I arrive back at Bright Angel Creek, to its infinite rush to feed some other insatiable hunger of a stream not itself, yet itself. I take off my shoes and examine my purple toenails as a skinny silver fox trots, stops, stares; trots, stops, stares, then meanders off. Each step is a decision. Each step is pain. How glorious. One bloody toe.
If I lost my feet tomorrow, I’d have gotten a lifetime out of them. I put these two dogs through so much in a life—they bear the weight of the body on just a few square inches of flesh. No wonder the bones in the feet outnumber those in the remainder of the skeleton. I’ll bet half of them foot bones are terminally broken into pieces, and that’s why there’s so damned many. I’ve walked across cities and nations, deserts and mountains. I’ve danced on bar tops and streets and played all kinds of ball. Yeah, I’ve really used them. If only I’d used my penis 1/10th as much.
How well do I squander my other assets—my money, my energy, my talents, my time? For in the end, all my gifts must be squandered. To the extent they haven’t been on my last day, my life itself has been squandered.
© 2015 by Michael C. Just