On the Safest Ledge (rough draft) by Mark Sescon

This is the first draft of a short story I had to write for my final project for Writing 31 (fiction). In reality, this story was meant to also serve as a synopsis for a movie I hope to make in the near future.

Nurses ran down the hall, rushing the ailing pregnant mother to the operating room. By the end of the night she’d be laying childless in a hospital room bed. She had dreamt of the sound of spokes in her gurney whizzing in a circle like an antiseptic carousel. Her arms were wrapped around her stomach and she hugged extra hard, holding her baby one last time. Nervous sweat swelled at her eyebrows, seeping down the canals of the ridges on her face. Breathing heavily, the smell of humidity and perspiration intoxicated her nostrils. She shivered, cold, as she lay in the bed, reliving those moments in the slideshow of her mind.

A year later, as the leaves changed from green to yellow to green, the woman and her husband welcomed a new baby boy into their lives. They called him Donatello.

As he aged, he acquired a taste for the salts of victory and a reprehensible disgust for the bitter angst of defeat. When he was nineteen he was drafted into the military. A pacifist at heart, boot camp turned him into a hardened soldier. During one particular battle, he found his troop dispersed when a group of Japanese combatants ambushed them in the jungle. Whether he was lucky or just plain blessed will never be known, but a week prior his commander ordered that his troop build foxholes. Donatello angrily dug in the ground, trying to dig his way back home, where the coconut trees stood tall and the mango farms produced sweet fruits. He was trying to dig for a reason to fight in this god-forsaken war.

Kato, a native of the Southern Philippines, called out to his sweaty comrades. “Why the hell are we digging these holes?” he said. “They aren’t going to save us if they just bomb us from above.”
Donatello ignored Kato and kept his head facing the earth. Their commanding officer heard Kato’s complaints and approached him.

“Private Kato,” he said.

Kato dropped his shovel and stood with his posture straight. The commanding officer circled his prey.

“In 1865, an American by the name of Edwin Booth was at a train station,” he said. “A young man was nearly crushed by an incoming train. Edwin Booth managed to pull the boy to safety.”
Donatello lifted his head from the back-breaking work. He stabbed the blade of the shovel into the ground and leaned against it for support. The other soldiers followed suit.

“Do you know what’s so special about that?” the officer said to the group. “Well, this man’s name was Robert Lincoln. Low and behold, a few years later Edwin’s brother, John Wilkes Booth, would go on to kill President Lincoln, Robert Lincoln’s son.”

He looked toward Kato.

“Save a life. Take a life.”

Donatello awoke. Explosions shook him from his sleep. He belligerently waddled out of the makeshift barracks in his underwear and a tank top. The sky was lighting up with rounds and rounds of fire power. He swung around and rushed back to his bunk to dress and returned outside, gun in hand. Tents were set ablaze and he could hear the gunfire approaching.
He didn’t know if it was fear of death that guided him to a foxhole, but he crouched in it, fetal position, whispering Hail Marys and Our Fathers. In his hand was a rosary, his fingers fumbling around each bead. In that foxhole, he made an unspoken deal with God. If he could just go home and enjoy the coconut trees and the mango farm, he’d offer his soul to God forever.

Bombs dropped, carpeting the foliage with fire and leaving ash in its wake. Debris rained down like a tropical snowstorm of cordite and embers. Bullets whizzed over his head as he realized that a saving grace wasn’t going to fall from the heavens any time soon. He jumped out, making his way toward the underbrush. Comrades fell to the ground like toy soldiers before his eyes. A man he once shared a bunk with toppled over with his arms folded over his stomach, holding his intestines in place.

He was only a few feet away from the underbrush when he felt a pain penetrating the skin of his right leg. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, making him impervious to the pain that once shot through his body. Limping like a wounded animal, he crumpled over and fell to the ground. The last thing he remembered was resting the back of his head against the cold dirt, his hearing shot to hell by gunfire but his eyes wide open to the terribly beautiful fireworks display of death and destruction. And as he lay there he could hear his miscarried brother saying, “That was supposed to be my life.”

