Atonement

 I quit; I quit it all. Not just my job, no, far, far more. I resigned from chasing dreams and wanting more. I had plenty, more than any deserved. All of it is dirty. Filthy with the blood stains from unfathomable numbers of deaths. 

First things first: call the bank. "No, you heard me perfectly clearly. Freeze all my assets, even from me. Ten percent a year for the next ten years, you will donate to the list of foundations that I will text you. Yes, until it is all gone." I had three hundred dollars and eighteen cents—more than I needed. 

I walked into the garage and slammed my fist on the hood of the Bugatti, denting it. I couldn't help it. An irresistible impulse overcame me. I flung open the gas door causing the hinges to creak and bend. The noxious fumes assaulted my nostrils. My pants unzipped my urethra burned as I emptied my bladder into the tank.

"That was more satisfying than I thought," I spoke to the empty garage, or maybe I was speaking to the collection of high-octane cars.

I mounted my bicycle—the one I had five years but had never ridden before. Leaving the ten-car garage door open, I peddled awkwardly towards Walmart.

Everything I got I never wanted. It was never mine—the business, I mean. Dear old dad loved me just enough to reduce my life to a tax form write-off. 

Five short miles, and my legs were already burning. I had never been to a Walmart before. Everything I needed was a hundred and ninety-three dollars and sixty-seven cents. A tent, a sleeping bag, two books on edible and medicinal plants, and a few other items.

I tipped the cashier half the remainder. Outside I looked for anyone poor or homeless. No homeless or poor would dare come to this affluent area. I threw my hands in the air, releasing all I had left to the whims and will of wind and gravity—letting it scatter where it will, to be found by whoever fate chose as a receiver.

The woods. Both the solution and the victim. That was the goal of my self-banishment from society. 

While the first five miles to the Walmart made my legs ache and quake, the next hundred and sixty exhilarated me. The scenery changed—I was equally running from the opulence behind, and towards the horizon and distant peaks.

"Fucking cars!" I was complaining about the fumes that made breathing harder and the weakened state of my legs, which made the journey much longer.

My life is shameful. Every check I received may have had a different corporation's name, but it all had one shared source. It wasn't just blood money; it was poison money—Daddy's toxic legacy as a leader in the petroleum industry.  

It took four whole days, all of it peddling uphill. "Fucking air." It was cleaner but getting thinner—I thought climate science was hogwash all my life. That was what they force-fed me. Now I wasn't sure if my labored breathing was too little oxygen, too much carbon dioxide, or simply lung scarring from so much exposure.

Ick. My skin crawled. It felt sticky with the grime of the road: tire rubber, burning oil, diesel, and gasoline. Its residue clung to me. No soap or water or industrial degreaser could wash it away. Purification that originated within my core may not be enough. I was stained. I am the stain. I could not run from what I was, only towards what I must become. 

I passed a sign announcing my entrance into a national forest. A Native American name I could not pronounce nor remember how to spell within a few hundred feet after passing. 

"Fucking forest," I uttered the words after abandoning my bike in a ditch by the highway. My nose was pressed to the ground, sniffing the mossy soil. "Fucking fucking forest," I repeated, watering a sapling with a downpour of teardrops.

I began pounding my fist into the soil. "Fucking forest, don't you die, don't you die on me!" My grief was so profound it was like CPR for the land. The mountain forest seemed so quiet; now, the birds flocked from treetop to treetop, singing gleefully.

I looked up just in time for bird shit to barely miss my eye. Recoiling, I rubbed it off quickly with the back of my hand. The disgust was short-lived. Right there was a tiny seed in a milky white smear on the back of my hand. "Fucking face! I just got in the way." I deposited the kernel in its creamy fertilizer by wiping it off in the fertile soil. 

There was nobody left to talk to but myself. I can't face humanity anymore. I think it is best that way. I did nothing wrong, nothing directly. Yet I am guilty as anyone for not denouncing my fortune long ago.

I walked, and the forest thickened. I had my guide to edible plants in one pocket, medicinal in another. On the first day's walk, they remained unopened. Apples, strawberries, blueberries, and walnuts were aplenty; no guide was necessary to identify the common. 

"Ah, life is good, my friend." Alone in the woods, I was having a conversation with everything. Nature. Outdoors. Life outside of a box paid for with the destruction of places like this. 

I walked, and I talked, and I confessed my many sins. Humanity's sins were my sins. How can I explain to a dying forest our thirst for the remains of their ancestors from millions of years of decay? How can I explain our grave robbing is the leading cause of death today?

Ahead the light of the sunset broke through the trees. Stepping out of the trees into the sunlight, I stepped into a darkness of a different variety—a clear-cut. 

Ugly as it was, this is where I pitched my tent and called my home.

Apples have seeds toxic to eat. Consequently, I had a pocketful. 

The little bird that shat on my face was passing down the knowledge lost with the Anasazi. Anasazi seed balls. A seed in the center wrapped in clay and 'organic matter.' In laypeople's terms, that would be shit. To eat, I had to shit, to shit, I had to eat. Pure and simple.

I tossed my Anasazi apple seed balls throughout the manufactured meadow, wondering aloud, "Johnny, why hadn't anyone thought of this before."