It was the glint of the cover that initially caught Abby’s eye.

She was 24 years old.

She was an anthropologist.

And she was dying.

It was a strange time to be dying, she often thought to herself. It was one thing to be dying amid a life of routine; something to switch up the monotony perhaps. But as it stood, she, as most 24-year-old’s do, had a lot on her plate and dying on top of that all seemed a bit much.

She often smiled as she’d catch herself thinking in such a way. She was many things, but deep down she found herself as funny as anyone she knew. Often times funnier. She had many inside jokes with herself, and she appreciated all of them immensely.

So it was hard to say, on this particular Tuesday, how the glint was able to pull her attention away from this daily stand-up routine. But it did just that. Without warning, Abby found herself standing at the window of the small bookstore. It was the kind of store that blended into its surroundings so well you would hardly see it if you weren’t looking for it. And if you read books as rarely as Abby, you would normally have no hope at noticing. But here she was.

The book in question, responsible for such unwarranted adulation, looked almost plain the more she studied it. Its cover was blue, depicting a campsite in the foreground. Behind this campsite, which must have been occupied as demonstrated by a fire, was a glistening lake. It was nighttime, and the lake might have been the culprit responsible for the attention-grabbing glint were it not for the full moon that rested above the trees. All attention was pulled to this shiny spatial artifact which shone too brightly to be natural.

“Camping Beneath Heaven” was the title emblazoned up top. It was a strange title, as far as Abby was concerned. She didn’t feel bad thinking this either, as she surely would have told the author to his face if she ever got the chance. She wasn’t sure how Trey Clarence, the author according to the cover, would take such an assessment. She had a feeling he wouldn’t love it, but it was honest. Strange could be good.

However, even this concession seemed wrong for it wasn’t the good kind of strange. It wasn’t even peak-your-interest strange. No, it was the kind of strange that encouraged your eyes to move on.

But the moon above the trees called her eyes back. What a beautiful moon.

The shop bell twinkled, announcing that someone would be entering the bustling street. Abby would have thought nothing of it were it not for the voice to follow.

“In or out, young lady! You’re blocking the display!”

It was an elderly woman, presumably the owner or employee. She had glasses that hung around her neck as more decoration than anything. She did not appear pleased with Abby and her words suggested nothing to the contrary.

“Oh,” said Abby, flustered as she always was by confrontation, “I was just looking at the book over there. Would you know anything about it?”

“I know a little about it,” she said, keeping with her aggressive tone, “most importantly I know it’s new and we didn’t get many copies. I would buy it soon before it sells out. Once the story makes the news cycle we’ll be moving those like hotcakes.”

“The news?” Abby asked, confused by the direction of the conversation.

“Yeah,” said the older woman dismissively, “the boy died of cancer I believe. Apparently, it was his dad that finished the story and self-published it. I think you can tell by the cover if you ask me.”

“How could you possibly tell the boy had cancer based on the cover?” Abby replied, aghast at the insinuation.

“How could you-,” the old lady began, “-you can tell it’s self-published! Now, you do need to choose to come in or move on. I’m wasting the air conditioning on such asinine inquiries.”

“How old was he?” Abby replied, following the woman, trying to catch the glass door before it closed.

“I’m sure it would say on the back cover” she responded, annoyed.

Abby rushed to the display case. She knew this was not where she should be taking the book from, but she had no time to search for it. She needed to know how old Trey was, for what reason she didn’t know. Well she did know, but it was hard to admit it. She felt she knew how old he was. In fact, she felt a strange connection to him. Not the type of strange that encouraged you to move on, but the type that peaked your interest.

She pulled the book from the windowsill, letting the small metal stand clatter. Abby could feel the shop owner glaring at her from the register across the store, but she didn’t care. Flipping to the end, she found the “About the Author” section. It was lacking a picture which disappointed her. She read the bio quickly. Trey had been 23 when he died of leukemia. It was a heartbreaking bio, written by his father. Abby flipped to the front and read the dedication.

Dedicated to my parents and my siblings who always loved and believed in me.

I think a person’s final words say a lot about them.

Most come in a dying breath.

I spent longer on mine.

Before Abby knew it, she was at the register, book in hand. A young woman was behind her in line, a stack of four books in her grasp.

“I think I saw that book on my way in,” she said to Abby as the old woman rang her up, “Would you suggest it?”

“I’ve already read it four times,” said Abby, “if that answers you question.”

