Category: Short Stories (Page 3 of 46)

To Touch the Torch of Freedom (An Immigrant Tale)

December 27, 2019 / Tom

He kept low in the bush, waiting for the Sun to set. Every so often he’d lift his head, checking to his left to see how far the Sun had moved. He had watched the Sun rise from this spot, and now was hoping this was the final sunset he’d see from this side of the line.

On the other side was the torch of freedom. All he wanted to do was carry it and share it with his little girl.

She had been amazing during this journey. Now she snuggled close to him, keeping quiet and low, barely making a sound. She had even urinated in her pants rather than tell her father she had to pee. It seemed she fully understood the gravity of the situation, realizing the hope that lay just a bit further north and a few hours away.

The Decision

Two weeks before his wife had been raped and murdered the local gang. The gang was in control of his neighborhood, having bribed the authorities and intimidated local politicians. Well-armed and well-funded, they were more of a militia than a street gang. They sold drugs and they killed rivals. Police officers who didn’t fall in line where found murdered in their patrol cars. The gang’s response to opposition was swift and deadly.

The villagers were poor and powerless, and often the gang would beat them, rape the woman and children, and murder anyone who stood up to them. The government was useless. The police were either bribed or killed for opposing them. It was a very dark time.

To the north, however, was a light of hope. Symbolized by a strong woman raising a burning torch, many had hoped to find the opportunity and liberation they had heard so much about. They only needed to make the journey. They only needed to risk life and limb to get there.

Legal channels were useless, and they all knew it. They neither had the money nor the understanding to navigate those waters. What they had, though, were two legs and the desire to get there. Few understood laws in their lawless land, but they understood suffering, the intense desire to escape and the value of freedom and opportunity.

The man had no choice but to stay. His wife was too sick, having nearly died giving birth to their 5-year old daughter. One day, his wife went to the market and was attacked by some members of the gang. They held her down, taking turns brutalizing her. When finished, they slit her throat and left her to die in the weeds, where her husband found her that night.

Through his anger, he decided to leave. He knew vengeance would be certain death for him, and he would not intentionally orphan his daughter. Instead, he set his sights on that torch to the north, a light that promised freedom, opportunity, and rest for the huddled masses like them. He threw their few clothes and a picture of his wife in a backpack and began walking north. They had nothing left to lose.

The Journey

The journey to their hiding spot in the desert had been difficult. They’d walked for days and slept little under the rainy nighttime sky. He had blisters on his feet and his lips were cracked with thirst. He gave most of the water he had to his daughter, and had carried her most of the way. The rain at night would wash the caked dirt from their skin, though the cold night air kept him awake. He would cover his daughter the best he could, trying desperately to keep her warm and dry.

A few days into their journey he had been beaten. People like him were targets for local thugs who believed they’d be carrying money for their escape, money he certainly did not have. They only owned the clothes they wore and the meager belongings stuffed into his backpack. They were so meager, in fact, that the thugs who’d beaten him didn’t want them, and they tossed the bag back untouched as he laid bloodied and submissive in the dirt. He had nothing anyone wanted.

He had heart, however, and that would see him through. That, and knowing his daughter was safe. At least for now.

To Touch the Torch of Freedom

The Sun was nearly at the horizon. The man whispered to his daughter that they would be moving soon.

“Papa,” she whispered, “then we cross the river?”

“Yes, mija. Soon we cross the river.”

“Then we touch the torch?”

“Then we touch the torch.”

“What does it look like Papa?”

He had told this story many times as they walked, and he wondered if he’d ever be able to tell it again. It had been a mantra they’d used through the danger and the exhaustion. It had gotten them to this point in their journey.

“First it looks like earth, much like where we are now. Then it looks like a good job in a safe neighborhood. Then it looks like good friends and good schools. It looks like being able to read, and write, and to know things. Good things, like how to help people and make your mother proud. It looks like making the most of the gift of freedom and of the opportunity God has given you.”

“Will we go to jail Papa?”

“Ah, mija,” said her father. “I hope not. We will just do our best, right?”

“Yes Papa.”

She hugged him. He could smell her mother on her and could see her mother smiling at him. This perilous journey was not just for him, but for his daughter as well. He could not let her live, or die, like her mother.

“Now let’s be quiet, mija. We have just a little way to go before we touch the torch for the first time.

She squeezed a bit tighter. She must have sense that the toughest part of this journey was yet to come.

