A portion of Chapter 11

I should have gone to prison for killing him. Though, I had never wished for such a thing. In fact, this was the first time I'd gone back to that night in many years. Initially, I had dreamt the night over again often after it had happenend. For awhile, it haunted my nights. Mostly because I didn't understand it. But its imposing relevance had faded with time. In fact, I reached a point in high school where I no longer cared that it had happened at all, almost no longer believed that it had happened.

But it did happen. And my mind had brought it back to me, from whatever rotting corner of my head it had been locked away in. And I knew exactly why.

I had avoided this for too long. I grabbed for the satchel that sat beneath my bed and pulled out the next eldest letter from Clarity. It was postmarked January 2nd, 2002.

I did not wish to read it. I feared in what state I would find her in the words she'd put down for me. I feared to know what a full year had done to her. Another year to let the devestation cloud her over. Another year to watch her world grow darker and more confusing. What I feared, more than anything, was to find how far it was that I had forced her from all of the perfect beauty that she once had been.

I did not wish to read it at all. But I had to.

From the moment I'd understood that I had once again had that infinitely horrifying dream, I understood why it had recurred, now, after such a stretch of absence.

That night, fourteen years ago, with Alan, that moment that had changed me forever, it had been the start of a series of events that would ultimately destroy me. And that was one thing. That, I could live with. I'd made it through eight years of prison. I'd made it through the first two weeks of bagging groceries from nine to five Tuesday thru Sunday in the year 2008. I could survive ruined. What I could not deal with, was the possibility that I had destroyed Clarity all the way. 'All the way' meaning her death.

When I had read her first letter. When I had finally found the courage to open up the past, literally, and let it in, I had read something that didn't fit in with logic. A clue that something, somewhere between the years 2003 and 2008, had gone terribly wrong for Clarity.
She wrote: "I will write you eight letters over the course of the next eight years, Ansel, ending on the day you are once again free. I will fix myself during this time. And when you are out, I ask that you fix yourself."

And since the moment I'd first read those lines, I'd been trying, with everything I had in me, to fix myself. I had crammed bag after bag full of groceries. I had said my words with a smile, every time. I'd retrieved cart after cart. I'd shown the way for bread, milk, beef, pork, ice, beer, tampons, condoms, movies, carrots, apples, cider, doughnuts, diapers, Hallmark cards, and every other little thing you might ever need aside from clothing and a roof.
I had come home to our bare apartment night after night. I had played with the little guy. I had made small talk with Jacob and Cal as they played cards on the couch. I had gone to bed every night and closed my eyes and battled visions of the past that wouldn't stop knocking on the door.
I had woke every morning and thought of nothing. Not of the day to come, not of the next day, not of Clarity.

But just as they always have, the things that wanted out, they got out.

After finishing the rest of the letter, that night on the cliffs, I went to put it back in the bag. And I noticed something that I only allowed myself to take note of for the most ephemeral of instants.

In the bag, there were only two other letters. Three in all.

I will write you eight letters

And then, I had pushed everything and anything that was implicated by the six missing years out of my mind. I had done what she had asked. I had lived, and in doing so, tried to fix things.
But I was not doing it honestly. And as is naturally the case when one does not allow the truth to show throughout in one's self, the truth unearths it's own course to the surface. So once more came the night where I'd first lost my innocence. Where any whimsical notion of having myself apart from the rest of the world had been stolen away by my own bloodline.

And the oh so palpable truth was, I hadn't a clue of how to go about fixing myself. Never had. The fixing, I was never shown the blueprint for.

It had always been Clarity to lead me back into the world, to root me, to fix me. Until the one time that she couldn't. And now, after everything, where was she?
eight letters.

I opened the second of letters, the second to last letter, with hands that once again trembled at the foot of the past, and hoped, that the words would not take Clarity any further away than she already was.
--*--
January 2, 2002

I spent a lot of time at the house last winter. Keeping it warm. Yours sat empty and cold, across the way. I saw it every morning, through the ice, and snow, and naked trees. I'd never seen a house look so lonely. I wanted to go warm it up, keep it alive for you. But I couldn't.
I spent a lot of time inside of myself. Doing my best impression of you. Couldn't get out. Couldn't see out. There was a period of time that found me as nothing at all. You know how I used to be, seeing myself in all of the things around me.

