Hedge Apple

I am not a pessimist: I am a realist!
--Charles Sullivan

If you want me again, look for me under your boot soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good help to you nevertheless
And filter and fiber your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
--From Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

I am astonished by how tiny and thin my legs are! They resemble pencils! I’ve lost significant muscle mass from my legs, and I need to do something about it, to the extent that I can. The name for this phenomenon is Sarcopenia. Old people lose about seven percent of their muscle mass each decade, and the process accelerates the longer one lives. I call it slipping away.

How does one explain what it is like being old to a younger person? First, being old must be distinguished from getting old. Clearly I am already there and there is no point denying it. My body is changing, and with it so too is my perspective. Alopecia has claimed my hair. All of it. It feels like the process of aging is accelerating. To my astonishment, the difference between being 68 and 70 seems quite significant, an unbridgeable chasm, from where I am now.

The bright side is that you can belch, fart, shit your pants, piss your pants and vomit, choke to death on a peanut, and fall down and no one notices or cares. These behaviors are attributed to being old. They are expected in this culture of the self.

You can buy diapers for old people at any drug store or Walmart. But most old people wouldn’t be caught dead in them. Who wants to shuffle along with a load of excrement in their shorts, smelling like a litter pan that hasn’t been changed for a month in a house full of cats? Leave us a shred of dignity for Christ sake!

This old body of mine is like an abandoned house that is no longer kept in good repair. It is only a matter of time before the roof leaks and hastens the interior’s depreciation, its demise and final collapse, a pile of rubble that no longer resembles what it was. Disorganization. Chaos. Decomposition.

I hardly recognize myself these days. I’ve never been this old before. It is all so unfamiliar, as if it were happening to someone else, and I am somehow standing partially outside of my body, observing the spectacle, simultaneously being observer and the object observed. Departing consciousness, mirages shimmering in the desert of selfness.

Without fear, I find little comfort in knowing that it is only going to get worse, if I live long enough. Perhaps that is why old people often look so grim and serious, but I do still enjoy being alive. I continue to laugh and smile and challenge myself. I still enjoy and savor the company of the people I care about. I can still walk long distances on mountain trails. I intend to savor the time I have left, whatever experience it brings.

Being old feels like I am observing myself, like an actor on a stage, as both the actor and a member of the audience. What an odd sensation this split vision, as if I were standing ever so slightly outside of this bag of flesh I call my body. The notion of selfness, of having a separate identity from my surroundings, feels like an illusion to me.

It is sobering to know that I’ll never be this young again. I am on the way out, and I must accept that. There is nothing I can do to turn back the hands of time. No point in resisting or struggling against the inevitable. Go with the flow. Do we really have any other choice? Raise your sail and use the wind to your advantage.

Approaching the end of life is equivalent to entering the wildest wild that can be conjured by the human imagination. Adventure awaits at the terminus. My Rubicon beckons, and, dear reader, so does yours. You are only more distant from it than I am from mine, but rest assured that it is waiting for you.

My senses are changing; they are more blunted and dulled each passing year. Every perception feels more surreal, less connected to what we call reality. What is reality anyway? Every waking moment feels less real and more dream-like. The delineation between dream and reality is blurred with age. I am leaving the realm of substance bit by bit, particle by particle and entering a more ethereal state of being. The space between the particles is increasing and the particles are fewer in number.

I remind myself that, according to modern physics, matter cannot be destroyed; it changes form. That is what is happening to me.

Every moment, consciousness is waning, and I am at once slipping away into nothingness and everything. I feel diluted. I am aware that I am dissolving into the background, unnoticed by anyone. Less of what is known as “me” remans in this form. Where have the missing parts of me gone? I surmise that my skinny ass was absorbed by my protruding man boobs. Be careful. You could poke your eye out if you get too close. Am I still me? Am I still here? And where is here? Are time and space even real?

The aching in my arthritic knees will worsen, making it more challenging to remain ambulatory. Parts are wearing out. My mind is slower and more addled than it was last year. My vision is deteriorating. I don’t hear as well as I used to. I am shrinking and bending like a bow, losing grace, speed and agility, but still moving.

