Reversion--Part V

A light breeze began to pick up, and Josh remembered what it was like to have his entire body immersed in the chilled hand of nature.  The hillocks ended suddenly on either side of him, and before him the land fell away in a long slope, leading to scattered huts, a town that appeared barbaric compared to Josh’s city.  In the lessening light of the day he could see that there were no streets or fences, nor a wall that separated the cabins from nature.  The southernmost homes faced north, and the northernmost homes faced south; wherever a cabin stood, another was facing it.

He left the dirt path and entered the town warily, recalling the guard’s talk about “brave or stupid,” and his eyes scanned his surroundings.  From what he could tell, none of the homes were illuminated by light bulbs, but by candle-and-firelight.  All were one-storied, and were crafted of wood that appeared real—unlike that wood of the modern age that forms the skeleton of a building, cut into the finest rectangular shape.  They had windows, but they seemed primitive and small.  There were no designated front yards or backyards; the expansive greenery of the earth served as both.  Many of the homes had front porches, and it is here that neighbors communed and sipped tea together, as children played games of heroism in the grass.  One middle-aged man walked through town holding a bow made from a curved branch, and a younger man greeted him from his porch: “How are you this evening, Ken?”

The older man turned to him.  “Well, I’m doing quite all right there, sir.  Now how about yourself?”

“Oh, everything is good.  How’s your brother doing?  The last time we talked, you said his asthma was bad.”

The older man nodded.  “He’s doing a bit better, Rick.  He was getting so bad there for a while, he was going cold.  Now he’s recovering.  Thanks for asking!”

“No worries, Ken,” the younger man replied.  “Would you like something warm to drink?  It’s getting cold; the sun’ll be gone soon.”

“I’ll have to take that offer another time.  I need to get some game for my brother before the sun goes down, if I can.  Not to mention, it’ll be nice to be alone in nature for a bit.”

Rick grinned respectfully.  “All right, but don’t forget to come by one of these days.  The children want to hear some more of your stories.  Have fun!”

“I’m sure I will!” Ken said with a laugh.  He continued to walk, and he passed Josh with a slight bow and greeting.  Josh awkwardly returned the greeting and then found himself at the doorstep of a cabin.  A sign was pitched in the grass, reading, “Joe and Maria Eya.”

He walked to and fro for a few moments before finding the courage to knock on the door.  He fretted in his heart and twiddled his thumbs.  Would his mother recognize him as he was?  He thought he looked like Moses or some man from ancient times, and he had hardly recognized himself in the reflection of the sliding glass door.  If she did recognize him, would she shun him or reenact the horrid play of her distraught face that he viewed each time he closed his eyes?  There was no other option for him. She had been the first image in his mind, and she gave him purpose.  If she could not answer his questions, then there was not much else he could do but join Simon in his simple stream of life.  But that life, which he had favored in his past, did not appeal to him.  Perhaps it was the fact that he felt lucky to be alive; he felt obliged to “live life to the fullest,” as the saying went.  What was the fullest?  Was it anything that brought happiness?  Was it altruism?  Was it something that could be measured objectively?  He had not the slightest answer, but something beyond the flesh chanted to him that falling into Simon’s stream of life would not help him appreciate that he had managed to survive—whatever he had survived.

He bowed his head, mulling over an apology to his mother.  But then he realized that while he missed her, and desired that she might tell him what he was supposed to be doing, he did not know what to apologize for.  He had always believed that apology involved being genuinely sorrowful over one’s wrongdoing to another, and then changing one’s ways so that the other is not hurt again.  Someone had once explained it this way to him: the man who punches another man in the face does not repent of his misdeed and then strike a second time.  It would be difficult to articulate what he was sorry for.  He could tell his mother that he was sorry for taking a different route of life from hers; but would he then be willing to change and adhere to her ways?  Of course, the simplest thing would be to say that he was sorry for causing her pain, for he constantly recalled the ache on her face.  Although his illness had wiped away the memory of so many other events, that sadness was more tangible than anything that he had been exposed to after his awakening.  His thoughts were disrupted when the door opened before him.

The appearance of the woman in the doorway did not deviate from the picture that his mind evoked.  Her hair and complexion were tanned, and her eyes were a creamy brown.  The slithering strands of her hair wriggled down the edges of her smooth, chiseled face and curled in near her chin.  Instantly she went pale and her eyes filled with tears, as if she were staring into the face of a ghost of a long-deceased ancestor.  Her gasp was short but sharp, and then she breathed heavily.

