Apple in the Earth

by C.T. Millis

Chapter 8

  The contents of what a man needs to survive and what a man needs to live are so remote from one another they require two separate lists. What a man needs to survive is mere energy. Food, warmth, resistance to the elements, to attack. What a man needs to live is held in the spectrum of time. He needs to understand the past. A man needs to find love, which is nothing more than caring, kindness, and companionship- everyday of his life to allow him to grow. Love is the twine that holds balloons together in a bunch. Memories are those balloons. He has to be able to look forward to a continuation of his work, a trust that his companion will continue to soothe the bumpy scars of his past.

  Peter was energy. The first time his boss at Syderski’s Gas and Go scheduled him, the old man looked in Peter’s eyes and knew he needed as many hours as he could get. So Peter worked 12 hours a day most days of the week. Men in flannel shirts and stiff jeans would walk into the shop some days and ask him when he was free to do yard work or help move boxes from one house to another for a friend. Peter would always offer his time to help- often in exchange for a meal or a beer.

  On his time off, he would lay inert in his bed. He lived in an undecorated studio apartment with the furniture pushed close together. It did not look empty. Peter would stare out of the window or into the television, turning it up as loud as he could to avoid his own thoughts. Or, he would go for a walk in the park at the end of the block where his apartment complex was located. It was a small park, only a few trails, a miserly playground, and a bench that overlooked a murky pond. He would sit on the bench so he could trace the etched letters of the name that the bench was memorialized to. Peter knew the man- frozen by death at the age of eighteen a few years before. It was shortly after their high school graduation. The namesake of the carefully etched wood hung himself in his parent’s basement after his girlfriend left him. Only Peter and the girl knew the reason he did it was because he could not stand to live his life as himself. Only to himself, Peter said it out loud,

  “That’s a stupid reason to die.” But nobody was around to tell him it was also a stupid reason not to live. Peter was energy, a channel of industry. Peter had to work so much so he would not think about it. A lot of people do.

  Mr. Heckerman once had love. Sometimes he would have to shut out beautiful thoughts when making love to his wife. He would think it was impossible for humanity to have existed the last 10,000 years for any other reason than him to be with her. Not architecture, not art, nor music, paddle boats, walls that could be seen from space, or shipwrecks. Sometimes he could not help but believe the entire world was made to create the moments he had with her.

  He also loved his job. He would get a pure biological rush making diseases merge and dissipate, spin and waltz. Heckerman was getting somewhere. The numbers proved it. The lab reports echoed hope and promise. He had a window in the main lab that overlooked a lake- and with its seasons the research would change. Often in the spring and summer, he would eat his lunch outside on the picnic bench by the lake. He would smell the sweet decay of moss and hear the life surge from beneath the surface while he ate the carefully portioned lunch his wife created for him.

  His son was his future, somehow more amazing than any other human he could imagine. They never planned to have children, but their son slipped ahead of their travel plans. Everyone was always telling Heckerman that his son that he was so mature. He was amazed at the talent and intelligence they boy possessed. The boy was both thin and tall for his age. He was the person the love created. Heckerman had beautiful thoughts about this part of his life, too. He thought about a spool of twine traveling through a great forest- wrapped around every tree. The trees would change species every few feet. He imagined the string went all the way to the heart of the forest- to the father tree, where they all came from. Mike was part of the forest, and his son was a continuation of not only himself, but everything that came before him.

  There is beauty in life, but not in survival. That is at the top of the list of differences between the two.