THE ISLAND OF ASH

When I realized my own journey, drifting to various islands, might be as long as Odysseus’s, I was quite dismayed.  I was tied to my fate and did not know how to propel myself home.

When I was in this dark mood, The Island of Ash appeared before me.  As I approached, what seemed to be a volcanic cinder cone jutting out of the ocean turned into mountain of ash. 

To my amazement, I saw two of my former companions, Rose and Joe, sitting like yogis on the mountain.  Both had recently crossed over to the other world, and I was happy to see them, even under such strange circumstances.  Although they had not known each other at home, they were now engaged in a high-spirited conversation about Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth.

They hailed me to come ashore and join their discussion, but when I stepped on the beach, I sank into ash up to my knees.  I could not climb up to sit with them and wondered how they managed to stay afloat on this pile of ash.

They looked disappointed, for they had now moved on to discussing Emily Carr’s painting The Great Raven and then Charlotte Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and wanted a third opinion about the protagonist’s sanity.

“We’ve only got a few more minutes to get this straightened out,” Joe said as he beckoned to me.

 Once again I tried another step, but I could not generate enough traction to begin the climb.

“Time’s up for me,” said Joe.  He smiled at Rose, then at me.  I watched in dismay as his lower body began crumbling into ash—first his feet, then calves, then thighs. As his chest began to crumble, he raised his right arm in the air and waved goodbye.  Finally, only his head remained, covered with a battered straw hat.

“Say the magic words,” he called out to me.  I choked out the only words I could think of, “Goodbye, Joe.”  He smiled as his head disintegrated, and a sudden gust of wind blew his hat up into the air and out to sea.

Rose still sat on the surface of the mountain of ash.  “You meet the most interesting people here,” she said, “but they always tend to disappear.”  As she spoke, her body began to fade as if a brilliant red rose gradually turned light pink, then invisible.

I felt a great emptiness in my soul as my friends disappeared. Retreating to my boat, I lay down and drifted out to sea.  A mysterious voice whispered in my left ear, then in my right ear, over and over, Go carry the living.