Ashes

Ashes

by Benjamin Herrington

    As he labored along the trail, a lone thought plagued him. Incessantly hovering in his mind, this notion to quit would not go away. He had been hiking for hours and was feeling the effects of a decade of dormancy. He hadn’t lead a very physical life. One promise would interrupt his lethargic nature. A sincere belief in that purpose would be his motivation.

    Two men sat at a bar conversing. They had known each other for about a decade and a half. Unbeknown to one of the men, this would be the last time they would ever see each other. A terminal illness was soon to severe the bond between them. It seemed just like any other conversation they had engaged in over the years. The only significant moment came when one asked the other an important question. When he died, he was to be cremated. It was his wish to have his remains scattered from a nearby mountain peak. The agreement was made with one party understanding the immediacy of the matter and the other oblivious to what was soon to come.

    He continued to trudge along, reflecting on the conversation he had with his friend two weeks earlier. Loyalty and a sense of honor were all that fueled his trek. Blind to the beauty of his surroundings, he focused solely on getting to his destination. Never had he embarked on such a long and arduous journey. Occasional day hikes with his departed spouse had been his only experience in the woods until this point. After her death, he ceased virtually all physical activity. His life had been reduced to a regimen of office work and little more. His weekly rendezvous with his friend and coworker provided the only glimpse of illumination in an otherwise overcast existence. He needed this challenge.

    After discussing their arrangement. The two men decided to lighten the mood by playing a few games of pool. Something seemed different. Not bad. Not good. Just different. The mood was usually light during their games of pool, but this time it seemed to be a more jovial occasion than usual. Neither man was a particularly good pool player, and yet the games seemed to go so smoothly. Every shot seemed well placed. No one bothered them. They just played, joked, and reminisced the night away. After the last game, they grabbed their coats and exited the bar. Once outside, the two began to walk in opposite directions as they had always done. One of them stopped and turned towards the other as if he was going to speak. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, but he knew he had to say something. Goodbye wouldn’t be enough, but it would have to suffice. He said what he had to and turned to walk home.

    Continuing along trail, he couldn’t turn off his mind. Thoughts of his wife, the child they never got to know, and his recently departed friend raced through his troubled psyche. He reached the base of the mountain. For the first time since his journey began, he decided to take a brief respite. Without taking off his backpack, he sat down and leaned against a tree. A single teardrop streamed down his cheek. For the first time in a long time, he felt something other than melancholy. He was sad. The numbness that had engulfed the latter part of his life had somehow drifted away. He felt the pain that he had been able to stave off for all this time. He welcomed the anguish. Three tearless funerals and ten years of abandoned feelings converged within him at once. Streams and then rivers of emotion soon joined as the lone tear dropped. The sting of losing a child at birth combined with the loneliness caused by his wife’s untimely accident and met with the loss of his confidant, erupting into a whirlwind of pain. He embraced the pain.
   
    He rose without wiping his tears away. Instead, he wore them as a reminder that he was still human, still alive. He began to climb slowly at first. The more he thought of his losses, the faster he climbed. Before long, he was forging ahead at a dizzying pace. Most people in his poor condition would have collapsed under such physical exertion, but he pushed on. From his perspective, the mountain appeared to shrink before him. In about half of the time that it should have taken him, he arrived at the peak. The sun was beginning to set. The sky was a chameleon, painting itself various shades of red and orange. Paralyzed by the sheer beauty of the scenery, he almost forgot his purpose. He stood and reflected. Instead of feeling grief, he felt relieved. The emotional weight he had carried for so long seemed to be gone. Life finally presented itself to him in all its vivid beauty. His friend’s final request had given new purpose to his own existence. Self pity would no longer engulf him. He would continuously memorialize those that he had lost by living, rather than to merely survive. He was finally free.



© 2009 Benjamin J. Herrington


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