I knocked at the reddish, wooden door. It was a nice day outside, and the clouds were just rolling in from over the Tehachapi’s where a snowstorm was brewing. The street was calm; a benevolent little strip of asphalt with a few cheery houses. They all had stucco walls and red-tile roofs, except for the house on who’s door I knocked. It was a little worn, but not much. Built in the early nineties. Late eighties, maybe. The roof was constructed of wood shingles, and a willow in the front yard dripped shriveled little leaves in the wind, like a sobbing dryad.
The faint, golden glow from behind the peephole was interrupted for a moment, and I could almost feel the stare of intelligent eyes from behind the miniscule lens. Then, with a slight creak, the door opened inwards. A boy, of maybe fifteen or sixteen stood at the threshold, an inch or two taller than me, looking slightly disheveled. He wasn’t precisely what I had expected, although he wasn’t far off either. In fact, he was quite familiar.
He was an artist, I could tell instantly. Besides the long-embedded charcoal smudges on the rims of his fingers, and the more recent ink stains on his palms, his eyes betrayed him. He held an air of both innocence and knowledge that rarely mixes, except in a few odd cases. It was hard not to imagine all the abstract ideas and concepts floating like bubbles around him.
He seemed balanced between affirmation and indecision – a quality that rides with eccentricity, and holds its own in the world when an individual needs it most. It occurred to me that people like him were almost always depressed or angry, or quarreling with someone who thought badly of them. Philosophers were always the ones who killed themselves. Musicians were always the addicts, who died in car crashes or played one too many games of Russian Roulette. But this particular character seemed different, in one way or another. He seemed to be far more captivated with life than with death. Death, I suppose, is a very silly thing to think about when you are, I presume, living. If you are created to live, then live, and do not waste your time by becoming infatuated with death. At any rate, this boy had seemed to lift his eyes above despair, and he had become simply enthralled with life and the living of it.
That thought struck home. Well, what was the matter with me? You sit around thinking about this kid, and don’t even realize that you’re learning to dislike yourself. Most people are enamored with grief, silly as it sounds. Maybe that’s why this boy was so different. He simply didn’t think about the same things as others, thought he did do a lot of thinking. Everyone, I suppose, has to decide what they want to do with their minds. I guess it’s just how much of our brains we choose to use, and even more importantly, what we choose to use it on. While others raise their hand and spill their guts to the class, as if anyone cared, this kid just sits there, content that he knows what he does.
Finally, I opened my mouth. “Clayton Chancey?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
Who was I? Did I even know? No, of course not. No-one knows who they are. It’s all just part of the ride, finding out what kind of a person God made you. By the time you start to grasp it, you’re at a fork in the road: righteousness or despair? So, who was I? Funny how such a simple question, when taken at face value, can spur such an epic revolution. I suppose all things complex can be torn down to the simplest of elements. You start out with this magnificent concept called “life”, and by the time you’ve ripped through all the trimming, you come to the one, simple decision that will determine your eternity. Who are you? Why are you? Will you love loving life, or will you love hating death? Will you embrace your creator, your savior, your sustainer?
I know who I am, and so does he. Now the question must always be posed: Who are you?