The woman nodded inquisitively before heading to find a copy of her own.

Abby liked being honest but this lie felt okay. Dying people had to stick together after all.

This is a story about a boy who wished to be in a story. So it starts as stories so often do. The boy made a choice.

Realizing his town had nothing more for him, he left. He did not tell his mother or father because they would have wished to join him. However, the boy knew that adventure seldom came around under the watchful gaze of parents.

The boy had other plans. So one evening he hopped out the small, first floor window of his bedroom, grabbed his bike, and rode. He had decided that his town of New Brunswick was no town for adventure. New Brunswick, he assumed, was not so different from Old Brunswick before it. New trappings for the same old lifestyles. The grind of a small town.

The boy was looking for a new town, one in which he could start a new life, a town in which a story might just find him.

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

The boy had a name. He did not care for it, but he had one. His name was Eli.

Eli arrived in a town one evening after many a train ride and night under the stars. This town felt different. This town felt of stories. It was different from New Brunswick. It was smaller but vast, tamer but wild. Newer Brunswick, as he called it in his head, was different because he did not know what could be. He only knew he wished to find out.

He rode to the middle of the small, wooded town and dropped his bike at the center fountain. He was hot, so he stepped into the fountain, letting his feet soak and splashing some water on his face.

There was a girl sitting on the ledge of the fountain. She was about his age, feet dangling in the water. She looked up at him.

“Hello,” she said, scrunching her face, “I’m not sure you’re supposed to actually be in the fountain.”

“Oh,” said Eli, “I didn’t realize. I’m new to town.”

Of course, he said this because it seemed the sort of thing the hero might say. At least, in his story.

He knew the pursuit was trivial but he liked the game all the same. The evening was settling into it’s ethreal glow. This was the visage that Arthur Mist liked the earth the most in. Street lamps were only just beginning  to wink awake like meerkats, surveying the people that ambled by with caution. The New Orleans boardwalk was coming to life below, and Art could barely contain his excitement. It was how he always felt before a hunt, and tonight he thought he felt success in the air. If he could see himself through his tracking goggles he bet he would be as luminescent as he’d been in years.

He was looking to make a big catch today. He’d had a rough winter, with hardly any vagabond passions to speak of. But it was finally beginning to warm, and with that, passions would be more transient . The biggest passions wandered a bit more freely during the summer months, or so Art had come to learn.

He slid his tracking googles over his eyes, watching as the world became dark, but with it, a transposed glow emanated from each body on the street below him. Children shone the brightest, while adults appeared muted. The youngest proved the most habitable vessels, so only the strongest passions occupied there.

A laugh rang out from below, lacking any social hindrance. It had no other purpose but pure, unassailable purity. Art knew that he would have to be swift. Such a call would be sure to attract any vagabond passions wishing to find a new host. He reached for the gun at his hip, pulling it from it’s holster. He clicked off the safety on his third attempt. Even his experienced fingers wriggled with anticipation, making this usually routine act difficult. Keeping his eyes fixated on the couple below did not help make it any easier.

That was the source of the laugh, of course. A young lady in her twenties, walking arm and arm with a young man about her age. Or at least, Art assumed as much based on the glow they both gave off. That might change.

And then he saw it. A fat, purple glow gliding around the telephone wires. It was even bigger than Art had imagined it might be. The source of it’s prey was obvious, and it shot towards the girl who swung in the arms of her man. But unfortunately for her, tonight would perhaps not be the night where she found love. Not if Art had his way.  Vagabond passions of love such as this sold too well on the market.

Art aimed at the purple swirling hue, steadying his hands as it circled the girl twice, examining to make sure it had found its intended target.

But just as it was about to latch itself to its new body, Art Mist pulled the trigger. The weapon went off silently, but that did not make it any less devastating.

The vagabond twisted and convulsed in the air like a salted slug, before falling to the ground.

Art leapt from the top of the bar he’d been sitting on, scaring a few girls who’d just ordered a drink. He grabbed at his backpack, pulling a clear jar without acknowledging the girls. He would have heard one of the girls call him an asshole had he been listening. He wasn’t of course. He was only focused on the task at hand.

Most people thought anger was the vagabond to be worried about. Art had captured one on a few occasions. He’d even successfully wrangled a psychosis passion before. But to think these were to be feared the most was a common misconception.

Of all the feelings, love was the hardest to kill, and certainly the most dangerous. Art Mist would not underestimate the squirming purple in front of him.

