The boy jumps. Not knowing what lies beneath the water, not caring. Just wanting to escape the pain. The water is cold, he holds his breath, too scared to let go. He breaks the surface and breaths in cool, sweet air. Grabbing the rocks he pulls himself out, angry at himself. When he reaches the top, an old man sits in wait.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Yes.” the boy answers curtly.
The old man sits silently for a minute, with a faraway look in his eyes. The boy waits, quietly shivering as the cold wind blows through his wet clothes. Just as the boy is ready to walk away, the old man speaks. Slowly, he says “I was just like you once. On this very same cliff, over these very same waters.”
“So?” the boy answers with uncaring anger.
“I threw myself over the edge.” The old man keeps talking as if the boy hadn’t spoken. “I wanted to give up, just like you. My father beat me every day, and my mother left when I was seven. At that time I was sixteen. My girlfriend had just broken my heart. I thought I couldn’t live without her. As I was under those icy waves, I realized something.” Again the old man stops.
By this time the boy has taken a seat next to the old man. He sits silently for several minutes, waiting for the old man to speak. When he couldn’t stand to wait a second more, he asked very softly, in a whisper, afraid to break the spell of the old man’s words, “What did you realize?”
Again the old man speaks. “I realized that if I let go, if I gave up, then fate and the world, and everyone else had won. I realized that I had a purpose in life, just like you do. As my head broke the surface and I breathed that cool, sweet air, just like you did, I knew what I had to do.” He pauses. The spell of his words was drawing the boy deeper into a trance, not a mindless one, but one that made him think.
“Please, sir, tell me what you had to do.” The boy says in a voice that wavers with the fear he feels inside. Fear for the old man and fear for himself.
Once again the old man answers. “I knew that I had to go to school and pretend that she hadn’t broken my heart; I had to go home and face my old man and make the beatings stop; I had to finish school, and go to college. But most of all, I knew that I couldn’t give up. I had to go on and make my own life in this world. I had to work with what I was given with.”
The boy doesn’t know what to say as the old man stops again. He wants to know what happened; he wants to know the old man’s life story. But he is scared, scared that the old man is right, scared of what was to come, scared he wasn’t strong enough to face the world alone. So he says nothing, just waits for the old man to speak again.
“You are shivering like the icy fingers of death have a hold of you,” the old man states. “Do you have extra clothes in your car?”
“No. I hadn’t planned on coming out of the sea.” the boy says teeth chattering together as another shiver runs through his thin frame.
“My cabin is just on the other side of the road.” The old man offers. “But it is a fairly long walk.”
The boy thinks a minute. Not sure if he should trust the man he just met. Finally he makes a decision. “I can drive us over there.”
They climb in the boys ’97 Ford Mustang. “Nice car.” The old man comments.
Smiling for the first time in what felt like forever, he says, “Thanks. I saved for six months to buy it. Then another six months to get it to run. It’s the only thing of meaning in my life.”
“Now don’t say that.” the old man says. “There has got to be something else.” At this point they reach the old man’s cabin. “Come inside. I should have some dry clothes that will fit you.”
After the boy changed his clothes and the old man made cocoa for both of them, he timidly asks, “What did you do?”
The old man answers in the same soft, slow voice that he used above the sea, “I went home. My father was in a rage, he went to hit me but I struck him first. He froze, not really believing what had just happened. ‘You will not strike me again, old man. Keep your dirty hands off me, or I will make sure you can never use those hands again.’ I told him. Still he was frozen. Then he started to stutter. I never could figure out what he was trying to say, I didn’t care, so long as he never hit me again. My father left the room and never laid a hand on me again. Then, on Monday, I went to school.” The old man has the faraway look of someone lost in thought.
The boy waits, this time more patiently then before, for this time he is dry and the wind is no longer cutting through his clothing.
The old man starts again. “It was harder than I thought. I walked into the doors and there she was. I had to walk by her and not look at her, acknowledge her, talk to her, anything. And pretend that she hadn’t broken my heart, oh boy, did I pretend. As I passed, I could feel her eyes on my back. I just kept walking. She tried to talk to me every day, tried to apologize, tried to get back together, but I couldn’t do it. After a while, I answered when she talked to me. When she asked to get back together, I told her I needed time.” Here he stops. They could hear a car pulling into the driveway.
A smile lights up the old man’s face. The front door opens and a clear, feminine voice calls “Honey? Whose car is in the driveway?” And suddenly she is there, a beautiful woman of about 70, the same age as the old man. Her eyes miss nothing; she sees the still wet hair, the hands that shake with the cold. A sad smile plays across her lips and she says something the boy will remember for the rest of his life, “Still trying to save the world, honey?” It’s not mean when she says it; it’s full of love and understanding.
“This is my wife,” says the old man.
And suddenly the boy realizes something from the look in the old man’s eyes. “She’s the girl that broke your heart.” The boy sops talking, thinking that his last words were a little harsh. He looks at them apologetically.
“Yes.” the old man answers. “She broke my heart, but she stayed and waited while I learned to trust again. I didn’t tell her what I tried to do that day on the cliff, not for a long time.”
“About two years ago.” The woman interjects.
“Sounds about right.” the old man agrees.
“Well I’ll leave you boys alone so you can finish your chat.” says the woman. The old man’s eyes follow her from the room, the small smile slowly slipped from his face.
“I’m going to wrap this up, boy. There is not much left to say and by the look in your eyes you need some time.” The old man pauses and clears his throat. “About six months after I had jumped, we got back together. We finished high school together, went to college together, started careers together, and eventually got married and had kids. And I never told her about that day, until it built up and I had to tell her.” He paused to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. “My life turned out well and if I would have let the waves swallow me that day, it never would have happened.”
The boy sits in silence for a moment, sensing the stories end but not wanting to let go. Suddenly his face lights up in a smile. “I’m going to start a new life right now. No more living in the past, no more letting people control my destiny. It’s all up to me.” The boy thanks the old man for all that he has done for him and leaves the small cabin.
Two months later the boy decides that it is time to go and see the man that saved his soul. As he pulls in to the driveway, more over grown than he remembered, a strange feeling comes over him. He rounds the last bend in the drive and gasps in disbelief. The cabin is gone and from the looks of the place it hasn’t been there for a very long time. Stopping the car, he gets out and sits on a fallen tree. The wind picks up and he hears a voice whisper, “Live on, boy,” and knows that it wasn’t all a dream. Tears run down his face as he climbs back into his car. He smiles as he drives away, knowing that he has a guardian angel looking over him.
