Beside the Still Waters
All the way to Point Reyes I had some notion that death was near. This is it, last things, end of times, settle on an eschatology (can't say as I dig a one), maybe just chain smoke and see colors, like that, go for the White Light, son, the others lock you into Realms...Oh, etc.
We stopped at this and that retreat center, checking out the vibes. We had lunch. Death waited tables. "Chess?" he asked.
"No. Burger and fries, whadaya think I am?"
"Chess on the burger?"
"Do you know this clown?" my wife asks.
"He's a Swedish actor I used to upstage. He never forgave me."
"He's very pale."
"It's cold in Sweden."
"He is dressed in black."
"He is playing Death. My Death. That became his signature role after the upstaging days. Told you he never forgave me."
"Is he your Death?"
"No, my Death is tan, blond, shirtless, and stupid. He is underplayed by Brad Pitt. Russell Crowe turned down the part. Says, 'What a wimpo. Who cares when whimpos bite it? I'm gonna play some chappy's Death, gimme a bloke's got some rocks in his socks.' You know how he is."
"You, yourself, are a man of strange parts."
"Don't go there. I told you not to visit such places. Do not visit the country of my, um, my ..."
"Parts."
"Yeah, stay outa them parts."
"Let's leave. He is coming after us with something that looks like a scythe."
"And the chess burger."
"Forget the chess burger, danger approaches. It could mean an end to all things in our relationship, beginning with our bodies."
"He's not after you."
"Away. Gone. Us. Went."
When we got to Point Reyes, we sat out in front of the cabin we rented and watched the water. The cabin was right on Tomales Bay, which is less turbulent than the beaches around the Point itself. The water flowed with an odd, whispering equanimity. Once again I thought of my death, this time played by the water. That makes more sense, don't you think? Death as an easy flow of bay water, vaguely directional, seemingly at the command of some law or force or will, yet still indifferent somehow.
It was getting on to twilight, and the water was steel gray, the sky glowing from within, of no definite color, yet glowing.
We couldn't speak now. We just let our own private thoughts drift with the waters. Russell Crowe floated by, and Brad Pitt, and the waiter who must always play Death, and they, too, were indifferent. They didn't wave, in any case, but just went on by like driftwood. It was good to see them so unselfconscious, so unaware of an audience. That's a good thing for actors, to flow like that, to disappear and become liquid. If more actors would become liquid, think of the money we'd save. Instead of going to one of those awful fourplex domes, we could stay home and sit by the water and watch our own death, which is an easy, whispering flow, going nowhere in particular.
"Maybe it's that I feel some change coming on," I told her.
"What do you think it is?"
"I don't know. I thought maybe it was my death or something all dramatic and final like that, but maybe it's just a change of heart, a transition. I feel the need for some leap."
She looked at me.
"You are not going to tell me to jump in the water, are you?" I said. "I mean for want of a lake a bay will do, no? Remember? 'Go jump in a lake?'"
"Yes, yes, yes, don't be tiresome. But very well then; when the water becomes still, you may jump."
"My dear, one does not jump in the still water ... besides, it is plural, still water-ZA. Waters. One is ledeth to walk beside the still water-ZA."
"Who leadeth you to do that?"
"Doesn't say. Well, yes it does, it's the Lord, who is some kind of sheepherder."
"What is the sheepherder doing beside the waters? Doesn't he want to let you graze? You need grass to graze, not water-ZA. Why does he not leadeth you beside the still grasses-ZA."
"Because he knows I am not hungry but thirsting after death."
"The waiter."
I sighed. "Yeah. The waiter."
She looked sad. "All these years withholding your homoerotic tendencies. All these years holding it in. No wonder you've got such a paunch."
I ignored her. I felt she deserved to be ignored for a while.
"Perhaps I should push you in the water," she said.
"Ah, ha! So you are my death. Wearing beige. Death in beige. That just doesn't work, honey."
"I'll change."
"Into what?"
"I brought a dark bathing suit."
I thought a minute. Then I asked, "How dark?"
"Navy blue."
"I refuse to face a death who wears navy blue."
"Then you must live, darling. You must live beside the still waters, waiting."
"Waiting for the waiter."
"No, the waiter waits."
I let my soul swim out into the bay. There is no such thing as a soul in the Buddhist view, which is supposedly my view, but I lapse at times, so I let myself have a soul for long enough to give it a swim. Let it get on out there and splash around, in any case, and know myself to be immortal. For I wait now for a waiter who waits for me, and we somehow just miss each other; we are both looking in the opposite direction as we pass, as our souls swim along in flowing waters, which are never still, no, they are never still.
Copyright 2006 by Brent Powers
