From the Gates to the Gardens1

A Tale of Perfection2

By Gonzalez,

Rio

I give you the greatest story, a story of perfection. This story will be like none you have

read before. Like every other story, it is unique. It is the conglomerate of all stories, just like the

others. Yet, everything I am about to tell you is absolutely, completely, one hundred percent true

without a single exception.

                                                                                                               
1
One might assume at this point, the very beginning, that the essay will have some relation to
religion, either a metaphorical, an analogical or a contextual relation to a story about the balance
of good and evil. To be sure, considering that the writer of this story is simply a cog in the
workings of existence and not truly important on any grand scale, this may be the case.
Analyzing the situation from another perspective, say the perspective of the Devil’s Advocate, an
obvious discovery would come to light; one sees what one is looking for. Should one be a
misguided soul, searching for the answers to all the difficult life questions then that individual
would inexorably find himself or herself turning to a large denomination religion. Upon finding
themselves in the grace of the divine where all their questions answered with out-of-context
Biblical references instead of straight answers then, they might delve deeper into their religious
research with self-help books, attempting to follow the religion path to its end. This would then
lead them via commodious vicus to where they were when they began their questioning; finding
themselves better armed this time to search for their truths on the individual level. Yet another
discovery might be that attempting to read this essay would, for all intense and pure possess,
Discover the only guiding light, Witch’s the light of the blind. In which madness and irritation
would occur from the illogical development and ideals within, but I digress…
2
Taking the “it works” perspective on existence, all things are perfect, including this.
Disillusionment of such a belief generally only comes through extreme loss or death. Neither of
which would immediately effect the hold it takes on a work of literature considering that
literature is logos, a physical story, a mythos of the now. Thus, the story lives on through
memory and grants in return as a symbiotic entity, the illusion of an extraordinarily long life as a
sort of Methuselah. “In the beginning, there was the Word and the Word was God.” In the
beginning, there was the Logos and the Logos was God. In the beginning, there was the story and
the story was God. Thusly, if the story is god, then my story, being a cog in the Grand Scheme or
the Machine of Existence is no more or less than the Echo of a Narcissus, looking into a Sea of
Stories and picking the minds of the great authors and deities to place choice selections at your
feet.
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 I saw a man once. He was old and homeless, clothed in the kind of clothing described as

rags. I won’t describe them as rags because to do so would be insulting. His clothes were so well

used and so his own that they were a part of him. Just as he was not homeless, he was just of the

earth. His clothes were of similar colors to his skin, which was of a similar color to the dirt he

was sitting on. This patch of dirt is of particular interest, you should know. Not because it was

dissimilar from the dirt around it on an average day, but today it happened to be raining and this

dirt was completely dry. This was largely the reason for the old man to have chosen this patch to

sit. The man sat under an overpass, completely dry along with the dirt, attending to his

fingernails with a grotesquely grimy old skinning knife. He looked neither happy nor sad. He

was merely present. Though perhaps I should say, he was amazingly present, considering how

rare it is to find anyone who is ever present for his or her life.3 He was content. Not being rained

on, yet covered in what looked like moss from a distance, as I was at this juncture. Upon first

discovering the bridge that evening I saw him as a smudge through the rain, a boulder or perhaps

a broken piece of the support for the bridge. It wasn’t until, after a short sprint while holding the

newspaper over my capped head, I got under the bridge myself and looked up to see what the

shape was I had previously thought to be inanimate. You can imagine my alarm at this point. I

had just run towards a transient holding a skinning knife. This is generally not the action taken.

As all this ran through my head, I laughed aloud at the precocity of my thoughts.4 When I finally

                                                                                                               
3  Don’t  you  find  this  to  be  the  case?  Most  people  are  rarely  present  in  their  life  unless  they  

are  in  pain  or  dying.  The  exception  is  people  who  spend  a  great  deal  of  time  trying  to  come  
to  the  point  in  their  life  when  they  are  capable  of  being  in  the  present.  Which  seems  to  be  
paradoxical  considering  they  spend  so  much  time  studying,  which  as  an  act  is  in  the  present  
unless  in  retrospect  when  it  is  in  the  past,  yet  in  the  mind  plans  for  the  future.  The  act  could  
be  perceived  like  putting  your  self  into  a  savings  bank  for  the  future  until  you  are  entirely  
saved  by  your  studiousness  at  which  time  you  can  withdraw  yourself  into  the  now.  
4  Laughter at a precocious thought insinuates that there is a maturity of thought beyond the

mature thought had which becomes a cyclical entertainment resulting in uncontrollable laughter.  
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returned to a state of being that was upright, if only slightly winded still, I made eye contact with

the boulder of a man who had done nothing more than look up and begin grinning as if he had, at

some ethereal level, understood the absurdity of my entertainment. After a few more hiccupped

giggles, which I stifled as best I could, I vocalized a request to share the underpass with him for

much the same reasons I was certain he was here. He merely nodded his consent and, still

grinning at my outburst, went back to picking at his nails without uttering a word. I felt

compelled to attempt a conversation with this person who I, though the emotion was receding out

the back of my head into the depths to be reabsorbed by the pool of emotions I contained, was

still slightly uncomfortable with my company. As with anything, if you can get it to speak, it

looses some of its ambiguity and becomes less threatening. Perhaps a childish reason for

beginning a conversation but one that doubtless has been used for eons I would think.5 After

more than one attempt I realized that I was simply talking to myself and that the man was either

too busy with himself to converse or had a disability that left him unable to do so.6 I resigned

myself to a quiet night and dropped the backpack, which I had forgotten to tell you I was

carrying, on the ground next to me. Perhaps now would be as good a time as any to finish telling

you of my appearance and inventory so as to not reach this confusion again. Firstly, there was

me, but I don’t think I will tell you of myself. You will learn soon enough about my person by

my actions and I will allow them to be the truthful spokesperson of my candidacy, as it were, for

