No Fear

by Darcia Helle

  Ingrained politeness ensures I automatically stop walking. The odd question catches me off guard. Doesn’t everyone have a cellphone these days?

  I don’t think I spoke those words aloud, but he offers a self-deprecating smile and answers my unspoken question.

  “My phone was stolen last night.”

  “Oh. That’s terrible.”

  He shrugs, and his lopsided grin makes him appear younger than I’d first thought. Younger than me. Late thirties, or perhaps forty.

  I tug my cellphone from my pocket. My purse is back in the car, tucked under the seat. I didn’t see any reason to lug it with me on my walk. I wanted to be unencumbered by things, as if traveling light would release me from the burden of memories.

  “It’s 11:23.”

  He makes a face, like he’s annoyed but he expected it, so he’s more resigned to being right than he is angry. “Looks like I’ve been stood up.”

  My first thought is that I can’t imagine anyone standing up this man, with his rugged good looks and honey voice. Then I wonder who makes a date for 11:00 on a Tuesday morning. And then I further scrutinize my assumption that his being stood up implies a date, and not a work-related meeting.

  All these thoughts pass in the span of a heartbeat. I slip my phone back in my pocket and say, “Perhaps the person is just late and couldn’t let you know because you don’t have your phone.”

  “You’re kind but, no, definitely stood up.”

  His tone is playful. He might be flirting, but it’s been so long that I don’t trust myself to know. Not that it matters, anyway. I’m not capable of flirting back. And, really, I’m sure he’s only being friendly. Playfulness is probably his nature. His default position.

  And then there you are with your easy smile. A ghost in my mind, the clarity of your image fading, and your smile a wispy impression in the mist.

  “You look sad,” he says.

  I want to tell this handsome stranger that I’d once been someone else. I’d laughed easily and often. I’d strode through the world like I belonged here. Only recently did I become this person who hovers around the edges of life, leaking sadness into whatever space I occupy.

  I find myself nodding in acquiescence, but I don’t attempt to qualify his statement with reasons. Your suicide is a stigma I carry in silence.

  “Have a good day,” I tell him as I start to walk past.

  “Wait.”

  My feet stop of their own accord, as if his soft word is a command. I look at him. “Yes?”

  His smile falters. He seems to be thinking, considering—his expression is one of indecision or contemplation.

  His gaze meets mine. I see something in the depths of those eyes, something familiar. Something shared.

  “I know you don’t remember me,” he says. “I thought maybe I should just let you pass, but—” He motions to the diner behind him. “—maybe you’d like to have a cup of coffee?”

  “I’m sorry.” I shake my head. “We’ve met?”

  “Briefly. At Mark’s funeral.”

  He says your name and my breath catches in my chest. His voice speaking your name hums inside my head, echoes of who you were bouncing about in a frantic buzz. I feel myself staring at him, though I don’t really see him at all. I see you, your shadow blocking him out. A trace of who you were when you walked among us, carrying that façade of a well-adjusted, happy young man.

  “Are you okay?”

  I blink and he’s standing there beside me, not quite hovering, concern in his eyes. The ache of unshed tears burns my throat and blurs my vision. I nod, not trusting my voice.

  “Mark was one of my students,” he says now. “Physics. Top of his class. Brilliant young man.”

  And you were. From the time you were a little boy, curious and always absorbing things around you. A little sponge. And then bipolar hit you hard, your personal demon, and, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t ease the misery that was yours alone.

  What kind of mother was I, that I couldn’t heal my son?

  College, I thought, had been good for you. Learning kept you motivated, gave you focus.

  But, then, nothing was enough to keep you here. Maybe I always knew that.

  “My mother committed suicide,” he tells me. “I was six. She suffered severe postpartum depression after my sister was born.”

  We’re standing here on the sidewalk—the sun shining, cars passing, the sound of laughter drifting on the breeze—while his quiet voice shares a personal sorrow and the space around us feels exclusive, ours alone.

