“Curious. Leaving him on his back for the moment, I rise, step around him and check out the camp. Here is a wooden bowl, empty, and a wooden spoon. Here is a fire pit and the ashes of his last fire, cold to my touch. A battered tin bucket, half full of water and drowned ants, hangs from a nail in a tree, under the wind chimes. Inside the tent I find an open suitcase containing a few items of clothing, a sleeping bag on a Styrofoam pad, a little G.I. folding shovel with a roll of toilet paper jammed on the haft, a one-gallon glass storage jar labeled RICE and another labeled BEANS. Both empty. I see the stub of a candle on a tin plate, a few joss sticks in a balsawood box, a pair of Birkenstock sandals worn down to the threads. Nothing much else. No books, no letters, no battery-powered radio or solar-powered TV. Ascetic? Old Bildad has become pure spirit”
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 04:44:11 +0000
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