Chapter 6- The Sharp Edge of Reality
Sunday, February 6, 1994
Tom seemed in good spirits this morning as he cooked them breakfast, but his chatter was manic, too bright, too forced. Sara recognized the performance. She wondered if he was desperately trying to keep the conversation moving, steering it away from the weekend discoveries that had carved themselves into his psyche like scars. She decided not to probe his well-being; he looked like spun glass, ready to shatter at the slightest touch.
Jax continued to explore the trunk, methodically photographing and copying documents while Tom and Sara descended toward the beach. This wasn't the postcard California that tourists dreamed of. California was something else entirely—a parasitic entity that wrapped around you with silken tendrils, so gentle and gradual you never noticed the shoots burrowing deep, anchoring themselves to your bones. Your spine became the host tree, and the thing pushed your skull, your consciousness down into your chest cavity until you couldn't breathe without permission. The deceiver tree was beautiful in its malevolence. For those like Tom, and perhaps Sara in her darker moments, those cursed to live on the knife's edge of reality, it could be a death sentence. Accepting what is—what the eyes see and ears hear was a terrifying burden. While the sheep pretended the forest was benevolent, the awakened felt the grip of madness tightening around their vertebrae like a lover's embrace.
Tom and Sara navigated the treacherous stone steps with deliberate precision. He had carved this perilous switchback path years ago when his mother still possessed her faculties. Gianna had been a renowned Italian artist who purchased this godforsaken property when Big Sur was still a secret whispered among the initiated. She claimed it reminded her of the cliffs on Elba, where she'd spent her childhood dodging German patrols. She would descend to the halfway point where Tom had gouged a notch into the hillside forcing the aggressive ice plant into submission so he could install a redwood bench and table. She called it her visione del mondo. The bench perched like a predator over the water—a raptor's view of the world that revealed absolute, merciless truth. Sitting there was an act of worship, recognition paid to the unknowable forces that existed before consciousness and would persist after the last neuron fired. When the final breath of the last microscopic organism was drawn and the skies bled crimson fury, the ice plant and the ocean would clasp hands and continue their dance as if it had been choreographed since the beginning of time.
Tom gripped Sara's arm and guided her down the final treacherous step to the narrow rocky cove. Dark water churned in violent eddies, foam erupting in chaotic bursts that hammered the cliff face with each high tide. This was the savage coast—often shrouded in gray mist or impenetrable fog that served as a constant reminder: this place owns you. You could exist here, but ownership was an illusion reserved for fools. The land made its own rules, and survival depended on carving out fragments—modest notches for your structures and pathways—while bowing to its merciless will. Beauty existed here, but it was the beauty of predators. Gods walked these cliffs and granted only the most fragile permissions.
Excerpt from Sara's Journal: Sunday, February 6, 1994
Tom said he would miss Jax and me more than usual this time. The words hit like a cell door slamming shut. I begged him to come stay with me in Los Gatos—to escape this cold, damp purgatory. He promised he would, but his eyes told a different story. He's taken root here like the ice plant, and I fear his isolation is cultivating something monstrous. The mind can become a minefield—one wrong thought detonating everything without warning. I recognize the signs now—the surface calm that conceals the beast prowling beneath.
The meditations I started last year sometimes help. The deep visualizations are my only weapon against the creeping darkness. I always go to the ocean in my mind. I stand facing the waves, feeling damp sand between my toes—millions of tiny grains massaging my feet like prayer beads. I listen to the waves' hypnotic rhythm. Slowly, I wade into the water and surrender to its embrace—not fighting to stay afloat or keep water from my ears. In my vision, it never matters. I become driftwood riding the swells, feeling each ripple's power course through my imaginary body. Phantom bubbles keep me buoyant. The water whispers its ancient wisdom: You float because millions of molecules support you. Life works the same way. Engage with what lifts you up, not what drags you down.
"Tom, how can I help you find peace? I know meditation isn't your strong suit, but please."
"Actually, I sit at the halfway bench several times a week. But I'm not successful at silencing the noise. It's getting worse, Sara. My thoughts are becoming... a bad doodle."
"A bad doodle?" She laughed softly, though concern shadowed her eyes.
He managed a weak smile. "Yeah. Meaningless static. Sometimes I'm just sitting there, and my brain starts performing mindless tasks—organizing dishes or tracing lines on imaginary maps. But it loops endlessly, and I can't make it stop. My skull feels like it's being crushed in a vice."
"I'm sorry you're suffering like this. Please, come stay with me."
She reached for his face and kissed him gently on the mouth—a chaste kiss between old souls who had transcended physical desire. Sara felt no carnal longing for him now; she suspected his demons had murdered that part of him long ago. But her need to save him had evolved into something fiercer than lust. She saw him now as wounded prey, another child who needed protection from the predators stalking his inner landscape.
