The Mural Gazer

Episode 1 - Leave Taking

What he did to Leanne and the kids, it wasn't fair. Buddy knew that. He wasn't a scoundrel, or jerk, he was just sick at heart and exhausted in mind. He'd tried everything he could think of to make things better, or even paper them over. Nothing worked. An invisible malignancy was growing inside him. A mass centred somewhere between his gut and heart, which would eventually kill him – metaphorically speaking, of course... Spiritually.

It forced him to conclusions he didn't necessarily agree with. Like, you can't always be fair to everyone else and yourself at the same time; honest with everyone else, and true to yourself – especially once the insulating love has worn off 'a relationship', exposing base metal.

Brushing his teeth that morning, the inevitable outcomes of his dilemma became clear to Buddy. He saw through the froth of tooth paste, past his gums, down his throat and esophagus, all the way into the pit of his stomach, and discovered creatures down there gnawing away at him, feeding off him. He knew, of course, that this was only the sixth-sense of his imagination kicking in. I'm not crazy! But as a cypher of his own unconscious, Buddy took such manifestations seriously.

"Got to go," he said. It was that quick, his decision. Something had snapped like a dried wish-bone, and he had to find out what, and why, and how.

So, at 61, a year into early retirement, he packed a tote bag with the things he thought he'd need, threw it in the back seat of their Matrix, along with a sleeping bag and some camp gear, and took off. In that moment of departure, as he turned right off Sunnyside, and accelerated down Craigflower Road toward View Royal and the Trans Canada Highway, his whole past fit into the lurching frame of his rearview mirror. It made him seasick, watching it telescope away.

It felt to him as if all time, all space, every trace of who he was or ever could be existed inside the rocking car, rolling along on its humming tires. I am 'Now' with a capital 'N', he figured.

Rhizomes of his past burrowed through him, of course. Can't escape that. Memories would mushroom into consciousness at inconvenient moments, past truths sprouting from irreducible spores in the contaminated soil of his future... What future? he asked. That was the question, but he didn't have an answer, didn't even have a clue.

He left a note on the dining room table, didn't think Leanne would be too surprised at what it said. I need space, Lea. I don't want to go gently into that good night. I want to rage, rage against this dying. Don't think you want me to expire the way I have been, either. So I'm taking some leave-time to figure out if there's any future worth the effort of waking up in the morning. If you want, I'll keep you posted. Take care. Love Buddy.

It took him a couple of hesitant seconds to insert his avowal of love convincingly, but in the end he figured it was true. Its shelf-life hadn't expired.

He'd scribbled this parting missive on a sheet of paper, torn out of his brand new Cambridge note pad. On the way out the door, he switched his mobile phone off. By the time he turned the key in the ignition of the Matrix, he'd squelched any misgivings.

Would Leanne shout a visceral "Fuck!" after him? Would she crumple the note and throw it in the garbage? File it away for future use? He couldn't allow any of that to matter, had to get far enough away that there wouldn't be a chance for him to turn round, rattle back up the drive, snatch the note off the table, and hide it before she got home from work.

That was his only hope.