By Jenna Lapointe
On my way to the campsite I saw a man sitting under an otherwise empty pavilion though it was his bright yellow heavy duty power cord that snaked in the dusk’s grey tones from the outlet in the pavilion roof down one of the supports and across the cement platform to a corner picnic table where he and three large black boxes set that first drew my attention from the road
that quickly regained my attention with a bend and as I took the curve the man and his pavilion disappeared along with the moment from my consciousness until a few hours later after I’d finished setting up my tent and gathering sticks and logs to create a pyramid which would become my fire my dog started whining for his nighttime walk
so we departed from the campsite and began walking the circumference of the campground where halfway through we turned a corner and once again met the pavilion still inhabited by this man now almost fully in shadows sitting in the same position which was a curiosity to me so as my dog sniffed out another place to mark the campground as his I used his random movement to ease us towards this man who sat
leaning forward towards the black electric boxes but only slightly in a way that made me consider whether it was intentional or a misalignment due to the rounded gut his spine had to work around or the result of sitting years in similar positions watching similar machines as warcrafts flew overhead because an army tent is where this man looked as though he belonged in his white shirt and surplus store level khaki jacket and cargo pants instead of alone in an empty pavilion in a park at dark listening
to static which I heard come from at least one of the boxes because even though the man wore big metal headphones he’d hooked them around his neck leaving his ears free to hear the crickets as well as the constant sound of nothingness vibrate over the airways
that I listened to for any sign of life as I stalled and pet my dog to occupy myself but neither the static nor the man changed positions until it got to be too much for me and I called out to him with a quick word at which time his eyes slid from the middle box over to my direction and to the box again
and I took that minimal acknowledgement as a hello and asked him what he was doing here at this time of night which he answered with a singular word
Waiting
to which I asked him For what
and above the violin hum of static he replied My mission
and the words were not said eagerly nor with resignation which after hearing the words was what I realized I was expecting instead of words spoken by a man at the crossroad of absolute faith where the knowledge of impossibility intersects with the trust in inevitability leaving equal space for these two normally opposing forces to exist wholly
like the point in space in which the last atom in the last oxygen molecule of our atmosphere meets the first atom in the first molecule of space or the moment of weightlessness at the top of a playground swing’s curvature in which there is equal movement and falling and flight occur simultaneously or
me and this stranger standing in the dark on either side of his electronic boxes listening to static because the synapses of his neural pathways sparked within the folds of my brain while the iron core of his blood molecules ran through my veins and his equal ratio of ache to expanding confetti filled in my chest until the unexpected intimacy shocked me from his system and I landed once again on the grass growing wet with dew
where I shook with residual vibrations as I replied
Aren’t we all
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