Save a life. Take a life.

Years passed and, upon moving to America, he started a family. And as his family grew, his wrinkles grew and expanded. One morning, Donatello woke up and got out of bed. He made his way to the bathroom as he often did and stood in front of the mirror, evaluating how much he had aged overnight, if at all. A slight tickle provoked his throat and he coughed into his hand. As he peered at his hands, a thin film of crimson covered his palm and fingers. Blood.

Terrific.

And with that, he collapsed.

The next day his son Albert took him to the hospital, where the doctor had poked and prodded the elderly man. Donatello went through PET scans, CAT scans, and whatever three-letter acronym scans existed. Needles entered his veins and drew samples. Tweezers grabbed a patch of his skin and a scalpel cut out specimen. Albert sat in the waiting room reading the Times. The only movements he made were the fixing of his glasses that slid down his nose and the combing over of his remaining hair on the ever present bald spot on his head.

A week later, Donatello was called to the doctor’s office. His son accompanied him. As the two sat in the waiting room, Donatello felt as if fate was dealing him his future in the form of a diagnosis. When his name was called, Donatello was staring off into space. It took Albert a few words to bring back his father from whatever state of mind Donatello was in. The two entered the doctor’s room. Degrees and distinctions in fine frames hung on the wall, reminding the patients that their doctor was not only good enough to diagnose them, but good enough to cure them. Unfortunately there were situations in which the doctor could not perform the latter. In Donatello’s situation, this seemed the case.

Sifting through a manila folder, the doctor peered down at lab reports and computer scans. He peered up above the glasses that stood on the bridge of his nose. Donatello gave his full attention.
“The results just came in from the lab,” he said.

Donatello gripped his arm rest, his hands bracing themselves for impact.

The doctor continued. “I believe you have lung cancer.”

Donatello felt his heart rate increase and his breathing become shallow. It felt like the air from the room was being sucked out. He could see the doctor’s lips moving, but couldn’t make out what the doctor was saying. Something about further testing and making final plans. The doctor sealed the envelope on hope. There would be none.

Donatello lifted his body and he found himself standing up. Against gravity, he weighed a million pounds. His arms grew heavy. His torso numb. He left the examination room and walked across the waiting room like a man processing to his death with an audience of the afflicted. Albert followed from behind and opened the car door once they reached the parking lot. Albert talked the whole way home of new age treatments and possible cures. Albert suggested other doctors and other alternatives.

But at the urging of his doctor, Donatello went to a hospice. He walked down the halls and spied into the slightly open doors. Thinning bodies lay in each bed. Tubes ran into their arms, and in their morphine-induced state, they peered back at the passing man. Hollow eyes invited Donatello to his impending doom.

It was that day that Donatello decided. He didn’t want to watch the clock tick and the days on the calendar crossed out. He didn’t want to rot between cotton sheets hyped up on opiates. He didn’t want to die in a bed. And with that, Donatello explained to his son that he wanted to see the ocean.

“I’ll take you to the beach next weekend,” Albert said.

“I want to go home,” Donatello replied.

“Home?”

“The Philippines.”

Albert knew that his father could not travel alone, especially in his condition, so Albert asked his son Noah to accompany his grandfather to the Philippines.

“He’s senile,” Noah said.

“You’re being selfish,” Albert said.

“But this is my summer. I don’t want to spend it with him.”

Noah turned away from his father.

“Remember when we were moving, and we used your grandfather’s house as a temporary storage?” Albert said. “He would always sit with you and talk to you and keep you company because there were no other kids around to talk to you.”

Noah remembered those days. He’d sit on the stoop of his grandfather’s apartment listening to his grandfather’s nonsensical legends and tales. Donatello would walk through the neighborhood with Noah and share his philosophies on life.

But that was the summer before Donatello left America to live in the Philippines for a while. Against the wishes of Noah’s father, Donatello stayed there. Before leaving, Noah begged his grandfather to stay. At the airport, he gripped his grandfather’s leg, hoping to anchor him in America. Donatello nodded to Albert for help, and the two pried the young Noah from his grandfather. It was a difficult task, and the death grip Noah had on his grandfather was just as strong as his need for his grandfather to stay.

