Chapter One: Halcyon Daze
.
.
.
.
Two years later...
.
.
.
.
Sleepy towns drifted past one by one, mismatched houses pleated against the countryside through the blur of trees. Wind blew back through the open windows and ripped through my hair like summer- fragrant, warm and fleeting; a childhood memory bringing out both the cyclic nostalgia and deja vu of the seasons. Spring had just ended, and our car was full of good friends winding north up NY-38 away from our hometown.
Away from the world, as we knew it.
We were escaping. But not in the conventional definition of the word. There was nothing terrible happening. Nothing bad... in fact, we were all content with our places in life, and how they were made to start shifting forward again.
No, we were escaping the mundanity of what happens when you start to have a life of your own. It was post-college for all of us. We all had jobs and were out of our parent's houses, even though I was going back for a second degree after this summer. Dan Worden had become a successful accountant, commuting hours back and forth; Jim was working at one of the best ad firms in the country, and Doug was doing what he loved, so was Matt. Muck was a senior mechanic. But even then, I had felt the mundaneness of human existence by the age of twenty-five- balancing work, freelancing, and an exploding music hobby-turned-career. But that would all change. At least for today.
A sign appeared on the right side of the road: Ithaca, 10 miles.
Up ahead in the driver's seat, curly-haired Dan broke the brief silence. "Almost there guys. Dev, wanna pack a bowl real quick?"
It was our almost ancient pastime- a cycle all its own. I hear the abstract eloquence of Tame Impala playing on the stereo as I respond in kind, and reach in my pocket for my bag. Crush up a small nug into the same bowl Matt gave me when I was fifteen. Conversation resumed. With a flick of the bic I put the pipe to my lips, inhaling the rapturous smoke. In a hint of irony I passed the bowl to Matt. The music turned up. My vision brightened. The light euphoria swirled in my head, clear and clairvoyant.
I heard about a whirlwind that's coming around,
It's gonna carry off all that isn't bound, and
When it happens, when it happens,
I'm gonna be holding on
So let it happen, let it happen…
Ten minutes and a few hits later we arrived on the outskirts. I remember TIME magazine put Ithaca in the 'Top 25 Small Towns in America' earlier in 2016, drawing a lot of attention to a town already being gentrified. We didn't let it bother us. Far ahead through the trees off the main road, a church steeple poked out from above the canopy and refracted the dim light from a sun obscured by clouds. A mile past it the gleaming town bustled with life. But today we were escaping, and that included tourists.
Luckily our destination did not lie in that direction. The click of the Kia's doors locking behind us marked the start of a new adventure.
Strapped down with drink coolers and food we crossed the busy road and came out onto a loose gravel path. Before putting it away for the duration I checked my phone, flicking past a meme Doug sent me an hour ago, checked Instagram to see if anyone new had liked my picture, and fired off a few texts.
"I'm still pissed we can't park at the other spot anymore," I heard Dan Muck say as we rounded a bend, plastic clanging and our myriad of shoes crunching into the dry dirt.
"Dude I know. It's worth the walk though, and the parking tickets. Right, Doug?"
Doug looked up from his phone with a sagacious grin. "Eat shit. That wasn't even my idea."
We cut through lines of broken up hedges that led to a residential area of perfect brown townhouses, hints of lavender and lilacs kiss the humid air with a touch of freshly cut grass. Despite the light overcast, it was a gorgeous day in upstate New York, and yet all of this served merely as the backdrop to something spectacular- miles in the distance, west of town; the rolling, majestic hills of New York, tall as mountains. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints. As it turned out, we lived in one of the most naturally beautiful places in the country. It was also one of the most corrupt… but Albany was a long way from here. We walked between the houses and to the mouth of a well-worn trail, around a rusted gate post, and into the woods.
And within five minutes of hiking the trail we arrived at the base of the low cliffs. The canopy broke out into a kaleidoscope of light, the tunes of the birds changed- the colors, the frequencies of life shifted here. We'd entered a whole new world. The untouched, primeval splendor of the Ithaca gorges surrounded us.
I gave in to it's all-powerful presence. We all did. A return to the source, if such a thing existed.
We sprawled out, set up our beach towels, coolers, ripped our shirts off like animals released from captivity and joking about how many cigarettes Muck was allowed to bum for the day. Standing atop an eight foot bluff, cliffs of all sizes lay across and to the right of the deep waters of the gorge ranging from ten feet to eighty. The jump tower poked out of the murky depths, sitting atop it were a group of kids who'd arrived earlier.
After swimming and getting used to the water Jim and I climbed the shale rocks up to the perch where we always had our conversations. In a way, we were the philosophers of our group. The seekers. We always had something to say, a new idea to explore. This time it was about something, well, it was something truly terrible.
"So dude, what'd you think of the Fallout 4 ending?"
I braced myself despite knowing he felt the same way, cracking open a yuengling. Below us our friends swam and Matt started throwing unopened beers into the water.
"I have no words man… I thought it was cancer, and I mean that in as politically correct of a way as possible. I enjoyed the playthrough until about halfway when I realized how empty it was. And like… it was your kid all along?! Seriously? I call bullshit."
Jim laughed, sighing as he exhaled. Beads of water on his tan skin absorbed the sun and dried. "It's such a waste of potential. Even Skyrim felt like that, but only occasionally. I have no idea what Bethesda was thinking- we could do better. At least with the plot."
