Letting out the Ocean

He sat hunched over on the couch, looking like Woody Allen with those thick framed glasses, the tousled curly hair and the worried expression. Last week, he had come in looking more like Connery’s version of 007 in a white tux and diamond cufflinks. I’ve learned to gauge the degree of stress he displayed this way; something troubled him.
“Good morning El, how are things today?” A neutral start, give him some room to decide what to tell me.
“Good? Have you even looked out the window, Nick? I mean, really looked, have you? It’s chaos out there!” He even sounded like Woody. This did not bode well, El must have been feeling an intense guilt about something.
I indulged him and walked over to the window and peeked out. Fluffy cottonball clouds filled the sky. Birds flitted from grass to shrubbery, tree and fencepost. Children laughed and played in the playground across the street. In the immediate world outside my window things looked peaceful and serene. I stepped aside and pulled the curtain with me so El could look for himself.
“Which particular chaos did you mean, El? Come show me.”
“No, no, it’s not real. You’ve been doctoring your corner again, It’s all a – a façade. You’re playing with me.”
“Tell me again about our deal here El?”
“We only speak the truth?”
“And what else?
“Here, we do not doctor or pretty things up. They are what they are.”
“That being said, what do you see out there?”
“Chaos.”
“So, tell me about the chaos. Show me what you see.”
He almost got up. Almost. Half a second after beginning to get up and come over he sank back and buried his face in his hands.
“Oh Nick, it’s a mess. I made a mess of everything. And all because of the Water, you remember?
The Water, as El called it, referred to the bottle he kept. He wouldn’t show it to me, although I’ve asked often enough. But I have heard about that bottle more times than I can count.
“What happened with the Water this time?”
“Well, I got thirsty, you understand. I needed a drink. So I went and got the bottle of Water.” He paused then to gather his thoughts and I poured us both a glass of water from the pitcher I keep on the coffee table. I pressed a glass into his fidgety hands and settled down across from him with my own glass. His Water and the substance in my pitcher had only the same name, beyond that I had only guesses to his meanings.
“What happened next, El?"
I watched as he sat leaning his elbows on his knees. He cupped the tall glass of water in both hands, tilting it from side to side. He appeared to be searching the liquid for words or answers. I could see the ditch in his brow. He chewed his lower lip for a moment more before continuing.
“I emptied it. Drank the whole thing in a single turn.”
“I hear you saying then that the Water is gone.”
“Well, that Water is gone. I have to refill it.”
“So what happened when you drank it all?”
El took another long moment to respond. He stared past my shoulder at a scene that replayed only in his mind’s eye.
“It makes me crazy. I do stupid things. Things I shouldn’t do.”
“Like the garden?”
El nodded. His eyes took on an even sadder cast than the Woody face normally had. He got up and walked to the window. He stood there gazing out into the sunny sky. I remembered the garden incident he had once told me about. There had been a particular tree with the most delicious fruit and two beautiful children. His, although I don’t remember him mentioning ever being married.
“Nick?”
He turned and tears trailed down his cheeks. His red-rimmed eyes pleaded with me for answers I didn’t know. I waited.
“Nick, what if I destroyed a whole universe again?”
“What makes you think that, El?”
“I emptied the bottle! I don’t remember what I did next. Nick, I’ve never emptied it like that, not that fast. But always, I can remember something”
“What do you think might have happened?”
“I have a bad feeling.”
“What do you think might have happened?”
“I’m not sure. The last time I had even half as much I tried to wipe out an entire world.”
“The garden?”
“No, after that. Remember the rain?”
I nodded.
“Seems to me, El, if I recall correctly what you told me, you salvaged some of those people.”
“But at what cost? That boat couldn’t hold everything.”
He turned back toward the window for a moment and I waited while he composed himself. I wondered what had happened this time that had prompted such stress.
“El, come here. Sit down. I have a question for you.”
“You’re going to ask me why, aren’t you?”
“Why, what?”
“ ‘Why did you drink all the Water, El?’ ”
“Well, the question does come to mind, I admit, but my intended question is more simple: What is the Water that you need to drink it?”
El sat back and straightened. Some of the Connery aspect crept across his face as he arched an eyebrow. The little man removed his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.
“I don’t really know. I know, but not like I have a list of ingredients. Life, I guess. It’s got a little bit of everything from each of the cosmos. It really resembles this water here in appearance only. The flavor is –“
I smiled at the little boy face that El wore for a moment as he reached for a way to describe his Water.
