Riley Part 2
His name was not Riley. However, it suited his needs. A real name would never be known to anyone but himself. It had to be that way. His plan would not allow any deviation for personal reasons. The plan was too… well, too personal to permit such distraction.
It would be almost impossible to say when the plan itself took form. It had come into being over several decades. For his first 30 years at least, many parts of the plan were not even possible. The first recollection, the beginning of it all, could be traced back to his childhood.
An only child, born in his parents’ later years, he was spoiled and precocious; reading by the age of three and devouring college-level literature by seven. The summer he turned eight, his parents took him west to Oregon to visit family. His mother’s youngest sister lived in a small town 30 miles from the ocean.
Several days into their visit, both families drove to the beach for a picnic. After eating, the adults settled down in the sun to talk. Most of the children went to play in the small summer waves. Alone even then, he wandered up the beach and across the coastal highway. Exploring as only an eight-year-old can, he found himself in a grove of impossibly huge trees. It took him over a minute just to walk around a single giant in the center of the grove. The air had changed from cool ocean breeze to a damp, almost suffocating mist.
He stood in that grove, transfixed, feeling the mist on his face from above, until it grew dark. In that time, he neither heard the adults calling him nor saw them searching urgently in the forest below him. All he could hear was the whispering sounds of the old forest. The wind in the trees, the scuttle of small creatures living in the thick humus on the ground, the call of birds high in the canopy.
The sun’s final setting rays broke his trance and he realized that he was cold and lost. As he found his way back to the road, his mind kept replaying the view of those giant trees, reaching up so high into the clouds.
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