We want a lot. I want so much. That ambition brings weight. Many days now, I've been wretched and depressed. You know better than anyone. But I want you to know that I am well aware of how god damn lucky I am to get to share life with you. The more I see of you, the more perfect you appear. I notice another curve, a new crease in your smile, and I know I'm seeing a good memory in the present. Your grin and his make me follow without thought. With each trip, each adventure, and each hardship, you take a little more of me.
The ringing of his collar woke me in my chair. Some time had passed, the sun was beginning its descent, and the clouds were all painted orange the way you like. I rolled my sore neck over to see you and him wading there in the water, and all the weight left me and time wasn't so elusive and I smiled honestly and laughed quietly with true joy.
His legs are sure at first. Water rushes past, rapids forming at his ankles. An overextension into green. A surprise. He falls hard. The last of him disappears under the surface--the boy says, "smiling." The red rescue vessel tears up and down, its wake creating turmoil for the rocks sunbathing on shore. His hat is found some miles down. They say they'll keep searching, but after three days and a muddy rain storm, they cut their losses and claim him missing. But the little boy on the bridge who saw him go under knows, he is still under there, somewhere, a grin on his face. The man who thought he knew the river.
We just realized we have duplicated this picture.
"Please Read." letters etched on to a flat rock say,
"When taking this trail, leave your old-worldly worries behind and adopt the new ones, for this is the New World. Sheer falls of water and rock. Trees so ancient they shaded your ancestor's ancestors, and a level of beauty that suggests merciful theism. Welcome to Heaven. Love the one you're with. Let your dog free. Breathe deep at every hill. Smell every flower. But please, pick up your dog's shit."
"Bit vulgar at the end there, isn't it?" the woman says.
The husband shrugs it off. "Nice carving though," he says. The husband is not the type to take the bad from a well-meaning paragraph etched into a flat rock beside a trail. He's not the type to do much of anything.
The two waltz down the trail following every direction the rock gave them except for one. They smile at each other lovingly and let their dog run ahead. They smell every flower and breathe deep at every pinnacle. But they do not pick up their dog's shit.
"Should we?" she asks, looking down as her dog looks back up at her, that awkward exchange that we for some reason don't question where the dogs eyes are plainly begging for some scrap of decency, and a turn for privacy.
"I didn't bring a bag." So what does the husband do? Nothing. He shrugs it off. And the two continue on, lost in the perpetual beauty that is the New World.
Well it just so happens that the New World is a haven for all creatures pushed out and thought dead in the old world. This includes the makers of that very nice, very vulgar sign. And it doesn't take long. They are fifty feet from the pile of steaming excrement when they hear it.
"GAHHHHHD DAMN IT." The couple are sure they have just heard Andre the Giant, for he is the only one on Earth with a voice that low and that powerful. Impossible, you say? Well, you're right. Rest in Peace Andre.
The couple turns to see two of the tallest people they have ever seen standing in the middle of the trail, one in a pile of shit, and both covered in hair from head to toe.
The couple have discovered one very upset Sasquatch, and another who seems in good spirits at his companion's misfortune of finding the only pile of shit to step in on their ten-mile trek. But the couple should've expected this. Everybody knows Sas'm'quantch are excellent rock carvers, and semi-vulgar hosts.
The wife and the dog have the good sense to run. The husband, prone to inaction, stands dumbfounded thirty feet from two seven-foot tall Yetti.
Bellowing at his own toes, the angry Sasquatch (who happens to be named Todd) wipes the fresh poop from his toes and flings it, hoping more to scare than actually strike the man, directly on to the husband's mouth, which, as fate would have it, sits agape. The husband becomes suddenly active, and turns tail after his wife, mouth full of shit.
After some moments, Todd turns to his chuckling friend (who happens to be named Felipe) and sighs deeply, "Barbarians."
"They sounded English." Felipe replies.
"Barbarian Tourists. Make me sick."
And the two Yetti made it home for porridge. The End.
Silent steps leap down the path. An eagle cries out above. The grass sways with every passing body. A war party is afoot. No one calls out. Only breathing can be heard, and it is only heard by the forest. Mice in the grass tuck tail and hide. The trees watch solemnly. A hand is raised. The padded feet halt and the leader sniffs the air. Cries erupt. The brush around them comes alive. Gunshots thunder. Men fall. The war party that was ahead falls behind. Bodies are picked clean. Victors trek on. Leaves fall, then snow. Flowers bloom. New padded feet run and wait. Old victors should have known. A new generation feeds bullets, picks pockets, and runs. The trees watch, still solemn.