THE LAST MAN: Epilogue

The sea is a mirror of the burnt orange sky, hardly disturbed by the wake of our little boat. It lops lazy and hollow against the old wooden hull. Behind us the sounds and images of war are distant and low. I stopped rowing sometime ago, content to drift for a while and not cause any more noise in the world than absolutely necessary. The scent fills me, and will forever remain wedded to these first hours of freedom.

The wind has stopped, the crisp cool air salty and sweet. It is as still as that painted sea. Desiree is asleep and curled in the bow beneath a crudely sewn blanket. I wish that I could say it is a peaceful sleep. More accurately it is an exhausted sleep haunted by all she has been through. None of this was hers by choice. She is so perfect there, and for the first time I am truly happy. I am sunbeams through the clouds. I am hope and I am nearly saved.

Is this some sort of victory? Have I won anything? If freedom is the only measure then I have won everything. However, if escape remains the measure then a man must know what he is escaping to as intimately of what he is escaping to, with full understanding that he may never escape himself. I am settled and at peace for the moment, but with the understanding that the world is moving to something. The world is always moving to something, some final accounting, a cataclysm, and a sum total of all that has come before. What form it will take is impossible to say. Nor can I say whether it will come with a whisper or a like a storm.
The boat drifts invariably towards the ruins, floating among massive pylons supporting iron and concrete platforms high above the sea. They are terrific and large, like great rusting sea monsters frozen in a time long passed. Among them the air is funneled to create its own wind, which tugs as great cables. The wind whispers and whistles through the ancient structures. Desiree wakes with a start as I steer the boat close to one of the structures. Her eyes go wide as we pass beneath the first platform, neck straining at its towering superstructure. I stretch a hand and let it brush along the massive concrete support. A rush of excitement sets me to light and sends a shiver through me.

It is clear they are long deserted, perhaps for centuries. The flames I spied from my flat, the fires I dreamed and fantasized over for so long was merely the sun reflecting off broken window. The movements I believed were people like me, upon whom I weighted all my hopes were birds or tattered fabric pushed and pulled by the wind.

There is a small dock below the structure. It is rusted and bent by centuries of storms. One end is underwater, the rich brown rust, like the overlapping blossoms of some ravenous ivy patiently dissolving and devouring the platforms covers the platform. A metal sign hangs at an odd angle by a second chain above the platform. Like the dock it too is steadily being devoured by rust and salty sea water until almost nothing of it can be read. I can make out only a hand full of words, but they mean nothing to me. I mouth their sound. Desiree says them aloud.

SHELL OIL
All Visitors Must…

I use the oar to push away from the platform and guide the boat into the open sea. What lies beyond the far horizon is impossible to say. I remain hope, and I remain hope for Desiree. In those dark hours when I am without I will stand if only to be that hope for her. What else is there? As for freedom, I know now it is not some distant land or some castle to conquer. It is not me and it is not mine. It is not fleeting as a storm, nor it is anything a man can ever retreat from once it has been tasted. It is a bittersweet fruit whose taste is unknown yet familiar to the man who has never known it, and the harvest plundered and wasted by the man who has never been deprived. It is a breath of life; fully mine one moment and gone the next…


THE END