The Destination

This story ends here, at that little line that separates the darkness from the light. It’s a line some wish to become a wall but I hope becomes a bridge.

I want to share the warm light of the torch I was blessed to be born under with those who were not so lucky; those who sacrifice and risk everything just for the chance to place their hand beside mine on its handle.

It would be easy for me to say that others must follow the legal path to enter this land. I just had to be born to be here so that statement would seem to be the purest form of privilege failing to understand its place. I fell from my mother’s womb right smack onto the destination and risked nothing to be here.

I am a human, as are those on the other side of the line. If I can’t reach my hand across that line to pull others over the wall of privilege what kind of human am I? If I can’t help others have the same chance I was born into, what kind of man would I be?

My torch is not just some beacon for others to strive for. It is also a flame that warms the cold places and lights the path I choose to follow. If I can’t share it then perhaps it’s time the torch be extinguished as the meaningless symbol it is. To give it meaning would be to give it breath and to give it breath would mean to share it with whomever seeks it. Otherwise, it’s a waste.

The Ghost Beside Me

December 18, 2019 / Tom

A ghost sat beside me, rocking slowly on the small, wooden chair. In the steely silence I could hear only two things; the rhythmic beating of my heart and the creaking of that chair. I hear no breaths, no gusts of wind howling just outside my room nor sounds of discarded leaves being thrown about by autumn’s fury. I can only here Death sitting in that chair, slowly waiting for it to be my time.

My eyes had been blinded by the rage of life, my brain injured by the loss of blood. I needed to see, to stand, to walk among my loved ones again. In my blindness I could hear so many things once forgotten. I could hear the smile of my children. I could hear the laughter that came from deep within them. I could hear the sight of a flower blooming in the sunlight, and I could hear the sounds of winter thawing. I could hear the sound of a smile, of a loving glance, and the rising tide of an ocean a thousand miles away.

My body could no longer steady itself against the invisible strings of gravity. The sense of touch I had taken for granted had now changed and, with it a truth I had always depended. The security of all I had known vanished in a breath, replaced by something I was told was “a new reality”. It was a reality I had never requested but had no choice in accepting.

On an opposite side of the room sat another ghost rocking slowly on another chair. There was a warm light pulsing rhythmically with each movement, and a sweet melody vibrating in a heavenly tempo. I could feel the bliss of Life caressing those parts of me left darkened by the stroke, the want of life pulling me out of the numbness. There was, in this moment, a choice to be made and a path to be taken.

I felt no fear in this choice, only a surrender to the reality, swimming in the knowledge that had no control over my circumstance. In that surrender, though, rose a feeling in the numbness, a truth that shouted to me that while control had been lost, I could regain it. I could control my choices from that moment on. I could choose Death, or I could choose Life, and I could ride the wave toward either end. Death offered me a final surrender. Life offered me the challenge I was born to accept. Death seemed easy. Life seemed all-too-difficult.

I chose life, and in the shadows of that night I found my vision. In that unsteadiness I found true balance. In that challenge I found a love of Life, of living, and asked Death to wait his turn. He seemed to smile in return having played his part in the dance of Life.

Death knows, though, that my choice is a temporary one, and that one day he will extend his hand and I will have no option but to take it. Life, however, knows something too. She knows that circumstances arrive, and within them comes a litany of choices. Life knows that she exists in the choices we make within the experience, and she knows that those choices determine to which degree we can enjoy her company. We can either make choices that have us dancing with Life, of we can make choices that have us existing until the hand of Death grabs us in a grip from which we cannot break free.

I have discovered in my own time that Life offers us liberation in the choices we make. Liberation is born in the struggles of our time, and Life is realized in the sweat and blood of our liberation. True living is liberation, and liberation exposes us to the glory of true living. They go together like yin and yang, important ingredients that cannot be separated and are as necessary for one other as the beating heart is to breath and breath is to the beating heart. Fear is but a shackle we have placed upon ourselves, and love is the key that can set us upon a gratitude spawned from great Living. There is great liberation in appreciating the Sunrise whose memory may be all I have one day. Loss shows us the way to gratitude, and gratitude shows us a way from loss. We can be so liberated in sharing gratitude not just in what we have, but for what we have lost.