So much died so quickly. And it caused me to feel scornful. Everything I'd watched die before, including you, everything had died...patiently. As if, in each case, that was just the way things intended to go. And it always fit in with my idea of life, of living things. Of the cycle. Everything comes, and everything goes. I'd never really thought about the cycle being interrupted. I just assumed, when it was time, it was time. But in our case, it was not time. And nothing made sense anymore.

It was a long winter, Ansel.

Spring came, eventually. I watched as your house was slowly lost to the budding trees that root between. I watched as grass grew atop the graves for the very first time. The magic of spring, the rejuvenation of growth, that we had wrapped our winter-worn bodies in all those years, it all seemed as nothing more than....inevitable. The cycle. The endless cycle that could be torn apart at any time, for no good reason. And I started to think of my own life in such a way. Inevitable. There was no meaning, not even in the proliferating life abound. Everything became relative to circumstance.

And then something happened that I did not foresee. Something that was not relative to the circumstances surrounding my outlook. Wildflowers began to sprout atop the graves. Wildflowers! You always see graves in the movies as being topped with perfectly green grassy patches that are always trimmed to give of a 'devotedly cared for' aura. But these graves, as you know, were not in a cemetary. They were in the countryside, where lawnmowers were never popular, and grass is, more often than not, accompanied by trees and clovers and other forms of unchecked growth. And I saw spontanaiety in the cycle again. Beautiful unpredictability, resiliency, diversity. And I saw that no matter what, the cycle does go on, even when it is interrupted. And the most beautiful part about the cycle being interrupted, I witnessed, is the new possibilities it creates in consequence.

And I was, again. Seeing. Feeling. Understanding. Alive. It all happened very quickly, just as the death had. And I saw that as the balancing act of the whole catastrophe. They were gone. You were gone. And I would never be the same as I used to be before that. But nonetheless, I was still something. And I had the power to make it as beautiful as I wished.

So quickly, I saw that I was still alive. And that I needed to live. Needed to see more of the world.

I went to a week of college in the fall, Ansel. I was going to be a teacher. For five days, I walked across the same campus that you so recently left behind, watching the masses of hopeful students hurry to and fro, trying to find their way in the new school year. I saw the girls in the summer skirts, each of them hoping to make a remarkable impression, even if only they were the ones who were impressed. I watched the boys with long hair and tight jeans push boards on wheels over the endless cracked sidewalks, all the while struggling to find their groove. I saw the football players rush in and out of class, always with a stride of arrogance, never apart from their embroidered, endorsed, egoistic selves. I watched the professors come and go, some of who's presence was nothing more than a requisite, others who's whole purpose was clearly shining through, radiating amongst their newly aquired neophytes. I watched the structured delirium unfold for that week, and very transparent, became the sources that ate away at your stability when you were amongst the mindless assimilation.

Yet for all of the flawed devises in that stage of society, there was one thing that could never be taken away from those people. Hope. A hope that was infectious, a hope that created the entire atmosphere. Hope for a successful semester. Hope for a new identity. Hope for new connections. Hope for happiness. Hope for a new chance at life. And as I saw that hope swirl through the masses around me, I began to see it within myself. For as helpless as so much of the hope was, for as misguided as so much of it was, I felt it to be helpful within me. And, for the briefest of moments, I felt as though anything might be possible. I felt as though the cycle of life were once again flowing through me, just as it was through all of those people. Finding their place in life, chasing dreams, making their way the best they could figure out though it all would eventually end. And I thought, perhaps I too could find the best way for me. Perhaps I could find my place in the cycle. And there was again a hope deep within. And life was going to be whatever I made it into.

And then, once again, the cycle was abruptly interrupted.

I didn't have classes on Tuesdays. I was at the house, heating a kettle of tea, watching an autumn wind speak whispers of the coming winter as it cooled the air and shook the leaves that would soon fall to the forest floor. The kettle screamed, and I poured in reply. I took my tea and sat in Mother's chair, looking out the window that, come winter, would show through the forest to your house. I watched time pass by as I sipped my tea, and as it went, I became uneasy. It may have been the drear of the storm, or the thought of your house hidden by the leaves, just as you were hidden by the hand of justice, or so many other inequalities that existed in my head. Just the same as so many mornings before, I could not find a place for the discomfort to rest because I did not know from where it came.

