Twelve

 

     The sun was setting.  The light from Dave’s substantial campfire danced in the low hanging bows of the surrounding pines.  Embers buzzed about like fireflies while he struggled with the stove. Dave took no notice when Rich and Billy slipped out of the camp and headed up the well worn path leading to the cliff, which offered a commanding view of the Mogollon Rim.  The only ones who noticed Dave and Billy’s departure were the cycling couple that watched their giggling and stumbling with marked disapproval. 

            They climbed the short trail to the edge of the trees.  They scrambled their way over the massive sand stone boulders to the sheer drop of the cliff.  The view was brilliant, like so many Arizona sunsets before and since.  For Rich and Billy, the setting of the evening sun was a singularity of awe and wonder.

“Holy shit, look at it all.”  Rich stood

            “It just goes, on and on; the mountains, the clouds, the earth and sun, the stars, the universe – all of it moving so fast,” Billy reflected.

             “It’s amazing.”  Most of the time it all looks so unchanging but it’s really changing right before our eyes,” Rich leaned into the wind and teetered on his tip-toes.

                 “Millions of tiny changes all happening every single moment…” Billy joined him up there in the wind.  He closed his eyes.  An electric shudder passed through his bony frame, “…an endless stream of moments that will never happen again.  I’m a bubble on the surface of that stream.  I’m no different from every other bubble, just going down stream until I pop.  No more bubble, just the stream.”  He opened his eyes and looked down.  Six inches from the end of his toes was open air.  The wind, the rocks hundreds of feet below and the smell of sage dared him to walk forward through the fear and self-medication.  The Mogollon rim dared him to walk forward into certainty.  At that moment, Rich put a hand on his shoulder.

             “Bro, I don’t know what to say.”

            “Don’t worry, it’s cool.” 

            The both of them sat for awhile in silence.  The wind blew up from the desert below and the sun turned red.