The Day that John Died

There was a boy once. He picked up his things one day and headed to the big city. Dreams, hopes for the future, a bright tomorrow. Well as his time was spent in this new world, the environment around him demanded new things. Not many a friend, no real television, and all the same movies he had watched for the past half-decade left the boy with a hopeless amount of time with nothing to do. A friend of this boy had a terrific idea of going to the library. Initially the boy was skeptical but always fancied those times when he was younger and could read forever, in the car, in his room, on cold days, on really hot days, in class, in bed, the boy just remembered he liked to read.

So he went. He went to the library. He got on the train filled with brown curry folks and light brown Spanish folks and rode into the city. To his surprise, as he exited the station, directly to his left was the library. A quick scurry and there he was. It wasn't the most beautiful of places, and I guess as in most libraries, a place that was once valued but was now neglected. So he explored and meandered around with no real inclination or draw to authors or books. Titles and names all sounded so beautiful and fanciful. He didn't know really where to start so he just began. He'd go back and forth. A few times a week. A book here another book there. He'd read on the train, he'd read in the park, he'd read alone in his room, or he'd read alone at the cafe. He would just read, and he read a lot. Not only did he read a lot, but to his own surprise, he read quickly and valued both the quality of his reading but also the expediency of his skill.

And for that he kept on. Not stopping. Until once, a friend of his told him of a book. "It's by so and so, and there's four books. A quartet. Each book with the same central character but centered in a different decade. A different decade of his life. A different time for the man to be the man in his existence." Well the boy had heard of so and so, but with no real value to how or why or even the quality of so and so and the so and so's work. But since the boy had a bounty of time and even more so, a bounty for the pleasure of reading, he decided to give it a try. So again, he went to his library that was left of his exit, and he found the book. He found the first one. And he read.

And wouldn't you know it, but the friend was right. The book was about a young man growing up in a world not completely different than the boys but yet not very similar either. But the book was dirty, true, and very eloquent in its nature to be completely human. And the boy valued this, because if there's anything that boy valued, is that of what it means to be and see human. So quickly he consumed the first, and then soon sought after the second. With some energy spent he dug up the second book which the title employs a word that the boy will never really allude to because he stubbornly does not know how to pronounce that specific word. And this book, with the title that looks so easy, but is so difficult to phonetically decide how to say, is different. Well, this book was the same, but it was so different. The character was the same, the time had changed, dramatically, so the character was forced to change. You watched the character change as more characters washed in and out of the story. Let it be said, that the boy was hooked.

Then the boy quickly found the third. And he read it, he read it because now he not only loved the story but the character and the author for writing it and the friend for recommending it and the pleasure of just identifying with it. The boy was not the age of the central character, nor was he anywhere near being anything like the protagonist, but the the book was starting to shape something that finally started to sink into the young boys mind. An impression that the central character was an icon not only for a time but for a place. And even more so the environment, both physical and semi-permeable, surrounding the central figure became more of a character, more of the protagonist than the human character itself.

Once the boy finished this book, he was unsure about finding the last one. The quintessential end to a good book. The ending you want to get to, but the ending that defines the end of something good. But he had to finish; three epics down, and one more to go. The title itself signaled the finale, and the boy knew what was to come. But with this foreknowledge, he continued on. This time he read slower. Vested more of himself into the book. And the book climbed dexterously through the climax of the protagonist's life and again personified the setting, the place, the time as important to the story, maybe even more important than that of the central character. And once the book ended, and that history concluded the boy was content with what he had read. He was content at where he was after he had finished the four book anthology.

...



Today I was blessed to have a god moment, or call it a spiritual moment, or maybe even a kingdom moment. Something so personal that it only can credit something metaphysical. But I was walking and received a text from David thats just said, "John Updike died." David didn't have to inform me, and I could've ended the day by parusing through the news and come upon this information (which I still haven't felt the need to look into yet), but I didn't. Dave knew, or maybe didn't, that Updike held a certain compelling value to me, and that it was better for him to tell me, and for me to quietly ruminate over it throughout this day.

You see, it wasn't something completely devastating, but yet, it was. In Updike's Rabbit series I became a critical thinker and reader. And after completing these books, I knew I wanted to try my hand at writing. Updike transformed the world for me through words, so simple but so descriptive, and showed me a world so human and so seedy and real and ironic and sad and a bit beautiful that I knew that Updike himself had channeled himself through experience. He had, at least for me, conquered what it meant to be human. And for that, I will miss him.



Be Relentless,
Peace
Remoy