I always assumed that I’d die surrounded by my friends, their steely knives bearing down upon me as I looked up in surprise to be cut down: inexplicably thinking about Caesar and wishing I took better notice of the exit path.
A king’s death, that’s how I wanted to go.
Not a gout laden heart-burst of failure ending up with the reunion of nine wives–how horrible that they had all that time to gossip–no, but the heroic last stand upon tyne-hill kind of death that would look rather fetching on a good tapestry. I wanted a death that bards–whatever they are–would sing spanning epics of, and thus lead people to then wonder just how truly great I was–how merry was this old soul and ruminations of the like. I’m not a ruler, or a commander, it should be plainly stated that the only ruling that I’ve managed in my feeble life was being named head rubbish collector at primary school; even the suggestion that I could command anything above a level of apathy would be simply laughable, but despite the collected evidence I still foresaw a royal ending to be within my life’s granted graces.
Why not? Why shouldn’t I deserve a hero’s death? Despite all of my selfishness, despite all of my stoicism against decency, had I still not trod lightly upon the world’s crust? Had my negative impact been relatively minor when compared to actual kings or the tyrants of oppression? And what of the Tyrant while I mention him? What type of man is bold, or dashing enough, that he still could be labeled as important by the populus that cares enough to stuff him into a guillotine. I used to look to the deposed rulers and attempt to learn from their capsizes, I would note the flair, the dourness, the hem of their coat-tails; I’d try to puzzle out what made these names immortal beyond their headstone.
In short, I ran out of time…a shame really.
My death was common, well, unnoticed may be a more accurate way of describing my final moment of departure, but even with a small grevillea growing through my ribcage, I can’t help but feel like I had wasted my chance at a kingly death.
I’d never been much of a hiker, I wore the browns, I lived the laugh-love, as it were, and I chose to keep that distant sense of aventure-ish ruggedness about my inner-city villa: the one that filled each bookshelf with the unread biographies of adventurers past and left half-furled maps splayed out across my dining-room table.
So it was a cloudless weekend of nothing to do that caused me to itch for adventure. Autumn often made me itch and the unbound call of the outdoors would lead me to long strolls along lake-sided cafe bookends: the thinking person’s walk, the one of striding along the middle of a pathway holding no regard for cyclist or pram.
Idiots and the geographically imbalanced went hiking, I was an orentierer; why would a man worry himself down a trail already cut when he could forge his own path and conquer peaks unknown? King’s forge, they surge ahead like a tide, they move in such a way that all mountains shall seem diminutive and by every stitch in my sock I set off that morning to exceed those summits. The unknown heart of the wild calls to many and I chose to shout back in its face.
Lombard valley, a sprawling region of untamed crag and aggressive conifer fern. It was a land of dappled glades and silent river flow; It’s shaded brooks only garnished by the occasional sunbeam that broke through the tree-line and glinted down upon banks of moss and rock, the kind of silent portrait of both colour and light that held a single harmony in its painted, crushing, maw. This was my bastion, this was to be my kingdom, this was a land to be henceforth known by my full name, intrinsically linked to my blood long after I had trampled over its mystery and then planted the flag of, ‘I’ve been here, me, I was first.’ I marched toward this future with orienteering-boot, rope and a scant regard for the intelligence of a compass.
The crest of a rocky glade greeted me.
This valley, and presumably the several beyond, were to be the start of my trek and the winding loop trail to my left held nothing but a coward’s return: I would not return, I would conquer. I looked down that gentle slope and rested my gaze upon the tired stream that had presumably carved out this gorge over years of ambling dawdle. ‘Ha,’ I laughed at the slow moving river; I would not errode down this rocky precipice and stoop to the level of barely moving water, I would instead bound down this rock covered hillside of moss and hidden slip-grass, knowing my step to be true and my trusted balance unwavering.
…
It was cold, I had evidently been carried quite a long way downstream and the blue tinge to my fingertips had stripped them of any feeling, any movement. A dull throb scraped alongside my scattered heart as a patch of disappearing warmth seemed to wane away from me with each rasping breath. An inconvenience, I thought, a short divergence upon this success that I was still to be undertaking. Yes, my legs were broken and, yes, the dark sky meant it had been several hours since I had fallen unconscious, but a king suffered no setback. I crawled up onto the embankment that I had become so luckily snagged by and propped myself up as to appear dignified; leaning toward where I hoped the horizon was, I fixed distance with a steely gaze and then quietly let myself die.
Some may call this the end of my story, some may claim that no man can bounce back from becoming compost or that the dreams of a skeleton should settle with just hoping a beehive doesn’t establish itself inside their skull. But I define lofty! Give me a year and I’ll be back on my feet and climbing this mountain, right after I find that rambunctious dingo who stole my femur last spring.
J.McCray
2021
Sunday Short Stories 