AND THERE ARE HUNDREDS MORE

Huddled against the stiff November wind watching the distant marker lights across the channel shine like street-level quasars, I slouch in a broken chair with crossed ankles and stretched legs. The heels of my boots are dug in close to the roaring fire, with one hand thrust deep into the pocket of my heavy coat, while the other scratches at the coals with a long stick, picking aimlessly through the burning tinder in search of fresh fuel.
A paper cup full of water sits bubbling away in the center of the flames, the evening\'s experiment. The paper is scorched and brown, but appears unscathed.
My eyes grow lazy in the almost-painful heat, my stare crawling further into the flames: faces from my past begin to appear and disappear in the glowing embers like the feat of some tiresome, grinning magician who knows only the one trick.
Music leaks in between the crackling pop of burning leaves and the hiss of charred paper, like holes in a flaming fishing net. From the open window behind me, the boom box on the kitchen counter sings \"House Of The Rising Sun\", the force of the lyrics propelling slight chunks of ash and burning ember up into the sky. As I watch, they grow too heavy to fly any higher and fall gently toward the ground, smashed to death against the cold earth.
Now I open my mouth and close my eyes, straining to hear each note of the song above the angry scolding of the big black ravens perched like vultures on the swaying bones of the skeletal trees, their bright eyes peering back at me from the darkness, catching the flicker of the flames like fireflies in a jar. I take a slow breath of hot smoke and leaves, and inhale their raucous cries; stealing their voices and rendering them mute only makes them angrier. They snap their beaks silently in the wind in protest.
As I exhale ghosts of steam from my lips, their voices are born anew. As they soar slowly away, they trace fiery trails in the setting sun, the down beat of their wings slicing tiny gashes in the time fog, allowing long-sealed memories to seep through the opening and climb down the smoke, like blood flowing from an old wound. I stir the coals and watch as the names, faces, and places take shape in the shower of forgotten sparks.
What ever happened to Joey Yergin, the soft-spoken, doe-eyed Jesus freak who refused to fight? He bravely offered his hand in peace that day in the seventh grade as we stood in the ring of older kids who crowded around us like Romans at the far end of the playground, goading, shoving and calling us terrible names. I punched him so hard that I blacked the white of his eye. And for what? Because I was afraid. I could have blinded him for life because I was afraid of being called a name.
That was then, and this is now. And there are hundreds more.
What ever happened to Sally Christman, the girl who first got me interested in Ozzy Osbourne? We were friends for several years, confiding our secrets and dreams to one another until she expressed the deepest of them all: her true feelings for me. I scornfully betrayed her trust by reading aloud the contents of her carefully hand-written note in class. I\'ll never forget the look on her face as she slid lower and lower in her seat, the blood rushing to her ears, the color draining from her cheeks and her eyes filling with tears. I realize now it was the first time I had ever seen her in makeup. I failed her, and she never spoke to me again. I have no excuse for what I did.
That was then, and this is now. And there are hundreds more.
What ever happened to Lewis DeTurk, the pudgy, frightened kid with the high-pitched voice who nearly drowned in the deep end of the pool the summer of my eighth grade year? He was a rung lower on some imaginary social totem pole, and I chose to purchase some easy breathing room with the coin of his public torment. I jumped on his back and held him under the surface while he slapped and clawed at my arms, desperate for air while the other kids laughed at his shrieks of fear. I didn\'t want to kill him; I didn\'t even want to hurt him. I just wanted someone else to take the heat for awhile.
That was then, and this is now. And there are hundreds more.
What ever happened to Jerry Fugget, handicapped by childhood fever, disfigured by a severe harelip, and, as rumor had it, recently abandoned by his hateful mother? His first day in a new school, I was the first to point out the obvious two-vowel two-step to certain doom in his name, thereby sealing his fate. Why? What the hell was I thinking? Why couldn\'t I keep my mouth shut? Because I was afraid, but not so afraid of taking the easy out by throwing Jerry to the wolves in order to save myself. He needed a friend, and I tossed him a sharp knife. Unfortunately, he caught it square in the back.
That was then, and this is now. And there are hundreds more.
I stabbed a kid named Donald up the nose with a No. 2 pencil because he laughed at my secondhand clothes. Another inch or so might have scrambled his brain.
I hit another kid in the arm with a rock so big his shoulder was all swollen and sickly yellow for three weeks. I had been aiming for his head. For the life of me I can\'t remember why-- I can\'t even remember his name.
I waited a year to catch a kid named Dylan with his head in his locker door before kicking the door shut with everything I had. A year I waited for just that moment.
Each time I was faced with a decision, and each time I chose poorly. I acted out of fear, cringing at the threat of some phantom hand, some unspoken violation of rules, which never mattered to begin with, and to this day no one can recall. I felt compelled to do these to people because I wanted people to laugh at someone else for a change.
The ravens are still scolding me for it almost 20 years later, and I\'m not alone. America is a country full of ghosts, people who were murdered, robbed, raped, and wronged. I hate it when people tell me, \"That\'s just life, that\'s how it is, get used to it.\" Because I know they\'re right. I was a happy kid until I realized the potential of the world I was living in. And then I wasn\'t happy anymore. I didn\'t know how to ask the right questions at the time-- then again, I wasn\'t exactly surrounded by the kinds of people who came factory-equipped with answers that dealt with anything beyond their own immediate survival.
I did not get \"The Memo\".
I\'ve learned a lot since then; anything can happen given enough time. No one can remain foolish forever, if they live long enough to learn. Still, the more I learn, the more I realize I have so much yet to understand. And there is so much more to remember.
Remember to remember that our names are just labels designed to commemorate the sexual union between strangers, and the birth of walking stars destined to become strangers to themselves.
Remember to remember that nothing really matters because nothing really lasts: nothing we are is anything we can ever own, the things in this world we can touch are the very things which will not last, and nothing lasts forever, except nothing and forever.
Remember to remember that human life is merely the pursuit of survival, and the quest for experiences that make human life bearable. Remember to remember that each choice we make creates a world where some part of us is fated to follow the road less-traveled to its obvious conclusions. So if each of our decisions creates another dimension of possible outcomes, then whose dimension are we living in?
Remember to learn something every day, I guess.
Overhead now, the stars have come out in full, and the distant green glow of the northern lights can be seen dancing across the mountains behind me. The temperature has dropped another five degrees, and the fire is dying out. I stand and dust myself off, stretching my limbs in an effort to restore circulation, watching as the last of the coals glow raging red, fighting to live. Even the ravens have gone home.
I wish I could go inside, pick up the phone, and call every person I\'ve ever wronged, offering them the dignity I was too afraid to extend them at the time. I\'d say something like, \"I\'m sorry, I was weak and I hurt you. I didn\'t mean it.\"
I know they\'ve forgotten me by now, and I wish I could do the same for them.