By Susan Chase-Foster (1931 Words)

After Margaux left his room, Jasper passed out again until an atomic burst of illumination ejected him from a muddled dream involving Seattle’s cold, wet sidewalks, a puddle of vomit and a quartet of crows pecking at his head.

“What the fuck?” 

Jasper rolled over. The old woman was snoring as loud as his mother had after she’d passed out. And was that a gray wig sliding off her head? Disgusting! More importantly, did they actually end up—? He couldn’t even think about that. 

Jasper reached for the bottle of Vitamin S, which Margaux had grabbed from him and set on the nightstand next to Bunny. If he was lucky there might still be a few drops left. Contorting his body into a half-eaten pretzel, he stretched and stretched until his fingers touched glass, then just a bit more, and more, until he knocked the damn thing and himself, and Bunny onto the floor. That miraculously caused her snoring to stop. At first Jasper considered, perhaps hopefully, that she might be dead, also like his mother. But no, her chest continued to rise and fall, so that as Jasper studied her breathing it occurred to and fascinated him that her chest, her very substantial chest compared to the rest of her body, was a chest much younger than an average woman of her advanced age. Perhaps it was the Scotch in her?

To celebrate that possibility, and because he’d landed face down next to a tiny spill of his favorite beverage, Jasper did manage to partake of a lick or three off the floor until his back started to spasm. 

 “Oh, God!” he whispered, trying not to wake Bunny. 

Jasper lifted his head just enough to look out the window toward the light. The rain had stopped. Gone were the purple/black clouds. In fact, there were no clouds at all. But there was some kind of craziness going on in the sky. Was he having an optical migraine? He’d had them before, like a zillion rainbows spinning before his eyes, even when closed. Was the sky having one now? He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, crab-walked to the window, looked out, shook his head because what he saw was just plain weird. Hanging in the sky above the pine forest were three suns: the big usual one in the center and another on either side, all connected by glowing prismatic ribbons. Below that, countless V’s of honking Canada geese and ooo-ooo-ooo-ing tundra swans winged by on their way to summer’s after party. 

That does it. I’ve finally lost my mind. Is that why I feel so hopeful? So ready to fly!

At that moment, Jasper also correctly realized that his back had ceased spasming.  He jumped up, tossed a lump of purple velvet into a corner of the closet. He grabbed his well-worn, authentic Harris Tweed jacket, hand-woven from the purest virgin wool, dyed, spun and purchased in the Outer Hebrides when he was on a friggin’ book tour. He slipped it on, along with his sister’s blood red Fjällräven après-ski slippers (conveniently left in his closet) because he couldn’t find his own shoes. The slippers were a size too large. He’d never been able to fill Margaux’s shoes as a kid, but he just might be able to now. 

Opening the unscreened window, Jasper climbed out without looking back, without even the slightest concern for the writers who’d been waiting for him forever. So what if he was done being a writer. Who said once a writer always a writer? Nobody. Well, nobody famous. Epictetus did say, “If you wish to be a writer, write.” But what if you don’t wish to be any more? Do the literary police haul you off to writer prison where you have to copy dictionaries in languages you don’t even speak until you cave in and write your next poem or novel? 

“I don’t think so!” Jasper shouted, skipping off, almost unnoticed, into the pine forest, above which the three suns continued to glow. Only the wolf and bearded lichens felt Jasper’s footfalls beating drum-like against the earth. Oh, and of course the splendid ponderosa and western white pines to which they clung, giggling. 

* * *

At the same time as the rain stopped and a phenomenal parhelion lit up the sky, two young Italian hikers in tattered brown hoodies and threadbare sweatpants reached a clearing beside a creek in the heart of the forest. There they set up their ragged tent. For years, the friends, close as brothers, both not more than 30, had wandered countless miles together on every continent, facing every meteorological and topographical challenge, and though tired and hungry they were happiest when living a simple life, with few possessions, close to their beloved Nature. Toni, the tallest and youngest of the pair, with dark eyes, raven black hair, a perpetual smile and a passion for chatting with fish before catching them, busied himself by gathering wood for the evening’s cooking fire. Ciccio, a few years older, a bit shorter, fairer, and noticeably thinner than Toni, loved to sing, and was in awe of just about everything Nature provided, including the tiny Mowl he carried in his hoodie pocket as he foraged for low bush cranberries, edible mushrooms and fireweed. 

Mowly, found by Ciccio along the Pacific Crest Trail, alone and whimpering in a witches’ hair lichen nest attached to a fallen whitebark pine was one of Nature’s amusing creations. She consisted of a rare, but adorable combination of chocolate brown and rust feathers, a distinctive white V between her bright yellow eyes, a catlike face, wee brown ears and a long naked tail, Mowly most resembled a northern saw-whet owlet with a large dash of Pacific jumping mouse. Baffled, yet compassionate toward all critters, both Ciccio and Toni fell instantly in love with the hungry little one, whose backstory they could only imagine. They named her Mowly, which seemed the obvious choice, fed her whatever they themselves could gather or catch, and took turns carrying her in their hoodie pockets wherever they went. In time, they discovered Mowly’s very special qualities, including but not limited to a profound fondness for the poetry of Mary Oliver. And later, when Mowly demonstrated the ability to write and recite poems so resembling Oliver’s voice and focus on Nature, they assumed Mowly might actually be Oliver reincarnated as a Mowl. 

