Back to Chapter 30
Chapter 31 – A sunset on the beach
Finally Mike recovered enough to move away from the grave, shake hands
with Reverend Chandler, and tell his girlfriend that he was ready to
leave. On their way out they drove through old neighborhood. He insisted
on passing by his family’s former home for the last time. The house was
being demolished, with great care because its materials were loaded with
toxic chemicals. Ruthie noticed that the front yard already was dug up
and that one of the neighbor’s trees had started to wilt.
They returned to Davenport. On their way back they passed an enormous
billboard. It was 15 stories high and as long as a football field. The
ubiquitous clown was featured, of course. The slogan read:
America is a Mega-Town nation!
The newest slogan…that pretty much said it all. The billboard was a new
feature as well, because Mega-Town Associates had filed a court
challenge to state laws restricting the size of billboards. Not letting
corporations make billboards as large as they wanted was a violation of
the First Amendment and of free speech. Of course the courts sided with
Mega-Town, and now the company was celebrating by covering the US
landscape with the largest billboards that had ever been built.
----------
When they returned to Davenport, the couple briefly stepped into Mike’s
apartment to change out of their formal clothing. Ruthie took off her
uncomfortable dress, hoping it would be a very long time before she
would have to wear it again. She didn’t see why she would…no formal
events were coming up that she was aware of. It was warm enough for her
to wear the red dress that Mike had bought her when they first started
going out in October. How long ago that seemed, and yet it was only
slightly more than half a year. She knew that the dress was not really
appropriate for Mike’s mood, but they did have to move on. Besides, it
was getting hot and Ruthie was eager to enjoy the fresh air on her skin.
It was still early enough to drive to San Gregorio beach and enjoy a few
hours of late-afternoon sunshine. Ruthie made the suggestion. Mike
agreed, not really knowing what else to do. They got there and found a
place to park. It had been crowded earlier on, but now people were just
starting to leave. Mike and Ruthie walked down the steps, dropped off
their clothes at one of the driftwood shelters, and walked out onto the
shoreline. The tide was out and a wide, peaceful stretch of wet sand lay
between them and the distant waves. Seagulls circled overhead and
sandpipers scurried in front of the couple. A soft wind blew against
their bare bodies, with just a hint of chilliness in it. Soon enough the
sun would be low in the horizon, low enough to look at as it set.
They got to the shore’s edge and felt the cold water washing around
their feet. Mike took Ruthie in his arms. For a long time they looked
out over the Pacific Ocean. Ruthie lifted up Mike’s hand and sadly
kissed it.
The waves are calling me. I belong out there, my body floating in that
water, but that’s gonna have to wait. I didn’t want to have to wait
around…I hate my life…I hate this existence…there’s really no point in
me staying alive…I don’t belong on this planet, in this reality…for me
there’s no joy and there never will be. I know that more than ever now.
But I can’t leave, at least not yet.
Ruthie caressed Mike’s hand. She was convinced that she did not love
him, at least not the way she thought she was supposed to love a
partner. The passion, the sexual desire, the joy that a person feels
upon seeing their companion, was something Ruthie would never experience
with Mike.
And yet, in her own way, she did love him, more than either of them
could have imagined. Ruthie knew that whatever her faults, she was all
he had, the only person in his life that gave it any purpose. Regardless
of how she felt about herself, she would never take that purpose away
from him. Their friendship had committed her to living a life that would
not be for her, but for him. She promised herself that as long as he
needed her, she would be there for him. Fifty days or fifty years…she
would stay with Mike until he finally got tired of her. Then, finally,
she could seek her own peace: she would follow the ocean’s call and
vanish into the surf.
----------
Ruthie said nothing as Mike continued to hold her, but she kissed his
hand again. The sun set as incoming waves continued to batter the rocks
that lay at the northern edge of the beach. Her thoughts wandered and
her imagination moved back and forth in time as she contemplated the
huge stretch of water that lay in front of her.
That ocean is so vast…going nearly halfway around the world before there
is any major body of land. And yet, even the Pacific Ocean will not last
forever. Every year it is shrinking, every year a small fraction of its
seabed is being swallowed by the subduction zone that runs along the
entire west coast of the two Americas. Someday, in the very distant
future, the Pacific Ocean will shrink to nothing, and then perhaps
become a huge mountain range like the Himalayas as North America and
Asia collide. Then the mountains will vanish, eroded away into a new
ocean that does not yet exist. And the evidence the Pacific ever existed
will have long since been erased from memory, even the fossil record
obliterated by geological processes that lay hundreds of millions of
years in the future.
Ruthie’s thoughts jumped from the distant future to the distant past.
The giant pterosaurs circled over the calm waters of her imagination.
Those creatures were gone…which was a real shame…along with all kinds of
other interesting animals…gone.
Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them
both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has
no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the
same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.
We are going too…thought Ruthie to herself…me, Mike, the United States,
humanity…we’ll all be gone soon enough. We all end up the same. In the
end, we all go away.