  He gives his head a quick shake. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just wanted you to know that I understand the kind of pain you’re feeling. And I wanted you to know that it’s okay to let some of it go. He wouldn’t want you to take on his suffering.”

  His words hit me hard. The way he says them. The absolute knowledge.

  And he’s right.

  You would hate for me to carry your burden.

  I glance at the diner. “Are you still up for that coffee?”

  I Didn’t Know His Name

  The sky wept for the man about to be buried. Fat drops splattered and spread until the greedy earth sucked them in. The shower of tears added weight to the dirt, causing miniature mudslides in the growing hole.

  I didn’t cry for the man whose grave I was digging. I didn’t know him. The man could have been a wealthy philanthropist, donating millions to help eradicate world hunger. Or he could have been a pedophile. As with most people, he probably spent his life in the middle of these two extremes. He’d be known by many, truly missed by only a few.

  I stuck my shovel into the wet dirt. The metal clanged against something hard and I spent several minutes digging out a baseball-sized chunk of rock. The cool rain dripped down the back of my lightweight jacket, raising goose bumps on my flesh. Despite the chill, sweat sprang from my forehead and armpits. I’d been digging for twenty minutes and had barely made a dent in the ancient land.

  Mud sucked at my sneakers. I stepped back from the hole and wiped the rain from my eyes. This would be the man’s final resting place. He’d be watched over by the crowd of trees and the animals and insects that made this space their home. The earth would slowly reclaim him; the ultimate form of recycling.

  I didn’t know the man’s name. Names were nothing more than labels attached to us at birth. We could just as easily be assigned serial numbers.

  The rain eased to a slow sprinkle. I stuck my shovel back in the ground, came up with a pile of fresh earth. I set it beside the hole, went back in for more. Lift and dump. Lift and dump. A mindless activity, perhaps, though I found it profoundly stimulating. I had chosen this place, beneath these trees, and intended to treat this final resting place with the respect it deserved.

  I didn’t know his name, this man whose grave I was digging. I didn’t know when he’d come into the world or how he’d lived his life. I would know the intimate details of his last moments. I would know where he’d been laid to rest.

  My shirt clung to me, wet with both sweat and rain. I lifted another shovelful of dirt, added it to the pile. The clouds rolled and divided. A slice of blue sky brought a glimpse of the sun. It had come to say a final goodbye.

  A tree root impeded my progress. I worked diligently, breaking it with the blade of my shovel, dissecting it to allow space for the body that would rest here.

  I didn’t know the man's name. Anthony or Andrew, Thomas or Timothy. The name didn’t matter, though I would like the intimacy that one provided. I could give him a name, christen him anew on this day, in this place where he’d come to the end of his journey.

  I dwelled on this momentarily as I dug. No, I thought as I uncovered another large rock. Names came with baggage. Identities bound us to who we’d been, the person others had come to know and expected us to be. Names created portraits, with colors and symbols, distinctions and associations. We grew to look like the name and the name grew to define us.

 
This man, whose final resting place I now dug, would remain anonymous to me. He would leave the world the way he came, a clean slate in which the portrait could be anything of his making. No boundaries to define his life or his death.

  An hour into the digging and I was halfway there. New England dirt could be difficult, challenging, relentless in its struggle to remain intact. The earth here was never eager to give up its depths. That quality made it all the more perfect for its intended use.

  Many would say that what I do holds no value. Digging a hole, moving earth from one place to another then back again. Many would scoff, call what I do menial labor. We have machines now to do most everything for us. We need not strain ourselves unnecessarily, whether that strain be physical or intellectual.

  I vehemently disagree, as you might suspect. Digging a hole is not simply about creating an empty pocket within the earth. The process brings me to a place of solitude. The dirt beneath my fingernails, clinging to my skin. The rich, intoxicating odors of freshly bloomed flowers and long buried sediment.

  Birth and death rarely meet.

