The fog draped itself heavily over the flat, brown water of Honey Island Swamp, wrapped lazily around the great knees of the cypress trees, and undulated through the heavy, damp air. Lying on my back in an old abandoned canoe I had found near the swamp’s entrance, I watched its ghostly fingers brush across my body.

Did the fog dream of a constant shape in time? Did it long for solidity and mortality?

I deeply envied its ethereal disembodiment.

My earth-bound body yearned to float through the lush wildness of the swamp, to slip between the cypress trunks and dance over the tepid water teeming with every variety of life. Somewhere nearby, something large rolled beneath the surface and disappeared without showing itself. Frogs called from the banks. A heron stood among the trees so perfectly still that for a moment I mistook it for a pale branch.

Everything around me seemed determined to live.

I closed my eyes tightly and willed my soul to break free of its prison within my body.

Over and over I urged it. But no matter how intensely I concentrated, my soul remained trapped at the bottom of the canoe, encased in the pale flesh that had brought me trouble time and time again.

Last night’s drinking binge had twisted me into a fetal curl. I held my aching head between my hands, breathed deeply, and forced all bad thoughts from my mind, concentrating instead on the image of a single gardenia.

I imagined its creamy white blossoms, the lush seductiveness of its fragrance—

when suddenly the canoe struck a small island of soil, sending it into a slow spin and breaking my reverie.

Memories of the drama that had caused the drinking binge burst through my gardenia fantasy with the force of a hurricane.

“I don’t think you should come over anymore.”

His words sliced my heart into little pieces. The perfect size to fry up with eggs and serve with grits before church on Sunday morning.

“Why not? Don’t I please you. Last night’s performance begs to differ.” I asked, half jokingly.

“No, you do just fine in that area. It’s this love thing that you keep mentioning. Baby, you’re a whole lotta fun, but I just could never feel any love for you.”

He said it casually.

I left clutching my stomach, which had suddenly turned itself inside out.

Things became somewhat hazy after that. I do recall driving my old Mustang to the Boat Shed, a rough-and-tumble bar in Biloxi. Perched on a homemade barstool, I raised my whiskey glass repeatedly while offering a silent—and occasionally audible—prayer.

“Bless you, my brother Jack Daniel’s. Your 80-proof manna soothes the aching hunger of my soul.”

By the half-light before dawn, I had somehow made my way to Honey Island Swamp.

Now, lying in that old canoe with nothing but fog and cypress trees to witness me, vague thoughts of sliding into the murky water and sinking gently into a quiet oblivion flooded my groggy mind.

I imagined his guilt-ridden face at the funeral.

It pleased me to think of guilt tormenting his conscience for the rest of his miserable life.

While I was pondering this delicious morbidity, a bird landed at the end of the canoe.

Not just your ordinary, garden-variety bird, either, but a redbird—a cardinal, if you insist on being formal about it.

He was brilliant crimson, startling against the gray swamp, like freshly spilled blood.

He perched on the bow and looked at me.

I looked back.

He cocked his head.

“What the hell are you looking at?” I asked.

The redbird offered no explanation.

Instead he continued staring at me with one small black eye, apparently unimpressed by either my hangover or my tragedy.

As I admired his pristine little body, I remembered something Grandma had told me when I was a child.

“Sweetie, departed souls who in life longed to soar freely in the sky will be born again as birds.”

I could almost hear her voice.

“Courageous souls will return as eagles, proud champions of the skies. Foul-mouthed, meddlesome ones become roadkill-picking buzzards, reminiscent of their gossip-picking days as humans.”

Then she had leaned toward me.

“And there are a few rare souls like yourself. They become brightly colored birds who bring a sense of hope to all those who see them.”

She hugged me tightly and pinched my chubby young cheeks.

Grandma had apparently neglected to consult the female cardinal before assigning all that hope to the flashy one.

The redbird was still watching me.

Around us the swamp had begun to change. The darkness beneath the cypress trees softened. Frogs called back and forth from places I couldn’t see. Something splashed near the bank, followed by widening circles that disturbed the brown water and then vanished.

Life was beginning its morning business.

The bird fluffed his feathers.

And suddenly I understood something.

The point of all this is that dead birds, no matter how lavish their colors, bring happiness to no one.

With this sobering thought in mind, I sat up.

The canoe rocked beneath me.

For one unpleasant second, the dark water seemed very close.

Then the redbird launched himself from the bow.

He flashed across the gray water like a spark, landed briefly on the crooked limb of a cypress tree, and disappeared into the fog.

I watched the place where he had vanished.

Then I saluted the rising fog and the dawning day and began the difficult task of paddling toward land.

Minus the paddle.

That’s the damn problem with suicide.

You never plan for that unexpected change of mind.