Not this time.

 

The line between collaborative learning and chaos is a fine one and I was pretty sure I had crossed into chaos about fifteen minutes ago. As a teacher, one of the first acts of balance you learn to tackle is recognizing when to scrap an activity and move on. The volume of the room mixed with the squeaking chairs seemed to be whispering that now was that time.

 

“Let’s wrap up what we are doing. You have two minutes to put all your supplies away; starting now!”

 

I watch as all my fourth graders go into a mad dash, frantic to complete the task at hand. I contemplate for the umpteenth time how endearing it is that any task can be cranked up to the highest level of importance as soon as a stopwatch gets involved. The scene unfolds before me; Samiyah stuffing an array of broken colored pencils into a pencil box so broken it can hardly be considered a box at all, Jaylen tucking all chairs in at his table with jarring authority, Shayla struggling to zipper her backpack, each tick of the timer adding pressure to the usually menial task. I begin to count down from 10, as my mind ponders whether adult household chores would be more effective with the presence of a timer.

 

“Three”

 

Jaylen tucks his last chair in. He realizes this is the chair he must sit in and rips it back out, falling hard into the plastic before hastily folding his hands. He shoots a serious look in my direction just to hammer home the point.

 

“Two”

 

Shayla tosses the bookbag on the rack, half-zippered. She will deal with that later. She scrambles to find her chair.

 

“One”

 

Samiyah drops the pencil box impersonating chunk of plastic into her bookbag and swings her head around so fast I worry for her safety.

 

“And zero!”

 

I look out at a fourth-grade class silent, anticipating a compliment.

 

 Well, not quite the whole class. I look to the back and see Rakeem talking to his neighbor. He is laughing, oblivious to the rest of the class ready to learn.

 

“Rakeem,” I say, doing my best to voice conviction without confrontation, “we should be at a zero-voice volume now as a class.”

 

Rakeem ceases to talk, and looks at me in bewilderment.

 

“I wasn’t talking” he says.

 

I begin to wonder whether I left the confrontation in my voice. It seems I must have.

 

“I was watching your lips move, and I could hear you. So yes you were”

 

“No,” he says, with more bravado now, “I wasn’t. That wasn’t me”

 

“So you were just moving your lips for fun?”

 

“I wasn’t moving my lips”

 

There is a voice in my head telling me to give up on the argument. It takes every inch of restraint and all the lectures and teaching books I’ve ever read up to this point to get me to stop.

 

“Alright,” I say, switching my attention to the rest of my class, “I want everyone to get their ELA notebooks out and begin to answer the questions on page 83. We have talked about main idea the last few days so nothing should be new. This is a silent, independent activity. You will have 10 minutes and then we will go over the answers as a class. You may begin.”

 

They all snap into action. It’s a race against the clock once again.

 

“Rakeem, can I talk to you by the door please?”

 

Rakeem gives a sigh, looks for to his friend for help. His friend flashes him a defeated look. Lifting himself from the table as if he has a vest of rocks on, he ambles over to me.

 

“I don’t appreciate you lying to me” I say.

 

He tries to insert himself in before I’m finished but I stop him by raising a hand, letting him know I plan on continuing.

 

“In our classroom we respect all speakers. I respect if you’re talking and I expect the same from you.”

 

“But I wasn’t talking” Rakeem says again.

 

For a moment I feel myself getting angry. He is boldly lying to my face, not even the decency to realize he has been caught. And yet, as I wait, gathering my words so that I phrase them the way I want, I consider something. How strange it is, to be young and believe you can speak things into existence. Say it enough and it becomes reality.

 

“I watched you talking, and next time, coming out and being honest will save you a whole lot of trouble. But for now, you have work to do.”

 

 I can tell he wants to argue more but I flash him my newly acquired “don’t-try-me” teacher look, and he heads back to his seat.

 

It’s Thursday but I tell myself it’s Friday in my head; trying on the idea just to see how it feels. I think it a few more times.

 

I walk over to Jaylen who has his hand raised for help. Teaching on a Friday always feels a little better. I answer his question all smiles.

 

“Can I give you a tip?”

Calvin had been fumbling behind the cash register, banging the stack of quarters against the thin metal door, and he had not even realized that the elderly man was still there. The question of whether he had forgotten to give the man back his change flitted through his mind for the briefest moment. No, I definitely gave him his change. The panic subsided.