  The spot of final rest is never a random choice. I do not spin my shovel and dig where the blade points. I take my work seriously and cannot leave such things to chance.

  While conception is often a random, thoughtless moment in time, death can never be. To start a complicated life or a simple story requires little. You see, no one would know the difference, whether you’d done it right or wrong or not at all. That thing, the life or the story, did not exist before you chose to bring it about.

  Perhaps your child or your story was conceived by accident. The conception, that brief moment, is rarely remembered and matters not. The life lived, the story told, become the focus.

  Death, however, destroys that which exists. The moment takes something away and gives nothing back. That end, whether it be a slow fizzle or a grand explosion, can overshadow all else. Death becomes the defining moment of the life lived.

  I didn’t know his name, this man whose final resting place I’d finished digging. The rain had ended, and the sun now worked to dry the dampness left behind. Drops of water slipped from the leaves above. The sound was like a thousand tiny fairies performing a farewell tap dance.

  The time had come for earth and man to meet. I looked over now, at the man I’d left tied to the tree. His frantic squirming over the past two hours had caused the ropes to dig into his flesh. Blood trickled from the raw wounds. The gag forced his tongue to remain still. I did not know this man’s name and I didn’t want him to say it aloud.

  I untied the ropes, releasing the man from the tree. The binds on his ankles and wrists remained. I bent at the knees and hoisted him up. He wasn’t overly heavy, but I was tired from two hours of digging. The strain of lifting him made my legs tremble.

  I walked him to the hole. His eyes locked on mine. I saw his story there, details of a life lived, as he pleaded with those eyes. But I didn’t want to know how he’d lived.

  Down on my knees, I lowered him into the hole. A puddle had formed there at the bottom and he shivered at the chill. I picked up my shovel and tossed the first pile of dirt over his legs. He squirmed and twisted. I stuck my shovel in the mound of dirt. Lift and dump. Lift and dump.

  I saved his face for last. The weight of the soil kept him still now, though his head rolled back and forth. Fighting till the end. I looked into his eyes and absorbed those last moments. An entire life condensed into this brief exchange.

  The dirt splashed over his face. He sputtered, spit at the dark loam. Then he was gone. I continued on, lifting and dumping the earth. His hands, bound together, pushed through the mound and clawed for freedom one last time.

  I didn’t know his name, this man whose final resting place I had chosen. In the end, his name hadn't mattered. They never did.

  Pointless Story

  I feel it here, almost as if it’s a living thing. Bits of history absorbed in the land, bleeding out into the air, if only we pay attention. Whispered chants come to me on the wind. I strain to listen but the distance is too vast.

  Brian is fidgeting beside me. He’s holding his cellphone, looking at his Facebook app for a distraction.

  “Katie,” he says, “how much longer are we gonna just stand here?”

  Impossible to miss the irritation in his voice, though he attempts to wrap it in the guise of curiosity. I won’t give in to him this time, and I ignore his passive-aggressive nudge.

  “Isn’t it beautiful here,” I say. Not a question, really. More a rhetorical statement. But he chooses to answer anyway.

  “Sure. But it’s just grass and an overgrown ant mound with rocks piled on. Kinda boring, don’t you think? Let’s get outta here, go down to the beach.”

  I glance at him. He’s still looking at his phone, reading Facebook posts from people he’s never met. His sun-bleached hair is windblown, messy in that tousled, sexy kind of way. He’s tall and lean, tanned skin and chiseled features. Easy to see what attracted me to him, though I’m struggling with why I stay in this mismatched coupling. Or, for that matter, why he does.

  “Do you wonder why we’re here?” I ask.

  He rolls his eyes at me. “We’re here because this is where you wanted to come on vacation.”

  “I don’t mean here, in this spot, at this moment. I mean here in general. On this planet.”

  “Big bang.”

  “And that’s it?”

  He shrugs. “You know I’m not religious.”

  “I’m not talking about a specific religion, either. Look around you,” I say, waving my hands out and around us. “Don’t you feel anything?”

