During the morning rainfall in spring, I usually felt invigorated by the dewy air. At least momentarily, most of the ominous clouds already diminished soon after I walked outside, which made the use of an umbrella excessive. Jolly and I didn’t ordinarily deviate from our standard route. We really had no cause to be overly venturesome in this capacity. Well-defined trails encircled most of the forest’s landscape leading to and from Lake Endelman, and there happened to be a specific pathway easily accessible from my backyard. My collie had become so habituated to this jaunt that she tracked her own paw prints from the previous mornings. I languidly followed behind her as she zigzagged between the underbrush in route to a modestly shaded dell that provided a scenic view of the entire horseshoe-shaped lake. No motor crafts were permitted here to disrupt the water; this luxury provided its denizens a sanctuary from man’s interference.
Farther along the wood’s hollow, I found my favorite rock to recline upon. This was the very same spot that I had revisited since my boyhood. The rock’s surface was flat on its topside, partially mantled in a pea-green moss, and conveniently jutting from the soil in a place absent from dense foliage or brushwood. Additionally, the view of Lake Endelman was unobstructed from this vantage point. I fondly reminisced about bringing a journal here in my younger years and writing for hours on end, sometimes until the late afternoon’s light slipped behind the camouflage of evergreens. I wanted to get back to the habit of writing again, and even recently purchased a leatherback journal to give me an inspiration to do so.
Just along the lake’s lower embankment, towards the rock’s left side, I noticed an isolated willow tree budding with its early signs of verdant lace. In the summertime, this tree’s arched limbs furnished both shade and esthetic charm to the setting. Since there weren’t any other willow trees quite like it along the lake’s perimeter, it merited a singular remembrance from me. In fact, I never recalled a time when the tree wasn’t leaning crookedly beside the water with its roots knotted on the knoll’s edge. I especially liked the way in which its branches swayed in the tepid breezes of the day, intermittingly allowing bands of sunlight to illuminate its foliage. Had I only judged the world on the quietude and beauty of this sole habitat, I would’ve contended that nothing terrible ever occurred beyond its borders.
In recent weeks I began collecting quarter-sized stones from the lake’s edge and then proceeded to assemble them in a sort of cairn beneath the willow tree. I had no explanation for my enthusiasm of this chore, other than I might’ve harbored thoughts of skimming these rocks across the water’s placid surface, as I practiced during my youth. But at the present hour, I hadn’t flung a single pebble from the arranged pile. Yet I was unusually conscious of this collection, and committed myself to add at least one rock to the arrangement before the end of each visit.
The lure of residing in an environment such as Willows Edge was the fact that few things changed drastically (or at all) in nearly seventy-five years. The town’s inhabitants, mostly beyond the age of fifty, were quite adamant to keep things preserved from the wheels of progression whirling on all sides of the township’s precincts. Of course, not everyone cherished the solitude and simplicity of my hometown. For some, my wife included, this potted paradise seemed like an ecological prison. She no longer felt privileged to retreat within the threadwork of trails weaving between trees and wild perennials that withstood at least a hundred winters of snowfall.
From Rachel’s perspective, more illustrious destinations certainly awaited. Presently, she longed for the bustle of city life, and aspired to frequent museums as a means to augment her appreciation for culture and human achievement. She often told me that the woods were a place to camp, not to live. My shortsighted perceptions, I gathered, had caused her to grow numb with boredom. Still, I couldn’t help but to savor the times in which she pretended to embrace my passions.
When we first married, we often hiked to the same willow tree I just spoke about. In those days, we usually settled down to a picnic lunch on the mossy rock, sometimes to observe a family of painter turtles scuttling along the lake’s fringes. While sipping wine and indulging on pungent cheese and crackers, (her idea), we prattled about the frolicsome delights that young lovers often do. In those calm, uncomplicated moments of togetherness, it didn’t seem as if we’d ever drift away from one another. She’d spin yarns about her childhood home in Boston, and I’d read passages of my unfinished novels to her from my journals. I distinctly remembered her gushing, ‘you’re going to be a famous writer someday, Corbin. I can just feel it’. Naturally, I smiled at her assertion, mostly because I wanted this to be true, but I now thought we both envisioned it for different reasons.
As a teacher and writer, I certainly understood the necessity of questing for adventure in order to enrich my surroundings. I even once prescribed to the notion that a truly ambitious man rarely set boundaries to his travels. But as I advanced toward middle age, I recognized how many people lived out their days in discontentment, always yearning to be somewhere other than where they actually were. According to Rachel, I had reverted to a simpler time by coming back to Willows Edge, and my occupation at a neighboring high school left her with no encouraging hope for us to ever reside anywhere far beyond this provincial backdrop.
A few months before her death, my mother advised me about something she detected in Rachel’s eyes, or more precisely, an intangible trait she no longer espied. Apparently, in the early days of my marriage, my mother remembered Rachel gazing at me with a fondness that fully projected my wife’s amorous feelings. As far as my mother was concerned, Rachel needed no words to convey this notion, because her eyes spoke volumes more than what her lips could’ve ever possibly uttered. But mothers typically sensed contempt toward their children well before they had an ability to see it for themselves. In this vein, Norma Cobbs communicated her suspicions to me in uncensored terms.
