COLD AND GOLDEN STONES

COLD AND GOLDEN STONES

by

Val Killpack

            Autumn leaves.  Red wind blows and Jordan exhales one step forward.  The cry of a bird (cuckoo); shade of a conifer hides the dark soil.  He inhales and lifts his right foot.  Stone steps of granite, light dusting of dirt, pine needles under his soles.  Jordan exhales and places his right foot onto the lowest step.  His weight shifts into that foot, and he lifts his body with it.  A dog barks somewhere behind him, trying to bring him back.  Tight chirp of a bark, like a giant cockatoo chasing a Frisbee.  Jordan inhales and lifts his left foot to meet his right.  Standing with feet together, he tilts his head back and casts his gaze upwards.  One-hundred-and-eight steps.  He counts them, one at a time.  The stone presses upward into his body.  Slow breathing quickens.  He squats down.  Right hand reaches forward, and the palm presses downward onto the second step.  Cold and green—his mind stops.  Emptiness surrounds him.  Each step crumbles into the earth, and a grassy hill rises upward.  He blinks.  He blinks.  Then stands again.  One step forward and his breath raises the right foot into the air, then places it gently, but firmly, onto the next slab of granite.  One step at a time, he will ascend, until he reaches the ancient hut above.

            Jordan turns about-face.  Flushed red, in the darkness, he glimpses through the fog into the night.  Step number two holds him just above the earth.  The grass rises, grows all around.  Moonlight reflects.  A dewdrop shows all.  He sees himself in the mist.  Sees himself in the overgrown field.  Each droplet of water mirrors his mind, body-mind, heart-mind.  Settled precipitation.  He pushes his vision through.  A clear moon waits just beyond the cloud.  A shining pond holds the moon in its mouth.  He will dive from the cliff he now stands on.  He will break the black water before him.  He will scream.  And he will scream.  But he only exhales and closes his eyes.  He stands like that all night.  He enters deep, dreamless sleep, holding it, tasting.  First ray of the sun, eyes opening, dreamlessly awake, he rotates right and tilts his head upward.  Inhaling, he raises his hands toward the sun.

            Golden stones.  Plumes of wealth abound.  Saffron robes flap in the wind, and a woman faces the sunrise.  She looks down at him for a moment, then rings the morning bell.  He smiles and hops onto the next step.

            He repeats his secret mantra with each breath.  He inhales on it and exhales hot.  He climbs halfway up, then forgets, in his bliss, to keep his balance.  A sort-of sprawling scramble-tumble, and back down to step fourteen.  He must focus.  Don’t lose the mantra.  Hold onto the thread, he tells himself.

            It is dark.  He sleeps, dreaming freely, stretched languidly across stair twenty-eight.  The Rice Krispies Treats he packed have begun to wane, but he could care less.  He talks to an audience packed all around him.  He tells his life story in minute detail.  Each face looks up with eager anticipation, eyes opened wide, mouths agape.  He hinges the words of each sentence.  And then! When I was twenty-eight! I really did win the contest!  They cannot get enough.  It is all true! he tells them. Every word!

            It is hot when he awakes with a sore back.  He twists and turns and wrings out his spine.  Ahhh, he thinks.  Life is good.  Then he looks up and sees so many steps before him.  I cannot eat another Rice Krispies Treat, he says aloud.  I just cannot.

            He creeps in slow motion, on hands and knees.  His stealth-mission enemy training has done him well.  He ascends several steps without anyone noticing—his eyes are peeled.  He has eyes on the back of his head.  He has got his own back.  Glancing left and right and left and right, then checking over his shoulder.  Something moved! Something moved! he thinks.  No, just a vision.  Only the desert heat.  Mirages are normal in this territory, he tells himself.  Delusions are part of the game.  I will drink some water.

************************************************

            Ten summers ago, Jordan wandered.  He went this way and that, eating berries and chasing game.  He worked various jobs.  First, landscaping, then fast food.

“Hi, Jordan!” said his boss.

“Hi, boss!”

“Where’s your name tag?  And tuck in your shirt!  Gotta look good in this business!  Step it up, Jordan!  Get with the game!”

On break, halfway through his shift, he snuck out the side door and jogged down the sidewalk, glancing nervously over his shoulder, hoping no-one would see him escaping.  He stopped in an alley, peeled off the polyester polo shirt, and tossed it into the wind.

