Tend Towards

The Over-There

Beneath the ruinous and desolate frames of ancient monoliths, the streets of New York still host the few people who care to travel them - going from some dark and desolate place to another dark and desolate place. This is the world as he knows it:

When his journey begins, he is met with the crackling monitors of a long time ago, burnt with pictures of toothpaste and coca-cola. The rubble has been cleared for his feet, and the beams that once held up monuments now lay bent and rusting on each side, forming a long corridor that guides him and others to their destination. This is the world as he knows it:

On this journey he passes by the pools of stagnant water, hosting alien life forms in the flooded subways, spilling out of the spurned earth like urban aquifers releasing the toxic and putrid sap of the poisoned planet. He, and all the others, take great precaution when breathing near these numerous pools of waste and misfortune. This, too, is the world as he knows it.

The journey comes to an end where few have reached. A distant dream to those who are bred in the nurseries, who spend their formative years carving concrete into furniture, or their mid years churning produce into fertilisers, or their later years recounting the bleak memories life has afforded them, searching for some semblance of reason, or justice, in the lot they have taken.

This, however, is not the world as he knows it.

The journey ends in a bridge. A bridge crumbling over sloughs of icy waters, spitting up jagged shards of ice, churning with frozen and miserable moraine. Across the bridge, suspended by frayed ropes held together in frozen knots, are wooden beams narrow enough to allow only one person to cross at a time.

There he meets the Avaxian. 

The Avaxian is a creature of myth and legend, mentioned in hushed tones of reverence in the nurseries, hailed as the gatekeeper of the great Over-There.

The accounts of the Avaxian are limitless in imagination. A fire demon so large, born from the sun itself in a time when the sun still shed its glow. A creature so alien and foreign, with wings wider than the Pontiac outside the nursery. A spirit, formless and faceless, that speaks to mind and not the ears.

This is not the world as he knows it. This is a frail old man, with lines on his face and a stick that serves as his cane, sitting on a lawn chair and drinking from a silver flask as he stares out into the Over-There.

"Excuse me," he says to the Avaxian. "I am to cross this bridge."

The Avaxian nods, but makes no indication of any profound truth to be shared. This is not the world as he knows it.

"Pardon me," he tries again, somewhat contrite as if he were disturbing a being of most profound and mythical existence. "Are you the Avaxian?"

The Avaxian nods once more, but once again makes not indication of any profound truth to be shared.

"Good Sir," says he, contriteness aborted and indignance rising. "Are you not to assist my endeavours over the bridge?"

The Avaxian nods once again, and the same as before, offers no indication that profound truths are imminent. 

"Why," he mutters, "it seems you are negligent in your duties."

The Avaxian, nods again. 

A silence befalls them, filled only with the wind across the river, the creaking of churning ice below them, and the whispers of trees that only so faintly carry from the Over-There to the Over-Here.

"I," the Avaxian says with a tone of magnificent reverence and immeasurable boredom, "ain't doing shit for ya. Y'er just like all 'em others. Comin' 'bout 'ere and demandin' this and demandin' that." The Avaxian shifts in his chair and motions him closer. "Listen, I ain't you."

"Well, of course," he says. "You are not me and I am not you. This is the world as I know it."

"Accourse," the Avaxian echoes. "Y'er not you and I'm not me."

He frowns in confusion for a moment, considers these words carefully in order to make sure he understands them, and then reflects back on his journey. There was the nursery. There were the beams of rust and regret framing the corridors lined with commercial scorchmarks, there were the flooded low-ways filled with freaky far-aways, and then there is the bridge and the man.

There were no others he had seen on his journey. 

There were no others that might have been the Avaxian.

Thus, this is a perplexing circumstance he found himself in.

"I believe," he amends, "that the terms are crossed. I am not you and you are not me." The Avaxian makes no indication of profound truth to be imparted. "To reiterate," he continues, pauses, adds, "Good Sir," reflects, and continues once more, "You are you and I am me, but we are not the other and each other we are not."

The Avaxian shrugs. "Who's t' say, really?"

"You are," he says, "for you said that you are not me."

The Avaxian shakes his head. "I believe I said I ain't you."

"What difference does it make?" he asks, exasperation filling him. "Listen, old man. Will you help me across the bridge or not? I am in no mood for this tomfoolery."

The Avaxian, once again, indicates no truth of any profound nature being close. "That depends, really. Can ya help y'erself 'cross the bridge?"

He clears his throat. "If I could do so, then what relevance would my asking you bear?"

"I ain't you," the Avaxian repeats. "That is not to say that y'er not me. If you want me t' help you 'cross the bridge, and if y'er me, then you can help y'erself, but I cannot. Y' got that?"

He starts and takes a step back. 

Perhaps these are the profound truths he must learn.

As he had helped himself traverse the buried streets of New York, he must hence help himself across the narrow bridge. This is a journey he has taken from childhood on his own, and it is one he must complete on his own.

Perhaps the Avaxian is trying to communicate some vital information to him on what awaits him in the woods across the freezing river.

"Thank you," he says. The Avaxian waves him away. "Thank me," he repeats, and the Avaxian nods.

He carries on towards the bridge, and as he considers his perilous journey ahead, and the perilous journey behind him, and the cryptic old Avaxian, he hears the Avaxian call out to him. 

"Y'er an idiot, y'know that?"

"Why?" he calls back. 

"I can't get 'cross that bridge!"

"But I can!"

"No," The Avaxian assures him, "Y' can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because y'er me, an' I can't!"

"This is absurd," he calls back.

"Tis," the Avaxian responds. 

The man shakes his head at the crooked figure. This is his journey.

As the Avaxian watches him crawl his way across the freezing flows below, he stays resolute in his charge.

The Avaxian eventually leans back, pulls out a notebook from his shirt pocket, and opens it to the third page, a pencil waiting for him there.

From the top line he crosses out 'I ain't you', and moves to the next. 

Not soon after, another comes by.

"Pardon me," the other says. "I am to cross this bridge to the Over-There."

The Avaxian nods, recalls his next line, and responds. "Frankly, My Dear, I don't give a damn."

This is the world as the Avaxian knows it. 

Pointless. Frivolous. Gone with the wind.