“Yeah, I hear you. Kim keeps me grounded also. I guess someone has to do that in a relationship. Our parents didn’t give us that grounding, I think, what with Mom dying so young, and Dad not being very healthy.”
“Being a drunk…”
“Yeah, that. So I think you and I sought out women who would give us balance and direction. Maybe you have to find a woman who gives you something you don’t have yourself. Maybe that’s the key.”
“Dunno. I wonder, sometimes, what I gave to Mel. She didn’t seem to need anything.”
“Are you kidding, Danny?” They were pulling into the drop-off at SFO International. “You gave her so much.”
“Like what?”
“She told Kim that you gave her life stability. Take that for what it’s worth…but I guess you gave her a sense of being grounded. Whatever it was, you both had many years of happiness, no matter what happened at the end.”
“Yeah, so true. Let me get my bags.”
As the flight lifted off and the landing gear locked into place, Danny felt a new life waiting for him, just up ahead. As surely as Sacramento, Phnom Penh, and now Bangkok lay in ruins behind him, Danang held new promise. A new life waited for him. He would work to ensure this one ended more positively. He didn’t want every city to leave destruction in his heart or on his face. He hoped he would leave Danang someday without any new scars.
Yet, at the same time, he wasn’t afraid of destruction. He would not surrender his life, his freedom, for a need for security. Perhaps that destruction was the measure of pushing oneself to the limit. To live the full measure of life. Maybe, after all, playing it safe was just waiting to die. Maybe his lot in life was to cast off into troubled waters. To battle storms and crushing waves. To fight to the last measure of himself. Not to preserve. Not to live for peace. But to give all of himself, and leave his ruin on the rocky shores of this existence.
Let others take to calm waters and peaceful shores. Calm waters bear a thousand ships. He would battle the rough waters alone, even if that meant he would drown in them. After all, people who sailed on calm waters had little to show for it. What did they have? A house? A car? A job they hated? How many hours of their lives were in hock for those things? Better to eat a small mouthful of food earned in challenging endeavors than a full plate in servitude to material things.
Love is ruin, and a slow death to us all. Yet, love is also the best of things, inspiring art and music and desire. Life, then, presents contrary needs, each antithetical to the other.
The last year had taught him these lessons. For all the tragedy, he was now truly alive and aware.
He closed his eyes, and for the first time in a year he spoke to her with his heart.
Melissa, I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you. I guess it cost you a new life with someone you loved. I’m sorry. Were you thinking of him that moment, there on the street? Was it him you were reaching out for? I’ll never know, I guess. But it’s okay, Mel. I do love you so much…no matter what I know now. You were everything to me. If I could trade places with you, I would, even still. You deserved everything good in life. While we were together, you gave me so much happiness. I wish you could’ve had your happiness. I probably won’t talk to you again for a while. I need to start a new life now. But you are always in my heart. I hope I made you happy sometimes. I love you, and that will never change.
Danny looked out the window of the 777, now rising above the white puffy clouds. Bright golden sunlight lit these clouds. Bright pillars and dark shadows stretched as far as he could see.
He opened his eyes to the bright morning of the east awaiting him. He saw the horizon of all there was. He saw a path. A new path. A new Danny. A new chapter of his life. He would be somebody else yet again. Not who he was, but hopefully closer to what he should be. Like a Buddhist, he hoped each death and rebirth produced a better person; each of his deaths, he felt, had made him wiser, kinder, more in tune with the world. Each iteration of Danny wasn’t necessarily better, but the new person sitting in seat 43J was definitely wiser than the old Danny. He was on a new course, and that course, that journey, would lead him to another being.
He would take that path with a glad heart, though he knew not where it would lead him. He would live life, if only for today. He knew he would have several lives before his physical life was over. Maybe that’s how it should be. People who live the same life didn’t see what he saw. They don’t see their own deaths and rebirths. They don’t test themselves with flame. They don’t experience the crucible of suffering, and therefore don’t know their own limits. They don’t see the true beauty of the world, nor the blackness that exists at its edges. When they die, they die that single time, and they fear what they are facing because they have never died before. Danny now had died four times, and he did not fear dying again. In fact, he looked forward to what he would be when he was reborn.
So today was everything. He would commit his soul and being to living every moment, every single second, to the fullest. He would get up every day and face what challenges he would come to. He would keep that glad heart, and experience all he could.
After all, tomorrow is only an illusion, a lie meant to cheat us out of our todays.
Table of Contents
PART I : SACRAMENTO
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
PART II : MEXICO
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
PART III : A SLIGHT REFRAIN
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
PART IV : SOUTHEAST ASIA
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX
XL
PART V : CODA
XLI
XLII
XLIII
The One Way (Changes Book 1) Page 23