In the magazine cover photo, they are climbing a trail. “They” are two women, perhaps twenty-five or so, but the picture is taken back a ways: I can’t tell if they have crows’ feet around the eyes; they are walking up the trail and the sun is coming from the front and left, the right side of their bodies are cast in shadow. One has a cotton tee-shirt on I think, but it looks like the material is finer than that. Secretly, I curse the photographer for not getting a closer view. Surely he knew that this picture might be bought by the magazine, hence distributed widely to many people, including someone like me who is rapidly falling madly in love with these women, but more the first one; she has bronze skin, like a goddess almost, and blonde hair that hides her forehead. She’s looking away, away from the scenery and I want to tell her, “No, look over your shoulder, the other way, that’s where the wonderful valley is, that is where that mountain ridge is that is frosted by the last snows of winter. But she does not hear me. She keeps walking up that trail, walking right into the white print that reads “Cardiovascular Health”. Please be careful, you’ll bump your head right into the “C”. I am grateful that the letter isn’t an “H” or worse, the lower case “g”, “j” or “y” that might put an eye out. And what could I do? As an observer, I could only stare with horror if she got injured. If I tried to dial “911”, who would believe me? “What?” they might say, “What? A picture of a woman hiker who got injured on a trail somewhere in British Columbia by walking into a lower case “G” and put her eye out? Don’t you think you should talk to someone at Harborview? They got crack psych units—a little Haldol—” No, no, I cannot say that, besides, by the time I got this magazine and really considered the situation, much time has already passed, eight months at least—or if the picture was taken a long time ago, who knows? The woman might have had her eye put out for quite some time, years perhaps. Perhaps she has given up on hiking altogether. I hope not. And her shoulder. What about her shoulder? Walking right into the big red “B” of “Back to School In Health.” And there is the C in Calcium Ascorbate which looks like it’s going to punch her right in the stomach. Perhaps I should call the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, maybe they can help—but it is January, the area must be covered by snow and if the woman died because of injuries of ill-placed writing on the cover, they would have removed the body long, long ago. I hope they are all right. The woman behind the woman with whom I am bonding strongly—I think her features, her face are airbrushed. It’s much darker—almost red, actually; she’s right behind the first woman. I think her foot has been cut off by the red horizontal banner at the bottom of the page in which bold white letters that spell out, “Special Convention Issue ‘93”. That’s it. I don’t have to do anything after all. This happened long ago. The woman I am concerned about is either dead or injured—how sad in either case—but perhaps the lettering is a trick to deceive my eyes: maybe it’s actually in back of the woman whom I adore. She’s not walking into the letters after all; as she walks, they must flow behind her. Maybe she is safe. Right now, looking at them, it seems they are enjoying themselves out in the sunlight. I just hope that lettering in the upper left, “Country Health” remains suspended and doesn’t deflate, dropping on them. Maybe the letters won’t drop—maybe they’ll just kind of drift down and cover the women in yellow type-goo. I do hope my fears are unfounded. They look like such nice women, walking on that trail; they must be having so much fun, talking about the things that are meaningful to them...
“... oh, Annie,” the one in the blue, the one who has the dark face, probably says, “it’s so grand to be outside.”
Annie. The one who might walk into the letters and hurt her self—her name is Annie.
“Annie,” I whisper, “Annie, do be careful—”
Annie smiles and turns but being careful about keeping her balance on that steep trail. “Yes,” she says, “it’s fun to be out—if only Richard...”
Richard? Richard? My heart hardens—Richard? I didn’t know—
“Ah,” says the one in back, “you’re better off done with him.”
“I suppose.” She sighs, stops and looks around.
I smile. Perhaps I am in luck after all.
Annie then frowns. “Sheila, do you believe in spirits?”
Sheila stops, looks at Annie, her look is hard to decipher. Is she thinking Annie is a bit strange? Sheila, I think, Sheila, don’t be so quick to judge. Perhaps she has something important to say. Keep an open mind.
“I don’t know,” says Annie, “it’s just that right now, I kind of feel, you know, like we’re being watched—”
I back away from the photograph. How could they know? How could they possibly know?
“Like right now—I feel like something—someone cares for me, is concerned for me—you know?”
“Like a god—” says Sheila, adjusting her backpack, “a force, a being—?”
“Don’t know,” says Annie. “It feels nice in a way but kind of smothering—”
I get up out of my chair and back up a few feet. I stare at the magazine cover, to the other words on it, “Shark Cartilage, Bee Pollen, Ginkgo” and the white rectangle with the picture of a thistle in it and the pink lettering inside the rectangle below the flower that says “Milk Thistle” and I wonder, I wonder if all health magazines are this strange and unsettling. Maybe I should dash over and quickly turn the page and find something else, maybe an article that has no pictures, something about Goldenseal with Parthenium extract.
“Don’t get me wrong, Sheila,” I hear Annie say distantly; I sneak up closer to the cover so I can hear better. “It’s nice to be cared for—I don’t know—it’s just strange.”
Sheila smiles. “Maybe you’ve been eating too many spirulina bars; maybe you need some bee pollen; maybe your Yang did a drive-by shooting on your Yin.” Then she snickers. “Or maybe your bra’s too tight.”
Maybe it is. I can’t tell. But both women laugh.
“Well,” Annie says, “if it is a spirit. I’m glad it’s there—even a somewhat smothering spirit—it’s just nice to know that there is more to reality than we can ever imagine—”
But Sheila is a realist, like an American Empiricalist of the worst ilk; if it can’t be seen it doesn’t exist. “I dunno,” she says. “Your electrolytes may be out of whack. When did you last have something to drink?”
And Annie just shakes her head. “Say something,” I whisper. “Annie, say something. Don’t let her get away with that. You’re right. Reality is far vaster, more subtle, more wonderful, more insane than we can possibly imagine.”
But Annie says nothing and they resume hiking, on past the letters (such a relief; the letters go behind them) and then out of the photo, leaving the letters, the valley; they go off the page and the sound of their voices fades, fades, fades away, leaving only the sigh of the wind and the aching sweet smell of pine.