Stubborn Full Circles #3
Like a train barreling down its tracks, a roar filled my ears. My body went ice cold, yet was burning internally. So was my returning anger. “Does water speak to you, too, Grandpa?”
Yes, there was much disdain in his title.
Lightning boomed in the background, lighting the sky, reminding me of Dale and how he thought I was an energy conductor. What was conducting through me was an untouchable insanity. Styx’s life was in danger if he didn’t start spilling the beans.
“Talk,” I warned.
Rolling his shoulders as if he suspected my level of impending derangement, he finally said, “Why do you think your father bought this place on the water?”
That question triggered a memory of the book Harmony had given to me about Greek mythology… River Styx… My uncles’ road names…
I was on top of Styx so fast I couldn’t recollect moving. Seething over him, face to face, I snarled, “Don’t you fucking dare play with me.”
My limit had finally been met. It felt as though there was no decency left in me.
Styx was on his back, not fighting me. “Want the truth or not?”
Did I? Was I truly ready for what no human can ever properly prepare for?
Next to his side laid a set of keys on the ground.
They had fallen from his hand with my explosion.
It was divine because I was ready to run.
I had to. It was either that or floating away.
That is how ungrounded I felt. I thought I felt alone after losing Noma, but now I understood how alone I truly was.
Styx was madder than I was. Who would keep me sane?
I had no one.
After picking up the keys, I jumped to my feet. I was running toward the Jeep when I noticed a covered motorcycle under a shelter in the backyard with us. Smirking like a true sinner, I pointed to it. “By any chance there a key to this on this key chain?” I jingled them in my hand.
Casually, Styx was now sitting up in the grass, the rain now pouring down on him since it unleashed with a vengeance I almost envied. “You don’t even know how to ride.”
I uncovered the old black bike and sat on it. “Like you said, I remember and saw more than you thought.” Reaching into my memory bank, having watched these men ride in and out of my life on the daily, I placed the key in the ignition, grabbed the clutch…
Elbows resting on his knees, Styx watched me. “Don’t get yourself killed.”
Actually, dying didn’t sound so bad. I wanted this life to cease being so painful. No longer did I want breathing to be such a chore. I desired the freedom of a different style.
So I rode. I got that bike in gear and let the spinning wheels take me away, to right where I needed to be. Back at the spot where it all changed.
On the bridge, it wasn’t but a few minutes before I lost control. The rain proving to be on a mission, causing the bike to slip and slide and flip with me, right over the goddamn railing.
There was no explosion this time. No sun to reach for. Only the night closing in, as was the water under the bridge. It felt isolating, yet also epically recognizable. Here I was again, sinking. A bike joining another iron beast, never to roar again.
Surrender…
My eyes closed. I didn’t want to witness the last tragedy of this pathetic life that, so evidently, was ending up to be absolutely pointless. And I didn’t want to see the dancing sparkles that had called out to me for years.
Is this what they meant? Did they know I’d end up here, dying, all over again?
They did.
I felt her warmth before she grabbed my hand.
Even though in dying I’d expect, and adore, to see my mother or Noma waiting for me to join them, I knew this hand was neither of theirs.
This hand belonged to a little, magical friend who saved my life long ago.
Her spirit, her driving force—energy—instantly blended with mine as if long-lost souls finding one another again. Like Blue and Seb.
In that split second, I finally understood the water stars that had always danced for me. It was her. Her essence, where she’s from, who she is. Like the stars in the water, she is life.
For me.
As with Noma, more times than I could count, I was grounded… again. I was, once more, tethered to a force of reason and balance. I was once more willing to see the world from a different perspective.
Without opening my eyes, I sensed how much this mystic one missed me. How this time apart was as hard for her as it had been for me. Her past desperation to find me, and her gratitude for this moment, had me opening my eyes.
Green… the most beautiful green eyes were right before me, and so full of… hope.
In the water, we only stared at each other.
Noma, you were so right to tell me to believe in the magic.
I was a young man who had been to Hell, not sure if he could find his way back, yet fought to become a leader. A brother. A man who dared to give two fucks.
Illusion or imagination…?
It was neither.
Noma, you were right. She’s fucking real.