"Agreed, man. We will do better. The holes in the game industry are gaping now. Even the devs with in-house publishing are fucking up."
"RIP Ubisoft."
A pang of PTSD from pre-ordering The Division came and went. "RIP," I echoed, and poured out a small amount of beer on the rock next to me. "At least we know this will be the year for Indie games. It's a good time for me to go back to school. Our chance to make something memorable." And it was. I was moving to Los Angeles to attend USC and double major in Game Development and Digital Media, tackling game design from an artist's standpoint, and moving into the middle of the spectrum. By the end of the year I'd be creating fully textured animated characters and coding my own python script in Maya.
"Exactly. If only there was a game like Fallout, but pure science fiction. Some kind of retro 80's vibe, but epic in scale. A melting pot of civilizations and cultures, and some evil master race hounding them."
"Dude that would be so awesome. I feel like we'll get the opportunity, sooner or later…"
Some of our other friends showed up. Cole, Evan, and a few girls I barely knew. I downed my beer and we hiked our way back down through a sunlit trail silhouetted by a thousand hanging leaves.
The next few hours passed by in a blur. I got drunk and played a really sloppy game of water polo-turned-beer-pong with the Dans and Doug on my side, caught up with those I hadn't seen in months, then we all swam out to the dam that divided the gorge in half- the other side marked by a sheer drop over a hundred feet down. Some idiot died every year trying to jump it and got caught in the riptide from the waterfall. It brought a growing forest ranger presence to a place that was already hard to enjoy without getting kicked out. We sat on the dam wall, at water's level. Whipped out my vacuum sealed bag of weed, lighter, and rolling papers and twisted up a joint of blue dream.
After the raucous conversation and laughter died down, and Cole and Evan stopped wrestling, I held it up to the midday sun which now showed without obstruction.
"To the future."
We all cheered, everyone else raised their beers and toasted. This was it for the vast majority of us. We'd come far since high school, beaten crazy odds and found our passions… and now it was time for the next step of our journey.
After smoking and drinking a few more beers, I hit the critical mass of drunkenness- when you start to wander around by yourself. I'd entered the Fade. By now most of my friends were swimming or chilling on the low bluff, and more people had showed up to cliff jump. Climbing up the steep pathways up to the forty and sixty, I found Matt and Dan Worden sharing a cigarette at the top.
"Finally you show up," Matt chided. Apparently they'd split from the pack as well.
"Hey Dev-o, we were gonna start looking for you. Jump soon?" Dan asked though he knew the answer, his tall lanky frame leaned against a short tree.
"But of course," I say, chugging the rest of my beer and belching loudly.
"I didn't get to ask before but, how's Ann?"
Something ripped through me in that moment, a whirlwind of ecstasy and sadness wrapped up in bittersweet memories. The girl who taught me how to love again. Hazel-green eyes that could melt snow even in the absence of winter's light.
"Good, man… it's just hard knowing we're going off to different schools. She doesn't seem as worried about it as me, but I don't think she realizes how hard it'll be. Not to be a bitch, but I've my soul shredded over long distance relationships. They just don't work past a certain point."
"But you are a bitch," Matt shot with a sagacious grin. I kicked him.
Dan put his hand on my shoulder warmly, just like his personality. "I feel you man, but I know how much you love each other. These are your careers. Your life. You'll be fine."
I always loved his realistic optimism. "I know homie, thanks. Trust the process."
"Exactly. Jump?"
"You read my fuckin' mind."
Under the now low-hanging sun the water stretched out before us and drained out into a vast lake with canoes drifting by in idyllic laziness. My cross-faded mind slipped into the state of pre-jump. My foot bridged against the crease of the stone cliff- exhale. With deep breaths I wring the tension from my muscles… the wind picks up, an invisible sign.
I jump.
My eyes are open but I barely see anything- only color, the streaks of land and forest and water rushing up to meet me. Thrusting out I spin backwards into a slow-rolling gainer and tuck…
Everything stops as my body plummets meters deep into the water, the icy chill of deep springtime water was sobering, cathartic. Pressure gently squeezed my head.
On this jump, however, I felt something curious stir amidst the cloudy waters- a far off pull as if there was a jetstream somewhere. Strange. I broke away from the natural rise to the surface and opened my eyes. Curious indeed; a faint blue light brimmed with suppressed effervescence near the bottom of the depths. A total anomaly. An enigma. I move toward it.
The pull was coming from the light. Distant at first, then, as I get closer, stronger and resilient, resolving itself into an orb-like entity once I got close enough. But then it stopped getting closer. Panic rose to my throat when I realized I was running out of oxygen, caught in the enigmatic pull of something I did not understand…
And then I feel it more than ever. Aggressive, forceful- it yanked me towards it again.
Shit, shit, shit, shiiiiiit. I desperately recall what Matt told me to do in a riptide and start rolling like a damn alligator. Nothing. My will to return to the surface was crushed with my spirit.
I feel sick, but vomiting wasn't going to help. This is not good. I tasted bile. My own demise. With no other option except drown, I embraced the light and used the last of my waning energy to move with the flow. Almost out of air now. The indomitable force the orb exerted jerked my limbs as if I wasn't submerged in water.
Then, everything stops.
An unfathomable calm sweeps in around me. I hear it, smell it, taste it, see it- the same white as the inside of the light...
I am consumed.