  “I feel hungry.”

  His smirk doesn’t charm me the way it used to. I want to tell him to leave. Not just to go down to the ocean or back to the hotel, but to get on a plane and go home. Instead I bite my lower lip and turn away from him. I can’t blame him, not entirely. I’ve become too introspective for my gregarious and self-involved boyfriend.

  Still, how can he not feel the energy here? My skin prickles with it. I want to lie in the center of the mound, stretched out like an offering.

  Eventually, I succumb to his souring mood. We have lunch at a brightly lit café, eating overpriced sandwiches with fancy names. By 1 o’clock, we’re back on the beach, stripping off clothes and slathering on sunscreen.

  Lie around.

  Eat.

  Lie around.

  Drink.

  Life on repeat.

  Even vacations can fall into a dull routine.

  Surrounded by people. Couples groping one another, murmuring naughty fantasies. Children running, splashing, giggling. A few hours or a few days away from the stresses of work, finances, responsibilities. An escape from the drudgery of living.

  What are we doing here?

  I close my eyes and breathe the salty air, thinking of a time when we didn’t take this all for granted. Each day should be a gift, full of discovery.

  Brian has his phone out again. He’s watching YouTube videos, the volume drowning out the rhythmic pulse of waves hitting the shore. It’s like we’ve transplanted our living room onto the beach. Why even bother traveling? I could have spread a blanket under a sunlamp, put a beach photo on the laptop screen, and we could have sat at home doing this exact same thing. Blaming the phone is silly, but I want to smash the thing to bits. I need to get up, distract myself, before I make a scene that will embarrass us both.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Katie, wait,” he says.

  For a brief moment, I think he understands. Then he pulls a couple of bills from his wallet and, handing them to me, says, “Bring me back a beer.”

  A beer. Of course.

  I take the money because it’s easier than arguing. I hadn’t intended to go to the snack bar. I don’t want to sit here and drink while he plays with his phone. I want to…

  What, exactly?

  I don’t know, which is the basis of my problem.

  I�
�m surprised to find myself back near the mound, looking on from the copse of trees. The spot has some sort of pull, leading me here as if I exist in a stupor. Kneeling down, I run my fingers over the grass. Age-old vibrations. Whispers on the wind.

  I’m losing my mind.

  That’s the only plausible explanation.

  I can’t untangle the gentle hum of voices. An ancient language, lost to wind and time.

  My feet carry me to the mound. Up the incline. Plant me at its center, where the energy pulsates and the view steals my breath. This feeling is impossible to describe. I am both remarkably calm and overwhelmingly alive.

  Half the mound is shaded now. The stones are cool beneath my fingers. I trace their jagged edges, wondering how they got here, who carried them, and why.

  More than an hour has passed when I trudge back across the beach. Grains of sand and salt, along with bits of grass and dirt, cling to my sweat-dampened skin. We take traces of a place along with us, scattering them with our memories. And we all now know, from those crime and forensic TV shows, that we also leave traces of ourselves behind. Pieces of me are at home, on the city streets, floating in the chilly air. Does that mean I will never be whole? Or am I a mosaic of all I encounter?

  Brian is lying on his towel, on his back, his eyes hidden behind dark shades. He’s plugged into earbuds. The faint sound of Fall Out Boy leaks around his ears. I nudge him with my toe and offer the cold, dripping beer bottle.

  He sits up with a boyish smile. “Thanks.”

  He doesn’t even notice how long I’ve been gone. I could have been abducted by aliens or run off with a motorcycle gang.

  Sit down on my towel.

  More sunscreen.

  Lie back.

  Close my eyes.

  My fingers dig into the sand. Boredom claws at my insides. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I relax? I love the beach. Coming here had been my choice. Seven days away from the city. Seven days in the sun, barefoot, doing absolutely nothing. I’d planned this trip three months in advance. Ninety days wished away as I waited for these seven. Life in fast forward.