Inmortality
We ran down our dirt road towards the swimming hole at the end. The boys kicked off their shoes so their bare feet could test the mud puddles that spattered our path. Following their lead, I kicked off my own shoes as well and we left them all at the side of the road. Bare feet know best.
“Hey Mom?” Baer asked, slowing to a walk. He was five, and always had the greatest ideas and the best sort of questions.
“Yes, Love?” I said, enjoying our lazy pace. Sawyer slowed down too—he was only three, and I was surprised he’d run as far as he had; the fresh air had given him a power boost.
“I bet it’s cold as Mars in the Himalayas. Maybe we could build the Abominable a shelter,” he said, and the snow-melt streams on the side of the road giggled, easily amused after such a long winter’s nap.
“That’s a very good idea,” I said, holding Sawyer’s hand as we balanced on a log to cross a creek. “How would you build it?”
“Rocks and bricks make the strongest shelters,” said Baer, climbing over a large boulder. There was a path around it, but boulders are more fun. “I don’t know why people build houses out of wood. Sticks are made of wood, and we know what happened to that little pig.”
Up the hill, through the gate, over the bridge, across the log, between the boulders; it was a little over a mile away. When the boys saw the water, they ran straight in, splashing and climbing on the large rocks that formed a dam. Ice still laced the shadowed edges of the pool, but the sun was smiling, so why shouldn’t we?
Having splashed to our heart’s content, we huddled together on our sunny rock, which may as well have been a warm blanket, as cozy as it was after playing in the chilly, Rocky Mountain river. The boys’ clothes were laid out next to us, crusting over with drying mud, and Sawyer’s muddy diaper sagged down to his knees with water.
“Hey Mom?” asked Baer, laying his head on my shoulder.
“Yes, Love?” asked I, resting my head on his.
“I love you from the Himalayas to my heart.”
I smiled and hugged them both closer.
“Hey Mom?” he asked again.
“Yes, Love?” I said, again.
“Um, how long would it take to count to a googolplex?”
“Hmm...maybe only as long as it takes us to find the Abominable Snowman.”
We began our hike back down the path, feeling sweetly content, when I looked up and realized the clouds were no longer eons away. Not even minutes away, really, as they were about hovering right over us.
“Let’s walk a little faster, guys,” I said, knowing how quickly gray clouds could turn into lightning and hail in our town that sat at an altitude of 9,000 feet.
Feeling the first droplets of water on my nose and cheeks, I scooped Sawyer up, took Baer’s hand, and moved as fast as anyone could move with a five- and three-year old in tow. Sensing my tension, Baer started to lag. I looked down at him and saw the hairs on his head beginning to stand on end from the static in the air. Panic had already started clouding my vision when a hailstone bounced off the ground in front of me.
“Hurry now!” I shouted, trying in vain to cover Sawyer’s bare head with my hand. It had only taken a moment for the hail to start pouring in waves with the wind. Lightning lit the sky, followed way too shortly by a deafening crack of thunder.
“Hey, Mom!” Baer yelled over the rising noise of the storm, “I have a great idea for a shelter!”
And Baer, who rivals Max as the king of all wild things, ran off the path and up the rock wall to where there was a shallow cave. I followed with Sawyer, and we sat in that cave and watched the storm like it was fireworks on the Fourth of July.
“We are inmortal today,” Baer said, still watching as the storm started to ease.
A little confused, because Baer knows his words, I said, “No, we are mortal.”
“No, we are inmortal,” he said again.
“Okay, how are we immortal?” I asked.
Then he looked up at me with his sweet, freckled face, and said, with a smile I hope I never forget, “Because today we are perfect.”
And then the sun, fickle as he is, peeked out from behind the clouds and grinned impishly, knowingly. Then, as if to make amends, he grabbed his crayons and scribbled a rainbow on the other side of the sky.
“Hey, Mom?” Baer asked as we started again down the hail-strewn path.
“Yes, Love?”
“Do you think we could find gold at the end of that rainbow?”
“You know,” I said, “maybe we should try.”
CHELSEA KUESER is a junior pursuing a Baccalaureate of Arts in English with a minor in Creative Writing. She loves fat biking, sledding, and camping with her husband and three boys.