Last Day
Jack
descended down the stairs to the smell of apple-cinnamon early one morning.
“Where are you off to so early in the morning, young man?” asked Jack’s mother as she flipped over a slightly golden-brown apple cinnamon pancake.
“I’m going
rock climbing with Chuck today,” Jack told her as he slipped into his favorite
jet-black Nike shoes.
“At
“It’s
alright, mom. I’ll be careful and I’ll just grab something from the café near
school later.”
“Also,
Jack, I wanted to know if you might come home early today and spend some time
with your father and me. We haven’t seen you very much these past days. And
today is your last …” Jack’s mom paused.
Jack was
silent for a moment. A feeling of guilt started to
creep into his body, and pulled on the muscles around his heart. She was
right, Jack thought. He knew he had been acting selfish this past couple weeks
after he received the news from his doctor. Since that day, he couldn’t escape
the heart-wrenching sense of urgency and purpose in fulfilling his life as quick
as possible.
“Don’t
worry, mom. I saved the entire afternoon and evening for you both,” Jack replied
softly. He gave her a last reassuring smile, reminding her to flip the pancake
as he noticed that it had gotten a bit singed during the moment that she
hesitated.
“The
pancake smells great by the way. I can hear dad’s stomach growl even in his
sleep,” Jack joked. He then slung his backpack over his shoulder, leaned forward
to kiss his mother on the cheek, gave her a quick hug and walked out the front
door where the smell of apple-cinnamon suddenly turned into the smell of
propane. His friend, Chuck, was waiting inside his old Ford. They greeted each
other with a quick and sharp nod as Jack got into the car and they headed
towards the base of Indian Rock for their last morning journey together.
“Hey, you
sure you’re ready for this?” Chuck asked Jack over the roar of the old engine,
which seemed to Chuck ten times louder on a quiet Friday morning. “ We don’t
have a more experienced climber with us today and Indian Rock is a lot steeper
than our usual mount.”
“We can do
it, both of us are pretty experienced.”
“If you
call a couple climbs up a plastic version of a mountain ‘experienced,’” Chuck
muttered underneath his breath. He took his eyes off the road for a moment to
look at Jack who was staring out of the passenger’s seat window, absorbing his
last view of the world at
“Well then,
lets do this!”
Once out of
the car, Jack stood still for a moment breathing in the clear smell of nature.
Today, Jack felt as if he could smell every bed of dirt, branch of tree, and
blade of grass around him. Chuck started to unpack their equipment and handed
Jack a rope, pair of shoes harness, belay device and carabineer. They started
their journey down the road that led to Indian Rock.
~*~
“Hey
Chuck,” Jack said as they headed back to the car just as the sun rose over the
“Yeah?” Chuck replied as he looked over the scratches on the bend of his
elbow. Jack’s mother had been right; nature had softened and turned to mush from
the morning dew in the humid areas of the trail. Surprisingly, Jack came out
unscathed while Chuck had stumbled around and came out looking like he had
gotten into a dirty mud fight.
“Mind if I
drive on the way back to school?”
“What are
you talking about, Jack? You have never been in the driver’s seat as far as I
know. You don’t even have a permit.” Chuck laughed as he popped open the trunk
of the car and crammed the rock climbing equipment in the tight space while also
taking their school supplies out. When he stood up, he met Jack’s serious eyes.
After an intense eye contest, Chuck sighed as he gave into Jack’s proposal.
“You’re
horrible for taking advantage of me in your situation, you know that right?”
“Just think
of it this way, you have the rest of your life to race in Ferraris, while I will
only be able to experience this hoodless Ford.”
“Fine,
whatever. Here,” He tossed the keys to Jack and hopped into the passenger’s
seat. “I wouldn’t mind dying with you anyhow, feel like we’ve already done
everything possible this past week,” Chuck joked after Jack started the car.
“Yeah,
thanks man, but I can handle a car. It’s just like playing a video game.”
After a
couple of minor setbacks with roundabout turns and straight steering, Jack began
to handle driving more naturally and they made it to school in one piece. During
the ride, Chuck felt a bit confused at Jack’s decision to come to school on this
day. There was no point because there would be no future to look forward to.
Even this thought sounded harsh as it flashed across Chuck’s mind. So he decided
to keep his mouth shut.
The bell
rang and all the students, including Chuck, began to head towards their
classroom.
“Well, do
what you gotta do,” were the last words Chuck said to Jack before they both
separated. Jack then went to search for what he needed to do.
“Yo, Fiona! How ‘bout we go grab a cup of
morning coffee?”
Fiona was a
couple feet from the door of her classroom and Jack had caught her a few seconds
before she entered. Fiona gave a questioning look in Jack’s direction. She had
not seen him since the previous week.
