I was
talking to someone today—about what I can’t recall—when they said something
unexpected.
“What’s
the point? What’s the point? What’s the point?”
“The
point of what?” I asked.
“The
point of everything.” They looked away.
“Well,”
I said, chuckling nervously.
A car
sped down the street with purpose. We both watched it.
“Do you
ever feel like you’re on a wave?” they asked. “Not the crest, the peak, not on
top of it all, riding along. Below that, under. The smooth, rising part. You’re
coasting really, but the violence is just overhead, waiting to crash down and
push you under. Annihilation.”
“Oh,” I
said, imagining it. I closed my eyes and saw the blue expanse, smelled the
salty air. “At times," I said, "I think I have felt like the swell, before the
wave builds.”
“Yes,”
they said, imagining it.
“The
idea,” I said. “The movement.”
They
glanced at the sidewalk, kicked a dried leaf out of the way. “But still, what’s
the point?”
“Every
day you find a new one,” I said. “Every week you finish something. Every month
you figure something out. Every year you grow.”
“And
then?”
“You
keep going,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because
we do.”
They
rolled their eyes. “I suppose you’ll say something about love now.”
“Sure,”
I agreed, relieved. “Love. Beauty. Goodness.”
“The
shimmering ocean,” they said. “Impressionistic mountains. Flowering bushes,
fresh bread from the oven, a dusting of snow on the edge of a fence.”
“Art!”
I said.
They
shrugged.
“People
too,” I said.
“Not people,”
they said. “People you can’t predict.”
I hold
out my hands, palms up. “You can’t predict the weather either.”
“In
general,” they said, “you can. The seasons. What’s most likely to happen.” They
shook their head. “People you never know.”
I let
my hands fall. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“It’s
not a matter of feeling,” they said.
Another
leaf drifted down from a nearby tree. We watched as it floated to and fro, at
times a gentle falling and then, a swift swoop. We listened to the papery sound
when it settled onto the pavement.
“Better
you stay alone,” they said.
“You
can’t mean that,” I said, leaning to pick up the leaf. “Can you?”
But
when I straightened up, holding the dried husk in my hand, they had gone. A buzzing in my ears, a cavern in my gut.
“You,”
they whispered. One last rasp of warm, Autumn air.
