I find myself in an old shack. An old shotgun hangs above the door, a metaphor for the shack. I do not remember this shack. So far as I know, I have never been here before. But somehow, it is the same as it ever was. I get up off of the old wooden floor; it desperately needs a stain job. When I stand up I get that dizzy feeling, stars start to jump around in my brain. I black out and fall all the way through the weak floor. My elbow breaks a hole in it and my shirt begins to turn the color red. I stand back up, slower this time, and manage to stay that way. I notice the ceiling; it is hard to see in here, there is only one window which is old and dusty. It is much thicker at the bottom like any old window. After all, glass is a liquid. The ceiling seems to be a bunch of old dusty rafters, with some old boxes stored away. I try and climb the old ladder, but like the floor, it is rotting and decayed. Once again, I regret standing and end up back on the floor. Now my old jeans start to morph into a dark red as well. These jeans are not mine. These are not my jeans. I have never liked jeans because they make me itch. These jeans have a patch over the knees and a hole in the crotch, faded and frayed.
As I pull the door open, it falls off in retreat of my touch. I don’t actually know where I am, but I do know I’m in Nebraska. There are millions of trees all around me, filling valleys and icing hills like cake. There are no other houses, if you can even call this a house. The only sign of life is the deer drinking from the lake about half a mile down a small, deserted, path. It is one of those country paths, the ones nobody actually tried to make but just happened. Almost like the hand of god, slow and gentle, yet swift and strong. The lake is a pale blue-green hue from what I can see of the outlined edges of algae. I pause for a moment and ask myself, “Well, how did I get here?”
I go back into my home to recollect my thoughts and upon entering feel a sense of belonging that I have always lived here. I know exactly which box has the fly-fishing pole in it. No sooner do I get this sense then I begin to feel my elbow and knee pulsating in pain. There is no phone, and no first aid kit. The only option is to head out. I take the pole and walk down the path I have been down a thousand times. Same as it ever was, same as it ever will be.
I find myself in another part of the world. I ask myself again, how did I get here? I appear to be under water. I’ve decided that it is the beach by Cape Horn. The water is warm, and kind of cozy, I am very deep, the sun is very dim and the water is a dark murky soup. It reminds me of my mother’s potato stroganoff. I have two kids; I do not know their names. I cannot remember who else helped create them. I do know that they are without relatives, and are now on the beach. Same as it ever was.
I am going up. Or maybe it is down, I’m not entirely sure. I think it may be down because the light below me is getting dimmer and dimmer. I am almost weightless, it gives me an exhilaration like I’ve never felt before. At the same time, I am fearful, I have never been in water deeper than a bathtub before. In fact, I don’t even remember the last time I was in a bathtub, shower, yes, but not a bathtub. I do a backwards summersault. It is then that I realize that I need some air, please. I have never felt this before, my chest is causing me much pain, I want to ball up into a cocoon and suck the air out of my wrinkled toes, like raisins my mother used to say. Yet at the same time, I feel like I am on some sort of drug, I think, I can’t remember if I have ever had drugs. Somewhere, perhaps, in another part of the world.
My eyes now hurt, they feel like someone is rubbing sand in them, and I cannot close them. I think of my kids. My youngest, and how he always laughs when our dog licks him in the face. My oldest, and how he fought with me for years, blaming me for his mother’s death; More importantly, how he and I have come to have a close relationship. How my wife died; the memory of her bloody face behind the wheel of our mini-van. A vivid picture in my mind which will never fade; the pain never falling away. How my second child always eats his food in sections, one of this, one of that, one of the other, and back to one of this. My eyes would tear, but they are about to pop like marshmallows in a vacuum tube.
My body is screaming for air, every ounce of me wants to breathe. I cannot swim, and even if I could, and I wouldn’t know which way to swim, am I falling down, or moving with the gentle currents to the left? My need to breathe finally overcomes my will. I begin sucking in mouthfuls of water. It flows down my chest into my stomach, making me sick, and into my lungs, making me try and cough only to find that I can’t. I am detached from my body, I am above panic. This is not my body. I only know one thing. There is water at the bottom of the ocean.
I find myself behind the wheel of a large automobile. How did I get here? It is almost new; it still has that lingering smell of a new car. I cannot tell what kind of car it is, but I know it is new. The steering wheel is leather, the seats are leather, and my skin is leather. I almost forget to drive. There is no one with me, as usual. Where is my shack? I remember now, I don’t own a shack. Same as it ever was.
Water, I am wet, but how could that be? I feel almost sure that I am wet. Am I right, am I wrong? I cannot be wet. I am in a car. My car. I love this car. I live in a nice apartment, with my nice furniture, all by myself. I don’t know where I’m going, but that does not matter, I am in my car. I love this car. I am at peace, I have always loved this car; same as it ever was.
