Oliver Benjamin
to the beach! Oh, well, I thought. I could probably evolve down at the
beach. I stood up and skipped off after the girls, feeling weightless.
Noi raced after me, yelling, “Pay! pay!” I gave him some paper which
meant nothing to me in exchange for my freedom, which meant
everything. He grinned and rhymed, “Okaaaayyy…” I continued
skipping recklessly down the beach.
When we got to the water we impulsively stripped off our
clothes and jumped in. I thought back to what happened when I went
skinny-dipping with Greta in Israel, but sex was the last thing on my
mind. It was standing room only inside my head and the waiting list
was growing fast. Sexual impulses had to wait. We attacked the warm
salty water and I felt as if I was returning to the womb. I dove
underneath the surface and tried to remember what it was like to be
born. Then, when I came up for air, I looked all around, mesmerized
by the dark, still waters and the impossibly bright moon peering
through the dark clouds in the sky. I felt like I was looking down at
the water from the great height of a mountaintop but within an arm’s
length of the moon. A shooting star flashed past my field of vision
and I became convinced that it was put there to signify something
important. I realized then that I wasn’t in the womb at all, but that I
was returning to the primordial soup, out in the ocean where the first
forms of life began to appear billions of years ago. Suddenly, and in
one great historic and sweeping breath, I experienced a deep
sympathy with all the life forms in the history of the planet who had
fought to survive and evolve against the rippling tides of chaos. A tear
wended it way down my face as I apprehended all that they had done
for me, the debt I owed them for struggling so that I may live. And
now I too had to struggle as best I could, despite hardship and
disaster, that the torch of life be passed, that the miracle be
preserved. What a wonderful world, I thought. How lucky I was to
have this chance to see so much of it.
Coming out of my reverie, I realized that Hugo and the two girls
had left. There were some figures sitting up on the sand, and I made
my way towards them out of the ocean. As I approached, Hugo’s
familiar voice came bellowing out of the darkness. Overjoyed to see
them, I embraced them all with a mild flying tackle.
“Wow!” I said, hugging them.
“Wow!” the three of them answered in choral union.
“Are you guys having the same trip I’m having?” I yelled.
“What trip are you having?” Helena cooed.
85
 |
 |
 |
 |