Do you ever feel empty inside?
Big Sur 2031
Almost a full hour had passed before signs of the attack dissipated, the sounds of explosions replaced by the crescendoing waves that echoed along the oceanside as we fled from SF heading south.
On any other day the adventure would have felt like an excursion into paradise, like we had passed through the gates of Heaven, the roadway twisting and turning as we soared up into the clouds toward the Sun to be with the cherubs and back to Earth again and again and again and again and again, as if the car had wings and we were flying.
If we hadn’t just left an active battlefield (how crazy it is to even say those words, never in my lifetime would I have thought something like this could happen in America) maybe we could have relaxed. But our uneasiness could not be erased. Shell-shocked, we sensed that we were still in danger. The setting invoked a false sense of peace, a calmness before the final culling.
We arrived at a resort in the middle of Big Sur after a half day of driving. It was a retreat where Hope had always wanted to take someone special, a secluded getaway high atop a palisade along the PCH where even in normal times cell service was non-existent.
The plan Hope had was that this would be our final destination where we took refuge. The serenity of the place was magical. We parked and took time to explore. I noticed only a single other vehicle in the visitor lot.
In awe of the splendor of our surroundings I could not stand still. It had been a while since I had last used the bathroom. I immediately found a tree. We then kept wandering.
For whatever reason I felt like we were losing time for where we actually needed to be. I could not shake this sense of urgency that we should keep moving forward, that we had to continue running. Intuitively I knew that our imperilment would worsen.
Hope throughout her life always felt the same sense of time inexhorably slipping away toward an uncertain darkness- of missing out on life as the world turned without her and she inevitably fell further behind until everyone gave up on her and she was alone and forgotten with no way back.
Tik
Tik
Tik
Tok
She looked down at her watch. The screen was dark. It had stopped working. Time itself had stopped and we were trapped in a purgatory en perpetua with no obvious direction for escape.
We were about to head back to the car to collect our belongings and check in when Hope drifted west toward the water, drawn to the Sun’s initial descent over the horizon, which bathed the grounds with golden silhouettes of the Sycamores dancing to the coastal breeze.
She ambled to the end of the bluffs and began to bawl, whispering into the wind softly:
-Goodbye.
That’s when I realized what was going on, what she was thinking of, who she was thinking of.
No, no, no not him, not him.
Hope was mourning the loss of her oldest friend who had passed on the same cliffs.
He had been a composer, a sound healer, a genre bender, a real life angel with the most beautiful voice I had ever heard, that she had ever heard.
There were few born into this world ever like him. He was a musical genius, a prodigy virtuoso with perfect pitch. You could sing or play for him any melody and he could transcribe the music immediately.
He was far, far too young to have passed and she had convinced herself that she was responsible. This was years ago, a few months after they began overtly stalking her.
She never wanted to say goodbye. She should have said something. The guilt she carried for not being there for him, she never overcame it. She should have said something to him before, but she didn’t.[27]
From the precipice’s edge Hope stood staring straight downward at the spumy sea foaming against the ragged rocks. One step farther and she’d fall 480 feet to her death, the void of the interstitial space below her dwarfed by the emptiness she felt inside.[28]
Hope closed her eyes and in that moment it was all apart: he was gone somehow.
She kept imagining the fall itself. Would it hurt? Would she fall fast enough before she knew what had happened? Would she feel the same way he felt?
These were the questions that swigged inside her now bruised skull. Everything seemed lost. There was no hope, she believed, especially after everything that had happened.
Hope wished to never open her eyes, that her dream to undo what had been done could come alive instead. She wanted to dream forever.[29]
What was there left in this world worth living for? What’s the point of living life alone? Everyone she cared for, whom she had loved, was gone.
-Don’t wake me up.
Well, almost everyone.
I saw from a distance what was happening. I began panting with nervousness and beckoned her to return to my side.
Hope faintly yelped as the wave of emotion crashed back into her internal ether, resurrecting her to the present moment. She jumped (backward) and joined me at the pergola, which was perched at the westernmost edge of the resort’s promontory. She was terrified of heights.
Forty eight stories above the ocean’s surface we had a 270 degree panorama of the Pacific and the surrounding cliffsides. The view was breathtaking and I chided her gently.
-If nothing else, this is worth it.
A tear plunged down her left cheek and I began to mist myself.
Along the shore, alone just the two of us, the one thought that she found solace in knowing was that, despite the way things ended, at least he was now home.[30]
That Hope was sure of. If anyone would make it home, it would be him. She had no doubt and at some point she would join him and come home too and they’d be together again for more laughs, singing, and adventures somewhere near the shadow’s end.[31]
***
-Tranquil as the water dances in the night, my soul flows with peace, love, and light.[32]