it came upon leonard from within, strong and fast, a radial explosion of the heart, and he knew instantly, bathing in the cool waters of the east china sea, that tonight was the night: the pure land called, and he would have to go. he knew the story of master joshu who woke from a meditative state and declared to his disciples that the end was near. he retreated into his room where he bathed from head to foot and ate his last meal in grateful silence. he laid his head down on the pillow and offered up his spirit. leonard admired the old man's control, the patience and courage. he did not know what to expect from himself, now that the moment had presented himself. for all his training, for all the countless hours of breath work and the days sat in silence, desire was still great in him. he rose early that morning to greet the sun and spent all day at his favorite spot on the beach where the sands rise and greet the sea at a rocky alcove. careful of the eels, he liked to sit there on the rocks, the warm ocean waters risen waist high, and dwell on his life. he knew the others would be expecting him back for dinner and that if he did not show, they would worry and send others to look for him. but if this were indeed the last time he would see this sun, feel its warmth, sit here in his favorite spot...so he sat a bit longer, trying to imagine some way of taking it with him. but he could not find a way, and soon the sun began to sink beneath the horizon and the waters began to grow cold again. he would have to face it.

he had come to the island of suwanosejima, a nine hour boat ride from the mainland, in 1967. he had been one of the original members of the tribe and followed nanao sakaki to the island with a dozen others to free themselves of materialism, to fish, to comb the beaches, to live simply and cultivate their entry into the pure land. many left the island over the course of the next seventeen years, and still others joined. he was one of the few original members still left, still one of the few white guys, and these days one of the oldest. how such a thing had come to pass was not clear to him.

but walking to camp that night, he remembered all the reasons that had first brought him to and then kept him on suwanosejima. in the golden hour broken open the tender pink blooms and sweetened smell of japanese azaleas. the summer aroma of wheel plum and billow flowers ran downwind of the stratovolcano which huffed and puffed and at every moment restrained itself. and even at the late hour of day, chestnut tiger butterflies flew to the flowers of the handama. leaving the beach, he marked seat turtle tracks on the beach, newly arrived to make and spawn. leonard set upon the path through the tree line that took him back to camp, and listened to the calls of the stag beetle, burrowed in the hollow logs of old trees. these things were old to him, and yet always new. they had grown in familiarity and by extension love over the years, and yet this time he was hyper aware of them, and he walked a little slower along the pathway to take them all in. but soon the the light was all but gone and he could no longer see the butterflies and the beetles had gone quiet for the night and the smells of the azaleas and the billow flowers were replaced by the smells of camp which was where the path would end.

he arrives back into camp to find the other members of the tribe cooking up a feast. the big eye fish have returned to the shoreline, and their salted smell mixes and mingles with and that of the fresh bamboo shoots. there is laughter and friendship, and people speak of news from the mainland, tell stories of their families and friends in other parts of the world, read letters from loved ones sent months ago that they just received, debate cold war politics, discuss the buddha and his teachings, deliberate on the meaning of the way and what it means to take true refuge in the three jewels. but he is not hungry, and the talk of his friends sparkles like stars millions of miles away. he tries to thread himself like a needle through all the pretty talk, nodding here, laughing there, trying to think of a word, even one word to say. but he can’t. and the food tastes somehow bitter to him, and soon he sits outside the conversation. all that talk pulls itself up and all around him, pats itself into a little mound of earth to bury him beneath.

so he retires to his little hut. he lights the candles and sits upright in his hammock. in its side pocket he keeps his wallet and what remains of his essential documents: a worn down birth certificate, his expired commercial trucking license, the numbers of a few bank accounts he'd opened in new jersey whose balances he no longer remembers. and then of course the two photos he allowed himself: the first was of his mother who passed unexpectedly over ten years ago. he had been on the island only a few short years when word finally arrived to the island. but by then it was too late. she had died and been buried without him. his aunts and cousins said she had asked for him but they did not know how to reach him. it was the only time he ever regretted coming to the island. the second was of annette, his high school sweetheart, who married someone else when she was done with college, "sick and tired of waiting" on him, she said. in the photo she has her arm around georgie, his best friend in a former life, who lived now in pensacola with his wife and two daughters (if they were not already grown and gone). the photo had been taken on a trip to barcelona they had taken in the summer of '62, before the madness descended on them. he had not spoken to either of them in so long, but kept hold of their picture as a reminder that someone, somewhere out there, might still know his name.

he sat there a long time with his photos, studying those faces, diving into the depths of his mind to retrieve memories thrown overboard years ago to lighten the load and to ease the burden of moving on. in time perhaps he would remember, and what could not be remembered, could be recreated, reimagined from a feeling or sense impression. but alas, the candles could not last all night, and soon they were out, and leonard was left alone in the dark and the glittering conversations along the beach were silent now, and there was nothing left to see, to smell, no one left to talk to or listen to. nothing left to do but prepare. leonard stood his feet upon the ground and took one step, two steps, to the washing bowl whose waters were cold and briny. he squeezed the sponge in his hand and washed, starting from the top of his head and his face and his neck down to the spaces between his toes. he studied every freckle, every mole, the features of this body that he had become familiar with and come to love somehow, unexpectedly, which he did not know until that moment. the little freckles on his left big toe. the skin tag on his chest, the moles on his neck. but once clean, there was nothing more to put off. leonard pulled his heavy frame into the hammock which sunk and swung with the full weight of him. and leonard laid his eye down and closed his eyes.

when leonard opens his eyes again, he does not fully know where he is. it looks like his hut right off the beach, but there's a vacuum seal around everything. the morning light pokes in through the walls of his hut, but the morning jungle is silent. no birds, no breeze, no scampering in the trees. he takes to his feet which feel heavy and strong against the earth, and he walks outward to the beach. no one is there, but the embers from last night's fire still sizzle. he can smell nothing, hear nothing. but someone left fresh bamboo shoots out overnight in a bowl, and so he sits himself down upon a rock, holds the bowl gently in his hands, and slips a bamboo shoot into his mouth. it is sweet like the pure land. he remembers the day he first arrived on suwanosejima. it was a morning just like this one.