Silence seemed golden.
“There’s a second option,” Rosemary continued. “Take that next step. Walk into the crossfire. Yes, you’ll feel terrified and you’re positive that you’re paralyzed by inadequacy. You’re not. You’ll take some hits, but you’ll live. And when you take those first few steps and glance back at your foot prints, you’ll see that you survived. You made progress. You’re carving out a destiny for yourself. Fear will be replaced by astonishment.”
Rosemary broke her gaze, looked at the darkening horizon and turned her head back toward Aiden. “You should head back,” she said. “Gets dark quick here.”
She stood up and started to walk back toward the gravel lot. Aiden was still trying to connect all the dots of her theory as he followed her to the cars.
“Wow,” he finally said out loud. “When do you think these things up?”
Rosemary smiled a small smile.
“When you spend most of your time working behind a cash register, your mind tends to wander,” she said. “You learn to read people. Most everyone walks around as an advertisement of themselves, in everything from their demeanor to their grocery lists.”
They walked side by side toward the parked cars.Aiden had to chuckle out loud. “Not gonna lie, for all your talk about the beauty of life and such, that sounds like you’re putting a blanket treatment on everyone when you don’t know the first thing about them.”
Rosemary opened her car door and paused before moving to the driver seat. “You’re a lot more similar to the rest of us than you’d like to think.”
5. LOST PERSONA
5:25 AM came far too early for Aiden.
It was a sleepless night for the most part. He tended to not sleep that well the first night in a new place – let alone a place as dark, cold and rustic as Dad’s cabin.
Moonlight crept in through the living room windows, directly across from the loft. The light kept his senses alert and his mind racing. Not with anxiety; just restlessness.
He managed to sleep an hour here and there but the interruptions kept a deep sleep at bay. He heard frogs outside. Gusts of wind shook the trees, sending maple leaves and cedar bristles and small twigs onto the metal roof.
The distractions held little power compared to the white noise from today’s conversation with Rosemary.
Or was it yesterday? Sleepless nights make it hard to keep track of time.
Either way, he wasn’t expecting to get hit with such existential conversation when he got in his car that afternoon. Still, it was nice to at least have made some human contact. The talk was intellectually stimulating and he appreciated her thoughts – strange as the interaction was.
His mind switched back to assessing his current situation. The cabin was cold. Aiden guessed there wasn’t much insulation. He wrapped himself in the two thin quilts he found on the loft bed. They weren’t keeping him warm enough, and he was still wearing the t-shirt and sweatpants he changed into when he got back from yesterday’s drive.
He climbed down the ladder and walked over to the wood stove. Couldn’t remember the last time he made an actual fire. There were a few pieces of firewood in a small black bucket by the stove along with a box of matches.
But no paper.
He remembered having a copy of The Seattle Times in the Civic. He put on his hoodie and braved the harsh wind to fetch the paper from the passenger seat. Yesterday’s news was today’s fuel source. Once insightful, now dispensable.
Much of life seemed to share that fate.
He ran back into the house, slammed the door shut and quickly crumpled up the paper, stacked it in with the firewood and lit a match. Took a few attempts, but the flames roared to life.
Aiden climbed back up to the loft and crawled under the quilts, still wearing his hoodie. He clenched his left hand into a fist and used his other hand to warm it, then curled up and brought his legs close to his stomach, adopting the fetal position.
Aiden wasn’t just cold; he was worn out and felt vulnerable to the cabin itself, like it was closing in on his lack of confidence and wealth of uncertainty.
Seemed to be the trend. Being without a sense of direction or even a roadmap made for an unfortunate transition.
The heat quickly filled the room and rose up to the loft. Too warm for the quilts.
Aiden threw them off and rolled over to his side and felt some fatigue kicking in.
But his mind still couldn’t shut down. Still couldn’t drown out the frogs and the wind.
Still couldn’t answer Rosemary’s question.
“What brings an intelligent, big-city guy like you to Cielo Island of all places?”
He didn’t know.
It was getting warmer. He unzipped the hoodie and threw it to the far corner of the loft.
“Intelligent” was the last connotation he would assign to himself right now. He had no degree, no professional experience outside of food service, no romantic companions with which to find blissful distraction, no strong friendships to rely on for guidance and no healthy family relationships to turn to for support – emotional or financial.
That’s how Aiden saw it, at least. The last thing he wanted to be was a pity-whore always finding something wrong with his situation. He knew he fell victim to that.
“Your problems and anxieties are far more interesting than anyone else’s,” Rosemary had said.
She had a point.
He still was too warm.
Stripped down to his grey t-shirt and black briefs. It was almost too warm for the shirt, but Aiden had always been self-conscious about his hairy gut, even when no one else was around.
Finally he was comfortable. He stretched out on his back and enjoyed the heat, hoping that it would relax his mind into a deep sleep.
Sleep didn’t come, so he surrendered to restlessness.
Aiden sat up, swung his legs over to the side of the bed and looked down from the loft.
The moon lit up the cabin just enough to make it visible to the eye. It had an eerie ambiance, no doubt, but it also had a sense of comfort that Aiden couldn’t deny.
Peaceful darkness.
Calming isolation.
Quiet.
He couldn’t pin it down.
He didn’t need to.
All he had to do was give up hopes of sleeping that night. But the cabin’s eerie comfort was countered by trying to make sense of the vague memories of his last time on Cielo – memories conjured up by the cabin’s furnishings.
Aiden got off the bed and climbed down the ladder, feeling a noticeable coolness compared to the warmth of the loft. The balance was good, so he left his pants off. It was dark enough that even he could barely see himself.
He stood near the fireplace with his back facing the heat, warming his bare legs while he looked outward into the moon-lit living room. A small love seat stood against the loft wall to his left and an arm chair was on the opposite wall. Where Dad must have read his books by the fire, he thought.
The cabin had a natural cooling effect – more psychological than physical. The sensation that comes when you’re not sure what lies around the corner. Or even directly in front of you.
Aiden could see, but the sights were what brought the eerie coolness. Remnants of Dad. His passions, his hobbies. His life.