radiation sickness

we met in an evacuation. i had been living in the woods for six months, working with the loggers. i was trying to keep myself together. somehow being out in the forest 12 hours a day with earplugs and chainsaws kept my mind off of back east and all that had driven me out. i was on another planet, in another man's body, a million miles away from those small apartments and those yellow-lit windows everywhere and the garbage-strewn streets. here i was a blade of quivering grass among giants, taking each down, one at a time, a dozen a day.

the guys and i hardly spoke. anything that wasn't necessary was left unsaid. it was probably with subtle body language that we all agreed to go down for a swim. it was late afternoon, a saturday.

i remember the three of us stripping down to shorts and running towards the end of the pier like boys. 34-year-old boys, a part of you never grows up, i thought as we raced to the edge. i remember hesitating at the last second as they arced by me in a blur. and then i was in the water and it crashed over me, over my head. the fragment of a second where the entirety of my skin went from dry to wet seemed to last an hour.

i am a strong swimmer. i watched the other two as they dog paddled in circles and splashed each other. i swam towards the deeper waters, rolled over onto my back and looked at the sky. the low grey clouds, if you really concentrated you could see the layers moving above each other. it would rain any second. it always rains here.

i swam laps, 100 yards in each direction. the lake was vast. i couldn't see the other shore even in clear weather. there we were, swimming on the brink of a thunderstorm in the waters of a gigantic lake, a huge field of cobalt churning water. i felt my arms crash down and rise up from the waves. i got so strong working out there. another body entirely.

as the wind picked up the current got stronger. at one point i bobbed upright in the water, scanning the wavering line of sight for the other two. couldn't see them. a flash of panic shot like a quick bolt of lightning when the current pulled me back a few feet, but i swam out of it effortlessly. as with any release, the fun fades gradually into pondering when to leave, when to quit. i began to think about swimming back to shore when i saw it.

at first the glow of the flames caught my periphery and i turned slowly, my neck and shoulders getting clammy and my legs kicking mechanically. it was a 737, i would guess, a large yellow shot of flame engulfing the forward door near the cockpit. the plane was silent as it sailed towards the treeline. i could see that it was a northwest airlines jet. the flames against the darkened grey sky made the entire metal tube glow as if lit softly from stage lights. it looked beautiful before the horror of it washed over me.

and in minutes i was back underwater, swimming as fast as i could. my knees dug into the sand and soon i was standing and running through the woods, feet crunching the sandy pine needles and dodging the large rocks and fallen branches. i ran for a good half hour, down the dusty packed-earth logging road, towards the highway. i never heard the actual crash.

by the time i reached the highway cars were lined up in gridlock, silent, engines running, exhaust pipes spewing invisible gases. i was shirtless and barefoot and knocking on windows, going car to car. several drivers looked panicked. she was the fifth car i tried. she didn't even roll down the window, she leaned over and opened the door.

now i am on another planet, i thought, the experience of sitting in a dry, air-conditioned front seat of a car when minutes before i had been in a tunnel of blurriness in the thick of the forest, when minutes before that i had been letting the lake take me in, giving myself up to it. i was cold. she gave me a light jacket from the backseat to drape over my shoulders.

we drove for hours. she was blonde, sweet-faced, large blue eyes. she was overweight, looked like she'd been that way since she was a little girl. but her eyes told the story, the love to give, the abundance of it, as much as the water in that vast lake. we talked about high school, we talked about jobs and homes and travel.

hours later we stopped for a light meal, knowing more driving was on the way. we sat at picnic tables on the edge of a parking lot. it was the dead of night and we were bathed in the orange of the hundred lightposts around us.

it was the first time we'd gotten to face each other. i looked into those eyes as she spoke. i repeated to myself, over and over, drowning out her words in my head.

"i want to love you but i can't."