W…ritten by
jaron summers © 2026
There are tribes in the South Pacific who once watched American cargo planes land during the war and unload canned meat, boots, radios, and miracles.
When the war ended and the planes stopped coming, the tribes built bamboo runways and carved wooden headphones. They stood there in the sun and waited.
It sounds foolish, until you remember that we all build bamboo runways. The only difference is funding.
Give any belief enough years and it grows respectable. Give it wealthy elderly believers with deteriorating hearing and access to titanium, and it grows expensive.
Which is how my friend Augustus Finch, age 101, nearly reorganized eternity around a vowel.
Augustus had outlived his rivals, two wives, and three cardiologists.
His hearing arrived late to conversations and occasionally substituted its own ideas. His eyesight softened edges.
His balance had begun negotiating with gravity instead of commanding it.
He also kept company with three dazzling young women whom he called “concubines.” They preferred “consultants,” but one does not correct a man who owns the carpet.
One afternoon his pastor came for tea.
“Augustus,” the pastor said gently, “at your age the most important thing is to prepare your soul.”
Augustus adjusted his hearing aid. One of the consultants leaned closer, as if proximity might improve theology.
“Repair my sole?” Augustus said.
The pastor blinked.
Augustus raised a hand, delighted.
“Finally,” he said, “something specific.”
Now, you must understand something about rich old men. They love specificity. It gives the illusion that eternity can be itemized.
Within forty-eight hours Augustus had summoned three cobblers, a podiatrist, and a structural engineer who spoke about “load-bearing destiny” with the seriousness of a man billing by the hour.
“If there is to be an ascent,” Augustus declared, “traction will be required.”
Titanium arch supports were ordered. Triple stitching. Shock-absorbing gel inserts. Backup soles stored in a vault labeled SPIRITUAL RESERVE.
The pastor returned.
“How are we doing?”
Augustus extended a gleaming shoe like a sacrament.
“I am magnificently prepared.”
“That,” the pastor said carefully, “is not your soul.”
Augustus smiled the way a man smiles at clergy who do not own vineyards.
“My dear man,” he said, “everything rests on something.”
The consultants nodded. They had learned that metaphors depreciate faster than footwear.
They tried, bless them.
The youngest once said, “Shouldn’t you also prepare your will?”
Augustus heard, “Prepare the hill.”
The gentle slope behind the estate was flattened by Tuesday.
Another murmured over dinner, “You look heavenly.”
Augustus heard, “You’ll leave heavily.”
He canceled dessert.
A third, after a small stumble, said, “Rest easy.”
Augustus heard, “Test the knee.”
He scheduled imaging.
Language around old money and mortality is like passing nitroglycerin across a marble floor.
Augustus escalated.
- He banned marble.
- He carpeted the garden.
- He replaced stairs with ramps.
- He outlawed the phrase “fall from grace.”
He invested in a start-up called Eternal Grip™.
He began sleeping in reinforced boots.
The pastor made one final attempt.
“Augustus,” he said gently, “your soul transcends the body.”
Augustus tapped his titanium sole.
“And what,” he asked reasonably, “supports the body?”
The pastor did not own titanium.
At 103, Augustus unveiled his masterpiece: an elevated walkway so his shoes would never again touch the dangerous ambiguity of soil.
Reporters came. Investors came. The consultants came in silk and caution.
Before cutting the ribbon, the pastor leaned close and tried once more.
“Prepare your soul.”
Augustus beamed.
“My soles,” he corrected, “are invincible.”
He stepped forward to demonstrate.
The titanium caught slightly on the lip of the platform. Not because it was weak. Because it was perfect.
He tipped backward with dignified surprise and landed gently on the very lawn he had spent two years avoiding.
The grass, having no opinion on theology, accepted him without argument.
One consultant whispered, “Was it the hill?”
Another said, “The soles were extraordinary.”
The third quietly reviewed estate projections.
You may laugh at bamboo runways.
You may laugh at titanium salvation. But the difference between a cargo cult and a luxury retirement is often a consonant.
Augustus did not misunderstand religion.
He misunderstood a vowel.
And when you have lived long enough and accumulated enough money, that is quite sufficient.
Because in the end, it is not gravity that undoes us.
It is confidence in what we thought we heard.
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