Lawrence Looks for Treasure

Part 2 - Chapter 39

I closed the book and put it down. I felt renewed. Refreshed. Like waking up from a long nap. The rain continued, but I pushed myself out of my shelter, and walked into the island, in search of the treasure. I tried to retrace the steps I took when I first found it, years ago. But the grounds were too unfamiliar. I stayed positive, energized by Dmitri's story of perseverance and success.

I walked all over, searching for the treasure, but I still couldn't find it. The sun was setting, and I decided to go back to the canoe. I was hungry, and two marshmallows awaited, with a half a chocolate bar for dessert. When I turned around, a snake slithered across my feet. It scared the pants off me, and I jumped about ten feet across, right into a tree hidden behind the bushes.

Once I could see straight, I checked out the tree that had just clobbered me. Its trunk was thick and white—vaguely familiar. I set my gaze from the trunk up to the leaves. Then it all came back. It was the same weeping willow from years ago. I remembered it perfectly—it had a wide, white trunk, and stood behind two bushes. It must've been the only weeping willow on the island. The treasure, I knew, was close by.

I closed my eyes and tried to picture that night I first found the box. We were all around the tree. Matty was across from me, holding one of the joints in his mouth. There was a thick branch hanging right above him, and he was burning its leaves with the lighter. Chris was beside him, holding the other joint, and then Chris's girlfriend, and then me. Chris handed me the end of his joint. I held it, though I didn't want to, took a puff, and then tripped out. I said I had to leave to pee. Then I walked off. I went in the opposite direction of Chris. He was to my right, so I must've gone left.

That night was clear in my mind. I pictured it as sharp as a movie. Now all I had to do was retrace my steps. I walked around the weeping willow to find the branch that hung above Matty's head. I needed to place myself exactly where we stood.

I found the branch. I stood where Matty stood, then walked across to where I stood. I imagined Chris to my right. I turned to the left, and walked to where I had gone to pee. It was deja vu all over again. I half expected to get caught before I could take the treasure, just like last time. Thankfully, the coast was clear. I followed the same path I had taken to pee. But, last time, I didn't find the treasure walking down the path. I had tripped over a branch. It was only once I fell on the ground that I found the treasure.

By now, the sun had set on the island. It was dark besides the moon and stars. Rain splashed in the wind. There was only one thing I could do to properly retrace my steps. I lay down on my belly near the place I had tripped years ago, and I crawled, searching from that vantage point, for the top of an old, native treasure box.

I swam in that guck, searching for the treasure—breast stroke, butterfly, front crawl and back, feeling all over for that box. Rocks skinned my knees, sticks poked my sides, mud got stuck in places that, to this day, I can't unstick. At first, I thought everything I touched was the treasure chest. Later, I thought nothing was. The entire time I knew I looked idiotic, lying in that dirt. But after all I had endured, any sense of shame had left me. I remained dogged. The treasure was somewhere. I just had to find it.

Each false started pushed me to look a little longer, to toughen up, to become even more dogged. It was the only way to quiet the ringing thought that the guy flat on his stomach, limbs spread in the mud, was not, in fact, crazy. The more vigorously I searched, the quieter the thought that there was no treasure. That I had imagined the whole thing. That I was actually in some kind of life crises, and my mind was playing tricks on me, coming up with this ridiculous tale to avoid the truth—I was lost in a world that wasn't made for me, a world with rules I wasn't following, a world that had sent its guards to set me straight.