We see them every day in our grid locked, snail trail to and from work, vagabonds of failure, princes of the streets, the homeless, the dirty, the forgotten. However, have you ever stopped to think, perhaps they have a story? A beginning, middle and an end, just like the rest of us. Perhaps even dreams and aspirations. This is a story of one man, with one simple dream, to die where he chooses. This is Noah’s story. An old man, a boat and the sea. An adventure of self-discovery and faith.
Noah's Ark
Add to My Profile | More VideosNoah the Marine served his country and sacrificed his youth in Southeast Asia. He came home with a broken heart and broken mind. Society knows little of the horrors of war. The men who fight, never forget. Noah, never forgot and the horror never forgot him. Like many who have seen the hell of war, the hell follows them home. Noah was no exception. He found the country he swore an oath to save, changed and so did he. The flashbacks and trauma led him to the streets. Thirty plus years of grit, smog, solitude and cold nights have taken it’s toll on the now, man of sixty two years. After decades of living on the hard streets, cancer has invaded the old man’s lungs, courtesy of the thirty years of bus fumes.The VA has some of the best doctors around, but Noah is beyond the help of man. Where does one with nothing go? Where does one with no one find compassion? The streets are hard, but they are at least familiar. Noah takes a long walk along the beach. He forgot just how beautiful the ocean really was. If only the water could sweep him away from this filthy, lonely place. A boat graveyard, fifty yards down the beach holds the answers. All the forgotten and battered vessels that washed up on the shore throughout the years are stored at the county yard, which consists of rows upon rows of boats that once upon a time shimmered in the ocean spray of the morning waves, but now dull and rust under the withering sun, just like Noah. All that separates the boats from the freedom of the sea is a chain link fence. What torture it must be to see the blue horizon and feel the breeze, between the links.An idea begins to take form in the old man’s head. Days before he found a postcard in the trash from Robert. Who is Robert? Who knows, as this is not what is important. What is important is where the postcard is from…. Costa Rica. Noah’s mind runs circles. Three thousand miles from here is as good a place to die than any and certainly a better choice than L.A. It takes Noah nearly a month to collect and cash in enough recyclable cans and repair the boat under moonlit nights in silent secret. One night, the tide will come and he will go on the adventure of his life. One man’s simple dream to die in paradise is far from simple and he will go through hell to find Heaven as he sails a little boat called Noah’s Ark.
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