So whether it is struggling to keep upright when your brain is unable to keep control, or hiking a trail among the beasts of wild and untamed nature, or just getting out of bed to face another day, the challenge itself offers great opportunity for liberation. We can liberate ourselves from the confines of a bed in our dizziness. We can liberate our bodies from the delusion of safety within our unnatural box. We can liberate ourselves from the dread created in the lack of fulfillment. We are the choosers of our own path.

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The Roles We Play

December 12, 2019 / Tom

The jester says,

You cannot survive this. It’s too much for you to handle. You must surrender, give up, leave the field of battle. Give up the ghost, bend knee to the wicked wind, find shelter from this storm. You are nothing but a shadow meant to hide in the dark corners of the cave. The pain is too much, the risk too great, the mountain too high. Save yourself. Run and hide.

The beast says,

What life is there in running from the rain? I cannot, I must not surrender, for enslavement to the fear is a lifetime spent in death. I will set my feet, tighten my grip upon the sword of my own power and fight until my dying breath. I shall light the torch of my own ferocity and banish the shadows in this cavern. I bear the pain as a symbol of my victory, reap the reward from this refusal to surrender, and climb until the view promised my upon that summit is, at last, seen. I have saved myself in standing firm, and in pressing on beyond my mind’s limitations.

The warrior says,

I may retreat, but just to find more stable footing. I may drop my sword, but only to remove the shackles I have placed upon my soul. I may hide, but only to attack at the time of my own choosing. I may surrender, but only to free the parts of me enslaved. I am the fire that lights the torch that all shadows fear, and the storm that sets the trees to dancing in my wake. I am the hawk who sees and knows when to set upon the voices within, and the wind that carries angels up to heaven. Attack me at your peril, for if I so choose I shall crush your head under my heel and leave your carcass to the whims of the Sun.

Some moments I play the jester. Others, the beast comes out. Yet, I always try to summon the warrior, that wise part of me that always keeps me going. After all, life seems to be one successive act of survival after another, one role followed by another, multiple lessons followed by multiple tests followed by even more lessons. The essence of life seems to be in the way it flows; sometimes fast, sometimes slow but rarely stagnant for long.

The Door to Eternity

December 5, 2019 / Tom

I felt she was ready. For all the clinging of those who loved her, she needed to leave. It was her time, and when the door opened she looked back, smiled, and passed through the threshold.

Behind her was the anguish of her humanity, in front was something more. Before the door had closed she paused to glimpse one last time as the path that was. She saw the joys of her life planted neatly along the way, and relived the laughter and the smiles and the intimate moments where love had swaddled her soul. She also saw the pains, the suffering, the anguish and the rush of fear that being human had created. In joy she was so mindless yet in fear the mind was all she had.

The look back, it seems, is something all souls do. When they look back at their lives most know it is time to move on. Those who are not ready, though few they be, they return to their humanity to be celebrated for their unpreparedness. Yet that door is something we shall all see, and it is something we shall all pass through. She was ready to pass through before she had actually seen it. She had felt it before she saw it, and it’s pull began to build as her pain increased.

As she reached the end of her humanity she recognized something. While her body was wracked with pain, her heart had jumped for joy. As she neared that door she ceased being completely human and became a part of her divinity. At the end she was ready to let go of being human and open the door. It was time.

She felt the tears of those she loved and the pain of those who wished she’d stay. This was, finally, her journey alone and she could no longer submit to the whims of others. Her soul called for home, her heart begged for love, her humanity desperately wanted to know its divinity. And so, with a final view of the forest she had planted, he closed the door and walked into eternity.

There would be sadness left behind, but joy would return. That’s the thing about both, the return in our human experience with equal vigor. Yet, what lies on the other side of that door leaves one of those behind.

52 Years (A Warrior’s Lament)

November 8, 2019 / Tom

I met a man recently. He was a strong-looking older man, a Vietnam Veteran, a warrior, a man who’s had his own sense of loss and of struggle yet somehow survived. He had cancer twice, an illness he says was due to Agent Orange exposure during the war. He lost friends in battle, a lost even more in the years since. Yet I could sense in his struggle he had something that got him through it, something that prompted a man who had been beaten to rise, who had been nearly defeated to turn his chest to the demons and beat them into submission.

It didn’t take long before I found out what that something was.

“My wife died last month. After 52 years of marriage she’s gone.,” he said with a tear in his eye. I could feel the pain ripple across the room. I could see his agony restrained in tired eyes. I could hear his prayer for just one more kiss, for one more word from her whispered in his ear, for just one more minute with the woman he loved.

