It was just another late summer day, one of the kind in August which you can't remember the date. I was sitting on the wharf at my cottage enjoying the sun and dangling my dirty feet in the water, watching the ripples each toe made across the surface.
I peered out across the lake, but no trace of my friends in their beat-up boats could be found. I glanced at my watch and noticed it was almost nine. Hang overs, I decided without a moment's hesitation.
I slipped on my hiking boots and walked along the path through the woods to the creek. Passing the old outhouse, I walked further in to the forest. Hesitating at the fear that I might lose the way, I picked my way through the overgrown brush until I heard my boots squelch in the mud.
I followed the creek up, as I always do, past the beaver dam, past the cliff, past the waterfall until I was right up to the reedy lake. Usually I stopped here, it was a fair climb up the mountains at this hour for such a small person as me. But this time, perhaps to spite my oversleeping friends, I decided to explore further and rounded the marsh to walk further in to the woods and higher up the mountain.
Eventually, as I somehow knew I would, I came up to an old shack covered in moss and reeking with that awful rotting smell. Thinking what a great place to bring the rest of the guys up to, I started poking around what I took for a hunting shelter.
Suddenly an old man with a long zz top like beard walked out of the shack, smelling most like the rotting wood. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" the man asked with a thick accent.
"What is this?" for those of you who forgot my cottage was in Quebec and who's only knowledge of French is "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?".
"Oh, sorry. I didn't realize anyone was here," I answered in french with my horrible anglophone accent and ontario-taught grammar. Well, at least I was trying.
"That's ok. What are you doing up here?" he thoughtfully inquired. "Are you lost?"
"Mais non," I assured him. "I live down at Lac Des Seize Iles and I enjoy hiking up the mountain, only I've never gone this far before," I added.
"That is a long climb for so small a person as yourself. Why did you bother coming this far? The woods all looks pretty much the same as it does further down," he pointed out. Damn those logical french.
"I guess it's an adventure. You know, wandering through the woods, looking for danger, struggling through frightening battles, rescuing some good looking member of the opposite sex who now worships you, and of course gaining in knowledge and personality, crushing all the evils of the world and emerging formidable," I clarified.
"Formidable? Is that what you want to be?" he considered.
"Well, that and be on the Muppet Show. But now that Jim Henson is dead I thought I would concentrate on the former,"
"You are very ambitious, " he complimented. "I bet what you really are looking for is the meaning of life," he challenged.
"Aren't we all? Of course, the meaning of life other than defined by Monty Python is really a willowisp of sorts, it is always beyond your grasp,"
"Not so. I have lived up here for decades now, and I have not only come to peace with myself, but I have discovered the meaning of life."
"And you wish to share this secret to me, or do you tease me with the mystery which has haunted man since existance?" I queried.
"Why don't you come inside? " The man asked kindly. "I can offer you something to eat or drink,"
I smiled and passed through the mossy frame not expecting too much. You can imagine my shock when I was greeted with a most impressive array of antique furniture, shelves of books with leathery bindings, a large bottle of Jakar cologne and a computer terminal (with modem access to the Pinnacle Club) all neatly arranged about the small house.
"Master Spelunker?" I slowly inquired.
The old man bowed and smiled a dazzling old man type smile, which made his eyes light up as if he had just been through a shuffle and emerged out on top.
"Nightshade," he whispered faintly, "I cannot make it back down to tell the world the meaning of life. You, on the other hand, are able to. Where should I begin?" Master started with a dreamy look in his eyes.
"How about the beginning?" I suggested. "You know you can set the time gadget to temporary so you can start from the beginning and return to the present quite easily,"
Following a quick smile, Master began to reveal to me the entire meaning of life. Suddenly, the floodgates of ancient knowledge opened up to me as I discovered my entire purpose.
"So when I was so frustrated and man-less and feeling absolutely pathetic with another four months of high school and countless OAC projects, and of course struggling to find one hell of a date for the spring prom, I was merely feeling the tenseness because I had not directed my entire concentration of energies on my meaning of life?" I asked.
"Yes," said Spelunker in his ultimate wisdom.
I sat there thinking about that for a long time. Finally, after glancing at my watch and not knowing quite what to say after the Master of Masters has just unveiled the most important secret to life, I broke the silenece.
"Well," said I, "I must thank you for this revelation. Now I should be getting on my way home as I have someone coming over for dinner,"
Apologizing for my short stay, I bid Master Spelunker farewell and cautiously rock-hopped my way down the creek, pausing momentarily only at the waterfall, where I had often sat as a child, pondering the reason of existance, knowing that that task would no longer haunt me.
The sun was just sinking over the smooth curves of the mountain ridge on the opposite side of the lake when I emerged from the woods to find my friend Eric stretched out on my wharf, gazing at the ripples which his dirty toes made in the water.
"Ho," I greeted him with my sunburnt smile and knotted hair.
For some reason, he was never startled. "Hi. How was the hike? Sit at the waterfall again?"
I shook my head quickly as to say no and asked him quickly how he felt about bar-b-qued steak.
"If you make your mashed potatoes, I'll be yours forever," he joked with a quick wink.
"You already are," I pointed out as I walked up the stairs grinning at seventeen summers of friendship.
Oh, as for the meaning of life? I suppose I could have told him. But then again, if we all knew the meaning of life, what would be the point in living? So let me lie here with my thoughts of a hazy August whatever-day, enjoying a laugh with a good friend and realizing that the meaning of life was never quite defined until I looked in to his laughing eyes.