“Okay, stranger.”
They walked
together towards an empty café two blocks from the school campus while also
avoiding the security guards yelling, “get to class” on their way. Once they
reached their destination Fiona placed an order for a Non-fat Vanilla Latte
while Jack ordered a large, chocolate and nuts topped, java chip caramel mocha
with strawberries and extra whip cream.
“Dang,
Jack, diabetic much?”
Jack mumbled to himself silently and
didn’t answer her question.
“Fiona, we’ve been friends for a while
now right?”
“Hmm,” Fiona playfully thought for a
moment. “Yes, friendship confirmed, why do you ask? Although first, you have
tell me you’re not going to finish all of that and then tell me what have you
been doing this whole week off from school?”
Jack waited until he got his order and
they both sat down at an empty booth.
“You’re
right. I’m not going to finish this,” Jack commented on his drink slash sundae;
even the employees didn’t know what to name it. “ What have I been doing? Just
this and that –you know.”
Fiona took
a long sip from her drink and then scoffed., “Right. No really, tell me.”
“ Just
cliff diving, skydiving, skiing, mountain climbing, … went down to
“Well alright then, Mr. Mysterious, don’t
tell me,” Fiona laughed disbelievingly
as she lifted her drink towards her once more.
Had Fiona
not taken another slow sip of her latte, she may have noticed the serious look
on Jack’s face. Jack and Fiona talks for a good hour or two and as Jake gets up
pay for the bill and afterwards he gave a very surprised Fiona a tight hug and a
lingering kiss on the forehead.
“Goodbye.” Jack walked out, leaving behind the sweet memory of hanging out with the girl he had grown up with and of whom he had a crush on for as long as he had feelings.
~*~
After
leaving the coffee shop, Jack took off on another course and wandered down the
busy streets of his neighborhood. He had already done so much already, what is
there left to do? Jack noticed a rusty nail on the floor. He picked it up,
remembering a story that a wandering monk with a British accent once told him
while he was fixing up a hole in the fence in front of his house almost exactly
one year ago.
“You
there, I want to tell you a story,” the bald man told him as he stopped to watch
Jack hammer a nail into the board. “Will you listen to the teachings of this old
man?”
Jack had
lost his I-pod earlier that week and felt as if he needed something to entertain
him as he worked, so he gave the man a quick nod and a short “sure” while
continuing to hammer another piece of nail into the wood.
“ There
was once a very ungrateful and foul-mouthed boy. He voiced his opinions loudly
and clearly, unaware and uncaring of how his ill-nature attitude hurt both the
people around him and himself. One day his father decided to correct his child,
as he felt it was his duty. The father came up with a very intelligent
philosophy.
‘Son,’
said the father. ‘ I want to make a pact with you, to make you into a better man
and into a better person, who will be considerate of others and wise in your
actions.’
The boy
felt the weight of his father’s words and truth in these words as he reflected
on his own character and the disgust and isolation he experienced from others,
so he listened to his father’s words very carefully.
‘Son,
every time you say or do anything negative or immoral I want you to take a nail
and hammer it into that wall over there,’ the father said pointing to a wooden
board hung up upon a fence. The boy obeyed his father’s orders and every time he
said a foul word or committed a bad action he would hammer a nail into the wall.
As days passed by the wall began to fill up with more and more nails. This
caused the boy to realize the full weight of his bad actions, motivating him to
change to become a better person, rather than a board full of hard and sharp
nails. And indeed, this boy improved day by day. The father saw this great
improvement and called his son to him again.
‘Son, I
see that you have done well. Now, whenever you can go a single day without
committing an obscene action, you can take a nail out of the wall.’
The son
did as he was told, until the day he took out the final nail from the board.
Overjoyed, the son ran to his father.
‘ Look
Father! I’m done! I’ve become a better person,’ the son shouted happily.
‘ Yes
son, well done, I am so proud of you,’ the father then took his son by the
shoulders and had him face the board. ‘ However, look. You have removed all of
the sharp nails from the wall, however the holes still remain and remain they
will until the end of your days.’
The night
that Jack received the news from the hospital was the first time he had ever
thought seriously about religion and about karma. In the beginning Jack blamed
himself and his thoughts were bitter and angry. However he knew there was no way
he could go back and change the past and so he learned to keep walking forward
in life to the very end and to appreciate everything as if there was no
tomorrow. Jack also realized that
living life this way became the happiest days of his life, his days of having no
regret.
Jack stared at the piece of nail on the floor once more and then began to walk down the streets of his hometown one last time, reminiscing about all the holes in his life and also the beauty of the world he had witnessed in this last month.