During that time he never called or wrote to Noah who had just begun to idolize him. When Donatello returned years later, Noah turned a cold shoulder and communication had diminished between the two.

Now Noah could not see a reason to go with his grandfather.

“Return him the favor,” Albert said.

Noah refused. He walked out of the kitchen. He had fought a valiant battle, and for the time being he was victorious. That night he stared at the ceiling of his room counting the stucco bumps. He made it to five hundred before he drifted off to sleep. In his dream, he saw himself on a beach. Digging his toes into the sand. Feeling the grains fall between the spaces of his feet. His hands shifting through the sand like a treasure hunter sieving for gilded happiness. Waves began to engulf the shore. Subtly.

Then violence struck.

A wave grabbed Noah by the leg and dragged him to the water, the riptide pulling him out to sea.
Noah awoke. He gasped for air. His lungs fought, and finally a cool, refreshing dose of oxygen entered his body. He made a decision.

The morning of the flight, Albert brought Noah to his grandfather’s house to pick up Donatello. They got out of the car, and walked up the stairs to his grandfather’s apartment. His grandfather opened the door, already expecting them to come.

“Were you standing by the door all this time, dad?” Albert said.

“Yes,” Donatello said. He motioned for the two to come in.

Donatello and Albert went to the kitchen and Donatello began making coffee. Noah explored apartment. There were two rooms. One served as a storage space and the other as his grandfather’s bedroom. Black and white pictures trapped in frames stood along a mantle in the living room. They gazed over all the visitors, reminding guests of a time that had come and pass. Donatello and Albert talked in the kitchen when Noah entered the hallway. More photographs hung on the wall. Some straight. Some lopsided. Some new. Most old. He ambled pass the bathroom and noticed his grandfather’s door cracked open. Nudging the door open, he crossed the threshold.

Windows were open, letting the sun spy into the room and the curious stranger. A set of drawers situated in the opposite corner next to a mirror that was propped against the wall at an angle. A desk stood in the corner with papers sprawled across it. Pens and pencils conglomerated in a mug. On the edge of the desk there was a metal box. Its corners rusted. Its handle a thin bar. Noah progressed to the desk to examine a label he couldn’t decipher from a distance. He extended out his hand to grab it.

“Noah,” his father said.

Noah recoiled and rotated about face to his father. He mumbled a few words while his father stood at the doorway looking at him.

“What are you doing in here?”

Noah released a murmur from his lips.

“What?”

Neurons fired in Noah’s brain, and he blurted the first thing that he could possibly conjure up to get him out of this situation.

“Nothing.”

It wasn’t exactly a Nobel Prize winning line, but it was some sign of acknowledgement of his father’s presence. Luckily it sufficed, and his father ushered him to the living room. The two helped pack Donatello’s things in the car, and they made their way to the airport.

Noah looked out of the window as they drove. In a short while, his father would drop his grandfather and him at the airport terminal where the both of them would board a plane to a country he had never visited. A few hours after getting off the plane, he’d be scuffling down a dirt road in a poorly-painted brown jeep, tearing through the foliage. All the while he’d be wishing he was wasting away his summer via vegetating in the glow of a television screen.

So they drove and drove. What Noah expected to be a short drive ended up being a laborious exercise in maneuverability. After a few hours they stopped at a roadside market. Donatello went inside to the market. A blind man sitting on lawn chair in front of the door way was selling newspapers and candy bars. Noah followed his grandfather.

The store walls were lined with shelves of various canned goods. In a cooler, sodas and ice cream bars sat in an icy housing. Humidity was the first thing Noah noticed when he got off the plane. Sweat rolled down his forehead, and his shirt became soaked in salt and water. He needed something cold. Sifting through the cooler, he managed to find a drink that resembled Coca Cola in color. Hopefully flavor as well.