Nothing, it seems, can make a strong warrior crumble like the loss of half his heart. He seemed completely unwilling to surrender to age or to an enemy. But I could sense this old and wise man was completely ready to surrender to the loss of his great love. I could sense that no battle he’s ever waged was as fierce as the one he was in now. It seemed he knew that he had no part in this outcome, and that a broken heart could do what no bullet, no struggle, could.

He had married her before he was sent into combat, something not unique to the time. He loved her right away, and when faced with the likelihood of his death they decided to commit to the love they felt. If he died in combat he would die her husband, and she his wife.

He survived the war and the effects it had on his mind and his health. In their life she had often said that she had been married to two men, once to the man she knew before the war, and again to the same man after the war. He shared that she had been the reason he fought hard to survive many battles, but fought even harder to survive the long one that came when he got home. She had been there, always, his partner and his love, and he honored her as his wife each day of their life together. It was an honor that gave him life, even after he was certain his life would be over.

“She was quite a babe,” he said. “The guys in my platoon were always asking me about her. I think they loved her too. Here, look.”

He pulled out his wallet and showed me a picture of a stunning woman. The picture was black and white, but looked brand new, and I couldn’t help but understand his admiration for her. She looked like a pin-up model, even if the picture was 52 years old.

“She took this so I could take it to Nam with me. I carried it with me every minute of every day, and I have ever since. It has never left me, and I’ll be buried with it.”

“She is beautiful,” I replied. “Let’s be honest though, you had to be quite the catch to have her marry you.”

“I wasn’t bad, but I was better with her. That’s the thing about us men. We know we are good on our own, but we also know we are great with the right woman by our side. Even if she’s not there, she’s there. You know?”

I agreed with him, thinking of my partner who was over a thousand miles away doing her thing. I thought about how much I missed her and wished she was near. I hate distance, and I hate weeks of separation, but I realize that there is a good reason for the displeasure I feel in the separation.

I offered him my condolences, and though the words were heartfelt they seemed hollow in the space between us. He accepted with the graciousness of a man who was searching for any comfort he could find, even if it came from a stranger. The weeks since her passing may have helped him restrain the streams of his tears, but they seemed to do little to lessen the lake of emotion that gave them breath. I shook his hand and he thanked me while I issued a prayer that this would not be the last time I got to see this man.

“Namaskar,” I whispered to the ether. A part of me recognized this man and I believe a part of him recognized me. Though strangers until this moment, we were brought together to share a bit of wisdom, he to show me something and me to offer my gratitude in return. Perhaps I offered him some comfort but I know he offered me some perspective. In this brief interlude I remembered my grandfather and grandmother as well as the love I have inside me.

What a gift, and one I’m happy to share.

Moments Before (A Mature, Tantric Journey)

October 29, 2019 / Tom

As the Sun rose, a familiar calm nestled in my body. Beads of sweat tumbled from my skin, soaking our altar where the heights of passion had just pulled us out of our question and flung us into our answer. You, me, heaven all exist in this space, in this now, in this life. We need be nowhere else.

Moments before I had looked up at you, watching you bite your lower lip in time with the rhythm of your hips. I could see your body highlighted in the moonlight and the little rivers of glistening joy running between your breasts. My hands on your hips, I pulled you closer until we had squeezed ever bit of space out from between us. Your gasp, your moan, your letting go, your quiver. My heaven.

Moments before you had taken me in. All of me. I had filled you, and you surrounded me, the flesh speaking tongues of spirit, the heart crying tears of joy. My lips devoured you, my arms held you, my fingers caressed you as the once glowing embers of desire flashed into a roaring eruption. Second, minutes, hours had passed yet no timepiece ruled the night. Our souls passed from the humanness of our being and into the Lightness of our truth, a truth found in the rhythm of our movement. Movement that matched the tempo of our hearts, and the pulsing of our souls.

Moments before you had held my head in your hands and kissed me with a fire that burned beyond our human perception. Our mouths united, our tongues played and our hands touched those secret places only love can find. In a single, united breath we discarded the veils that hide our treasures, allowing our fear to fall forever to the floor. We left ourselves open, our hearts exposed and our minds open to the infinite. Such bliss. Such warmth. Such love.

