‘A Consummation Devoutly to be Wished’
“We’re separated from the infinite by death and ignorance.”— Dr. Jordan Peterson
A Short Essay by Cameron Blom
The last glimpse of a yellow summer’s eve graces the edge of the upstairs window as a ragged cough claws his throat, spittle and flecks of blood falling down upon his upturned face. The remaining light misses his fallen form, leaving him in darkness. He lies on his back, heavy against the planks of musty wood worn by the centuries-old tread of the contemplative, the detective, the one who seeks the grail of knowledge. He has joined their remains strewn upon the floor, all their dusty skeletons that too were denied the path of all-knowing. He cannot rise. The ascending staircase winds above them, a spiraling shell, leading the way to voluminous rows. Books on books, pages on pages, shelves bowing and splintered under the weight of history’s memory are preserved there, untouched. Silent, they stand.
Could he rise, he would continue up, up the steps to that repository of knowledge, that he might turn tender pages, yellowed, cracked, and smoothed with age, and listen to all their silent whisperings, to find at the end of the way — ah! Truth. Yet that path has faded from before his feet, now revealed as only an illusion fueled by untrammeled presumption, as nonexistent as the desert’s mirage, just as it was for those who surround him. His thread has been cut before those upward steps in accordance with the fates, as predestined, the result of poor choices, or by the inevitable “irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions.” However they may, it seems the destiny of all things to fall before their favored time.
So here he lies, his mortal vessel bare of answers, his mind unresolved. He gasps. The air refuses to come at his demand, his chest shudders beneath the weight of impending doom. A whisper escapes his quivering lips, a silent plea for a final minute, one single moment to storm those spiraling steps, that he may know the truth and be free.
But the only response is a warbling whistle that wafts through the open window, an elegant requiem in the fading sky. A bluebird, her belly a torch of flame, hops upon the windowsill, a twig of holly in her beak. She cocks her head curiously, looking down upon this transformation as she stands before the window — the parting glass through which he now sees rugged hills of green, oak branches dancing in a gentle breeze — the rustling breath of the leaves — and the heavens blazing forth in dying light at the advance of an ever-encroaching night.
“Kew, kew,” she chirps imploringly, wondering what kind of creature would forsake the great vastness for the stale air of study.
“Kew, kew,” she says once more, and leaps from the window into that wide open space, welcoming the night. To where does she go? Somewhere beyond the nearing horizon, past the fast-falling shadows, alight and freed upon the breeze. That breeze wafts in a gentle scent, the woody aroma of pine from a hidden dell. Somewhere near a brook trickles by, splashing over the smoothéd stones as it trails its path among the hills. The sun finally fades — and so now reveals — the blinking lights of the universe, crystals hanging watchfully in that widening dark. Beneath the shadow of the woods, a chorus of wolves raise their night-song of varied melodies and vaulting tones, an overture to the heavens as the first aurora streaks the sky. A silent beauty speaks its worth, moving him beyond the boundaries of these walls, surpassing the confines of the world — out, out, out!
Now into the infinite, into the great, wide and waiting unknown, following this winding course to its end. Will he, as the Writer says, join some larger way? What yet may wait ahead?
