We made it out to the trailhead around six am. A thirty minute approach and we were there, some of the best climbing outside of Chico. Grizzly Dome, it was a little spot Dave and I found when we were aimlessly driving around, stopping for beers here and there and wondering if anyone would notice we were gone. They wouldn’t. One of the more recent times we drank too much and decided to sleep it off parked behind some rocks. That’s when we found it, a combination of granite and some aged concrete that was poured over when they built the tunnel 50 yards away.
“Wow. Just wow. Cm’ere and look at this.” Dave found it first.
I ambled towards the choppy voice finishing what was closer to a full beer. “oh shit yea buddy.” I looked up.
Since that time we’ve come to the spot multiple times. We made it faster this time than we thought we did. Today, we arrived at 6:20 in the morning. Realistically, it wasn’t because we went faster or did anything different. We probably just left at 5:50 and assumed it was 6:05.
Immediately, I drop my bag, open it, grab one thing – a beer, and snap it open. It was still cold, still sweating, recently born from it’s box mother that I stomped and threw back in the trunk. Finished. While I was grabbing another beer Dave was going through my bag of ropes, I wasn’t looking at him but I know he mumbled something to me.
“Sam, what’s this” He might have said.
The rope was probably knotted or I tied an awkward finish when I chukked the rope. “I don’t know man, just whip it out and let’s start climbing.”
“Sam, seriously man, what’s this?” Dave used his serious voice. A voice that a father might use when he has to prove a point. A voice that burned out cashiers would use to reject teenagers who would inevitably fail at buying alcohol, closed up and cruel for no reason other than it exists. That voice.
I look over at his face but only see him looking into the bag. He reaches down and grabs the rope. All this while speaking into the bag and at me at the same time. “Sam, why do you have this noose, why did you fucking string a noose. ”
I tell him a sweet precious lie. One that cheers you up. An ingenious sort that smile naturally and writes love letters. A lie that tucks you in at nights and sends you on your way. “Oh, nooses are good for big point rocks in case we need to rappel down.” A sweet precious lie full of holes.
Dave immediately saw through this. “It’s not, and you know this, nooses are good for one thing and one thing only.” He squeezes the rope. Squeezes it so tightly that his knuckles turn whiter than the purest Fentanyl that the uncertain so religiously seek. “Sam, what’s going on. What were you going to do.”
I wasn’t. “I gotta tell you the truth me, I really was not going to. Just thinkin’ it out.”
His face distorted in anger, like a dog infested with rabies. “CMON MAN, WHAT THE FUCK. WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU THINK THAT.”
“woah woa-” I tried to interrupt to no avail.
“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST DUDE. DON’T BE A SELFISH FUCK.”
It is really hard to hold eye contact, so I drop down, probably his hand and look at the rope. “I guess, I knew if things got bad enough, I could just finish it. It would just be me, I would walk out to the woods. Climb a tree, set up the anchors and just jump.
Having the rope ready just gave me an option out. It wasn’t about being selfish. I remember that I just told myself over and over that I was just disillusioned with life, small things and big things, neither of those matter, on the grand scale or the daily scale. Just vast emptiness of hurt and pain and joy and peace and fleeting wasn’t enough for me, but that’s all life can really offer.“
The morning sun had been up for awhile, existing apart from humans. Living its own dreams and aimlessly listering on in every direction it can, shedding it’s broken arms across the galaxies. Everything on earth would rely on these broken arms, using them to create their own failures and mishaps in life. Somewhere, a bird would fail to catch the worms and this would leave to starving chicks. They would perish. Sitting next to this tree would be a young college student, she would fail to text her father before he left on his trip. He would never make it back. His same candy cherry truck joined with another leaving their own trail of sorrow. Of half broken truths that humans build their lives on. Melancholy never fully goes away. We can divide it in every such way, but there will also be a fraction that has stapled itself behind our eyes, right inside our blind spot. It’s not that humans are pessimists or that existence is woefully meaningful – rather that we hide ourselves away from those things.
Chubenn all along 