It’s unbelievable to me that for the last decade of my life, and that’s every single day, I’ve awoken at four in the morning and have gone to bed at ten in the evening. You’ll see that I could never be at peace again.
For I believe that no one would voluntarily subject themselves to such a ridiculous sleeping pattern, to be so completely idiotic, unless of course you’re voluntarily in the military, which is a completely different gig, or completely self-tortured, which I have been for the last decade of my life.
But …it was late in the evening right next to the morning when he walked in. Right away I could see he was a man not to be reckoned with. He looked as solid as an Oak Tree with shoulders that never seemed to curve downwards. For some reason he sat down right next to me and told me that earlier in the day, “I was at 325 feet above the ground cutting boughs or branches off a Giant Sequoia Tree,” and, “It saddened me so,” he said.
He hated to cut into the tree, and he told me how the tree had responded back with bites of his own. Then the man right then and there in the middle of our rest stop took off his shirt and started to show me all wounds he had received that day, and then he showed me all the scars he had received earlier ---on millions of other trees, many (many) years ago, starting with day one when he began his life as a malicious tree trimmer.
The scars all seemed to connect together and he was without any question: A Scar Man! “Wow,” I said. He was the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen or had dreams of meeting. And for some reason I said it ---I did! and I can never forgive myself.
Since we were in San Francisco, California and the Golden Gate Bridge could be seen from our rest stop I said, “I bet you could survive a fall off,” I pointed to the bridge, “The Golden Gate Bridge, huh?” “Yes,” he screamed. He quickly showed me how he’d do it, how he’d stick his feet together when he’d hit the water, how he’d breathe on impact, and where he’d swim afterwards. He started challenging himself, not me, and it became quickly adolescent only to change its beat to infantile. He had to prove to himself that he could do it.
We started walking to the Golden Gate Bridge. He was walking fast and I had to do my best to stay in beat with, ‘Scar Man’. Finally, and without another word, when we were half way across the bridge he jumped over the railing. I ran over to the railing and saw the ocean engulf him completely. He was never seen or heard from again. I walked back home to go to bed, since nothing else could be done, and when I began to pull the sheets over my head I turned to look at my clock and it was ---ten. It was 10:00; or, ten o’clock in the P.M.
The End
