The coffee had long since reached room temperature, the cheque sat untouched, and the waitress was no longer coming by to ask if we needed anything.  I was staring out the window as dark clouds threatened to drop more rain on the street already awash with a mixture of water, oil, and various forms of debris.  My friend was contemplating something under the nail of his left ring finger.  To an observer, it must have seemed that time had come to a stop in our corner of the nearly empty cafe.

Forgetting the tepid temperature of the coffee, I poured myself another cup, lifted it to my lips and promptly returned it to the table.  The door slid open as one of the remaining few patrons left and the sound of car tires cutting water came in above the sound of the clicking of the clock, which was situated just above the same door.  The door slammed closed and the illusion of stasis was returned.

With a sigh of resignation, I picked up the cheque and headed to the register.  Behind me, my friend quietly gathered his things and put on his jacket.  The cashier asked if I had enjoyed my meal, obviously oblivious to the fact that the five dollar tab covered nothing more than two cups of coffee.  I handed her a ten dollar bill, and walked out into the overcast daylight.  My friend was lighting his cigarette when I joined him.

"Seriously." I said.

"Oh, I know." He replied.  "I know."

Thunder split the sky, and the clouds wrapped us in their damp embrace.  We got to the car, and as he reached for his keys, we shared a knowing look.  He offered me a cigarette and we continued walking down the ally as the rain did it's thing.  Each of us were lost in our own thoughts, but not so much lost as...

We live on an amazing planet.  In the cumulative experiences of mankind, we have scarcely scratched the surface of the place we have called home since before the dawn of history.  A scant five hundred years ago, an entire continent was added to our maps, and as a culture we reacted as if Columbus had released a new  Warcraft expansion: we gasped "how did we never notice that continent before?" and then the looting began.  It was an orgy of exploration, but it still took another four hundred years before we'd made it to the north pole.

The highest place on the planet wasn't reached until 1953, and we will probably never reach the lowest.  Let me correct myself, we may well reach the bottom of the oceans, but not in any of our lifetimes.   Many places are so inaccessible that we couldn't reach them until we'd figured out how to fly.  The land speed record of 763.035mph was set in 1997, and they're still trying to top the  2,194mph record for flight speed that was set way back in 1976.

With all that we have discovered and accomplished within the vast expanses of Earth's atmosphere, there is still much to be done.  A single person will never experience all of the planet.  It would take several lifetimes just to skim the high points, and spending not too much time on any of them.  We were born into an unfathomably immense playground, ripe with all that we need to live and flourish, physically, mentally, and emotionally.  This rock is quite the happening place to party.

Still, Earth is littered with us humans, who for better or worse are equipped with consciousness, which gives rise to our creativity, which in turn is the root of our restlessness.  It is this unrest which drives us to discover unbeholden places, the tops of mountains, the bottoms of seas, and the absolute white knuckled edge of madness.  We are a seething, teeming collective force of creation.  We build concrete pillars that touch the sky, we fill halls with oil paintings and sculpted minerals.  We gather together to feed our morphogenic fields with music, air which we have caused to vibrate in a way we find appealing.  We write poetry and tell stories which can wrangle tears from even the hardest of hearts.  We... but oh, all of this... it's just not good enough for some people.

This disquietude is so manifest in some of us, that it is fair to say our freedom is seen as shackles.  The mountains are too small, the valleys too shallow.  The speeds are too slow, and the distance too close.  You see, proportion scales to an explorer's heart, not his body.  Some of us look up at the stars, point and say "I want to go there."

Malcontents, rebels, anarchists, each and every one of them.  They strap themselves to liquid hydrogen rockets and at 18,000mph, launch themselves free of humanity's prison.  And for what?  A little solitude, freefall, and a brief glimpse of stars that don't twinkle?  Is it the beauty of escape or the thrill of discovery?

When I step outside of social boundaries in order to form my opinions based on my experiences rather than on accepted order, custom, and preconception, I can't help but feel like an astronaut.  I am alone in a deadly vacuum and any error can be fatal.  It's quiet, and I am free to reform my ego-barrier as I see fit.  This is ME!  Outside forces may shape me, but it is my decision whether I will bend, break, or transform.  Perhaps I will burn up on reentry, but when I close my eyes for a moment, when I take your input and process it however I see fit, well to me that is freedom.

I've stood in a library and in dismay asked "Is this all that anyone has to say?"  I've stood on the top of the world and seen that the dirt was no different than it is at the bottom.  I looked up and saw the stars shining, and in morse code the Nemean lion told me that the grass is always greener on the other side. 

None of us had any idea what we were walking into when we stepped into his living room.  The air was kinetic.  If I'd brought a knife, I could have cut myself off a piece of emotion and carried it home.  He was sitting in the green plastic chair in the corner, face buried in his hands.  It was obvious he had been crying, but now we all sat in tenebrous silence as she dourly packed her things.  After the third trip to her car, she no longer closed the door behind herself.  Like mice in a snakepit, none of us moved to close it.

Every summer we used to drive several miles down a remote dirt road in North County, to a swimming hole that was legendary before my parents time.  It wasn't deep, but the surrounding granite slopes made excellent water slides.  During the nominal monsoon season, there were times when the pool was deep enough that those with a retarded sense of self-preservation would line up at the base of  "the spire" for the rare treat of a dive.  I would dangle my feet in the water while reading PK Dick and drinking Coors Light.

As we reached into the bed of the truck to grab the cooler, we became aware that it was very quiet.  There were no shouts of excitement, no splashes, no blaring radios.  The air vibrated in it's inactivity.  We set the cooler back down, and with eyes wide, walked down the the hole.  Through the sagebrush, we could hear water running and birds chirping.  Further down the canyon, a bullfrog called out.

"Well..." I began as casually as I could muster, "maybe we should go fishing next weekend instead."

"Just go without me." he said from behind his hands.

"I don't think that would be right." I told him.  "Besides, if we go next weekend, maybe Steve can join us."

At the sound of this name, he winced, her back stiffened, and the story was told.  All of the important parts, anyway.  Not a word was spoken as we filed out the door, the air behind us approaching unbreathable.  The latch clicked into place like a gunshot, but to the one, we were glad to be gone.

The water was calm and clear, like it was most mornings before the first of us shattered it's natural calm, but the air was singularly stagnant.  The rocks themselves said more than any of us wanted to know.  The lower point of "the spire" was splattered with blood, and thick, black threads of vitae streaked their way down to the water.  Not a word was spoken as we filed up the trail, the air behind us thick with death...