“What else would explain her poet passion?” Toni had asked.

“Indeed. What?” Ciccio had echoed. 

“Man coming,” Mowly announced, jumping from Ciccio’s pocket to the forest floor, to a fallen branch, and flapping her wings until she reached the canopy of a nearby pine. 

Toni and Ciccio stopped gathering and foraging to listen. The lichen and a cluster of amanita muscaria reached up to catch a better view. A slug slid slowly under a spray of Oregon grape. Up above, the three suns began to fade. 

* * *

When Jasper St. John failed to show up again, Ed, who had been gazing out one of the front doors, asked Lucy, “Would you like to head outside to celebrate the sun-dogs?” 

“The what?” Lucy asked, appreciating, not for the first time, how tall, handsome, and fit the silver haired, much older man actually was. And kind. And organized. And helpful. And what an amazing smile. And did she already mention handsome and fit?

“Look up there,” he said, holding the door open for Lucy and pointing. “That’s a parhelion. Also called mock-suns or sun-dogs. Pretty rare for here, though I saw them all the time when I was stationed in Alaska.” 

“Oh, wow! What’s going on up there, Ed?”

“I’ll have to give you the short answer so I can grab my iPad and portable speaker before it disappears. The parhelion, I mean.  But briefly, it’s sunlight refracted through ice crystals. I’ll be right back.”

Lucy walked down to the parking lot and crossed the road. She wished she had brought her sunglasses. The light was nearly blinding. Ed soon scrambled down the hill carrying a bag filled with his iPad, portable speaker, and a couple of Boundary Bay IPA’s in one hand, and a guitar in the other. He set the bag down, leaned the guitar against a tree, and handed Lucy a cold beer.

“Dang, that was fast, Ed.” 

“Pays to be a runner, I guess. Do you like Jason Mraz? Can you dance?”

“Yes and yes!”

Ed pushed a couple of buttons and they were off, bouncing, twirling, wildly whirling at the side of the road. The parhelion reminded Ed of the disco balls he and Heidi tangoed under at the dance hall in San Francisco before she got sick. He hoped he wouldn’t cry. 

‘“I’m Yours!’ I love this song! It’s my fave!“ Lucy shouted. And when they neared the end, 

That the sky is yours 
There’s no need to complicate 
‘Cause our time is short 
This, oh this, this is our fate 
I’m yours!

Lucy shouted, “Again!”

“Again?”

“Again!”

And the two of them went on and on dancing to that same song, eventually joined by the J.P.s, Mavis, and Margaux, until the parhelion disappeared and the speaker’s battery ran out.  

“Well, it looks like you folks have something to write about now,” Margaux said grinning wide as a Cheshire cat moon as she walked back toward the lodge. 

* * *

Jasper, the former basket case of literary entropy, eventually found a trail through the pine forest, which he had to admit, was the first non-sidewalk path he’d ever trod upon. He felt stoned, not sleepy stoned like on Scotch, but sensorially intoxicated by the crisp, cool, woodsy, resinous aroma filling his nostrils and lungs. There was an earthy scent, as well, a mixture of dirt and decay, mushrooms and grass, water, roots and rocks, both of which he’d stumbled over as he ambled deeper and deeper into the forest. He felt saturated with the green of so many evergreens, ferns, mosses, berry bushes, and the gold and red of fallen maple leaves, the brown of bark, earth, and the endless entanglements of roots. The silence was almost deafening, punctuated every now and again by wind whipping the canopy, wing flaps and calls of birds he couldn’t name, and the soft sound of his sister’s boots stepping on wet ground, or the louder thuds and shrieks when he tripped, fell and cussed.

Jasper remembered once reading an article in the New Yorker about “forest bathing” or shinrin something. He couldn’t quite recall the name. It was a Japanese idea involving walking through the woods slowly, immersing yourself in the smells, sights and sounds available in a place like this forest. The result was believed to be essential for mental, physical, and spiritual health. Wasn’t there even a Forest Bathing Club? Maybe he could look that up when he got back home. In the meantime, he’d just keep walking straight along the trail. 

Later, for absolutely no reason, Jasper began meandering each time he came to a fork, until the forest grew darker, colder, and he became exhausted. That was about when he realized he had no sense whatsoever of where he was or how to return to the lodge. He was thirsty, maybe not for Scotch, but if his sister came along with a rescue bottle, he wouldn’t turn it down. That’s for sure. When he could no longer see the trail or trees, Jasper brailled his way to the closest pine, sat down, leaned against its rough bark, and fell asleep.