March of Science

A car passes in front of us and slips onto the shoulder and sends gravel flying into the ditch.
"That was close." Hargrave stumbles backwards into the ditch.

"He didn't know." I dust off my jeans.
Hargrave laughs, "Man, your mind has as many holes as an empty schoolhouse. The guy could have killed us." He looks at the leafless trees sagging on the edge of the field. I step to the left and wonder why I stood where I stood. "Nothing left for me to say," he says and struggles to his feet and waddles up the ditch. I think of offering a hand but this is one thing I know; I keep them in my pockets. "Hey, thanks," he grunts and summits alongside the pavement and steadies himself.
I look at him huffing for air. "Maybe he didn't see us."
"But I saw him and that is enough for me." He swallows air.
"If you don't know what you are looking for, how do you know what to look for?"
Hargrave's brow furrows. Sweat is forming. "But I know. And that's good enough." He pauses for breath.
"Look at you. You didn't see him either."
"Look, it doesn't matter, it just doesn't matter." He pauses for breath. "And eventually you find out. That's good enough."

"Unfortunately, I often find myself at the end of eventually." And I looked away. Across the field I can see a fog forming in the swale that leads to the river. The sun is setting and the cold air in the woods turns grey like campfire smoke and curls into the fields, settling into pockets and swales and drainages. It follows the ravine downslope and accumulates at the river's edge where it thickens like a down comforter, so thick that you wouldn't know there is a river down there if you hadn't been in this place before. A man could easily walk into that fog and stumble into the water and disappear. The current carries him downstream. Thirty days later his swollen remains are found washed up on a sand beach and everybody is shocked. They come up with stories about a suspicious character seen in the vicinity at the hour of his disappearance. He just stood and stared at the fog filling the ravine. Police sketches are distributed. Merchants keep a wary eye. Children stay indoors. Clerics intone. The stories grow; now there are three suspicious characters. Then twenty. Then a community of suspicious characters. They are kidnapping the womenfolk. They come at night and raid the barns. They eat the dogs. They can see in the dark. They can see through walls. They read minds. The stories are published in the newspapers. Talk spreads. Festivals are cancelled. Tall fences are built. Windows boarded. Then the harvest fails. Mobs appear in the square with flaming torches. The sound of breaking glass. A rope appears on a telephone pole. If only the poor fellow knew what was in front of him, the fog wouldn't have mattered much. He could have walked home and taken supper with his family, singing the children to sleep in front of the fire. I shake my head.
"Just what are you talking about?" Hargrave demands, his face pale and sweaty.
"You think it makes a difference?" I tilt my head.
He furrows his brow again, "It doesn't matter, it just doesn't matter. I always figure it out eventually. Ouch." He winces.
"Nasty fall?"
"Yeah. Shouldn't have been so close to the road." He bends over and props his arms on his knees, laboring for air.
"Now you say it."
"And I lived to tell." He wipes his forehead with his forearm.
"Hey, the river isn't there anymore. I can't see it." The fog blends into the sky.
"What river?" He lifts his head up and looks across the field.
"That one down there." I point to the fog bank.
"I don't see any river. There's no river down there." He shakes his right arm. "Man, this hurts."
"It's down there somewhere."
"I still don't see any river."
"It's down there somewhere."
"You can't see a thing. There isn't any river; there isn't anything to know."
"Yes there is."
"No. Nothing is there. I'll prove it."
"You don't know what you are looking for."
"I know, but it doesn't matter." He straightens up and shuffles across the road into the field, shaking his right arm the entire way, pausing for air. It took him about five minutes to stumble across the field before he disappeared into the fog.