The Abyss
Hurled into the desert by a beatnik pilot and dropped off just above nirvana. I find myself in a peculiar yet remarkable position. I am now alone. I look out above the high sierras and find a moonbeam shooting down on the valley below me. I follow it down and realize it is not a guiding light but that of a 747 landing at LAX. I am up here with the coyotes and jackrabbits. Equal prey once I get hungry. I have a canteen full of gin and a beretta 32 caliber pistol. No directions no map. Who cares? The other thing I have is a tin full of sardines and 4 joints of some primo sativa.
I begin to wander towards the city wondering what I will find on my way down. I crank up a joint and take a hit of gin. Another night in city for me, its just a few miles down through the valley. I’ve been here before. Messed up on crank. They keep telling me I must survive. And I keep asking them what is it that I must survive? This ain’t no homeward bound trip. I slip into between rocks of billionaire’s homes hoping not to set off the security systems. When I get to the bottom will they pick me up or have they dropped me off for the last time?
I change my mind. I head the other direction. Away from L.A. trekking towards the desert and maybe home. At least there I have a chance of a new beginning. There is nothing left for me back there. I stumble and fall but I get up and keep going. There is something and somebody there for me. I just need to keep moving.
Sometime around dawn I awake from an alcohol and drug induced stupor. I think of heading back to L.A. it would be so much easier. Then a car passes and I stick out my thumb and she stops.
“Hey where you heading?”
“Anywhere but here,” I reply.
“Hop in I am headed for Santa Fe.”
“Sounds good to me”
“You like the Grateful Dead,” she asks?”
“Hell yeah I got some conscious bud here.”
“Cool”
And the road begins to wind to our future.
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2015
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