Moments before we had stood facing an evening sun creeping slowly behind the western mountains. In the pinkish hue of this promise your head rested lightly on my shoulder, your hand tangled softly with my own. In the silence of this moment I could hear your heart beating in the slight Spring breeze, a breeze that carried your fragrance amid a touch that united our souls. In the swirl of soulful magic I saw you in the fading light and was reminded I am but a man beside a beautiful woman. I noticed how your eyes sparkled in the sunlight, how your soft lips glistened in the twilight, how your breasts always seemed to tease me and how your body had awakened me from certain slumber. Whatever life my bring, whatever it has brought, I am here with you now. Then, a silent prayer.

For the moments before I had always wondered. In the moments since I had always known. In the moments to come I will be ready. There will be more.

The Captain

October 25, 2019 / Tom

I see you, old man.

Some may call the light in your eyes crazy, but I see the pure, unshackled joy in them. I see each ray of your light as a synopsis of an untold and unedited story, a magical journey most would not understand because you have written it all by yourself. I see the love pouring out of you while you draw your art, ready to share it with a world that does not understand you. You put your purest thoughts in colorful shapes on a poster board, hoping to share a bit of your light with others and that they return the favor with a few quarters lying without purpose in their cup holder.

I see the way you smile, the way your light shines through the spaces where teeth once lived. Your weathered and aged skin bears the lines of a billion smiles and signs of a billion tears, and your lips curve naturally upward as though you sleep with a perpetual smile. When you smile I notice one eye closes just a bit, like an old sea captain mastering an aging schooner. I see you looking at each approaching car as though they were stars in the nighttime sky being used to plot a course to lands still unknown. I see you weaving a tale in your mind, each footfall a word spoken to those deafened by their own imprisonment. I see a bit of you in a lot of me, and I don’t even know your name.

Yet through what I can see, I can also feel. I can feel the heartbreak, the loss, the misery and the chaos. I can see your joy but I can feel your sorrow. I can see you arguing with invisible antagonists and hear your voice holding firm against their tide. I feel them teasing you, poking at your wounds, reminding you of why you ran away to take your place among the anonymous. I can feel them breaking your heart over and over again, and I can feel you wanting them to leave you alone even as you grasp tightly hoping to never let them go. You are not anonymous, my brother, not to some of us who can dream, who can feel, and can sense the currents of life under the hull of own ship. Those of us who know we are but seconds away from being just like you honor your kingship, while those of us who fear being like you turn our heads in ignorance, ignoring that part of you that is so much a part of us.

I’ve seen you walking, pushing your overflowing cart for miles to that island where you spend your days. I once wondered how you magically appeared until one day my question was answered and I saw your old body pushing that cart at least a mile and half from your destination. I came back that way an hour later and there you were, sitting in your own world, drawing on your poster board while waiting for the stars to shine. I’ve watched you walk up and down the roadway, art in hand. Once in a while someone would provide you a gift, yet very few of them would seem to appreciate the gift you were in return. If only they would exist in the experience, they would have seen the glory of the moment. They would have seen your smile and felt their own. They would have known something unique, maybe for the very first time.

Yes, I see you, old man. Not that you’ve asked me to, but because I can’t help myself. You’d likely wish to stay anonymous, just a crazy artist most would believe lazy and inept. Yet I know you. You work harder than most, trudging up lonely highways with nothing but the voices to keep you company. You live for a smile and a few shekels, and the liberation your flight has given. You talk to yourself in the open unlike me who is too afraid to let those voices roam in that ether. You have built your ship, raised its masts, and found one port nestled on the island where you tell your stories. I know there is a part of me who is jealous of you while there is another part of me who fears being just like you. The two may never reconcile themselves, but I know I am more like you than you are like me.

Tonight, I will hop in my car and head to a comfortable place with comfortable people. You will pack up your cart and walk miles just relish in your anonymity. I will find some distraction to keep my voices subdued while you engage in a lively debate with your own. I will seek refuge tomorrow among the beasts and hills and the open trails, while you will seek to engage others who fear you, who ignore you, or who give you a tiny bit of their refuse as a gift. I will bask in the beauty of nature while you deal with the insanity of people who see you as insane yourself. Yet both our ships will sail in their own way, and the seaworthiness of our souls will be challenged in the journey ahead. We’ll both beg for winds to fill our masts while cursing them as they seek to drown us in our misery. One of us will dress the part of the Captain while the other works naked in the rain. Just know I see you, and that part of us that exists in reflection, and that the part of me that is speaking to you is that part of me that is you.