He looked up at the man, who had to be at least seventy years old. He had veins that showed on his bald head, and the smallest amount of scraggly white hairs still clinging to his skull. His hands were tucked tightly into his faded blue jacket, which aligned perfectly with the faded “Turner Sport Fishing” shirt that poked through from underneath. He didn’t look like a sport’s fisherman, thought Calvin. But then again, it looked like sports in general may have passed him by, and as far as sports went, fishing seemed manageable.

“Sure” said Calvin, a little taken aback by the question. He wasn’t working with Michelle, his twenty-two-year-old incredibly attractive co-worker, so his tip jar remained low, even for 6 o’clock at a non-franchised coffee house. He took a quick glance at the chipped cup next to the cash register, the scribbled sign that just read “Tip?” nearly falling off it completely.

“Try to get up before eight o’clock every morning. Even on your days-off! By the time you’re 28 you’ll have such a leg up on the rest of your peers. It’ll gain you so much productive hours.”

Calvin, stared at him, not sure whether to laugh or to be offended. Was he making a joke? He was smiling, but in more of a pleasant way, not an ‘I just made a joke’ way. He chose to give the old man a belated laugh, just in case.

“I think that’s more of advice,” said Calvin, “but thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

The old man smiled, “Perhaps you need to make a separate cup for advice than. Tip cup looks a little full.”

And with this comment, which, if said by anyone under the age of sixty, Calvin was sure he would’ve taken offense to, the old man began to head for the exit. A girl in a green raincoat was about to get in line anyways.

Calvin took her order, and began to prepare her pumpkin spice machiatto, but he still kept thinking about the odd encounter.

Tomorrow was his day off, and he should have been occupied with what trouble his friends would be getting themselves into for the night, but for some reason he couldn’t stop thinking about how early the gym opened.

That’s the thing about being an adult though, everyone is generally so absorbed with picking up their own fractured selves that you rarely get a chance to see everyone around you doing the exact same thing. An entire world of beach-goers with their heads to the sand, searching for sea-glass, not caring to notice the countless others searching in unison. God forbid you carelessly bump into someone and hinder their search momentarily though. The world expected you to move forward, keep with a routine and collect the fragments of your broken mind on your own time.

An elderly man, with a metal detector, large boxy glasses askew on his face, and a bucket hat with purple fishing hooks embroidered on it entered David’s view. David wondered what broken pieces he was searching for. Certainly some World War II era coins or some valuable metallic trinket, but he was probably searching for some peace of mind too. Normally David hated his morning walks to be invaded by other humans. He had a whole day of human interaction to look forward to, he didn’t need to be bogged down unnecessarily by one more. This case seemed different, however, the old man leisurely strolling along ahead of David. David knew he would catch and pass him eventually, but for the time being he was no more intrusive than a seagull plucking waterbugs off the shoreline.

David’s eyes began to fall on something in the distance. A black mass sat unmoving close to the water’s edge up ahead. Having frequented the beach enough, David knew this was not a jetty, or any of the usual ornaments of the beach. This was something new. Perhaps it was a boat or jeep out collecting clam traps. Whatever it was, it was large, and it stood right in the way of the elderly man who seemed to notice it around the same time as David. When the man finally got close to it, he placed his metal detector down on the ground, staring at it from a distance.

David watched the scene, transfixed. With each step, the fog clouded his view a little less until finally it fell into focus.

It was a whale. A humpback whale David was pretty sure, thinking back to a whale watching trip he had been on once with his wife. Ex-wife.

It was several feet from the water, with sand piles high on both sides of its tail, signs that at one point the enormous creature had struggled to pry itself from the beach and back into the ocean. Now, however, it lay motionless, seemingly accepting what appeared to be a grim fate. The only signs of life at all were the understated rise and fall of its sleek, leather skin and its massive eyes. Where David would have expected to see panic he was shocked to see nothing more than a resigned numbness. It was weak and appeared to be half asleep, barely holding on to the world around it.

“Doesn’t matter how many times you see it, it’s still such a painful sight”

The man had an unusually gruff voice. He was certainly a smoker at one point in his life, if he didn’t continue the bad habit to this day.

“Does it happen often?” asked David, “Them beaching themselves like this? I’ve never seen it before.”

“Not often, and usually not alone like this one. Many times either a current or a tide shift catches the whole pod. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen just one like this.”

A cold breeze raced along the shoreline, reaching out and tilting the old man’s hat with its ferocity. He in turn reached up with his unsteady hands and pulled it back down upon his wispy hair.