Tracing footsteps through the forest, he could smell the ox.  He could sense the other side.

He got a job canvassing for an environmental activist group.  This is it, he thought, now I’ve found something real.

“Let me hear your rap!  Pretend you’re knocking on my door and I’m a bored housewife!  Sell me a membership!  Make me want to save the environment!  Step it up, Jordan!”

“Uh.  Okay.  So, uh.  …  Hey.  So, I’m Jordan.  Do you want your kids to burn ‘cause global warming’s all ragin’ up and then like they try to cool down but the water’s all polluted and so they get mercury poisoning anyway before they burn but like they were totally malnourished anyway ‘cause like the food supply is laced with pesticides and genetically-mutated food but maybe they’d drown anyway ‘cause the icecaps are melting and the whole continent might sink into the ocean…   So like join our group and we can fix all that and then your kids are gonna be real happy.  Only thirty-five bucks a month for basic membership.  But you can make a real difference by becoming a supporting member for a hundred bucks a month.  Like it’s totally up to you.”

“No, Jordan!  No!  No no no!  That’s not what I taught you!”

“But I just give it to ‘em real.  You know.  No-bullshit style.”

“No, Jordan!  Tell me the rap the way we taught you.  Look in your binder if you can’t remember it.”

“Uh.  Okay.  Let me go get it.  Be right back.”

But Jordan slipped out the back door and sprinted down the block.  He stopped on the corner and stripped off his environmental activist “official tee-shirt” and tossed it at the woman holding the “will work for change” sign.  Will work for change, he thought, sure.

Then Jordan wandered the Earth.  He slid from the suburb into the global highway.  He sold poems on the corner in Denver, then Santa Fe.  He went to San Francisco, San Diego.  Took a bus to New York.  No-one wanted poetry, though.  So he worked in a factory.  Day labour.  He never stayed in one place for long.  He saved enough to buy a plane ticket to Europe.  But it wasn’t until he got to Southern China, on a supposed deal to teach English for serious big bucks, that he escaped into the forest.  Finally left it all behind.

************************************************

            It was damn hot, and the sweat dripped from Jordan’s face.  The steamy jungle just did not stop.  Tiny flies buzzed wearily past his cheeks.  His tussled hair matted all around his head.  Separating it into locks would have made more sense, but he liked the tangled ‘fro look.  Totally Einstein, he said to himself.  Dark facial scruff almost grew into a beard but never quite succeeded.  Penetrating brown eyes scanned the tree line for backup.  There would be none, of course.  He was on his own.

            Footprints shone in the stone.  Each step presented itself before him.  His feet were too big for the little steps; he balanced on his toes, heels in the air.  The steps narrowed the further he ascended.  Steeper and steeper, like a ladder, climbing a cliff.  He held on to the rock that faced him.  The moss-covered stairs perspired and dripped.  He did not dare look down.  He knew that one slip meant falling through space.  Meant diving from the mountain, which was no longer a mountain.  It was the kingdom.  He now climbed the side of a fortress.

            He neared the top.  He saw a tree branch protruding from the cliff, just above him.  If he could reach it, he could pull himself over the ledge.  He found a toe-hold for his left foot.  His right hand reached for a crevice.  He gripped it.  He grasped and clung, pulling himself upward.  In a final breath of exasperation, he lunged for the tree branch, grabbing it with his left hand, then his right.  He lost his footing and held on for life.  Depleted, he just hung there, unsure what to do next.  He lacked the strength to pull himself over the edge to safety.  Day rotated into night.  It is dark, he thought, it is really dark.

            Unable to sleep, he waited for sunrise.  As the first golden rays pierced his eyes, he decided to let go.  The fall would be a welcome relief.  Finally it would all be over.  Finally he would go home.

            With a lung-filling inhale, Jordan closed his eyes.  But he could not do it.  He could not.  He let out his breath all at once.  Another long inhale and he closed his eyes again.  He let go.

************************************************

            When Jordan awoke, he found himself sprawled on the ground.  He lay on a stone pathway, and just above his head, a small tree pointed toward the sky.  Just past the tree, the pathway stepped down a bit, then continued.  He lay on his side, arms pointed past his head.  He reached and grabbed the trunk of the small tree, then let go.  He tried it again.  The ground was level.  The tree pointed toward the sun.  It hadn’t been a cliff, after all.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes.  Shook his head to wake up.  Then smiled, and stood to greet the day.