He walked up to the store counter and waited for someone to help him. Noticing a bell on the counter, he began to ring it. The blind man came inside and made his way behind the counter. His hand ran along the counter until it found the soda bottle, and his fingers ran across the grooves and curves of glass. He said something to Noah, but Noah couldn’t make out the words. Not knowing if the blind man was speaking his native language or mumbling, Noah looked over at his grandfather who was witnessing the scene from afar. Sensing helplessness in Noah’s eyes, Donatello made his way to his grandson’s side. Donatello and the blind man exchanged words, Donatello reached in to his pocket and removed some money. He gave it to the blind man, and the blind man opened a tin box the shop owner used as a make shift cash register. They departed with a solemn goodbye.

Walking out of the store, Noah said to his grandfather, “How does he know people aren’t trying to cheat him?”

“What do you mean?” his grandfather said.

“He’s blind.”

“So?”

“I mean, can’t you just give him the wrong amount and get away with it?”

“Why would you do that?”

Noah and Donatello got into the jeep and continued driving. In a few hours the sun would come down from its throne in the sky, and sleep would beckon the two to seek a place to rest. They found a run down motel before nightfall and stayed for the night. As soon as the sun emerged the next morning, the two quickly collected their things and left.

They made their way to the ocean. Neither of the two spoke much during the trip except for a few subtle remarks Donatello made about the landscape. Noah didn’t pay much attention to his grandfather. Instead he kept his eyes on the road, hoping his grandfather would interpret Noah’s general disinterest for his concentrating on driving. Not a fool for such behavior, Donatello was well aware of what Noah was doing.

Donatello understood the alienated joys of youth. Prior to his mother’s miscarriage and Donatello’s birth, his parents gave birth to another son, Jacob. The two were always at odds and ends with each other. Being the younger brother, Donatello held the blunt of Jacob’s torture. Donatello spent many of his childhood years enduring Jacob’s erratic behavior. And like most children, Donatello took it in stride and later passivity. When the war broke out, Donatello enlisted in the army in hopes of defending his country, a reason he later abandoned at the sight of bloodshed and death. Deep down inside, he sought the battlefield as refuge from his own brother.

In the distance, the road sunk downwards, revealing the ocean in the horizon. Tiny waves slithered towards the shore, and the cloudless sky allowed the sun’s rays to touch its salty waters. It glistened blue. Donatello estimated the beach was a few miles away.
“I need to use the bathroom,” Donatello said.

Noah didn’t hear him. Donatello repeated himself.

“I need to use the bathroom, Noah.”

Seeing the ocean in the distance as well, Noah said to his grandfather, “We’re almost there.”

His grandfather returned a stern stare. Noah saw a sign a few miles back about a fruit stand that was up the road. He made his way to the fruit stand. A lean-to served as a store, and to the left side of the store stood a restroom facility. He parked the jeep, and Donatello got out and went to the bathroom.

Noah stayed in the jeep. He checked the dials and gauges on the dashboard. The tank was still full of gas. The odometer was broken, reading 2,342 since they started driving and still having the same reading since they left. He leaned his car back and began to rest. The air conditioner could only do so much against the humidity that once again began to cause Noah much discomfort. He fidgeted in his seat. It was mid-day, and his shirt stuck to his shirt like a suction of perspiration.

Donatello emerged from the bathroom and paced towards the jeep. Noah put the keys in to the ignition and turned the key. No sound. He turned it again. No sound. He pressed on the accelerator to give her more gas. No sound. He started pounding on the accelerator while turning the key. No sound.

Seeing his grandson trying to bring the jeep to life, Donatello grinned as he approached the vehicle. Noah glared at his grandfather.

“Why are you smiling?” Noah said.

“The jeep won’t start,” Donatello said. He walked up to the open driver side window and leaned against the jeep door.

“Why is that funny?” Noah said.

“Because we’re almost there.”

Noah pushed open the door, and Donatello stumbled back. Noah jumped out of the jeep and started walking towards the store.

“Where are you doing?” Donatello said, staying right where he was.

“I’m calling my dad. I’m going home,” Noah said.

“And how do you expect that to happen? The jeep doesn’t work.”