                                                                                                               
5  The list of people who actually maintain a conscious record of the reasoning for their actions

would probably barely fill a very small ledger I would think. The ones who are honest about
them would probably barely make the footnotes of the ledger.  
6  Neither  was  the  case  actually,  but  I  was  not  to  learn  this  until  much  later.  He  was  actually  

a  brilliant  raconteur.  I  was  simply  making  spurious  conversation,  which  he  refused  to  
partake  in.  This  is  probably  why  I  do  not  remember  exactly  what  the  conversations  I  was  
attempting  to  have  with  him  were.  They  were  unimportant.  After  learning  of  his  ability  to  
speak,  I  was  dazzled  by  several  conversations  that  I  will,  barring  any  unforeseen  head  
trauma  accidents  or  Alzheimer’s  disease,  never  forget.  
  3  
job as narrator. Besides myself, there was my clothing. I was wearing blue jeans and a black t-

shirt, a leather jacket that I picked up at a second hand store, some wool socks that were the prize

of my possessions, underneath some well worn military surplus boots. I had my backpack,7

which was likewise second hand. Within the magic bag of youthful impressionism, I had two

more t-shirts, two more pairs of pants, a sweater, seventeen pairs of socks, a pair of sneakers, a

roll of Duct Tape and a roll of about twenty-five feet of parachute cord in the main pouch. In the

smaller pouch, I had my most expensive possession, a Moleskine notebook for my writing. I also

had the last inch of a #2 pencil, a mechanical pencil and three pens from different banks. Also

within this small pouch was a pack of cigarettes, a can of chewing tobacco, a pouch of rolling

tobacco, a box and three books of matches, a Bic lighter and some Zippo fluid, flints and a spare

wick. In the smallest pouch of the bag was a pack of hotdogs and a small wheel of cheese, both

stolen. The last pockets on the sides of the backpack held my two 1.5 liter water bottles, which

were invaluable when traveling as I was. In my pockets were a Zippo, a book of matches, a

purposefully crumpled pack of cigarettes, seven loose dollars, a bank pen, a small notepad, a

reliable pocketknife, my wallet with its meager contents, and a boot knife tucked into my boot

where it should be. In my wallet were my driver’s license, my debit card, fourteen dollars in cash

and several scraps of paper with the numbers of friends and lovers I had acquired on my travels.

In my boot, under my left foot was another stash of forty dollars. I’d found it to be, not only wise

but a necessity to spread my money, my weapons, and my tobacco over my person. It was

important not to appear as though you had money when traveling. Should you give the wrong

                                                                                                               
7  Backpacks  have  always  made  me  feel  out  of  place.  As  if  wearing  this  thing  intended  for  a  

youth,  in  all  youth’s  innocence,  was  in  gross  juxtaposition  with  my  life.  I  should  not  be  
allowed  to  utilize  such  a  tool,  regardless  of  its  usefulness.  I  should  have  been  picked  up  by  
some  sort  of  government  agency  and,  after  a  sharp  reprimand,  released  with  the  adult  
version  of  a  backpack.  I  cannot  think  what  this  might  be,  surely  not  a  suitcase,  but  I  know  
that  it  would  have  a  much  more  serious  an  air  to  it.  
  4  
impression8 to the wrong individual you would most likely be left with nothing, however, that

wasn’t what was going to happen to me tonight, or any other night for that matter. It turns out

that those who are prepared for everything often become the hunters of the sharks they are

swimming with instead of the prey to them.

Take a breath.

As I itemized my inventory, I realized that I had absolutely everything I needed or

wanted. I had my life in a bag, I had freedom to make whatever choices or mistakes I wished, I

was uninhibited by anything but my backpack which, I confess, I was tempted to leave behind on

occasion.9 I had water and food, purpose and dry clothing, and I had company. Of course my

company was not talkative but he was still company and, at this moment it served my mood that

he should be silent because I wanted to write. I dropped the newspaper, tossed my cap on top of

it to keep any potential wind from blowing it away. I then took off my jacket, gave it a good

shake and laid it out flat on the ground to act as a sort of table. I removed the parachute cord

from my pack and strung it between runners on the bridge. Once this chore was completed, I

peeled my shirt off, rang it out, then tossed it over the cord to dry. I sat down on the brilliantly

dry dirt, creating a little rump shape of mud where it used to be dry, removed my Moleskine

notebook and a bank pen and wrote this down:

Everything in my life right now, including being wet, is perfect. I’m home.10

I looked up at the man and he smiled. I smiled in return, and then I laughed. This was the

end of a perfect day.

                                                                                                               
8  What  I’m  referring  to  when  I  say  the  wrong  impression  is  that  every  person  and  situation  

had  to  be  sized  up.  If  you  were  to  light  a  cigarette  around  a  muscle  bound  skinhead  it  would  
be  better  to  use  the  matches  and  rolling  tobacco  than  the  Zippo  and  a  tailor  made  cigarette.  
9  I resisted mostly because of the notebook and the socks.  
10  And  for  that  particular  night,  I  was.  I  was  where  my  cap  was  and  I  was  warming  up.  

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