My wife has an artificial hip and knee, like replacing a worn tie rod on a car. I am somewhere between uncomfortable and fascinated to see how this ends. The unknown always affects us that way. Being old takes getting used to. Acceptance of reality. I am acutely aware that my existence is embedded in cycles, and now the trajectory is leading downward. Perihelion inevitably leads to aphelion in the elongated orbits of birth and death, being and non-being, consciousness and unconsciousness.

How does one wrap his brain around all of this? I see my two sisters, both of them a few years older than me, on a similar trajectory. My wife is eight years my senior. I have friends older than me by a decade or more. Every year they are fewer in number. All of us are approaching the waterfall. We hear its roar and feel the cold spray on our faces. Apparitions of quavering rainbows appear through the spray, dispersed sunlight seen through the prisms of water vapor.

We ponder what it will it be like when we go over the edge and become one again with the river. Does our journey end there? Does life even have a clearly defined beginning and end? The river continues its passage to the sea beyond the waterfall, just as it did before reaching the fall. Water vapor circumnavigates the biosphere and falls as rain elsewhere. Have we ever truly been separated from the river? I doubt it.

Cycles are operating within cycles. Birth, death, and rebirth? I cannot pretend to know, because I cannot define where “I” end, and where my surroundings begin. Everything we think we know is shrouded in mystery. Every wave has a trough. Every peak a valley. Matter is embedded in a
matrix of what we call empty space. River and waterfall. You and me. Us. Everyone. Everything. Nothing.

Light requires darkness and darkness light. Each reveals the other. It’s all the same.

—

Charles Sullivan was born and raised in Hagerstown, MD. He currently resides in Morgan County, WV where he has lived for over thirty years.He has thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, the John Muir Trail in the Eastern Sierra Mountains of California and other foot trails. At the age of seventy, he remains an avid backpacker. Charles is also a natural philosopher and a freelance writer.

“I appreciate you giving me your story. Spell your name out, will you?”

“J-A-S-O-N … M-E-V-E-R-S. But this isn’t my …”

“I know, it’s a hacker you know. You told me that on the phone. Of course, you’re a hacker too, right – that’s how you know him.”

“If I am, I’m nothing like him. When will they run the story?”

“Next week some time.”

“That’s cool. Lemme just say one thing here …”

“Here goes, I’m turning on the tape recorder – now go!”

“Okay … like this guy I know … was always bright as a kid – school was a breeze. He, ah … spent all his time on computers; you know, it was easy for him. He like … taught himself how to program, built his own PC. Over time he … learned how to hack into other computers over the Internet. I … ah, think he caused some havoc. He read about viruses … saw what they did … studied them and all … learned how to write his own.”

“Why did he become a hacker in the first place?”

“Gives you power … hacking does – You feel like God.”

“That’s an interesting comparison – he told you that?”

“Yeah, he told me.”

“And writing viruses gives you power, like hacking?”

“Even more … they can’t come after you because they, like, don’t know who you are. “

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“People you send the viruses to. He, ah … picked on the most popular kids: the ‘in crowd’ – he couldn’t stand ’em.”

“Why not?”

“They’re in and you’re out. They treat you like you don’t exist.”

“Anybody else this guy didn’t like?”

“Jocks. It’s like a fraternity: they hang together. They push you around. If you fight back, they come after you with their friends. I …”

“Okay, jocks were his enemy. Did they bother your friend?”

“Hazing – they pushed him around in the hallway and after school.”

“That’s all they did to him?”

“Yeah, and he was jealous, I guess – of guys with the prettiest girls. He was pissed off at the girls, too. I mean, they, like ignored him.”

“So that’s why he became a hacker – to pay back the jocks, the popular kids and the pretty girls?”

“You’re making it sound like …”

“Like he had an attitude, like he was maladjusted?”

“Well, he had … for the girls he had this ‘Butterfly’ virus – picture of a butterfly that pops up and goes away. It looks like those Internet windows that come up, like where they try to sell you something. The virus deleted key files that made the computer unusable … ’till they’re reinstalled. Usually takes people a day or two to realize what’s wrong and fix it, and then only if they really know computers. His favorite trick was sending viruses in an e-mail attachment the day before mid-terms and finals. That way the girls couldn’t use their computers to do reports and shit.”

“Your friend sounds like a vicious little brute.”

“Heh, heh … something like that.”

“So, what other tricks did he have up his sleeve?”

