Manna

There are three Young Lakes. I arrive at the third, the Upper, well behind my three sons. I doddle and walk in slow motion through the spongy meadows, my boots pressing into the mud and leaving their indelible prints, my hands swatting helplessly like windshield wipers at the mosquitos pelting my face and kamakazing into my nose and windpipe, my eyes squinting behind my sunglasses as the light reflecting off the granite and the greenness of the grass pries open my soul, gently, inconspicuously, like the first gust of wind in late morning.

The Indian Paintbrush flourishes. The blossoms are stiff, like pipecleaners, and blood orange, like the innards of a ruby grapefruit, with yellow highlights, as if the florist stuck in miniature bananas. They carpet the grass, and if I kneel I can run my fingertips over the blossoms. If I stoop further and sniff them I notice only the absence of fragrance, the dry Sierran air which is pure like wind, and pure like that snowbank down which my boys are currently tumbling and cheese-gratering, and pure like the water dripping off my forearm after I remove it from the icy water.

I am neither thirsty nor hungry and all the worldy vexations and ridiculousness of work are no more noticeable than the chapstick in my pocket, so I am happy to embrace the scene and let it enter me like breath. I decide to sit right here, until the next Ice Age. But the mosquitos thicken. One bites my lip. Another bites my eyelid (I have congenital DEET deficiency). I swell up like a tomato. I peer into the water at my reflection. I look like Rocky Balboa after he fights the Russian guy in Rocky 17. My boys run past. They are heading downhill in rapid fashion. Dad! they say, the mosquitos will eat you for lunch! We're getting out of here!

I follow.