“So what do we do? Do we call the Coast Guard?” asked David.

“Coast Guard won’t come,” said the old man matter-of-factly, “maybe if it was a more endangered whale, but with an older humpback like this one they will consider it a waste of resources. No, I think in this case there is nothing to be done.”

David felt a flash of anger in himself, at the old man, although he knew it was misplaced.

“So we just leave it here to die? I’m sorry but that doesn’t seem right” he said.

“I didn’t say it was right,” said the man, “I would never consider that right. But it is the truth of the situation. You can always call if you’d like. You seem someone who has a cellphone.”

David turned from the whale to look at the man. He’d picked up his metal detector again, somewhere in the midst of their conversation, and he stood there watching the whale with an indistinguishable look.

“Nothing” David repeated; less a question this time and more a statement.

“Nature” replied the man; less an answer and more a rumination.

They stood in silence, watching the beast for several more minutes. It remained still for the most part, only sliding its tail meekly once, something that could hardly even be considered an escape attempt.

Finally the old man seemed to have seen enough. He pulled the hat firmly onto his head, and began to walk around the dying mammal.

“You have a blessed day, young man. I’m sorry your morning had to start with such a sadness.”

David nodded and mumbled something half-heartedly in response. He was still stewing about the whole situation.

It didn’t sit right to him, the whole scene. That such an animal, such a large and magnificent being could be ended by the smallest shift in the tide. The multitude of tiny pebbles held it trapped on the beach until it withered away. Nobody to help it, even with a benevolent soul right beside it. It was enough to make him queasy.

“No” David said, more so for himself, although the utterance slipped out into the air.

David walked slowly to the whale’s tail, went to a solid enough area of flesh, placed both hands against its slimy exterior and began to push with all his might. The sand allowed for very little traction, and soon he had to take a second to breathe.

He refused to just accept this whale’s death without trying to get it back into the water, just as he refused to believe there was any fight too big to be solved by lobbing harmless pillows at his girl until she laughed. He refused to let a faulty shift in the tides reek such devastation. He refused to let this die, even with the whale’s own eyes looking on at him with indifference. He dug in again, shoving with all his might, hoping somehow he might get the earth to bend to his will.

 

The crashing beat of the waves upon the malleable beach was faster than David’s but his heart fell in line just the same. The uptick in tempo was electric, running counter to his normal experience of walking along the beach. This did, however, fall in line with the general climate of the day, the rainy mist pressing gently against his face but with each lick warning of something a bit more sinister to come.

It was this early morning routine that drew him to this place of familiarity and jarring newness. He walked one of three paths each morning; each staggeringly different from the next but each possessing the same calming ability he craved so dearly to start his day. He was a wanderer of the sidewalk paths within the richly, quaint neighborhood where he imagined a grainy alternate reality amid the lovely hanging tree swings and weathered wood benches. He frequented the cobblestone paths along Main Street, which was altogether unbearable anytime past 7:30 but did harbor his favorite coffee shop. And of course, he had the walk along the beach that he found himself on now.

These walks had drawn him out earlier and earlier ever since the divorce.

Divorce.

Even thinking the word was terribly difficult for David, and as such he found himself saying it in his head over and over again in some desperate attempt to normalize it. It was like a cavity. He continually ran his tongue over the decaying word, hoping to himself that the more he played with it, the more it would dull the pain, and maybe even one day it wouldn’t be there at all. But this morning was not to be that morning. His tongue prodded the idea in his mind gently and it resonated with pain just as it had the very first time.

David had never even considered himself one to be a product of divorce. Maybe that’s what had him so destroyed by it he thought as he removed his shoes. As he stowed his worn Nike shoes under his armpit he knew exactly what he was doing. He was hoping that the cold, rocky sand might distract him from this cyclical thought process he found himself on every morning. Until the uneven beach ground could work it’s magic, he decided he would ponder on. And ponder he did, mulling over his parent’s marriage, and their parent’s marriage, and their parent’s parent’s marriage. Had any of them ever even considered letting their love die? The worst thing was that he hadn’t wanted to. She had left a letter on the table one morning as she left for a business trip in Vancouver.

It’s not that we didn’t have something, Dave. We had love. But to continue to pretend like we still have it doesn’t seem fair to either of us.

She had never been much of a writer, he thought selfishly. That didn’t matter though when the simplicity breaks into your core. And this one had been shattering.