“Josh?” she asked, reaching a hand out to his face.  “Is this possible?”

“I’m back, Mom,” he replied as she reassuringly felt his skin.  “I’m lost and confused by recent events, but I’m back.”

She trembled emotionally, and then threw her arms around him and surprised him with the strength of her limbs.  As she wept on his shoulder, she said, “Oh, my son.  My Josh!  I never thought you would come back.  I thought we had lost you forever!  Oh, my Josh!  Just wait until your dad finds out!  He’ll be so joyful!”

Josh felt that he would weep also, but he was not yet emotionally charged enough.  He felt a sort of detachment from everything, but he had faith that his mother could fix it all.  “I love you, Mom.  I’m all right.  You don’t have to worry.  I’m all right.”

“No, Josh, you’re not!” her voice began to acquire its scolding tone.  “You’re too skinny!  And you look so ill!”  She hugged him tighter, and then released him and began to tug him into the house.  “Please, come in.  I’ll make you some tea and something warm.  Please, come in.”

Josh allowed her to pull him into the cabin.  There were only two rooms; the first room appeared to be a blend of a kitchen and living room, and the second—from what Josh could see—was his parents’ room.  Close to his parents’ room was a three-tiered bookshelf, but on it there were only a few books, all on the top shelf: The Bible, The Lord of the Rings, a small booklet entitled “Emerson’s Nature,” and another small booklet entitled “Thoreau’s Walden.”   Also in the living room there was a large, shapeless carpet, seemingly made of a real animal’s dark fur.  Atop this sat a misshapen table laden with empty plates, cups, and a candle, and three chairs pushed beneath.  Near the table was a couch that looked familiar to Josh, but its familiarity made him realize that he had never actually been in this cabin before.  In fact, he had never been in this community before.  From what he could remember, west of his city was a small town, located approximately where he was now.  It had not been as technologically advanced as the community in which he lived, but it was definitely not as archaic as this village.  What had removed a large portion of that town’s population and plopped the remainder into a village of wood and earth?  Where were the buildings that he could faintly recollect?

His mother placed him on the couch and looked firmly at him.  “Josh, I cannot begin to tell you how much your father and I missed you.  How much we worried for you.”

Josh nodded.  “Mom, I don’t know what’s happened to me, but I can’t remember a whole lot.  I think I’m going to need some things explained to me.”

She smiled sweetly at him.  “I’m sure you have a ton of questions.  All I ask is that you wait just a few minutes while I boil some water for your tea.  I don’t like talking to people while I go about my tasks.  The tasks become too distracting.”

She gave him a kiss on his forehead and went to a cupboard that he had not noticed before.  There were clangs of items bashing against one another, and then she took a small tub of clear water and a kettle from a shelf.  After pouring water into the kettle, she set it on a large slab of stone that was lifted above a fire by two rusted, metal arms.  The sound of boiling water began almost immediately.  In a matter of a couple minutes the kettle whistled, and she poured the steaming water into one of the cups on the table.  Soon Josh was sitting comfortably on the couch, a cup in his hand, and a teabag emitting light color and flavor into the water of the cup he held.  His mother pulled a chair from under the table and sat on it, a few feet from her son, facing him.

“I can’t believe my son is sitting here,” she said with hushed jubilance, her eyes raised momentarily to the ceiling.  She looked at him again. “Ask anything you want, Josh.”

Josh sighed, wondering if he was prepared to hear any answers.  “When I awoke earlier today, I was in the medical hut in my backyard, lying on a bed.  I was hooked up to an IV, and an EKG was monitoring my heart.  It was scary.  Clearly, I haven’t been well.  But what happened to me?”

His mother continued to stare at him for a few moments, and then she lowered her eyes.  “I wish I could give you a detailed explanation, but I know only part of the story.  Son, you were in a coma.”

Josh swallowed with difficulty and fell back against the couch.  His head whirled and he nearly wept.  The phantasmagoric images that had pummeled his mind prior to his final awakening made sense to him now.  Something inside had been attempting to wake him, but his flesh had been weak, pressing him back into that unwholesome darkness, the seeking claws of scarcely escapable sleep.  He held his chest as his heart suddenly catapulted against it; it could hardly stand the news.  It had never occurred to him that he one day might collapse into that most mysterious repose.  “How did that happen?  Did I get hit by a car or something?”

