“No, but you have to come down to clean and paint the metal parts and make sure the rivets and welds and stuff are sound,” Travis said, slapping the Column. It made a hollow, metallic ring.
Lydia examined a wide, flat spot and brushed the dirt away. “How is it every time we’re talking about the real world, you manage to bring up fantasy, and every time we’re talking about fantasy, you manage to bring up the real world?”
Travis shrugged. “My fantasies are more interesting than the real world and machines and tools are more interesting than you guys’ fantasies.”
Lydia took a picture of a blank spot. “Sure. We’ll go with that. Hand me a marker.”
Lydia went to work on her spot, using her cell phone light. Dill and Travis went around to the other side with the flashlight and took turns.
Travis’s marker squeaked. “Be really, really careful not to fall, guys. Safety first.”
“There are probably worse ways to die than falling into a river, having a great time with your friends right up until the end,” Dill said.
“What would be you guys’ ideal way to die? If you could choose?” Travis asked.
“Jeez, Trav, way to go dark on us,” Lydia said. “But hey, I smell more blog post fodder. Dill? You seem like you’ve thought about it. Kick us off. The conversation, I mean. Don’t literally kick us off the Column.”
Dill thought for a second. He looked out at the river, at its eddies and swirls, the patterns forming on its surface and disappearing. He listened to the ordered chaos of its sounds. The moon ascended, Venus beside it. On the horizon below, a radio tower rose into the indigo sky, its red lights blinking lazily. A warm evening wind carried a breath of honeysuckle and linden from the banks. A train whistled in the distance; it would soon rumble over them with a sound like waking up to a thunderstorm. He was a tuning fork, made to resonate at the frequency of this place, at this time.
“Here,” Dill said. “This would be fine. Lydia?”
“Surrounded by servants tearing their clothing and wailing, begging to join me in the afterlife so that they can continue to serve me.”
“I don’t even know if you’re joking right now,” Dill said.
“Okay, fine.” She thought for a few moments. “I’m fascinated with Martha Gellhorn’s life and death. She was a journalist and hero of mine. She did all sorts of amazing stuff. She said she wanted to die when she got too old to think well or be interesting. So she popped a cyanide capsule when she was ninety or something. If there was a way I could explode with beautiful heat and light, like a firecracker, that’s what I’d want. I want people to talk about me and remember me when I’m gone. I want to carve my name into the world.”
They heard the train approaching. “I’ll go after the train,” Travis yelled as it thundered overhead.
When it passed, he spoke quietly, looking at the river. “I’d want to die with glory. On a green battlefield as an old warrior, with my friends around me.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “I could join the Marine Corps like Matt if I just wanted to die in war like he did. But that’s not what I want. I don’t want to die in Afghanistan or some foreign country. I want to die fighting for my home. For a cause that means something to me. That’s why I wrote the thing I did.”
Dill handed him the flashlight. “Let’s see it.”
Travis shined the flashlight on what he wrote.
Rest, O Knight, proud in victory, proud in death. Let your name evermore be a light to those who loved you. Let white flowers grow upon this place that you rest. Yours was a life well lived, and now you dine in the halls of the Elders at their eternal feast.
“I had no idea those books meant that much to you, Travis,” Lydia murmured. “Now I feel bad about making all those Bloodfall jokes.”
“Does that mean you’ll read them?”
“No.”
“They’re amazing. I forget about everything I’m not good at and everyone I’m not when I read them. They make me feel brave.”
“Do we know how to party on a Friday night or what?” Lydia said.
“Hey, Lydia, maybe after you move away, when you come back to visit, we can all come here and add stuff to the Column,” Dill said. “If that wouldn’t be too boring.”
“Totally. That doesn’t sound at all boring.” Lydia took a picture of what Travis wrote. “Okay, Dill. Show us yours.”
They stepped around to the side of the Column.
Dill shined the flashlight on his writing. “I said I’d write some of my song lyrics, but I changed my mind and wrote some of my favorite stuff.”
Moonlight. Calm after thunderstorm. Scarecrows. Dusty bibles. Abandoned houses. Fireflies. Sunlight through dust. Fallen leaves. Churchyard cemetery. Gray autumn sky. River levee. Gravel road. Wind chimes. Wood smoke. Train whistle on winter night. Kudzu on telephone pole. Hymnal falling apart. White crosses by highway. Cicada hum. Shadows. Sparrows. Rust. Railroad crossing lights through fog. Crickets. Dance of leaves in wind. Decaying barn. Field after harvest. Clouds covering moon. Quiet dusk. Lightning. Heartbeats.
Lydia took a picture. “I love these things too, and I had no idea until I saw this.”
“I don’t think these’ll last thirty-two thousand years,” Travis said, “but maybe they’ll outlive us, right?”
Lydia showed them the Dolly Parton quotes she’d written on the Column.
Find out who you are and do it on purpose.
We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.
If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.
“Future generations need the counsel of this prophetess,” she explained.
Then they lay for a while on their backs, gazing into the starry expanse through the railroad tracks, listening to the dark river below. This might be it, Dill thought. This might be the best your life ever is. This moment. Right now.
“I read somewhere that a lot of the stars we see don’t exist anymore. They’ve already died and it’s taken millions of years for their light to reach Earth,” Dill said.
“That wouldn’t be a bad way to die,” Lydia said. “Giving off light for millions of years after you’re gone.”
Her mom had gone to bed when she got home. Her dad was wearing his bathrobe, sitting on the couch, eating a big bowl of popcorn and watching TV.
“Hello, princess,” he said, as she entered the living room after washing her hands in the hall bathroom. “Have fun tonight?”
“Friday-night Forrestville fun. It’s an alliterative party.” She pulled off her hiking boots, sat on the couch, and snuggled up to her dad, putting her head on his shoulder.
He rested his head on top of hers. “You smell like summer night.”
She pulled a piece of her hair to her nose. “The scented candles that are supposed to smell like summer night never smell this way. They always smell like scary-guy cologne.” She reached into his popcorn bowl and grabbed a handful.
“I like your friends. They’re good guys. You’ve made smart choices.”
“They are. And don’t sound so surprised about me making smart choices.”
“You’re lucky to have them. Good friends in high school aren’t a given.”
“Yeah, especially around here.”
“Around anywhere. This hasn’t been such a bad place to grow up, has it?”
Lydia raised her head off her dad’s shoulder and gave him a solemn stare. “You did not just seriously ask me that in good faith.”
“What? Sure I did. This is a nice place. It’s quiet, safe. The area is beautiful. I grew up here and your mother grew up a couple of counties from here. Taking over Grandpa’s practice reduced the stress our family would’ve experienced if I’d had to start my own from scratch.”
“It sucks here. People are dumb and racist and homophobic. I don’t have a single female friend at school since Heidi left.”
Her dad picked up the remote control and muted the TV. “Hang on. You’d never have made friends with Dill and Travis if we didn’t live here. Let me ask you this: do you like who you are?”
“Yes.”