My Mind Drags Me Out

We sat in my wife’s ’93 Suburban, the summer air creeping in through open windows to caress our skin. We were at our favorite pull off on one of the back roads leading to home. The sun was setting. The air was still. Even the kids were silent as they tried to devour their ice cream treats before the heat got the best of them. I gazed over at my wife. The fading light was hitting her irises at just the right angle to illuminate the ocean of greens and blues. She smiled and bobbed her body happily as she scooped a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. She was just as magical as the day we met.

My mind wandered back and pulled out the memory…

I sat in our town’s local park, a cold PBR in my hand and five more at my feet. The beer really helped take the edge off; both the summer heat and the suffocation of life itself. It was a day just as beautiful as any. The mountains towered around me with their usual majesty, kids ran through the grass with smiles brighter than the sun, People sat scattered, in pairs or small groups, probably taking advantage of this fantasy to dream up their futures. Despite all this, I still felt lost. (Funny enough, from this day and for the next nine years of my life I would drift in and out of encounters with the means of my emotional success.)

“Hello?” I was quickly ripped from my thoughts as she waved a gentle hand in front of my eyes although, as I looked up, I almost wasn’t sure if I had been pulled out of my daydream. While the girl standing before me was glowing with physical beauty, it was the glow of her very being that shocked me. It was almost as if she were wearing her soul outside her body. And it was gorgeous.

“Hey?” I wasn’t sure how else to respond as her presence had absorbed most of my breath and thought.

“Whew!” she pretended to wipe her hand across her forehead. “I thought for sure you were a goner! I’ve been standing here for a whole minute saying hi!”

“Oh?”

“Yea, you look lonely” she sat down next to me. “Mind if I have one?” As she asked she was already pulling a beer out from its shackle.

“Yea, sure.” We sat in silence for a couple minutes. “What’s your name anyway?”

“Catherine, yours?” Her smile started to get brighter now, as well as her glow.

“Travis.”

From that moment on we would become close friends, often even indulging ourselves in the pleasure of each other’s bodies. And while I would drift through our encounters always infatuated by that aura, and while she would ask several times between her relationships and mine if maybe we should be together, it wouldn’t be until nine years later that I would muster up the courage to say yes.

My conscious rushed back to the driver’s seat of the truck as my wife’s soft hand caressed my arm. Goose bumps stood at attention before her skin even made contact with mine. She had never lost that electric effect.

Our youngest son clambered onto the center console from the back seat. He would be one in just a few short weeks. He went through his usual routine, picking up small rocks and coins we kept in the compartment just behind the cup holders. Each was inspected with the same curiosity before being returned in exchange for the next. Finally, he came to the last object. The tiny vile looked much bigger grasped in his tiny hand. He brought it to meet his eyes and turned it around, watching the grey dust slide back and forth as he tilted it with the sweetest smile plastered on his face.

“Hi! Hi! Hi!” He was always so exuberant with his greeting.

“Are you saying hi to Welton?” As I asked, I could feel my chest tightening and a solitary tear creeping to my eye. I knew the flash back would come next; it always did…

I was on the dock when it happened, making my way back towards the boat for the night. I saw Welton at the top of the gangplank, a goofy smile spreading across his face as we approached. I cherished the way his smile had always brought a smile to my face. As I thought of the things I was going to tell him, about our recent adventure in town, five ear piercing shots torn through the darkness. Welton’s legs buckled. His body fell like a puppet whose master had dropped its strings. I had always heard the phrase “my heart stopped” but until now I always thought it was just that, just a saying. In this moment it became a fact. My heart stood still. Everything around me stopped. The breeze stopped blowing, the waves weren’t crashing, people’s mouths were moving but not a sound was coming out. I ran. I ran to him in a second that felt like an eternity.

As I held Welton’s lifeless body my mind raced for answers or closure or anything. Suddenly a flash of white caught my eye. I glanced around quickly, my nerves on edge. Then I spotted it. Sitting on top of the captain’s quarters a white and brown speckled barn owl. This was curious to see sitting on the boat like this but, I didn’t have the mind to question this at the time. Instead, I stared into his deep, black eyes. They were as cold and black as death, or at least of what I imagined it to be. But as I looked, I saw a warm glow flash through them. For just a moment they softened, became almost human like. It was almost as if he had come to gather my friend’s soul, to carry it on to whatever lie ahead. For that moment all the pain and sorrow melted away, for just a moment I felt a sigh of relief just as soft and light as the feathers of the owl. Tears rolled down my checks, I bowed my head into Welton’s body and cried.

“Baby.” My wife’s sweet voice pulled me back, out of that hell and back to the heaven that was my reality. Her hand rested softly on my forearm, pulsing her electricity through me. “It’s time to go home my love.”

I stared over at her with gratitude as she drove us home. I forever knew that after all this life had thrown at me, all the haunting memories I carried, I was so thankful for the way she could always bring me home.