Mid-Life Crisis 2.

He was on the shore of a stony beach; it was overcast with dark clouds on the horizon and there laid a large canoe. He was bare footed and walked on shiny rounded stones eroded by the sea. The wind was blowing his long hair across his face. He brushed it away and spoke aloud.

       “Where are the oars for the boat?” Martin said. He knew he was speaking to the creator of worlds. Was he to take the boat into the sea and float away with the current or hold on to this rocky outcrop? This was his contemplation. The current could have him floating around in circles but he was alone and had no shelter or food. There was a cliff to his left that he could possibly climb. Or maybe he could make oars from some debris on the beach. He would be getting into a rudderless boat and trusting the current to take him somewhere. The beach was rocky and Martin made his way to the cliff. He was going to climb it to get a better view. He slowly and methodically made his way up the cliff making footholds with his hands. The cliff was mostly brown, loose dirt with some rocks poking out that he use to pull himself up. He could see there was green grass at the top. He grabbed a rock with his left hand and reached up and grabbed a fist full of green grass. He made it to the top; he pulled himself up with both arms and got a knee under him. He stood up and turned around to see the view.

        As he turned he heard a voice and he was back in the hospital bed.

       “Hi Marty.” it was his ex-girlfriend Cali, “I know it’s been a long time. You know that I still care about you. And my Mother is in love with you. If you can hear me, I miss you, every boyfriend I’ve had since you has not loved me the way you did. You ruined me.” Martin was only partially in the room. He could hear what Cali said and felt her heart and it was sore like it had been through a fight for her life. Suddenly he was back fully and tried to move his arm but couldn’t, a hemp rope was around his waist attached to the darkness. Cali was Martin’s girlfriend for two years and his first love. It was a tumultuous two years. She was valedictorian at school and gave a moving speech at graduation. Martin loved her because they were both so similar and that’s what lead to them breaking up. Martin broke it off because they were fighting too much and he knew it was time to move on. “I brought you some white roses for the purity of your heart. I love you Marty, come back to us.” She kissed him on the lips and Martin felt the warmth of her full lips and remembered when her kiss was his. He felt their love again.

       Martin met Cali in Junior High School when both were going through the awkwardness of puberty. It wasn’t love at first sight. They were enemies until High School. But there they found each other post-puberty and found the other desirable and attractive. They dated throughout High School, until just before graduation they broke up. But they were still in school together, having arranged to go to the same college, which was just down the street from their high school; it was a state college, Cal State University Northridge. She could have gone anywhere; he had a scholarship in Track and Field to Northridge. She didn’t necessarily follow him, she wanted to stay close to home, but to everyone on the outside of their little binary star it looked like it. Nobody knew what was going on inside Cali’s head. Her parents didn’t necessarily want her to move away but did want her to reach as far out as her dreams were and not let love or anything else stand in their way. Cali was on Cali time. She was laid back; good grades were a snap for her. She didn’t strain herself by taking Advanced Placement courses like all the “too smart to socialize” crowd was. She just took the classes that were asked of her and aced every one. She could have gone the AP route and got some college credits but that’s a pain in the ass. Not only do you have to pass the AP class, you have to take an AP test I that subject and pass that to get college credit. When would she have time to sell marijuana? Everyone but the school police knew that Cali had the best pot. She was smart in business, she knew how to make money, even in high school. She took to Capitalism like a duck to water.

       She told Martin that she had this world figured out, or at least America.

“The dollar is king”, she would tell Martin, “if you have it you live a happy life and if you don’t then you don’t. Well, how do you get the dollar?” She went on, “Sell people shit, drugs, clothes, houses, anything. It’s simple.”

“I think you are an entrepreneur”, Martin would tell her. But that’s when times were good. Then Cali started to complain about the tone of his voice calling him “passive aggressive”. He would tell her to stop smoking up her profits. This would piss off Cali and then all hell broke loose. Hell hath no fury like Cali’s. She would not hesitate to punch Martin, and in the face. This would make Martin laugh. Cali was 5’4” after all. Martin was 6’3”, nearly a foot taller and 80lbs. heavier. She might as well have been punching a bag of sand, but the face was only going to happen once, then Martin started catching her punches to the face.

“Stop, you’re going to leave a bruise.” Martin would say. And that poured gas on the fire. But Martin knew how to snuff out all the anger from inside Cali, it was as simple as grabbing her face and planting a kiss on those pouty lips. Then her tense body would go limp and collapse into Martin arms. His kisses made her swoon like a 13 year-old girl kissing her idol. And the feeling of her lips again nearly brought him back from a coma. Martin was shouting on the inside trying to get out, but the sea of nothingness in which he bobbed like a cork overtook him every time he took a breath to speak. When he realized what was going on he tried to break free but the rope was tied too tight.

