Caribou Island

He sat up in his sleeping bag, unzipped quietly.

I’m awake, Irene said. You don’t have to be quiet. I’m always awake.

It’s snowing, he said.

I know. It’s been snowing for hours now.

I’m just going to take a look. He pulled on his pants and shirt, stood in the entranceway of the tent to pull on boots and raingear. The tent still blown by wind, whipping and lurching, but no longer the heavy sound of the rain.

He stepped outside into a deeper cold than he had expected. Not quite October yet, but it felt like October. Not wearing enough beneath his raingear, but he’d only be out here a short time anyway. He bent into the wind and snow and walked toward the water’s edge, wanted to see the waves. Dark out, black, but the waves would be breaking, showing white.

The undergrowth thick, deadwood everywhere. Alder branches lashing at him. The snow cold on his cheeks, melting when it hit. Big flakes, delicate. He wished he could see them.

Through alder to the tufted growth near the shore, thick grasses, and he could see the white of the waves now, fainter than he had imagined, and feel the windblown spray on his cheeks.

Nap nihtscua, darkened night-shadow, northan sniwde, snow from north. This is what Gary loved. Hrim hrusan bond, frost-bound world, haegl feol on eorthan, hail fell on the earth, corna caldast, coldest of grains. His favorite part of the poem, because it was the unexpected shift, a surprise. After all his suffering at sea in storms, the seafarer wants only to go back out again. Nor is his thought for the harp nor for ring-receiving nor the pleasure in woman nor in hope of the world, nor for anything else, except for the surging of the waves.

A desire from a thousand years ago, a longing for atol ytha gewealc, the terrible surging of the waves, and Gary understood this, finally. He hadn’t understood it in grad school, because he’d been too young, too conventional, believed the poem was only about religion. He hadn’t yet seen his life wasted, hadn’t yet understood the pure longing for what was really a kind of annihilation. A desire to see what the world can do, to see what you can endure, to see, finally, what you’re made of as you’re torn apart. A kind of bliss to annihilation, to being wiped away. But ever he has longing, he who sets out on the sea, and this longing is to face the very worst, a delicate hope for a larger wave.

Gary shivered with cold but wanted to face the elements more purely. He pushed back his hood, unzipped his rain jacket, laid it in the grass at his feet. Full shock of wind, all his warmth taken. Pulled off his sweater and then his shirt. Bare-chested now, and he raised his arms into the storm, yelled at the wind and snow, a madman. A man alive, he thought, and wondered whether he was expecting some kind of rebirth, redemption. But he hated that he had any thoughts at all. He wanted to be swept clean of thoughts, wanted his mind to stop. So he stepped forward into the spray, onto the beach, slippery stones covered in slime, kept his arms raised and walked slowly, ceremonially, his body shaking out of control, wracked. He slipped and had to put a hand down, recovered. Legs pounded now by waves, blasting into him, the first shock of a wave hitting his stomach, and he leaned sideways into the oncoming water, arms lowered now, bracing, hit again by a wave, knocking him back and he fell, went under, one arm jarred all the way to the shoulder from impact with rock, and then he was clear again, then drenched by another wave. He yelled, whooped and hollered, felt better than he’d felt in years, stopped trying to stand, just sprawled in the rocks, held his breath each time he was covered, shook free in the trough, yelled again. He didn’t even feel that cold anymore.

The world came in different sizes, though. That expansive feeling, that sense of extension, of connection, could moments later feel smaller, hard and cold, and Gary didn’t know how this worked. The moment was over, before he had ridden it as far as he would have liked, and if he stayed here now, it would not come back. He knew that. But he stayed anyway, because he didn’t like that rule. Was it a rule of the world, or just a limitation of self, and how could you ever know the difference?

Why can’t I stop thinking about this as a moment? he asked out loud. Why can’t I just live it? Why does it have to end after five minutes?

Consciousness not really a gift. He’d had these thoughts thirty years ago, when he first arrived, and there’d been no progress. All that had changed was his commitment. Back then it’d been full of belief, and now it was more determined, coupled to annihilation, not expecting anything in return. Nothing better to do, he told the waves.

The water more than just a medium, more than wave and temp. It felt abrasive against his skin. It had body and impact. It hurt to stay here, despite the numbness. So that’s what got him to crawl away, finally. He couldn’t stand. The rocks hurt his knees, even through his jeans. He crawled out of the waves and onto the beach, into tufts of grass, spiky and rough, felt around with his hands until he found his shirt and sweater and raincoat. He didn’t put them on. Just held them in his hands as he crawled over deadfall and blueberry, patches of moss, whatever else covered this ground. He made it to the tent, unzipped, his hand numb like a club, and crawled in.