The Awe of it

Chapter one

It’s abundantly clear - life doesn’t turn out the way you want. It’s like being on a plane for the first time and feeling those foreboding shakes and sputters. You tell yourself you’re overreacting, but you’re certain something's wrong. Still, you hide the fear. You won't speak up until you see the same fear in someone else's eyes.

My first plane ride, I was just trying to get out of Shunderland - out of my ruined life. For once I had made a bold and brave decision. I chose an unsafe gambol. I was deathly afraid of heights, but refused to pull the cover of the window down.

There was nothing waiting for me in St. John’s, except a chance to forget, start fresh, be a completely different man. I could change my name if I wanted. I should have been happy with the prospects.

To be honest, the plane was more depressing than the funeral I had just come from. The constant hum of the engine felt like sorrow droning inside of me. The occasional quiet cough, the sound of people shifting, the small and cautious zipping and rezipping of carry-on bags. A man a few rows up kept sniffing, reminding me of strangers weeping.

I took it as my own funeral; those several strangers on the plane as stand-ins for my friends and family. A funeral would be appropriate, I would be all  but dead. Anne, Jason, Marie, and anyone else who might notice would never see me again.

I didn’t cry at the funeral. I could say I didn’t really know the girl, but I know her parents, Jason and Marie. Jason and I hadn’t spoken in many year, not since I practically ran his business into the ground. Maybe I'm exaggerating. He helped me open a Twin Harbors location, piggy-backing off his success in Yellow Sail. Needless to say, I failed.

Jason lost a lot of money on it, but he just shrugged it off saying, I guess that wasn’t meant to be. As if to add insult, he offered me a position in Yellow Sail. I never responded. Instead I went back to my job at the factory like nothing happened. Same job. Same pay. No one cared to ask me about my “vacation.”

Before that, Jason and I were best friends. We attended each other’s weddings which were in the same month. We even talked about splitting a honeymoon to Bermuda, but our wives would not have it. So they went, and Anne and I got a cabin in Fox Run. It was March and we were able to do some skiing, although the snow was not very good. You can say our marriage was down hill from there.

We became two very different people, Jason and I. He became a father! I didn’t. He was successful! Me, adequate. When I stood face to face with him at his daughter’s funeral, I saw that difference in hard light. All confidence tells me that he has, and will have, a strong and happy marriage despite the tragedy. He has, and will remain to have a better reason to crawl out of bed every morning, and then back into bed each night.

Of course I was devastated by the news. Cassie was seventeen. It's always sad when a young person dies. Death itself is common, everybody dies, and in all different ways. In Shunderland, one way that comes up occasionally is when a car and a moose meet along the same path. As common as death is, it’s always an anomaly when it comes too close to you.

When Cassie was little, I would play games with her while visiting Jason, games like peek-a-boo, guess my number, or I-spy. That fell away quickly and then she didn’t care to speak to me at all. That's just how teenagers are.

Still, I should have cried. I came close a few times, like when the paul-barers were carrying the casket and they began to struggle. It wasn’t the weight, it was the cadence. The box moved in a jerky motion. They had to stop and synchronize their steps.

I guess I had the same problem. My whole life was a series of unsynchronized jolts. My marriage pulled at one corner, my lack of career at another. In the middle of it all was me, the drag. The dead weight. I had to do something! Stop the procession! Put it down a minute, maybe even sit on the casket and really think it through.

And so I did. After Cassie’s funeral, instead of driving my rental back to Twin Harbors, I drove to the Yellow Sail airport. There’s only one reason to board a plane in Shunderland - to leave Shunderland.

I leaned enough to take a daring look, straight down, out the window. The tops of the pines looked like green felt, soft enough to nestle into. Somewhere in the softness was the wreckage of my life, but you wouldn’t know it from such a great height. If I hadn’t already, I would pass over Fox Run. Then, even my honeymoon would be like debris.

I once heard, I can't recall where, that life is an arrow. It needed to be straight and well aimed to hit its target. Maybe that was my problem. I lacked a straight arrow. Let alone a target. I had hurled stones into the sky to see what might stay aloft. They all came down on my head.

 I drew a small note pad and a pencil from my shirt pocket, flipped it to the first page. The top read My Awe List. Item number one read, Headaches bad enough to kill you. As depressing as the plane was, it reminded me that I was already feeling better. In the corner of my eye, I saw clear open skies. I wrote a new line. Planes that can fly you out of anything. The plane was my arrow. St. John’s was my target.

I knew I was doing the list wrong, but that was the point. I tucked the pad and pencil back into my pocket and buttoned it in. If I was getting a new life, I thought, maybe I’d get new clothes too. All I had in my bag was what I brought to Yellow Sail for the funeral, which was a suit and tie, a single pair of jeans and another flannel shirt, nearly identical to the one I was wearing. I resolved to never wear plaid again.

One row back on the other side of the aisle, a young girl rocked forward and backward in her seat. She grunted in unison with her movement. I guessed she must have been about ten. I watched long enough to feel nosey. I was trying to determine if there was something wrong with her, like a retardation or something. Although, that’s the rude word for it. The woman next to her, her mother I assumed, sat reading a crisp paperback as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

The little girl stopped in the forward position and twisted her head against the seat, revealing her face to me. Yes, ten was about right. Nine or Eleven perhaps. She had short, curly, copper-colored hair, small eyes, a long thin nose that ramped down to a very serious, and angular face. A short straight mouth sat above the point of her chin. Dry lips. I dared a smile. It was not returned. Instead, she made a loud H-sound at me, like a hiss, and threw herself back against the seat.

Her shirt read, hugs like a fish. A shy fish face was printed front and center. Her mother put a momentary hand on her shoulder and pulled it away in a slow, caring motion. The girl watched it like it was a curiosity. Autism, I realized.

I nestled myself into my seat. Like me, everyone in the little humming tube was leaving Shunderland. I wondered where the little fish girl was going. I wondered what I would do after landing in St. John’s. I’d probably stand a few hours in the lobby, trying to simplify my life to a left or right decision. Then I’d make the choice that was most un-like me as I could manage.