Take care, my brother. In truth, Namaskar.

The Risen Man

October 18, 2019 / Tom

When the Phoenix rises above the ash, he has no desire to return. That’s how the Phoenix knows he has risen, when the cocoon of ash and ember no longer hold any appeal. He may tell the story of destruction, of death, of rebirth and of resurrection but only the living part of that tale is his. What came before his rebirth fails to matter. What matters is he lives and rises to the Sun, and surrenders not to any darkness.

Until that moment when the piles of blowing ash no longer stain his mind, he is a slave to it. Until that moment when the pulsing-orange embers cease to burn his soul, he can only focus on the pain. Until that moment when his fisted hand rises into the mountain air, he will be buried beneath the surface of his agony. He will say words like “healing” and “growth” but he will mean none of it. A seedling may seek the sapling, but until he pushes through the soil his is but a hope, an egg in which no bird can fly.

The seedling cannot bloom to share its fragrance with the wind, and the egg cannot sour among the breezes of this life. Born in the nest of ash and ember he is but a promise, a dot of potential to which no truth can be assigned. Yet, with some battles and some defeats he finds his true victory. He stirs to crack the surface of his ashen shell, punches through the shell that once imprisoned him, and feels the clean air for the first time. Once risen, he cannot fall even when he falters before his god. He can only fly. He can only soar. He can only live his truth.

Once that breath of life fills his chest there is no death in which to surrender. The body may surrender but the soul that burst him through the ash will live eternal. He will leave his footprints in the mud and, sometimes, drops of blood upon the soil that guides him in his travels, but he will not die. Those who knew him will hear his song ring out from within the forest veils. They will feel him in the drops of dew that wash their tired feet. They will know him in their own rising, and they will find him as their shackles fall to the ground. Their name will be his, and his will be theirs, and they will forever be bound in the life that births their quest, and the quest that births their life.

Return to the hell that burned him is impossible. He never gives that thought a moment of attention. It becomes like a subtle whisper in the woods, one you know is there but cannot be truly heard. He is healed, truly, remarkably, and with that wisdom in his heart he turns to face the wind, smiles, and takes to the flight he was born to take.

“Make sure you grab the right hose” (A humorous firefighter’s tale)

October 17, 2019 / Tom

In the office today, we were talking about some experiences we’ve had, and one of them was about how most people have had toilet paper stuck to their shoe. I remarked that I hadn’t, but I was pretty sure that I had done something no one on else in the office had done.

They wondered what. After some brief moments of thought, I decided it was safe to tell them.

It was one of those early morning fire calls, the kind that wakes you out of a dead sleep with a shot of adrenaline that hides all thought and reasoning. Anyone who has ever answered one of those calls knows what I mean but, for those of you who haven’t, I’ll describe it.

Imagine you are in a sound, dead-to-the-world kind of sleep. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an alarm wakes you. Years of responding to that alarm has created a Pavlov’s dog out of you, and the rush of adrenaline fills your soul and awakens your heart. There have been many times when I got out of bed, got dressed, arrived at the station and donned my gear without ever being able to remember a single one of those moments. There I’d be, ready to go, boarding a fire truck to some emergency somewhere having no idea how I got there.

It sometimes happened at about that time when the sudden wakefulness showed its price. As I’d ask “what’s the call?” I’d realize that my body had certain functions that needed addressing. Sometimes it would be a matter of pee, and others it is a much more serious endeavor. I continued the story.

“There was once when I responded to a working house fire and realized when I got in the house that I had to go to the bathroom. I tried hard to hold it, but it really started to hurt.”

I described how, in the midst of a working house fire, I had used the home’s bathroom to relieve myself. There I was, hose in hand and turnout pants down about my ankles, sitting on the toilet trying my best to hurry. I let myself go just to the point where the pain stopped. It only took me a few seconds, but it seemed like hours.

“And, no, I didn’t have any toilet paper stuck to my shoe.” And, yes, I did flush.

Duty calls, but sometimes so does dooty. Sometimes you have to answer both at the same time.

Once we had a fire in a commercial building and I had to pee. I got caught by a chief while using the urinal.

“Make sure you grab the right hose,” was all he said.

I got to my partner who was dutifully standing just outside the bathroom door. “Thanks, brother.”

“Hey, he asked what I was doing so I told him I was waiting for you. He had to see it to believe it.”

