01 January - the drowning at Los Gatos

I am Dædalus

12:24AM CST, January 28th

Lake Road below Cooper's Hill, Leasburg, Missouri

("I am Dædalus! I can go no higher and hope no more.")

Robert Prindle had been sloshing through the nearly frozen water at the bottom of the well for over ten minutes. In all that time, he had neither heard nor felt Earl Huntington. This fact seemed utterly impossible. After all, the bottom of the well was no more than six feet across – such a small area to search and yet he had found no sign of Earl. It was as if the boy had actually disappeared.

But slowly, a new thought took form in Robert's mind. As he sloshed about, it occurred to him that he hadn't heard a sound from Earl because the boy was probably dead and he couldn't feel Earl's body because he (Robert Prindle) couldn't feel anything anymore. Ten minutes in the water had left his limbs so numb that it seemed to him that he no longer existed below the knees. His body was covered with a slimy sheen of mud and decaying leaves, but he couldn't feel those either. All he felt was the creeping numbness and a brand-new fear – the fear that it was he (not Earl) who was about to die. Earl had clearly reached that goal a few minutes before.

Robert lifted his head and shouted, "Out!"

His voice caused a stir at the opening to the well, but nothing happened at first. The rope they used to lower him down the shaft hung loosely at Robert's side. Again, he shouted, "Out! Out!"

Then a cry rose simultaneously from everyone present. The men on the rope line dug in their feet and began to pull. Immediately, they realized that lowering Robert into the well had been much easier than getting him out would be. First of all, their hands and bodies were colder than before. Secondly, the rope was colder, too. In addition, the rope had become coated with a thick layer of mud as it was dragged along the edge of the well. At first, it was frozen mud. But as the rope was passed from hand to hand, the frozen mud melted and the rope got slipperier by the moment. Finally, skinny Robert Prindle weighed twice as much as he had just minutes before. His clothes were coated with the same frozen mud that coated the rope. Pounds and pounds of mud. To add to his total weight, he was also carrying an enormous mass of wet, decaying leaves. They filled his pockets, his overalls, and the sleeves of his shirt.

When the crowd surrounding the well heard Robert's indecipherable shout, they cheered. They raised their arms above their heads and waved them at the sky. Husbands and wives kissed. Neighbors hugged neighbors. Strangers locked arms.

For a moment, Avery Cooper tried to do exactly as the others had done – to raise his arms and cheer. He tried despite the fact that he felt more exhausted than elated. All the muscles of his body seemed to sag simultaneously. For thirty minutes, Avery had paced across the frozen ground until gradually the cold air had leached through his coat, his sweater, the flannel layers beneath that, into his yellowy skin, and finally into his bones. His joints ached like the worst days of the worst flu – like the worst days of any illness for that matter – the day after the pain and fever subside – the day when no one is there to greet you as you walk away from death's door. If Avery raised his arms now, he feared they might actually snap off at the shoulders.

So instead, the old man stood slack-armed and started to speak. Some people listened. Most didn't. "Happiness," Avery said, "Never surprises you. It can be deep, even profound, but it is earned one inch at a time. Joy, on the other hand, always comes as a surprise. It is simple and fleeting, and yet we remember it as clearly as a face smiling back at us from a still pond. The saddest thing on Earth is how easy it is to forget those happy moments. To forget a pleasant meal or a warm fire. To forget how easy it once was to leap in the air and grab a handful of leaves."

Avery's voice was barely above a whisper, and those who had been listening now turned away. The abandoned well was silent, too. There were no splashes, no grunts, and no groans. Nothing else from Robert Prindle and nothing at all from Earl Huntington. The cheer that had risen moments before wasted away like wildflowers that shrink in the summer drought.

Anxiously, Martin Huntington called down to his son, "Earl, are you there?"

Avery Cooper put his hand on Martin's back and said, "In joy, there are no questions. In faith, no answers. In grief, no reasons. And in death, there are no rules."

Just then, Avery felt a young boy grab onto his hand. He felt the smallness and the grime. For just a second, he thought the boy needed comforting. Without looking at the child, he touched him lightly on the head, and suddenly, the old man began to sob. No tears fell from his eyes. Instead, he just shook. His shoulders shook and his stomach seemed to fall to the level of his knees. But then he felt the child's nimble movements reach into his pocket and pull out a handful of nickels. Five nickels. Maybe six. He didn't know exactly how many. Instinctively, Avery reached out to grab the boy, but then he thought of all the nickels he had cheated from all the people he had met throughout his life. His arms dropped to his side and he let the long-legged boy run away with his prize.

Martin Huntington peered into the well and saw nothing. Where once there was blackness, the opening was now covered with a damp mist. Heat shed from the bodies inside the shaft had risen to the surface and formed a small gray cloud near the top. It was only a misty fog, but it was too dense to see anything.

Then finally, through the cloud, the top of Robert Prindle's head appeared. In a moment, his entire head was visible with his glassy eyes rolling back into their sockets. Soon his muddy shoulders emerged from the well. Then his elbows. And then (miraculously) resting against the young man's hip was Earl Huntington's limp body. All along, the body had been buried beneath the water and muddy leaves. But all along, it had escaped Robert's frantic effort to find it until the precise moment that Robert decided that he was too exhausted to search anymore.

Both bodies were dumped on the matted, muddy ground beside the well. Earl's was motionless while Robert's shook convulsively from head to toe. The Huntingtons attended to Earl and the Prindles surrounded Robert. The rest of the crowd gawked and complained. Soon, they were all bickering about the details of the rescue.

Avery Cooper stepped back and looked at the sky. He saw a black bird circling above. It seemed to be flying right next to the sun – so close that it reminded Avery of the story of Icarus and Dædalus. Although he knew the basic outline of the story (the waxy wings melting when they were brought too close to the sun), he couldn't recall whether it was Icarus or Dædalus who had made the mistake. When he thought about it, he realized that it didn't matter because both of them had been mistaken. One flew too close to the sun and the other was never close enough to his son. Suddenly, Avery thought of all the handbills and flyers covering the walls of his home. Memories for him and no one else. He had no photographs and no artwork from children nor any from the children of friends. His memories were thinner than all the sheets of paper he had plastered around his home. Year by year, they yellowed in the sun. They curled and yellowed and seemed to get thinner and more meaningless by the day.

So, Avery opened his mouth and spoke again. It was all he could do. It was all he had ever done. He stretched his arms wide and cried out, "I am Dædalus! I can go no higher and hope no more. For all those gathered here, I have done what I can. Now on this coldest day of winter, I could use a teaspoon or two of joy. I gave so little in life and wanted so little in return. But all along, I was wrong."

With that, the old man dropped in a heap beside Earl. No matter what he said or how well he had said it, Avery Cooper was certain that no sun (not even the brightest and warmest mid-August sun) would ever melt the waxy years of loneliness that had grown around him.

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