I sit high above Columbia, the river not the country. I sit in the shade, next to a pile of desiccated dog shit, out of the sun, but not out of the heat. Columbia. The word, as in what? As in Cumbia? A Latin dance I know—of curves and gyrations between bodies hard and soft, mountiful and mosaic? As in colon? For the movement of objects large and small, solid and liquid? Or as in Columbus, not the city but the city of mind, mind over matter, and man the contradiction: discoverer of lands, destroyer of lands?

Of course I think such things: the absurd observed. When else did I have the time, will I have the time? A case of never trumping ever. I add an end to so many things.

This is my last will and testament. As I write, I am serenaded by some Strauss waltz seeping through the brick walls of the building I'm holed up behind.

This is as good a place as any. I am at home nowhere. And nowhere—for the linguistically and mathematically inclined, as I am—-nowhere is also written: now here.

I am now, here.

And I would like you to now, hear this.

I, Theodore N. Tompkins, write this of my own volition, as in evolution. I evolved to this place, at this time, at exactly 3:19 in the afternoon of Saturday, August 26, 2006. The sky is high, impossibly out of reach. Baring witness are the rabbit bush and bitterbrush, the ponderosa, sagebrush and kinnikinick. All so green, but not with envy, with survival—something that now eludes me. How do I know the names of so many plants and trees I have never seen before—when I can't remember the name of the neighbors I robbed back in Bismarck, nor the banker I stabbed in Butte?

I read the signs. The one at the exit said Discovery Center.

The center of discovery. They'll discover me here, but I might find me first. Clues everywhere.

On one side of the river is the train, slimmering along the base of the basalt, child-size at this distance, pulling crayon-colored boxcars against the adult-size hills. On the other side the highway, obscured but still heard: rubber and glass, asphalt and meat, metal tearing and cheeks tearing. I'm caught in the middle: no more childhood, no more tears.

I hear sirens. The fire is inside me.

It is so dry even the train slows down. A ranger comes by. She asks me what I'm doing. I'm waiting, I say. She's says she's never seen a sailboat on the river. I look past her. She walks on. The white triangle on the mirror-still water disappears.

I want a drink—but then the trouble will start, all over again.

I'm waiting for it to end.

***

David Melody lives in the Columbia Gorge region of Washington State. "Exit, Discovery Center" is from a series he is working on titled Snap Shots. He can be reached at dmelody@the-private-eye.com