Beginning

Beginning

         The water was so cold.  It immediately seeped through the loose weave of his nightgown as it floated up over his waist.  Modesty had compelled him, even at this age, to wear underwear when he dressed for bed.  So, his underwear was also cold and plastered to his body.

         He wondered how long it would take.  He’d heard that the cold made you sleepy and relaxed so you really weren’t awake when you finally began to drown.  Of course, the people who told these stories were suicidal, so maybe they weren’t completely reliable, and they were near-death when they were rescued.  Not that it mattered.  He was determined, and somehow, death by drowning seemed appropriate.  In the old times, others would have stoned him or placed rocks in his clothes before plunging him into the river.  If they’d been kind, they first might have hit him in the head, dazed him a little, and then threw him in.

         It seemed to be taking an awfully long time to drown and he was beginning to shiver.  Why shiver?  Shivering was to maintain adequate body temperature, but an adequate body temperature was no longer important to him.  He was to die and that was final. 

         As he thought this, he decided to just let himself sink to the bottom of the river.  Sinking somehow seemed appropriate.  Floating down in the water seemed magical.  It was so smooth and quiet.  Just as he began to relax as the ooze seeped in between his toes, he felt the first pangs of oxygen deprivation.  It was amazingly strong.  The coldness of the water hadn’t diminished this reflex need for air at all, and he darted irritatingly quickly to the surface. 

         Damn!  He was so angry.  It was fairly clear that as a championship swimmer, drowning wasn’t going to be easy.  It would have been so beautiful though.  All the people would have been talking about the Olympian swimmer who probably got a cramp and drowned.

         Ah, a cramp!  That would work perfectly.  It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten since earlier in the day and it hadn’t entered his mind since then.  Eating was not the thought closest to his heart; death was.  So, he got out of the river and reentered the cabin.  He saw his note sitting on the dining room table under a rock.  It was perfectly undisturbed.  He walked over to it.  It seemed to be mocking him; after all, he wasn’t supposed to be reading it, he wrote it.  And it wasn’t even true; at least, not yet.  And it had a typo in it!  Unbelievable!  He grabbed it, balled it up, and threw it into the fireplace.  It blazed and provided him with some much-needed warmth.  It would be difficult to eat while shivering, so why not have a blazing fire?  He threw a couple of logs in and peeled off his nightgown.  Modesty once again prevented him from stripping bare, and his strict upbringing prevented him from simply putting on clean underwear without showering.  And showering without soap was ridiculous, so by the time he finished showering and cleaning up, he had managed to work up an appetite.  He also felt better, if not a little stupid.

         Six weeks ago, when his wife died, he had planned on honoring her wish and staying alive.  It had been the most difficult six weeks of his life.  They’d had her memorial service before she had died, so when the event finally took place, there was nothing left to do and nobody around.  He couldn’t even go home.  He circled the block several times looking at the front door, before he’d finally accelerated away while watching it disappear in the rear-view mirror.  So much for placing her ashes on the mantle for the requisite one-month mourning period before he spread them in her rose garden.  The ashes were still sitting out in the car, in the urn, in the box, and in the trunk.  He’d had them seal the lid with plastic tape, so he knew she wasn’t spread out in the trunk, mixing with the tire iron and the spare.  That would be embarrassing, and using the vacuum to clean the trunk would be construed as crude.  She’d probably laugh about it to the point of snorting.  She did that type of thing.

         They’d married late in life, been married five years, and in those five years, had focused on no one but one another.  He’d refused to have children and risk disappointing them the way his parents had disappointed him.  Since she’d been an orphan, she couldn’t imagine family anyway, and succumbed to his wishes.  Even so, as sloppy as they’d been, she should have gotten pregnant.  What a fool he had been. 

         Now he had nothing but his work and clearly not enough memories to sustain him.  His chronic suicidality circled around again like vultures at a famine.  He wrapped himself in his grief like a new, freshly laundered shirt.  He sat in that shirt daily, nightly, and evenings since, staring at the river as it rushed by.  The rippling waves seemed to beckon his relief.  Now the prospects of a full stomach and cramps gladdened his heart.  He even managed to smile as he fried the ham and eggs.  He washed it all down with a warm glass of milk.

         The next morning he awoke to daylight streaming through the kitchen window.  He had slobbered all over the table linen and amazingly managed to get some scrambled eggs in the little bit of hair he had left.  What an idiot!  He hadn’t really slept for two months, and he thought he could fill up on a high protein meal with a glass of milk; warm no less?  If he hadn’t been so depressed, he probably would have laughed.  It was ludicrous.

         He’d slept so soundly, he hadn’t heard the phone ring.  The phone answering machine had six messages on it.  He’d slept through six messages?  He looked at the machine, looked out the window, and then looked back at the machine.  There were so many people out on the river that if he were to run out there and dive in, he’d likely get hit by one of the motorboats ripping up the current.  With his luck, he would probably be maimed and unable to kill himself, or left in a coma.  In either case, he’d still be stranded on earth.

         So he got up and listened to the messages, half-expecting the few friends he and his wife shared to be checking up on him.  It wasn’t them.  The first message was: “Hi Gene.  It’s me, Meredith.  Sorry to hear about your wife.  I guess you’re wondering… Beep!”  He’d set the messages to ten seconds with the hope of discouraging people from calling or leaving a message.  He and his wife never answered the phone and rarely returned messages.  It seemed to discourage most people, but obviously not Meredith.  Who the hell was Meredith?  He’d only known one Meredith his whole life.  Maybe she was a friend of his wife’s.  Second message: “Meredith Wilson.  So, you’re still retarded about message length?  Some things never change…Beep!”  Message three: “You have a daughter.  We had a fling, remember?  No, actually, you didn’t remember.  I’m sure…Beep!”  Message four:  “My little girl has leukemia.  I tracked you down at the university, but didn’t know what…Beep!”  Message five: “I don’t match any of her alleles; whatever those are, but I thought…Beep!”  Message six: “Call me.  I’m listed.  My number hasn’t changed.  Some things never do.  By the way, don’t go near the water.  You know how you are.  Beep!”