“You ever go to a 7-11, Nick, when you were a kid? You ever mix all your favorite flavors of slurpee together? I mean really mix them up like a cosmic swirl and then with four or five straws suck back on the entire concoction until your brain freezes up? Have you, Nick?”
I chuckled.
“El, when were we kids? But yes, I’ve probably done something similar.”
“It’s like that, only you can feel it down to your toes and it makes you want to dance to the music of the spheres.”
“Do I hear you right then, that you drink the Water because it makes you feel happy?”
“More than that, Nick. I feel alive. I feel the insides of me giving birth to new things, new worlds, new ideas.” El’s intense child expression stayed in place, his smile held mischief and adventure and his eyes twinkled.
“Help me understand, El. Why is it you think you might have destroyed something if this Water makes you feel that wonderful?”
“That’s the price, isn’t it? I make it rain because something I created went sour and the Water reminds me of the wonder at the beginning. And then I see what happens each time something comes into being and I get this crazy notion that I need to rebuild it all. But to do that, I need to take something apart first.”
He looked like Woody again and sagged where he sat, like a slow leak in an inflatable clown. I digested all of this while waiting for him to continue. Several minutes passed and he sat across from me looking as if his favorite toy had been broken. I had an idea.
“El, where do you get the Water from?”
“From the bottle, of course.”
“Before it gets there?”
“It’s always there, in the bottle, I mean.”
“Alright, but you told me you emptied it and it needs to be refilled.”
“True, it does. But it replenishes itself. I have to give it time.”
“What would happen then if the bottle were bigger?”
“I’d be in a lot more trouble? You mean … if I used a bigger bottle? It might take longer to refill.”
“Now, suppose there were no bottle? Would the Water still come back?”
“I imagine so. I’ve never really thought about it.” He absorbed the idea for a few moments before his eyes widened.
“You want me to break the bottle, don’t you Nick?”
“I never said those words.”
“But you’re thinking them!”
“No, I have a different idea. I’m thinking about the child you were telling me about with the ice cold drink.”
“But you were asking me about the bottle.”
“True enough. Bottles don’t grow, your Water supply does, but only in the confines of the bottle. What if you let the Water grow?”
El didn’t like the thought. That ditch got deeper for a second while he frowned and chewed on his lip.
“That’ll mean waiting longer.”
“Yes.”
“But what if I can’t wait?”
I got up and walked over to my desk near the window. I rummaged through the drawers until I found what I had been searching for.
“El. You like pine trees?”
“You know I do!”
I tossed a small pinecone to him.
“Tell me how it smells, about it’s greenery, all the things you love about pines.”
“But it’s not even grown yet.”
It was my turn to raise an eyebrow.
“What does it need to do that, besides the obvious soil?”
“Water, of course.”
“And?”
“And … time?”
“Both of which we have in abundance, right?”
“Not if I break the bottle –“
“What if breaking it, only means it takes longer to replenish? What if breaking it means the pinecone gets a chance to grow.”
El smiled at the potential he could feel in the cone, the thought of what it might look like full grown. I continued with my hunch.
“Suppose, all those sour moments you see and feel are the growing pains of a parent?”
“Well—“ He clouded over for a moment not sure what direction my thoughts were taking.
“All those children out there”, I pointed out the window at the playground, “they are growing. Growing, hopefully, into beautiful pine trees. What if their parents decided to start over again the first time something went sour?”
“That would be just wrong. I told them not to –“
“Not to make it rain? Not to scrub out the first project because it didn’t go according to plan?” El grimaced at my analogy, not liking the comparison being made.
“But what about my Water problem?”
“Isn’t that what we’re talking about? El, if you can wait long enough for the bottle to refill, you can wait for an ocean. Maybe the waiting will help you see more fruit and beautiful pines.”
The ditch in his brow cleared and he became thoughtful. A smiled curved his lips and I could see the beginnings of that child again.
“Same time next week?” El’s voice had some of that Connery feel to it while his face took on a younger cast by the moment.
“Same time next week, El. Tell me how you make out with the bottle.”
He let himself out the door while I opened the window and sat on the corner of my desk looking at the playground. I could almost hear the sound of glass breaking, tinkling laughter so similar to the sound the children made. A breeze rustled the leaves and I could hear an ocean surging out from of the broken bottle. A red rubber ball bounced down the sidewalk beneath the window. A little boy chased after it, laughing and skipping.


dragoneyes