23
After receiving Mordecai Ob’s first generous stipend as his “patron,” Garth wanted to get away from people. And also to be inspired.
Even with the lackluster success of his first private exhibition, he remained undaunted. His head held so many ideas, so many images, that he needed to sort it all out. Soft Stone had taught him to meditate; maybe that would help. He would go somewhere and let his thoughts run unhindered.
Garth did an extensive batch of complimentary artwork for a travel broker in exchange for a deep discount on fares, then used some of Ob’s money to travel to the breathtaking Waimea Preserve on the windswept north end of Oahu, a rugged jungle and river capped by a churning seascape.
Within the preserve, he followed a stream through palms and banana trees to volcanic outcroppings overhung with mosses and epiphytes. Garth stood with crowds on wooden decks to watch the famed cliff divers of Hawaii. The athletes plunged off the blackened rocks, sketching smooth arcs through the air into the foaming gullet of a waterfall.
Marveling at the perfection of their human forms, Garth toyed with the idea of hopscotching with one of them so he could try the dive on his own. But even if he did inhabit such a perfectly trained body, he would never inherit the abilities of the original owner. He might feel improved reflexes, and he might do a creditable job as a diver—or he might get himself killed.
Instead, he went to Waimea Beach, where the air was warm, the breezes stiff, and the sound of the surf like an avalanche. Curling waves battered the shore like blue-white hammers. Surfers carried polymer-lubricated boards and stood atop whitecaps that thundered to shore.
Excited, Garth stripped down to his bathing trunks and ran across the hot sand. The warm water welcomed him as he waded in. The sea, the mother of all life, was like amniotic fluid around his ankles, his knees.
He dove in. The ocean churned around him. Waves rushed one after another to the shore. The surfers went farther out, standing on their boards, laughing with each other. On the sand, families frolicked with their children, using static-wands to build ridiculously high sand castles.
Garth floated out, arms at his sides, kicking and splashing. The current flung him from wave to wave like jetsam after a shipwreck. He lay back, grinning foolishly up at the sky. He licked his lips, and the potent taste of salt startled him.
Everything he experienced filled the catalogue in his mind, and every moment was worth living for the new inspiration he received. When he got out his supplies again, he would somehow convey the powerful waves, using a language of colors and strokes to paint more than what he could see.
A whitecap splashed over his head, and he reveled in playing in the surf. Larger waves rolled in, slapping him down, and he paddled farther out to catch more of them. The foam pummeled him, dunking him under, and he pushed his way back up, laughing and coughing.
Before he could regain his breath, an enormous wave flooded over the top of him, shoving him down. Garth tried to swim to the surface, flailing his arms. Breaking free, he drew in a mouthful of saltwater and coughed it up just as another wave struck, pulling him farther out. The undertow grabbed at his ankles, sweeping his feet from under him, and ran with him.
Garth didn’t know what to do. He bobbed back into the air and sun, thrashing about. He couldn’t even see the shore with his burning eyes, didn’t know which direction to go. A foamy wave slapped him in the face, blinding him. He went under again.
Garth shouted for help, but his voice was choked and the sea rumbled far too loudly for anyone to hear. He broke the surface, gasping, and swallowed another mouthful. Daylight seemed to have disappeared.
The undertow pulled him down again, deeper this time. All he could see was a blue-green storm that faded to black. . . .
The Emergency Medical Technicians roared onto the beach, their hovercars blasting a whirlwind of sand. Techs ripped equipment from storage compartments and plugged into remote COM links, requesting status and information.
Assisted by three panting surfers using jet-boards, teams dragged Garth’s flopping body to shore. When they spilled him onto the wet sand, he still twitched. A crowd had gathered, children staring wide-eyed next to their parents. The techs shouted a rapid-fire rush of commands, questions, and answers. One peeled up his eyelid, then rolled him over, trying to expel water from his lungs.
The medical techs focused their remote uplinks, powerpacks, and diagnostic systems. Brushing caked sand away, they slapped electrodes onto Garth’s clammy skin. Automatic analyzers and probes dipped needles into his bloodstream while the techs stood back to let COM do the complicated work.
Garth swam in black velvet, a zero-gravity environment that left him with no worries. He saw no one else, heard no sound, experienced a total absence of sensations. Until he saw a pinprick of light far in the distance.
The spark grew steadily larger, coming toward him until it formed a bright apparition of Soft Stone herself, her bald head shining, her glowing face as blunt featured as he remembered it. But her smile was softer than he had seen in some time, her skin luminous.
