The hard part was the climb up Maple Lane, then through Waterwheel Park to Willow Street. Harry chuffed stoically up the grade at a turtle’s pace. “No use complaining about what you can’t change,” he puffed. “Only makes matters worse.”
Buddy knew better than to offer any help or even a word of consolation. Harry would have none of that. But he did feel for the old man, the intense gravity of aging weighing both their plodding steps… What had Bernice called it? Harry’s pocket full of stones.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Harry said.
“Glad somebody does.”
Harry gave him a sharp glance, then hunkered back into the climb. “Bernice told you more about Art and Gypsy than your letting on. She’s got you looking for them too.”
Buddy didn’t deny it.
“For me, those two aren’t just inside the murals anymore; they’ve got loose into what you’d call the ‘real world’. They’re here, now. I can feel it. They’re laughing and playing, barking and teasing the way best friends do.”
“What do you mean by ‘what others call the real world’, Harry? You say that as if you think all this…” Buddy made a sweeping gesture that took in the park, Chemainus, and the world beyond…“ is an illusion. As if the real-real world exists inside those murals.”
Harry didn’t deny it.
“Or maybe they get mixed up somewhere in between,” he allowed.
“Oh! Great! So now we get to say you’re only half-way crazy.”
They laughed again, the tension easing for a second so they could become just pals, making their way step by ponderous step up the path, Harry pushing along behind his stroller, Buddy prodding the pavement with his walking seat.
“I know you’ve seen ‘em too,” Harry said as they rattled under the ‘cedar arch’ into Waterwheel Square.
“Who?”
“Art and Gypsy.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Up Nixon Creek. You saw them that night you went paddling. Didn’t say nothing at the time, but I heard you yodelling in your sleep. Bernice would have heard you too, only she was snoring too loud.” Harry chuckled at that, knowing she would have reproached him for the jest.
“You called out to the two of ’em.”
Buddy didn’t deny it.
“So they’ve escaped into your world too,” Harry concluded.
They stopped at the credit union on Willow Street, looking at Mural #1. “I used to think it all started here,” Harry said, “my journey through the murals. But it didn’t really.” He paused thoughtfully. “It’s almost impossible for me to describe what it’s like,” he nodded at the mural, “but for me, these here are portals through time. They’re holograms I step into and discover my own story.
“Does it matter if what I see and hear in there is different from what you do?” Buddy asked.
“I suppose not,” Harry allowed. “Most of us weren’t even born when these scenes took place. To really understand the murals of Chemainus, you have to step into them and back in time. But where you land might be different from where I ended up. Does that make sense?”
“No. Not really… At least, not yet.”
“I’m glad you said that, because you’d have been lying if you said otherwise… or at the very least, bending the truth to smooth things over between you and an old geezer everyone knows is crazy.”
“I don’t think that.”
“That’s just cause you’re too polite to think it,” Harry teased.
“You were about to say?”
“There was that philosopher, said you can’t ever step into the same river twice…”
“Heraclitus.”
“Yeah. That’s him. Well, he got it all wrong.”
“How so?”
“Fact is, you can’t ever drag yourself out of the river you’re in, or swim upstream, or reach any kind of shore. We’re carried along like minnows down rapids and over waterfalls. We think we’re moving around through a world that’s defined by our markers of space and time, but really, everything’s always changing, always in a state of flux, a swirl we try to capture in slices we call history, geology, astronomy, and so on.”
“And the murals?”
“They’re the illusion that we can!”
“Can what?”
“Reach some kind of shore, haul ourselves out of the water, dripping wet, look around, and see where we’ve got to as a species.”
“I take it back, Harry.”
“Huh?”
“You are crazy.”
They continued their shuffle along Willow, heading south.
Next: Getting to Really Real?