeling it come down on me; I was still, hollow inside, behind the glass sliding door, catching little glimpses of the toys we left outside. That Sing & Play never seemed to sing or play. But in the night, the little plastic sheep lit up in the shower, and sang Little Bo Peep. The lights sprang colorful.
I was staring at it, and the sheep danced gleefully, and it turned its plastic head to look at me where I now stood outside by the tree. It's tiny plastic mouth open. It was saying something incoherent. My stomach sank and it's empty plastic eyes bore into me, and it's mouth cried out. It was desperate. It was plastic though, behind an opaque plastic shell. Little Bo Peep lost her sheep too.
I could only hear the rain pouring over me. The sound from it rose to a single high-pitched unwavering cry like a terrible siren. I clutched my ears but it only grew louder.
I looked up at the figure in the house, still standing at the door inside, staring back at me.
At the window inside, I stared at the woman in the grass. Only then, I realized it was Penny standing out there, staring into the plastic eyes of the gleeful toy. I pounded my hands against the glass but couldn't build the momentum enough to make a noise. The glass was smooth stone. I was weak and the air was thick. And while I tried to scream and call out to her, nothing. Then lightning coursed the sky and tore away a piece of the darkness. One white blinding bolt cut the night in half and struck the dancing toy explosively. The woman by the toy, my Penny, was gone. Immediately after, like a shotgun, came the crack of thunder.
With a hard lucid jolt, I was awake, leaving only the cry of bats and hush of the creek. Tangled in my thin synthetic blanket, wet with perspiration, I wrestled myself free. Nearly clawing open the zipper of my polyester cocoon, I heaved and gulped the cool, wet air of the night. I'd had enough of it. I couldn't do it anymore. This was what I ran from. Why I ran in the first place. I actually thought I'd be free. But I wasn't, and the dreams were only getting stronger, stranger. It was hard to tell now, even hours after I had woken, what was actually happening. What was awake.
I relit the small fire that had nearly been exhausted by the time I finally let myself lay down. It was a warm pile of pewter ash, but came alive easily with a few twigs. After a breakfast of coffee crystals and an energy bar, I packed my tent and picked up a loose trail through prickly pear and mesquite. I hiked until the darkness came and took brilliant pink and orange and blue array that spilt across the ruddy path I took.
For hours I pressed on, growing heavy from the rising heat and lack of sleep. The rustle of wind became the hush of freshwater rushing and folding over sharp abrasive rock and smooth stone alike, growing louder with each step I took. Then the music bled in. The notes hummed from the heavy steel strings of his resonant guitar. A song that, as songs do, became an echo that's pursues me to this day, mutating and becoming some part of me. I saw him twenty-some yards beyond the tree line, seated at the rocky bank of the creek.
Gingerly, I made my way across the smooth grey stone quarry that distanced us. He hadn't notice me, not until I was within feet. He was a sandy shaggy blonde haired kid in a navy blue psychedelic Phish shirt that hung loosely from his slender shoulders. This kid, a spitting image of me at that age. Eighteen. What an age. His Dr. Martens had more creases and .
"Hey!" He brightly greeted me. "It's a tricky crossing, huh."
"Seriously." It was nice talk to someone again. "I guess I could have found a way around. I was really enjoying your song, though."
"Yeah? That is the one, man. Lotta love went into that one." He was the gentle type, sincere and warm with freedom. "I haven't seen anyone out here for a couple hours. Kinda figured I was on my own today."
"I was thinking the same thing myself. You mind if sit here with you for a minute?"
"Please do. I'm pretty sure I found the best spot for miles. Passing it up would be a pity." He passed me that gallant smile.
I slipped the pack off my shoulders and sat cross-legged on the flat white plateau of stone that overlooked the creek just below. He returned his attention to his instrument, picking out a series of chords. His fingers expertly skipped across the strings like stones, filling the canyon again with his music. I watched intently to his fingering. The chords were simple. I knew them all. Even his arpeggios seemed easy enough. Then he began to sing. I hadn't yet heard his voice. Immediately it amplified the melodious waves that erupted vibrantly. When he finished I applauded.
"That's...it's really beautiful. Did you write it?"
"A while ago, yeah." he said, smiling. It was apparent that the history of it was not as bright as the notes. His smile faded to a polite gesture. "I haven't written anything quite like it in a while, though. Maybe I will today though, yeah?"
"Well, today feels like a good day for something."
"Yeah? I think you're right."
"I hope so. Are you from here?" I asked.
"Nope. On the lam. You?"
"Pretty much the same, running. Can't seem to get far enough though."
I wanted to ask what it was that hung over him, but the question was bound to return.
"So, who did you write it for?" Shit.
He smiled in stages, revealing only the slightest before allowing the next.
"The first one. The one that gave me my first hit of live. She got me hooked, man. But nothing's like her. How about you? If you don't mind my saying, you look like you've been runnin' blind from the devil."
"Something like that," I replied gravely.
He plucked away at another couple chords, withdrawing me from a growing melancholy. Then, as he strummed the chords, again he began to sing frivolous and pithy verses. He finished with a playfully embellishing finale.
"When I get so frustrated that I can't think, or so depressed that I can't do anything but think, I just play. Nothing, really. Just whatever song comes to mind, man. Sometimes, if I really can't get shake the feeling, I'll sing it. Make something up, you know?" He fiddled a bit more, got bored and set the guitar down. "You play?"
"A little."
He nodded. We listened to the gurgle and shush as the creek folded over rocks, engulfing itself in its course.
"You think you'll ever get far enough to shake it? Whatever you're trying to get away from."
"I don't know. I suppose..." He replied thoughtfully, patiently searching for words. "Don't I have to? Because, when someone's gone... they're gone. That's that. If I can't let her go, I'll just end up stranded. I guess it's a self preservation thing."
"Yeah."
"I'm trying to think of it as an opportunity, to give myself a do over, new skin. I figure that's why I'm here. Do a little shedding"
"Yeah?"
Two white butterflies flit around a fallen tree. A cool breeze picked up, licked my face with a freshwater mist, and died away.
"I'm staying at this trout farm a few miles north. The couple that owns has this little guest cottage." He said. "If you're staying, I can set you up with them. I'm leaving tomorrow, so they'll probably be looking for a tenant." He shrugged, "They'll work you though. If you're not trying to get ahead out here, it's a pretty good deal."
"That sounds like just the sort of thing I'm looking for."
"That's what I thought, too. Well, what do you say? Should we head over?"
I agreed as I pulled on my pack. "You know, I never got your name. I'm Ash"
"Foster." he replied "Nice to meet you Ash."
He slung his guitar across his back and we headed north for the highway. It was a pleasant hour's hike where we talked about nonsense. For what it was, it was the best time I'd had in a while. And once I'd met the couple, he was gone.
I've heard of meetings such as ours as being kismet. I suppose there could be kismet in encounters on every path. We select it all. But I don't believe that. He was there for me to cross as I was there for him to find, because it was clandestine.
I stayed for a month. They had a tiny fish farm, where I worked. It was pleasant. I sent a letter to Angela, caring for her motherly concern. I've always done my best to cater to her role. We played the parts. I was the caring son, and she was my maternal guide and confidante.