Faraway

Hang around me long enough and inevitably you’ll hear my lament to give up the daily grind and retire to some pristine but remote area; an almost stereotypical wish for the stereotypical malaise of the 21st century Westerner. If I were to actually forge my own Kurtz-styled refuge in the outer wilderness, we have no doubt it would end badly:

PURSUANT to the legal matter of 87 US 291, myself along with second-year firm associate Melvin Jenkins III traveled via 777 to Bangkok (12 billable hours), upon which we transferred to a 6-seater turbine plane for the journey to the location 50 km south of Nakhon Ratchasima, 14 degrees 43’ 0” N / 102 degrees 2’ 0” East (2.8 billable hours), for the stated purpose of finding witness N. and securing his legal deposition to the matter at hand. Upon landing we ventured to the nearest commissary through thick jungle (3 hours), only to learn from the locals that N. had ‘retired’ to the ruins of a Buddhist temple deeper within the border zone along with several former Miss Indonesia winners, several crates of Chinese AK-47s and Jack Daniels, a copy of ‘Heart of Darkness,’ and a long-lost tribe of cannibal midgets who worshipped him as the second coming of their deity, whose name is pronounceable only by several sharp clicks in the back of the throat. At this point Jenkins became visibly agitated and attempted to leave the area, at least until I persuaded him to stay with the point of my sterling silver corkscrew.

Two billable hours and some medical attention later we set out again along the path, only to encounter one of the midgets blocking our way. After a few minutes of increasingly frantic sign language it was ascertained that unless my associate and I turned back, we would quickly discover how anatomically feasible it would be to have our laptops inserted forcibly into our rectal cavities. We took this motion under advisement. Deciding that we could achieve victory in the case without said deposition we turned back for the plane, only to find it had been stripped and set on fire on the runway and our position surrounded by dozens of the little fuckers. Only by offering myself to their depravities could I secure my freedom (18 billable hours).

And God, oh God, I think they sacrificed Jenkins to the creature they call the Lizard From Beyond Time.

Cordially,

Mason Goldenbacher IV, Esq.

Cc: Medical

Anyway. This past week, I found a suitably empty beach, on an island in the Turks & Caicos. By mid-afternoon I could separate myself sufficiently from the family and wade into the lapping surf, the sand empty in both directions for hundreds of yards, and let my mind drift off into the blue.

When a catamaran from Provo, groaning under the weight of several paunchy Baby Boomers trying to relive their frat days with a couple of beers, beached on my little piece of serenity, I simply veered away into the water. If I were less civilized I probably would have considered the use of a spear-gun to re-secure a little peace and quiet. Legend has it that Columbus first sank his boots into the sand of the New World on this spot, in search of the freshwater lakes at the center of Pine Cay, and I wonder what the natives thought when those boisterous creatures crashed upon them.

A few days later, I fly back north. My face tanned, my hands covered with near-microscopic bites from a few dozen Darwinian Superstar insects that managed to get past my copious amounts of repellent. I trade shorts and sandals for a thermal shirt under a hoodie under a heavy suede jacket. Walk back into the office, one of my co-workers sticking her head up and querying, with rising incredulity, “You actually came back?”