I turned on the television that sat across the room, as I often did when alone and feeling less than comfortable with my own company, and turned back to the window, and the storm, and the loss of the things that could not be retrieved. I do not know for how long I sat there, with the news playing on the television in the background (I was not actively listening), but I do know when I turned my attention away from the window, and to the television.

It was 8:51 in the morning.

I only remember bits of what I first heard. Explosion. World Trade Center. Plane. Unconfirmed.
And when I turned to look at the television, I imagined some sort of small hole in the side of a skyscraper. What I saw, was something that noone who saw it will ever forget.

I sudennly felt as though I was watching a movie. The billows of smoke. The confused reporting. The unsteady shots taken in panic.

For a long time, I flipped through the channels, seeing the same thing over and over, momentary sound bites with the same image of the smoking tower. Watching the same scene of a movie I did not know the title of, over and over.

And then a second large plane came cutting across the screen, disappearing behind the towers, a fiery plume of smoke and debris exploding out the other side.

And the reporters said 'oh my God.' Again and again. 'Oh my God.' And they didn't know what else to say.

This was no longer the news. This was something more. It was a movie. One of those big budget, epic movies with amazing special effects and a distant storyline. One of those movies that just goes for shock and awe.

The reporters stopped saying 'oh my god.' And they said nothing at all. It was something that you don't see. Ever. Everything stopped.

And I watched the movie for awhile, in quiet disbelief, alone in the house.

And then the reporters began to say words like 'planned,' and 'contrived,' and then the President came on, and he said the two words that changed everything. 'Terrorist Attack.'

And then, it was no longer a movie that I was watching.

I watched the people jump from the burning towers, falling forever, careening past their paperwork.

I saw the Pentagon with a hole in it's side.

I watched a tower go crashing to the ground, and smoke fill the streets of Manhattan.

I watched the death expand into Pennsylvania.

And then I watched the second tower fall. And there was only smoke.

And then there was nothing more to watch, so the television decided to crash the planes again.
And to collapse the towers again. And to make the people and the papers fall again.

And the reporters said 'oh my God,' again.

And I did not understand how that could be the world that we lived in. How humans, just the same as I was human, had turned the world into that.

And so I ran. From the television. From the house. Down the hill. Through the trees. Over the leaves.

I ran. And I ran. And then I was deep within the woods. Where I could not see anything of humans.

And I looked around at the trees as they breathed. As they danced in the autumn wind. I looked at the ferns as they crept from the darkness of the ground, to the light of the sky. I listened to the birds as they spoke of the coming migration. I watched the squirrel, as it carried an acorn high into a tree. I watched as life went about its cycle. Living and dying. Living for death. Dying for life. Keeping the balance. And everything made good sense.

And that is when I realized that we, humans, are not a part of the cycle. At a certain point, we all break away from it. And rarely will anyone rejoin it before death. We make the choice to be something else.

And in that moment, I did not like what we were. What I, inevitably, was a part of. I did not like the choices that we had made.

And, in that moment, I could no longer see the trees breathing. Nor their dance. Nor any life. For a moment, Ansel, I understood what it was to be those terrorists. Blinded by the choices they had made. I understood what it was like to be a human that had seperated themselves from the cycle. And I realized, that I was no better than the terrorists. That I too had been blinded by my choices.

And I did not know what to be.

That night, the president would proclaim that we humans were again 'at war.' That the choices of some were wrong, and that we could not allow that to be the case. I had started the morning with a kettle of tea and hope. And now I was at war. Against terrorism. I was at war against an idea. The president said that those responsible for the attacks had to be brought to justice. I was at war for an idea.

In the following months, we would watch things fall and people die on the television once again. But the reporters would no longer say 'oh my god.' Nor would they be silent. In fact, the reporters would always have something to say. Day and night. And America would become emboldened. America would be more secure than ever. As long as the bombs continued to fall.

And nobody stopped to ask, 'why did this happen?' It was much too late for that. America was blind in her scars. Making decisions that were no longer her own.

And as I write these words, Ansel, I finally understand what it's like to be you.

Always,
Clarity