New worlds for the weary
On the last day of Mike Pinocchio’s life he gets up while it’s still dark, and he dresses in the darkness, and in the darkness he leaves Tom and Neil, and in the darkness he passes the girls sleeping soundly in their little beds, and in the darkness he walks out into the world.
This day--the last day, for Mike--is starting out cool and dry and with a freshening breeze off the water, even inland and out of view of the beach. Breezes like that call out, exert a pull rather than pushing away, and Mike feels the pull and responds to it. He had dressed to run and he runs now, down the boardwalk toward the sand, birds stirring and calling softly overhead, seagulls high and crying. Light is swelling in the distance, pushing up against the horizon line and overspilling the top. It’s beautiful. A good start.
He doesn’t know that it’s also an end. Had he been told, though, he probably would not have expressed shock.
He’s running hard by the time he hits the sand, and the sand slows him but he pushes harder against it, arms and legs pumping and his lungs dragging in air like something he’s had to fight for. His leg hurts; he ignores it, because it’s great pleasure to run like this, to run at all. It’s great pleasure to breathe and to feel the pain that comes with breathing, with the burn in his muscles. Pain and pleasure have long been confused things in the deep wiring of his brain, and here they’re about as confused as they can be. It’s all sensation, and here, with the sun exploding in slow motion over the line of the water, he’s drinking it in, soaking it up into his skin and nerves with hungry, aggressive sensuality. He’s thinking of rare, bloody meat, fruit so ripe the juice bursts from the skin and runs down the backs of his fingers, the throat-chest burn of good liquor, the shock of cold water, the syrupy pleasure of hot, the snap of bone and the stickiness of blood on his hands, the warm liquidity of sleeping in the sun, a whisper-breeze on naked skin, the curving weight of a woman’s breast, the soft rush of Florence’s hands, Tom braced over him and straining with joy and effort, the arching line of Neil’s back, the mingled taste of their sweat, the thudding of their hearts, the screaming of his children being born, the golden flash of their hair, the sound of their laughter.
Once he had tried to teach himself to live in every second as if it were the last. He had never succeeded in doing this to his own satisfaction, but what he had never properly understood is that at its core, it isn’t a thing that can be taught, or self-taught. Like most things worth attaining, it happens without one really noticing.
It happens when one needs it to happen.
It happens when he just... stops.
It isn’t pain, not exactly. It’s the feeling of being pushed. It’s in both directions at once, and he stands, winded, not quite able to get his breath and not quite sure why.
Though really, he knows.
He turns and looks out at the water; the sun is cresting the tops of the waves, spilling bloody light across them in a line that looks like a pathway, like something he could walk out onto and follow. He lays a hand against the center of his chest, closes his eyes briefly. There’s still no pain, but there also isn’t much of anything else.
Not yet, he wants to say. Please, not yet. But he knows begging won’t stop it. Nothing ever could. It had been delayed for a while, but all his time has been borrowed. Sooner or later, it was going to come due. The ticking clock he’s felt at the center of him since he got here slows and goes silent.
Mike sits down in the sand facing the sunrise. He’s come to a stop by a higher dune and he’s glad that he can lean back against it when he can’t hold himself upright any longer. He wants to be able to see the dawn, at least.
He wants to be able to see her. He wants her to be the last thing he sees.
And it’s too soon and they’re at home waiting for him to come back and here is a life that he finally feels is worth holding onto but the cords that tie him to it are being cut one by one and he thinks of them all, so many faces so well-loved, so much broken put right again, only to finally and permanently break in the end, but it’s all right, it’s all right, it’s going to be all right, there’s no pain and no fear and it’s easy and it’s going to be all right.
This is the end of running.
On the last day of Mike Pinocchio’s life--and this is also no shock, no shock at all, because he always knew it would be that way--there is no one with him when he dies.
This day--the last day, for Mike--is starting out cool and dry and with a freshening breeze off the water, even inland and out of view of the beach. Breezes like that call out, exert a pull rather than pushing away, and Mike feels the pull and responds to it. He had dressed to run and he runs now, down the boardwalk toward the sand, birds stirring and calling softly overhead, seagulls high and crying. Light is swelling in the distance, pushing up against the horizon line and overspilling the top. It’s beautiful. A good start.
He doesn’t know that it’s also an end. Had he been told, though, he probably would not have expressed shock.
He’s running hard by the time he hits the sand, and the sand slows him but he pushes harder against it, arms and legs pumping and his lungs dragging in air like something he’s had to fight for. His leg hurts; he ignores it, because it’s great pleasure to run like this, to run at all. It’s great pleasure to breathe and to feel the pain that comes with breathing, with the burn in his muscles. Pain and pleasure have long been confused things in the deep wiring of his brain, and here they’re about as confused as they can be. It’s all sensation, and here, with the sun exploding in slow motion over the line of the water, he’s drinking it in, soaking it up into his skin and nerves with hungry, aggressive sensuality. He’s thinking of rare, bloody meat, fruit so ripe the juice bursts from the skin and runs down the backs of his fingers, the throat-chest burn of good liquor, the shock of cold water, the syrupy pleasure of hot, the snap of bone and the stickiness of blood on his hands, the warm liquidity of sleeping in the sun, a whisper-breeze on naked skin, the curving weight of a woman’s breast, the soft rush of Florence’s hands, Tom braced over him and straining with joy and effort, the arching line of Neil’s back, the mingled taste of their sweat, the thudding of their hearts, the screaming of his children being born, the golden flash of their hair, the sound of their laughter.
Once he had tried to teach himself to live in every second as if it were the last. He had never succeeded in doing this to his own satisfaction, but what he had never properly understood is that at its core, it isn’t a thing that can be taught, or self-taught. Like most things worth attaining, it happens without one really noticing.
It happens when one needs it to happen.
It happens when he just... stops.
It isn’t pain, not exactly. It’s the feeling of being pushed. It’s in both directions at once, and he stands, winded, not quite able to get his breath and not quite sure why.
Though really, he knows.
He turns and looks out at the water; the sun is cresting the tops of the waves, spilling bloody light across them in a line that looks like a pathway, like something he could walk out onto and follow. He lays a hand against the center of his chest, closes his eyes briefly. There’s still no pain, but there also isn’t much of anything else.
Not yet, he wants to say. Please, not yet. But he knows begging won’t stop it. Nothing ever could. It had been delayed for a while, but all his time has been borrowed. Sooner or later, it was going to come due. The ticking clock he’s felt at the center of him since he got here slows and goes silent.
Mike sits down in the sand facing the sunrise. He’s come to a stop by a higher dune and he’s glad that he can lean back against it when he can’t hold himself upright any longer. He wants to be able to see the dawn, at least.
He wants to be able to see her. He wants her to be the last thing he sees.
And it’s too soon and they’re at home waiting for him to come back and here is a life that he finally feels is worth holding onto but the cords that tie him to it are being cut one by one and he thinks of them all, so many faces so well-loved, so much broken put right again, only to finally and permanently break in the end, but it’s all right, it’s all right, it’s going to be all right, there’s no pain and no fear and it’s easy and it’s going to be all right.
This is the end of running.
On the last day of Mike Pinocchio’s life--and this is also no shock, no shock at all, because he always knew it would be that way--there is no one with him when he dies.