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Coach has always known that he’s a Shepherd, a leader—in need of a flock. And on this island, the flock has needed him, too. Needed him to find them, to unite them, to show them a greater way, more righteous, more worthy. And if invoking the hand of a higher god had been required as the journey unfolded, so they could all more fully understand, find one another in the wilderness—-Well, it was all in service to something beyond themselves. And is that not what any true power, any good Christian god, would want?
But there are more gods than one on this island.
He’d told Cochran, not so many days ago now, that Ozzy is Narcissus in their tale, so in love with his own reflection, he’d trip and tumble into the waters that bear his image, leaving only the vaguest reverberations of an echo behind.
But that was before.
There’s something else there now.
Ozzy indeed had fallen beneath the waves, slipped on hubris, or selfishness, or something else, as Narcissus had before him. On that count, Coach had not been wrong.
But in the end, Narcissus, the son of a river god and a nymph, and perhaps Coach had not considered this when he’d said the words, or perhaps, he had, subconsciously, did not vanish into nothingness, did not disappear, leaving only an echo. No, he attained immortality. Of a sort. But nevertheless, his blood was swept up by the waters and transformed into something everlasting.
Something greater.
And Ozzy, too, has bloomed.
Something, he considers, no one else can quite understand; none except Coach, who has not so much bloomed but risen. They’re new to the game, after all, the others. Or maybe they’re not fully worthy. Not in the same fashion. They haven’t been touched by the glow of the sun, the emptiness of the sands, and the crests of the waves, not like they have.
And though he is loath to admit it, there’s no doubt the island has touched Ozzy.
In the tribe, among the others, it had been obscured. Unfocused, Coach, had considered, when they’d all joined together, only a mess of sand and a ramshackle shelter greeting them. Ungrateful. Not leading his tribe to power, as Coach has been.
Disappointing.
But on Redemption, aptly named, Redemption. Because who among them cannot be redeemed? Ozzy has become something else.
Dove into the waters and emerged other than he had been.
Coach had seen it first hand on their brief visit to the place, and before and then again in every duel.
Burnished, determined, nature operationalized into blood and bone, and a man that is not a man.
And Coach, he has his sheep, his tribe. And he’s settled, strong in those sentiments.
But if Coach is Zeus, king of the gods, and Ozzy is immortal, and in truth, it is neither here nor there because can there not truly be only one god? Then where does that leave them?
It must be said, Coach doesn’t know.
But he knows there is sin in his blood.
Covetousness.
Because to have a god in his flock, now wouldn’t that be something?
And, oh, he wants him.
Wants to know with utter certainty that there is just one Shepherd. Only one true divine to lead the people from the desert.
In the darkening forest, the sun going low in the sky, they stand. Two men who are not men. Who are greater. Their fates not yet decided.
He puts his hand on Ozzy’s shoulder, the heat of the body beneath his fingers seeping into him, the heady proximity.
If they came together…
If he followed his covetousness to conclusion…
And who among them is without sin? Jesus had said that. And had he not included himself in the sentiment?
“To the end,” he says, and in that moment, there is no other truth.
I am a forest, and a night of dark trees; but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses. Nietzsche had given him this one.
Ozzy, he considers, is not afraid. Defiant in his arrogance, changed but not diminished, in the dancing burn of embers in his dark eyes.
And would a daffodil not grow nicely among a field of roses?
If you love a flower, don’t pick it up. Because if you pick it up, it dies and it ceases to be.
Osho had offered that one.
Another wisdom.
And normally, Coach would abide the words of philosophers, smarter than he. In his infinite humbleness, he would listen.
But does a god, a true god, not desire for the harvest to be reaped? Is a blooming flower not ready to be plucked?
“To the end,” he says, Ozzy’s body so close to his own, the thrum of his blood dancing beneath Coach’s fingers. And the sun is spun up in him, the foam of the ocean, the bright bloom of petals.
He says it, and, on his tongue, the nectar of victory is sweet.