“OK sweetie, remember, I love you. I’m going to go now.” Cali said and then opened the door that the nurses let her close for their visit, and departed. Cali would not dare say good-bye at a time like this. She rarely said that word in her everyday life. Martin shed a tear but nobody saw it. No movement in his face, only a tear down his cheek. One tear rolling over miniature hairs on his cheekbone down to his beard which was not thick but it existed. It continued to roll down the underside of his chin, down his neck and came to rest in the trough of his clavicle. It was a sign of life that Cali brought out. That love brought out. But it had been a long time.

Martin had not been in love since they broke up in college. He’d had girlfriends but never any he really cared for or that he’d move in with. He always broke it off and sometimes when things were good but Martin just realized that they were wasting each other’s time. She thinks he ruined her. He ruined both of them. He never had feelings like he had with her, he thought it was because she was the first but recently he decided that that was bullshit. It had been long enough for that to wear down. He just wasn’t open to, or didn’t know, what his heart wanted. And Cali had her eyes open. She wasn’t mindlessly walking through life. She was conscious.

Tammy worked five days a week and took care of Martin each one of those days for eight hours. He always knew it was her because she’d greet him like she would anyone.

“Hey Martin, how was your evening...not talking OK, two can play that game.” Tammy was a joker. “Don’t mind me, I’m just silly, and busy, you want something just yell...see there I go again.” she was working with more than just Martin. She had eight other patients to see. “I see you’ve been eating well,” Tammy takes a look at the bottle of tan liquid that suffices for food. “The doctor will be here today.” and she leaves the room. She would later come in and sponge-bathe Martin.

Martin sat in a boxcar rolling down the rails. He was alone and knew to put a piece of wood in the rail of the door to prevent it from closing because once it’s closed it’s not opening until someone from the outside opens it. He had a backpack that he knew he had packed but didn’t remember when he packed it. He had a block of cheese and a loaf of French bread, and a pocketknife. He was wearing warm clothes, the sun was going down into the ocean, and it would soon be dark. He saw he was on the coast but where? The boxcar was only open on one side. He was resting on a hay bale when he woke. He was wearing a pair of 10-hole oxblood Doc Martin boots that were hurting his feet because they appeared to be new. He had worn Doc Martin boots one time before that he could remember but his memory was foggy. And he knew he had to make a decision, stay on the boxcar or jump into the setting sun. He didn’t know where he was and although he had something to eat he longed for companionship, and the only way to that was the uncertainty of night.

The Dawson family asked where Martin went and the hospital told them where he was and they came to visit again.

“It’s Ben and Cyndi, we brought Abbey by to meet you, and we thought it was important.” Ben Dawson said. “Oh, it’s the Dawson family.” Cyndi elbows Ben in the ribs. “Stop it!” he said under his breath.

“We brought you more flowers, this time Abbey picked them out.” Cyndi said. “There’s sunflowers and tulips and I picked some red, white, and yellow roses, with baby’s breath of course.” Cyndi said.

“This place is nice, the nurses care about you a lot and we met your sister, Amy. She a very beautiful person, she shines from the inside.” Ben said.

“Yeah, we like her a lot and she played with Abbey for almost a whole hour.” Cyndi adds.

“We might be going to dinner with your sister next week.” Ben continues. “If she can get more time off work. She’s staying in a motel down the street. Her husband stayed home with her daughter.”

 Martin was taken out of the boxcar by the voice of Ben Dawson before he could make a decision of what to do. He was snapped out of his deep sleep so fast it shocked him. Who were these people? What did he do that was so heroic? His sister was actually staying down the street in a motel, what? Abbey was their little girl, he understood that much, but not much else. He started trying to undo the knot in the rope but it was no use, it was tied tight.

He was getting visits from people whom weren’t in his life anymore. He hadn’t been on a track team in 15 years. His friends from the team were part of his dream and he was starting to come around but not enough to be considered “conscious” again. He didn’t know what they were talking about. They had it all wrong. Martin was more conscious than he’s ever been. His consciousness was flying free of his body, he could be in the room with the people that are visiting him or wandering his past when they are gone. The only thing he couldn’t do was look into the future. He didn’t know why, yet. He supposed it was because it hadn’t happened, yet. He saw that every moment, every step we take in the “present” is our hammer coming down on a chisel, etching in stone our personal history. He could see that it is our bodies that have “destinies”, our consciousness’s are only the electricity which give our bodies “life”, that light them up like a light bulb. One cannot exist without the other. Although in the world we see bodies walking through life acting as if their bodies weren’t filled with a soul, an inner being of light. Those bodies are walking through the darkness and we pray for and show them love, in spite of their lack of life.    

           Martin was breathing some sort of fluid. It was a comfortable orange liquid. He was swimming in the liquid that appeared to be air. He was above then below and anywhere he wanted to be. He could change locations just by thinking it. He thought this was so cool but he was not acting like it. It just was. The only thing that was unsure was Martin’s presence. Where was he? Many people wondered that very thing, including Martin when he was shocked out of a dream by an unfamiliar voice. Where was he, indeed?