“You can’t stay here, little Swan.” Her voice was quiet, but it filled the blackness around him. “This place isn’t for you.”
In Garth’s befuddled state, the presence of his long-dead teacher seemed perfectly reasonable. “But how do I get out? I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know the way back.”
“Why, use the door,” she said. “It’s right behind you.”
He turned and found himself before a massive wooden door that bristled with ornate carvings. He recognized it as the door from the Falling Leaves.
“Go on,” Soft Stone said. “Right out there. That’s where you belong.”
Not daring to question the monk’s orders, Garth grasped the handle. He opened the door.
And opened his eyes.
“There he is,” one of the medical techs shouted, looking up from the COM diagnostics.
Sunlight burned into his still-unfocused eyes. He coughed, then retched, then turned his face sideways as a stomachful of lukewarm seawater spewed from his mouth. The techs helped ease him to a sitting position. Garth’s muscles seized up. His knees drew toward his chest, his abdomen spasming.
A black static of unconsciousness fluttered around his field of vision, only to retreat again. He heard the pounding surf like a scolding whisper in his ears. The sunlight was very, very bright, dazzling on the sands.
The other tech, calm and professional, began plucking the electrodes and analyzers, yanking needles out of Garth’s flesh. “You’re lucky we received the call when we did. We got here immediately and gave you treatment, thanks to COM. You only had about a three-minute window.”
“Thank you,” Garth croaked. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, but that phrase seemed appropriate. He looked around himself, still disoriented, expecting to see Soft Stone herself standing among the people on the beach. If he had almost died, surely she would have come to be there with him. . . .
Perhaps she had indeed been there, in her own way. Soft Stone’s image and her words had been vivid in his mind, but it must have been a near-death hallucination, something he had subconsciously wanted to see during the last flickers of his life.
Shaking off the disorientation, Garth huddled on the beach trying to get warm. Despite the bright Hawaiian sunshine, his skin felt icy.
While the first technician hauled the equipment back to the hover rescue vehicle, the other gave Garth a powerful stimulant injection and attached a tiny, temporary cardiomonitor to his chest. “We’ve got to keep your heartbeat regulated to bring you back to normal.”
Garth hung his head in his hands as thoughts reeled around him. He’d traveled to Waimea to see new things, to collect exotic sights and landscapes and details that he could add to his artwork. Instead, he had come face-to-face with his mortality.
He had almost died because of his stupidity, blindly walking into danger just because it had looked interesting. He hadn’t intended to put himself at such risk, hadn’t meant to be a daredevil—he’d just been foolish. Life was such a transient thing, a thread so thin it could easily be snapped.
As he sat shuddering, it became clear to him how trivial his own quest for inspiration had been. He had to do more than just visit pretty landscapes. He must work harder at understanding people if he ever intended to produce art that would have an impact on humanity.
Garth understood now why his art exhibition had been such a failure. The lack of publicity had been only the first weakness; the superficial art itself hadn’t drawn in the crowds. He thought back to the works he considered his masterpieces, but now they seemed bland and derivative—images that were captured, yet not tamed. Not interpreted. He’d been showing only external things. No depth, no point, no heart. He hadn’t infused it with a “soul,” with any part of himself.
Still shaky, Garth got to his feet, feeling the stimulants coursing through him. His body was alive again, but his mind would never be the same. He looked up and down the beach, saw the people standing around. There were no longer any surfers risking themselves for the fun of it. His ordeal had been a shock to all of them.
Garth brushed glittering sand off his arms and chest, then coughed again. His mouth tasted terrible. He wondered who had sent the alarm to the emergency crews, how the medical techs had known to come so quickly. But the techs were packed up and already leaving, the crowd was dispersing. A few brave souls ventured back into the water, but no one approached him. No one claimed responsibility for saving his life.
Bystanders stared at Garth, and he discovered that he was not embarrassed by this attention, or resentful of it. Instead, he studied the people in return, tried to understand who they were and why they reacted the way they did. Now that he was alive again, truly alive, the world and its people seemed even more interesting to him.
All of a sudden, it seemed so clear to him what he needed to do to capture the essence of what it meant to be human. It was not enough just to see everything . . . he had to be everything. And the ability to hopscotch gave him an opportunity that artists throughout history hadn’t had. Garth decided to embark upon a quest that would change his life and set him on a course of exploration for years to come. He would report to Mordecai Ob, then he would tell his friends.
He didn’t really comprehend anything about humanity after all. But he would learn.