I turn left at a light, just because the road that way looks nice. I drive, in my car, looking at all of the scenery. There is a hobo sitting on an old bus bench. There is a broken-down car by the side of the road, there is a nice lawn by an old house. With my car, I can see glimpses into the lives of millions of others, even if for only a second. Old people, a lot of old people are standing near a car. I do not know what they are doing there, but I cannot know everything about everything with my car, I can know a little of everything. I love this car. My car.
I look on the seat next to me and realize that there is a bank statement there. While stopped at t light, I read it. All the money’s gone. I am in debt, and a wash of panic comes over me when I remember this. After the money’s gone, I will lose this car, my car, and I will lose my apartment. I will lose all that has ever been dear to me, all of my things. My god, what have I done?
I find myself in a beautiful house. With a beautiful wife. Lord, how did I get here? Where is this beautiful house? Somewhere, in some part of the world. I am a faint recollection of being panicked, I don’t know why. Am I wet? I am craving fish. I want to go outdoors. It is raining. I guess I was talking aloud, my wife tells me I shouldn’t go outside in such weather. It would ruin my nice work clothes. Where do I work? In another part of the world? No, I am an accountant. I move numbers for money. Same as it ever was.
My wife asks me to help make dinner. I have some trouble finding the kitchen, so many rooms. When I come in she points to the carrots and cutting board. I don’t know what she is making, but I cut the carrots anyway. I can cut carrots. If nothing else, I can cut carrots. She is beautiful. Long, dark black hair, with a pleasant shine. She is just a bit taller than I am, she has on a casual skirt. Her eyes are blue, and she is wearing some small earnings, from here I cannot tell what they are. She just came home from work. This is my house. But what is that beautiful house? This is not my beautiful wife . . . A highway. . . . After I finish cutting the carrots she clears her throat just a bit too loud. I realize that she wants me to clean it. The cutting board is very nice, a ceramic thing, with golden designing. I turn on the water in the sink, I am instantly frightened. I drop the board smashing it into thousands of small pieces.
My wife begins talking to me, probably about the broken cutting board, but I am not listening. The moving water… Money… My cabin, are these my life? Am I right, am I wrong. Where am I? How did I get here? Same as it ever was? This is not my life. How did I get here? I find myself confused. Once in a lifetime . . . but so many lifetimes.
Beyond the shack, beyond the beyond, and beyond the drowning, after the debt, long after the beautiful house and beautiful wife, lay a man only known as ‘him.’ The days go by, the days go by. He is in yet another life, wondering, how did he get there, doing things most people do only once in a lifetime; but he does them all. He could be in his twelfth life, or maybe his sixtieth. In any event, it is the same as it ever was. This is his life, who is and always was, and always will be; until he is someone else. He is forever drifting, never knowing completely who he is, or was, but always after a few moments is content. It is the same as it ever was, he gets ‘here’, and it is his life. Like water flowing underground, he silently moves from time to time, life to life, always being who he is, not was, only is. He has known death so many times, but death cannot stop him from another lifetime. He is, he was once one, but he will never be again, he only is for a moment living something once in a lifetime; every lifetime.
Before it all, before the fall and blood in the cabin, before the he that only is, there was a singular that was, but now he is, forever and ever asking himself how did I get here? Doomed to live forever; lifetimes come in flashes, complete yet only slightly experienced. Everything to him becomes the same as it ever was after a few moments in his new life. Always into the blue again. But he asks and protests “How did I get here?” and remembers previous lifetimes in flashes for a few moments, then he loses those thoughts and drifts to understand and remember the lifetime he is in to be the same as it ever was.
Once he was a singular man, he was a malcontent, and was never quite happy, nor at home wherever he was or did; never content, never happy. Perhaps that is the irony of fate; now he is always content; yet never allowed to stay that way for he will move to another lifetime ever and ever again. Before it all, there was him. And he had a wife, and no heirs. His wife often wonders what happened to him, where he went, and why. But she is done grieving, past it all. The only thing she keeps left to remind herself of him, the him that was, is a rock that he had inscribed at their wedding. “Let us then be up and doing, with as heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and wait.” A simple quote from his favorite poem. She keeps the rock, and loves it almost as an extension of how she loved him. The rock, which is always, will always be, and always was; the rock is he, life makes such odd bedfellows. The him that only is gone forever, is now doomed to drift forever, becoming each time the same as it ever was.
Italicized lyrics by David Byrne
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Christopher Ryan Parent was a native of Woodland Park, Colorado. He was the oldest of two sons born to parents who are both teachers. In high school, he ran cross country, played clarinet in the jazz band, and was a state forensics champion two years in a row as an extemporaneous speaker. After graduation, he entered the U.S. Navy’s nuclear power school where he graduated at the top of his class and was retained as an instructor for two years. He then spent four years as chief electrician on the attack submarine USS Columbia while it patrolled the Pacific. He left the Navy after eight years to become a wire line engineer for Schlumberger, the world’s largest provider of oil field services. He was a project manager in Saudi Arabia. He enjoyed music, photography, shooting, reading, and his two cats.