Noah stopped in his tracks and swung around.

“I didn’t even want to go on this trip in the first place,” Noah said.

“You didn’t have to,” Donatello said.

“I had to. My dad told me I had to.”

“You always have a choice.”

“No. I didn’t.”

Donatello lifted his arm and held out his hand to place it on Noah’s shoulder. Noah averted the affection and clenched his fists. His finger nails dug in to his palm. He wanted to bleed to compensate for the anger. As he spoke, his words passed through his clenched teeth.

“Where were you?” Noah said.

“What do you mean?” Donatello said.

“You left me when I was a kid. I needed you.”

“I had to go back.”

“Why?”

Donatello looked at his grandson. He looked at the ocean.

“When we get there,” Donatello said, pointing out towards the coast, “I’ll tell you.”

Donatello made a motion to move. He hesitated for a second. Noah began to walk towards Donatello. The two began moving. First to the jeep where Donatello removed a small black backpack and then towards the coast. And for miles they walked along the road. Neither talked to each other. Silence played quietly in the background. Mud and bugs became embedded in the grooves of their shoes. They moved diligently. Noah’s anger made him impervious to his own exhaustion, and Donatello saw the end coming.

They reached a small cliff. Noah leaped down on to a ledge and reached out to help his grandfather down. Donatello edged his way down. They made their way down a few more ledges, before finally reaching the sand.

Donatello removed his shoes, and Noah followed. They strode in the sand. Their bare feet sunk. The sun was above their heads, lashing their backs with heat. Donatello started to turn a few degrees to the right and made his way towards a dilapidated pier. The wood had decayed long ago, and barnacles engulfed the posts that shot in to the ocean. At one time it served as a spot for the locals to fish. When the war came, the military used it as a micro-harbor for transporting small arms.

When they reached the entrance to the pier, Donatello stopped. He reached into his bag and pulled out a metal box.

“I was your age when the war began,” he said, looking at the pier. “I was naïve then. On the way to the army boot camp, my brother Jacob managed to intercept me. He tried to stop me from going, but I refused. He took my place.”

Donatello began making his way to the pier. The wood was shaky as he balanced his weight, careful not to break through the rotten planks.

“A month later I found out he died. And as more and more soldiers started dying, the government instated a draft. I ended up having to fight anyways. But do you realize that if my brother didn’t stop me, it would’ve been me who died?”

“It’s not your fault. He didn’t know,” he said.

“He didn’t. But sometimes life doesn’t work out like that. It doesn’t work out the way you want it to. I went back years later to apologize to his family, and I ended up staying for years.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t know. But I stayed with Jacob’s family for years and helped them. It was part of my redemption. But there was one part left, and I didn’t think I could do it until now.”
“What’s that?”

Donatello opened the metal box and inside was a tiny toy plane.

“There was supposed to be given to my brother who came before me. Unfortunately he never got to experience life. If he had lived, I wouldn’t have been here. My father, he served in the military as well, and he bought this toy plane while on tour. He bought it for his son who was never born.”

Donatello stood on the edge of the pier.

“If you walked to the end of the world, would you smile and greet it hello?”

Donatello threw the plane into the water. It sank. Sank to the bottom and plopped on the ocean bed. The current buried the toy where it would stay forever.

“I can go now.”

A funeral was held in August of that year. It was a small gathering of close friends and relatives. Eulogies were said, tears were cried, and flowers were placed on the burial spot. A tombstone stood proudly out of the earth. Donatello’s name finely pounded into the granite. The reception was held at the apartment. Uncles, aunts, and cousins of the lessons learned and times shared with the departed.

The following week, Noah and his father began emptying out Donatello’s apartment. There were many things that they rummaged through, but a majority of what was important had already been distributed amongst various family members. Noah went into the extra room where many of his old things were left when his family moved. He found a box labeled “Books.” He ripped the tape that sealed the secrets safe for decades. Dust flew into the air. Sifting through the books, he saw one that caught his eye. The title read Choose Your Own Adventure.

Noah laughed to himself.