“You know, Corbin, you’re not going to keep Rachel happy forever, not here anyway. She expects more from the world, and more from you. I’m afraid she doesn’t truly love you anymore.”
Naturally, I became defensive toward my mother’s accusation, especially since she had lived her entire life in Willows Edge alongside my father without complaint. Of course, I lacked the ability or desire to observe Rachel’s transformation until quite recently. Now, as my mother prophesized, it might’ve been too late for me to make a difference in Rachel’s mind.
It didn’t require a glare from my wife in order for me to comprehend her disappointment in my unfulfilled expectations. Honestly, I believed almost any woman would’ve behaved similarly. In happier times, Rachel always provided me with the encouragement to keep writing, no matter how often the pressures of life constricted my imagination. But as I settled into a career in teaching, I felt virtually abandoned by the Muses. It’s not that I deemed myself an abject failure for accepting my position as an educator. After all, most people commended me for enduring a high school atmosphere for the past nineteen years. Moreover, I had no reservations about analyzing literature with a younger generation. In fact, I likened it to a therapeutic exercise for the soul. Yet, no matter how many gratifying instances I recounted in the classroom among my students, I couldn’t displace a paralyzing notion that I had compromised the pursuit of my own passion to indulge in the creations of other authors.
In my home’s basement I stored a cardboard box that contained all of my writings since childhood. Presently, at least fifteen notebooks of various sizes and colors remained crammed with pages upon pages of handwritten short stories, screenplays, comic books, and unedited novels I penned since my own high school years. At one time, I displayed some of these works hesitantly to the people whom I trusted, but now I tucked them all into the dusty dankness of a cellar, sealed away from any chance of future criticism.
Perhaps a nagging phobia of rejection hindered me for most of my life, and I suspected other unproven authors underwent a similar struggle. Unfortunately, a writer’s mind cultivated introspective th
oughts, inevitably causing him to second guess his own creativity. As a result, I learned to walk behind the shadows of others, permitting them to stride with glowing confidence, while I tripped and sputtered in the cracks along a splintered sidewalk.
Rachel may not have thought of me as a cosmopolitan spirit, but I knew she never comprehended the uncharted regions I routinely explored within the framework of literature. Whether my journeys were authentic or conjured didn’t matter to me. Besides, nothing in reality ever rivaled the realm of fantasy. While encapsulated between the unfettered pages of prose, I’ve scaled the towering turrets of fabled castles, and meandered through the pastoral provinces of English moors. I’ve previewed Victorian cities and surveyed the war-ravaged remnants of the world’s lost civilizations. I’ve journeyed high into the Swiss Alps and Appalachian trails, and deep into the wooded hollows of legendary pathways. My expeditions have guided me beyond the miry banks of the Mississippi River, through the serpentine savageness of a Congolese adventure, and along the flooded infrastructures of medieval Venice.
I’ve navigated the untamed currents of oceans and seas from the north Atlantic to the Mediterranean and back again. The grand adventures of Homeric heroes and heralded sleuths all remained stationed within the confines of my brain. I’ve conversed with madmen and demons, lovers and saints, dreamers and schemers, poets and prodigies, and all those literary icons that flourished in the minds of this world’s most innovative spirits. Yet at the conclusion of each day, my vicarious voyages ceased with the closing of a book, or at least that’s how I always predicted the outcome before this morning.
Now, as complications of my malady rooted like tendrils within my mind, I recognized that my spells of unconsciousness became more frequent and somehow freakishly connected to everything I had just described. Up until recently, I had no perceptible recollection of where my mind ventured during the blackouts. But suddenly, the destinations were partially tangible, almost to a level where I fully immersed myself into each environment at will. Yet at the same time, I encountered only a brief period of dizziness and perspiration before the onset of each episode. This left me virtually no time to adequately prepare for what awaited me behind closed eyelids.
This morning’s clement air only offered a temporary refuge from my disease. I had little reason to hope that my symptoms had regressed. If anything, my condition turned more unpredictable with each ensuing second. Even sitting in the willow tree’s shadow upon my favorite rock alongside my dog provided minimal protection from this ever-present disorder. The best thing for me to do now was return to my home and attempt to refresh my thoughts there. After all, I still had a full day of classes to instruct and didn’t currently have any sick time left to squander. Although my head felt considerably weighted, I remained confident that I had the stamina to endure a short jaunt back along the trail. Jolly seemed eager to comply, too, especially since the common loons weren’t anywhere within range of our vantage point this morning.
As I tried to stand up from the rock, however, I sensed a spell of vertigo overwhelm me. Instead of tumbling from my feet, which would’ve resulted in even more distress upon my eventual awakening, I eased down into a squatting position atop the rock. The dizziness rarely ceased without first rendering me unconscious for what I estimated to be no more than three minute intervals. Rather than resist the inevitable episode, I gently reclined on the rock’s surface, using the moss as a sort of makeshift cushion for the back of my neck. Jolly whimpered at my side, but I had no doubt that she’d look after me until I regained consciousness.
The last image I saw before passing out was a mass of silver clouds assembling above the treetops like a vanguard of armored sentinels.
Chapter 4
5:54 A.M.
The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs Page 3