“That is the question I have been asking myself for some time now,” his mother replied, shaking her head dismally.  “All I know is that you were in a coma.  I don’t know how it happened, but I’ve been dying to know and praying that you would come to life again.  And God has answered my prayers!”  She embraced him a third time.  “If I never find out how it happened, I’ll still be happy, knowing that you’re back.”

When she released him, he told her, “You said you’ve been asking about the cause of my coma for a while.  How long is a while?”

“Oh, a while, son,” she responded.  “Three years, exactly.  And every minute has passed like a century.”

“Three years!” Josh coughed.  “Are you kidding?  So I’m like…”

“You’re thirty-three years old now.”  She studied his expression and frowned when dismay crossed his face.  “I can only imagine what that must feel like for you to hear.”

“Three years,” Josh repeated with disbelief.  “So, three years of my life were wasted.  What could I have accomplished in those three years?”

His mother shrugged.  “You may have not been able to accomplish anything in that state, but through it, you have come back here.”

Josh nodded in agreement.  “Yes, I know.  It’s just a horrifying thought, that life I could have lived was taken from me.”

She touched his hand and fixed her eyes on his.  “Josh, you weren’t living.  You were dead long before your coma ever happened.  Dead to life, that is.  I’m sorry to say it, son, but—well, true love cannot thrive without pain—everything about your life before your coma was about you.  It was all about you, and you never let anyone in.  The way you were living, son, wasn’t healthy.  You built a wall around yourself, and I used to see it while you were still at home with us.  And it wasn’t just the video games; they were only a small part of it, but—and forgive me if this sounds a little too analytical—they were like a physical expression of what I think was going on inside.  The way you acted when you played those games was like the way you lived your life—you were walled out from the voices of others, from real relationships, and you only occasionally heard the things that you cared about.  Selective hearing, I suppose you’d call it.  Your father and I, we couldn’t bear it, but you wouldn’t listen to us.

“Maybe I’ve just gone crazy with grief, but a few moments ago, when I saw you at my door, I saw something different in your eyes.  I don’t really understand it, Josh, but I feel like something played on your heart while you were in that coma.  I don’t see why you would come back to me, otherwise.  You hated me so much when you left.”

Josh shook his head, and the tears began to fall.  “Why did I leave?  Why did I hate you?”

She smiled somewhat grimly.  “So you have forgotten that, also.  That happened before your coma, maybe six months before it.  Think back, Josh.  It was one of the most historical events in this nation’s history.  Technology had been expanding since I was young, but within the last half-decade, it erupted like crazy.  People celebrated man’s ability to build powerful structures, and gaming systems, and strange machines comparable to man, with very little in terms of supplies.  The cheapest computers used the same amount of energy to follow high-end instructions as computers from two decades ago took to add two and two on the calculator. 

“As I said, many thought that these were things to rejoice in.  Of course, others were terrified, knowing what this explosion of technology could bring.  The president of our nation was in this category.  Simpler was happier, he said.  He, with the support of all beneath him, appeared on TV and encouraged the nation to move backwards.  To go back to the days when horses were used rather than cars.  Before fire was replaced by electricity.  Before skyscrapers reached the heavens.  By doing this, people could find true joy in nature.  Much of the nation’s population, though not a majority, leapt with joy and there was a movement called the Era of Unbuilding, where people took hammers and mallets to their homes in celebration of moving back into nature.  This went on for a year, ending sometime in the middle of your coma.

“More people rebelled, however.  Large groups across the nation decided that they wanted to see humanity continue to evolve.  They desired to witness the full extent of man’s capacity for growth.  The number of people who wanted to retreat back into nature, called the Unbuilders, was maybe half the number of those who wanted to advance, called the Builders.  But cities can only be so large, and nature seems to expand forever.  So across our nation you will see long stretches of beautiful grass and unmarked hills, a pocket of city, and more grass and hills.  It’s an odd sight.

“Needless to say, you decided to join the Builders.  You did not make the decision immediately; it took you some time, and many conversations with your father and me.  Then that horrid day came.  You told me that you were going to join those that were living in the cities.  I tried to stop you.  I tried to convince you that it was wrong, but once again, you didn’t listen to me.  The result was that you yelled at me, telling me that you would rather live with someone who respects what you do with your life.  And you were gone.  I was angry with you, but more than anything, my heart was broken.  I felt like I had lost my son.  And that was the last time I saw you.  Of course, I tried to visit you, especially after I had received news of your coma, but that blatantly sexual fingerprint scanner of yours doesn’t take kindly to strangers.”