Exclusive first draft: “So Alive” (short story)

Here is a first draft of the story, “So Alive,’ by Markus McDowell, from his forthcoming collection of Short Stories, “So…A Collection of Short Stories.” Each story uses the adverb “so” in its title, to indicate a element of chaos or extreme function of the following adjective. In this story, the extreme nature of the narrator’s feeling alive!

Walking wobbly on the beach of smooth sand, footprints trailing behind. Warm air and gentle breeze cools my skin like a tiny kitten tottering past. A seaweed forest of verdant vegetation, the shadows hiding hive-like mysteries, lie ahead. I feel it. Something soft but seen not. More than physical but not quite psychological.

The humid air and stillness are an oppressing blanket thrown atop it all. Swish, crack, snap accompanies me. Drip drip drop as I disturb the moisture resting atop the fronds from the fresh morn. The ground rises, my legs pump pump pump with added effort; my breath puff puff puffs.

I stand as a statue at the exposed substratum of a rocky hill, gazing at the summit cone, topped with ice cream snow. The clouds and a sky made of lapis lazuli beckon like an alluring woman. I hunger for her.

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Climbing crab crab up the slope, my arms are balancing wings, the mystery of gravity and locomotion in a ludic gyration. My breath and heartbeat working together are a small engine revving up.

I stand at the summit, unable to appreciate the presence of the precipice beyond, my lungs a baby protesting the insufficiency of air, my muscles a newborn calf.

Recovering, I creak to vertical, hip-holding hands as I smile a smile of success. Small success. Dun I, they say: this mountain is Dun I. I do not fathom but it fits. 

Dun I.

He used to climb here come the morning. Mourning his land, lamenting his island. On the clearest of days, he could discern it. A dark stroke atop of the sea, sitting serenely, even without him. Perhaps because without him. 

A green emerald loved and lost. His calling had with a clan—a clan of clans not of this world. A scribe. Cutting, rolling, creasing, dipping, writing, copying. Beautiful ligatures beckoned literature of bountiful eloquence. But not merely expressiveness. There was meaning, purpose, life. Ultimate significance, objective, existence. His purpose to provide for posterity with his pen and his piety.

Sacred duplication for preservation. He required a roll from a related clan. They refused! A riddle. A resentment. A wrong.

Such work should not be hindered. Like Abram, he took on matters himself. They demanded. He refused. The mission must be maintained.

But blind faith turns grace to grasping. Humility to hubris. It was a brutal battle for the book. No mere book, true. But not worth three thousand. Brothers betrayed to a burial.

Sometimes, revelation requires ruination.

I scuffled up to the stone seat he had shaped by stacking rocks. I climbed and sat, just as he had sat centuries ago. Not with the same longing, not with the same lament. Yet I have my own craving, my own contrition. He and I are anamcara in this moment.

Long ago, summoned, he stood, eyes sideways, shoulders slumped. Recompense must be paid, but penance may bring peace. But the summoner said no. The extent of egregiousness requires exile.

All those centuries ago, he raised his head. “I will build a bastion across the sea, and I will rescue three thousand in payment of the three thousand who perished.”

So he sailed, plying the sea to this place. Twelve and one they were, rowing oars and working sails. Then, a beam of brightness illuminated the island. “This is the place.”

I stand. Down the mountain, at the base of Dun I, I see the stone buildings, the stone hut, the simple poustinia, and the skyward monuments. From here they set out for the coast, seeking converts.

The wind picks up; I wind my peacoat around. Such stubbornness and single-mindedness turned to slaughter. But the result was ra emarkable hinge in history.

I make my way down the stone incline. The lowing of cattle. The bleating of sheep. The lapping of waves. The whistle of the wind. It is all peace now, a tiny island wrought from misguided faith, murder, exile, building, destruction, more death, a rebuilding, and a finally, a renewal.

It is a lesson of life. Haughtiness to humility. Life from loss. Angish to aspiration.

Dry bones came to life on a tiny island and the world was changed.

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