For Austin

A week ago, a young man from my neighborhood went missing. I didn't know him, but I recognized his face. Someone I had seen around. Two friends of mine went to school with his sister. I had walked in the places where he had walked. I followed every update on his case. I looked for him, though I still don't know why I wanted so badly for him to be all right, why this case felt so damn personal even though the man was nothing to me. Those who knew him believe that he went out to the lake that night to watch the storm blow in, and something happened. A stupid accident, the kind that makes no sense. He was found this morning.

* * *

Six days in the water. Six days from the night they say you didn’t jump. Your parents have no son. Your sister has no brother.

Think slow thoughts, and dark. Soft as the water. You are six days beyond thought, but when I think of you, I put you in your body. The body this morning’s fisherman took for a dummy. Where are you now?

I like to believe that in the end, you felt the storm—the one you’d gone out looking for. I like to believe that in that last second when you breathed it in, there was a knowledge and a coming home. That it was worth it. As worth it as such a thing can be if it must happen. 

You probably hated the storm then, if you thought of it at all. You probably cursed yourself for your carelessness, or some uncaring god who turned his back for a minute. Just for a minute, and then—

You were probably terrified, and there was no homecoming. Caught, tossed, dashed, broken—with my thoughts I give you power in your death, make you a child of the storm that took you. Thunder, lightning, wind, Austin and the rising waves.

It is a little gift, and meaningless.

Go, Austin. Still forward. Rest beyond thought. Six days is too long; one minute in the water was too long. Too late. Sleep.