“A virus for jocks. It showed a picture of like an athletic supporter. It said ‘This Is You!’ on it. The picture appeared on and off. While the guy tries to figure out what’s going on, the virus reformats his hard drive. He, ah … loses everything.”

“Nice. You’re grinning. I guess you can appreciate that one, being a hacker and all.”

“Like I said, that was him, not me.”

“Wasn’t it a little dangerous? Didn’t the other kids know who the computer geeks were and guess who was doing it to them?”

“A couple of the guys suspected him. They punched him around a little after school, but they couldn’t prove anything.”

“Didn’t the teachers and principal get wind of it, not to mention the parents?”

“There was a stink; the newspapers ran a story. The school shrink made a speech in the auditorium and came around to the classrooms.”

“But he couldn’t talk this guy into giving himself up, could he?”

“As if.”

“Then what happened?”

“That Columbine thing.”

“Right – Columbine High School. How did he feel about that?”

“He rooted for the shooters.”

“And he told you that?”

“Well … it’s like … I know him real well.”

“Ok, so he hacked his way through high school, this guy. Then what?”

“He majored in computer science at NYU … graduated in three years – I think that’s a record.”

“Went right on hacking the whole time?”

“Yeah … it was like his ego took over. He couldn’t let go of it … the power it gives you. He wanted to write the most powerful virus ever. He broke into some big company’s computer.”

“A big … what company?”

“Can’t tell you that. He just wanted to see if he could do it.”

“O … kay. … Anything else he did?”

“Well, he stopped.”

“Stopped hacking?”

“Yeah.”

“Just like that? … Why?”

“It was like two things. He … like did some damage to that company’s records.”

“And?”

“And some people got fired … they worked on the computer system and nobody could tell who did it, so they fired three of ’em.”

“Did you know any of them?”

“Yeah, he was a friend. He wasn’t supposed to get hurt. He’s having a hard time finding another job. He may, like lose his apartment and … I ….”

“I see. So, what was the other thing that happened to your friend to make him stop?”

“September 11.”

“Yes, very terrible day. But why did that make him stop hacking?”

“He felt like he was a … a terrorist too.”

“By destroying information, you mean?”

“Yeah, that’s right. He was depressed … he, like couldn’t sleep.”

“You haven’t hacked once, since September 11?”

“No, I … he hasn’t done anything … hey, you said ‘you’ … it wasn’t me …”

“Mr. Mevers, you know things I don’t think anyone would tell you. It would be too risky.”

“Look, now … I …”

“I could be from the F.B.I. – I could arrest you.”

“Now wait. I tried to give you a story … in good faith.”

“In good faith? Is that how you used computers, in good faith?”

“You … wouldn’t turn me in. Not after I gave you my, I mean his, story.”

“Hey, this is journalism … the public has a right to know. By the way, how old are you?”

“Twenty-three. What’s it to you?”

“Just trying to make my article complete.”

“I gave you my name … you could ruin my whole …”

“Don’t worry, I won’t turn you over to the cops – I can’t prove anything. But you didn’t fool me for a minute. This article will be written just like this interview – coming straight from the horse’s mouth.”

“Where is it like going to appear? It’s like in a school paper, right?”

“I write for the New York Times.”

“Th … you look the same age as me … I thought you said …”

“I just said ‘paper’ on the phone. I didn’t say which one, and I’m twenty-six. I know I look young, but I’ve been writing for the Times for a year and a half.”

“If you use my name … makes you feel powerful, doesn’t it? To be able to write about people, ruin them if you want. Nobody can do anything to you.”

“Sound familiar, does it?”

—

Doug Dawson has written for the U.S. Defense Department, for car mags and for Hollywood trade magazines (“Vette Vues,” “Corvette Enthusiast,” “Corvette” magazine, “The Big Reel,” etc.) and has had short stories published by Academy of the Heart & Mind, Ariel Chart, Aphelion Webzine, Literary Yard, Scars Publications, The Scarlet Leaf Review, HellBound Books, LLC (story “The Poetess” was published in anthology “The Devil’s Doorknob 2”), Potato Soup Journal (story “Believe” was published in their anthology “Potato Soup Journal – Best of 2022”), Goats Milk and others. Dawson’s non-fiction book “Route 66 – the TV Series, the Highway and the Corvette” is due to be published by BearManor Media in 2024.