“I’m just happy I was in the men’s room.”

Early in my career it was easy to forget about bodily functions during a fire or rescue assignment. Your body gets in that “fight or flight” place and all bodily needs are forgotten until the excitement wears off. As you gain experience, however, it takes a lot more to get one excited enough that poop in the shoot or rain in the drain are able to be ignored. If the situation calls for it, you need relief. If the situation is life or death, the need for relief vanishes. You soon realize your body knows what is going on, so if you felt the need for relief things probably weren’t that serious. I can say with certainty that if someone’s life was in danger there isn’t a firefighter I know that would feel the need to use the rest room.

It may be one of those things that we in first response rarely talk about, but we’ve all experienced. That “oh shit” moment that is quite literal in scope and plentiful in nature. But don’t worry, we all seem to remember to flush.

A Real New Earth

August 28, 2019 / Tom

And thus, the art of fearless ingenuity, of passion-full connection and of courageous togetherness was lost to one meaningless voice.

We were lost, and we knew it. The sands in the hourglass of our moment had run thin. The voices were winning and the slope seemed too steep even for us to climb. All we need do from here was await that final breath, and the eternal darkness that followed.

What is, in the minds of beings who protest their awokeness and who can pen messages of hope on thin are, the end? Who are those who can write great works of nature from the cloister of their own fear? What masters are we who have not yet mastered ourselves? What teachers can we be if we, in our own moment of uncertainty, have not yet learned the lessons we so eagerly preach to others?

We are none of them, of course. We are covered in blankets of the hypocrisy that gets our souls to cringing. We are shrouded in the fog of our misgivings, standing at the pulpit speaking words we cannot hear and reading prose we only wish we would have written. Regret, the constant companion of the disciple of fear, whispers hopes of “next time” and oaths of some future accomplishment. If only that stalwart student who trembles in the darkness of his own mind could realize that all he seeks is with him as he sputters; that light is just within his grasp.

For the chosen few who nearly die to find their life, who nearly drown in the quicksand of despair to find a perch high above the peaks, there is a calmness in the darkness. He who has met the Reaper cannot fear it. He who has made friends with the sadness cannot drown in it. He who finds respite in the darkness cannot loath its arrival. We may nap in the sunlight, but real sleep can only be found in the pitch black of solitude. We sleep alone, even if we snore in a crowd.

What is life but boredom without such wisdom? We will always run from shadows we have not befriended. We will always be cut but blades we have not mastered. We will always be slaves to thoughts we have not accepted. Who was I but a boy before I accepted who I am? Who was I but a baby before I knew who I was? Who was I but a thought before I fell in love with heart that colored my flesh and sent tears streaming down my face? I was nothing but a sculpture of other artists, and until I took the hammer and the chisel to my own story did I realize the beauty beneath the stone. From there I could be me without excuse or lie be told. I could be then unabashedly beautiful.

I hold the hand of truth as we walk together into today, dreaming about tomorrow with the certainty that nothing we say may be but a promise, and that one day the aberration may arrive to test our mettle. The warrior will stand tall, bloodied but not defeated, and he will not surrender even in the moments when he gives ground. He will call out to his friends in the darkness, look into the eyes of the Reaper, only to discover that fire burning brightly within him. They will confirm his truth in their opposition to it, and reveal his zest for life in their calling for its end. Warriors, it seems, know victory from the throes of their defeat, and know rising from the harshness of their falls.

What we lose as we fumble in the darkness can be found when we grasp the torch of our truth. We must choose one or the other, we must surrender or find a way to victory. We must either walk through the pain or rot prostrate wallowing in our insanity. Which to choose is ours to choose, we wave the white flag or fight on to plant our colors upon high ground.

It’s there, on that high ground or in the muck of the valley below, that we find the real new earth. It’s beyond what some guru suggests you will find if you just do something they do. It’s past the shiny lakes and mystic ponds others would call “enlightenment”. It seems, to me, to be finding oneself in the muck, in the clear waters, in the rays of sun on a cloudless day and in the torrential downpours of storms and cyclones. The real new earth is, in my experience of it, whatever I define it to be in the moment I seek it. Sometimes its the victory lap, and sometimes its the humility of defeat. It’s rarely the same thing twice.

When we finally stand our ground, accept our sadness and our joy, and stake a claim to the life we choose to live we have discovered our earth, our home, our sacred shrine. It’s our birthright is we just choose to defend it.