Inheritance

"I am haunted by the spectre of community. Am I in or am I out? I just wish the city would pick up the garbage when they say they will. Or that the phone company was as direct with their service as they wish I were with the payments. I shrug off those thoughts and concentrate on getting to work on time and not missing my appointments but in the back of my brain the spectre of community dances a macabre two-step, illustrating my dependency and mocking my individualism. If I didn't fear reprisals I would have left years ago, and I guess that's what makes this situation so ironic. I invite everyone over so I can ask them to leave me alone."

It occurred to me then that I never could make much sense out of the things he said. I followed along, dodging the branches he carelessly let loose and wondered how much further we had to go. At seventy-two, he was so much older than me and it seemed that my sole duty was to listen, try to understand and then disappoint him by misinterpreting the messages he filtered to me. How I ended up here, I'll never know. I chuckled to myself when it occurred to me that he had called me on the telephone. He was a phony, I know, but at this point I wasn't going to burst the bubble he'd worked so many years to inflate, wind-bag that he was. I guess it didn't sit well with me that despite my personal feelings for the man, he believed I was his best friend. My fault, I suppose, because I never did tell him what I really thought of him.

As the summit came into view he paused and turned to me.
"You'll love the view, Bern. When I found this place I thought of you and you're penchant for meaningless speculation."

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Now you understand why he irritated me so much. The back handed insults he delivered were hard to defend against. I ground my teeth around my anger and followed his finger, pointing out over the plain.

The sun was sinking low across the valley from where we stood, muted by the atmosphere and the pollution, insulating our eyes and casting long shadows, like splayed fingers, on the floor of the valley. I followed the rough edge of the scree down from where we stood and into the shadows and saw the horses, bunched together, racing across the green and brown vista. I could just make out the weak winding of the stream that nearly gave out before it left the valley floor. I could see the clouds that tried but couldn't obscure the peaks in the distance, far out over this jagged scratch on the face of the earth. I was stunned by the beauty of the landscape and for once, couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"I hope you live a long time, because it will take you years to understand why I came here in the first place. But when you do, maybe you could lift a glass to me. Now let's go home and get something to eat."