He stood at the threshold looking at the valley beneath, bathing in the morning sunshine. The light was warm on his face, the kind of warmth that reaches the bone when the bone is old enough to need it. Somewhere below, a lark went up, its call thin and insistent against the silence.
“Come back inside,” came the voice from behind. “You won’t make it.”
He said nothing. They always talked about arriving. He never had. Who was he without it? Himself? Probably not. He couldn’t imagine himself without being on the trail.
“Come take a rest,” the voice kept insisting. “Drink some medicinal herbs.”
He was getting annoyed. Why pause a journey? Why take rest? Why stop? No. Motion is the sense of it.
“You may die,” came the voice.
He set off. Every step was hard, as it carried not only the body but also the weight of more than eighty years. He was passing through the meadow. Full of flowers — white and yellow, nodding in clusters he had never noticed from the house. For sense is in the journey.
He walked past the pond. Sunshine reflected in the water. Serenity. He stopped for a moment. He had taken his son here once, leaving him on the shore while he went on to fish from the boat. The boy had been small enough to fit in the crook of his arm. Now the boy had children of his own.
He passed the garden. The soil was dark and turned. Someone had been here with him last season, hands beside his hands, pulling what he pointed to. He had not asked for help. She had not offered. They had simply worked until the light was gone. For a journey is what you leave behind.
He walked on. His breaths were getting heavier, crackling, yet he managed to get to the forest. For a journey is a choice.
He saw his mother between the trees, standing where the path bent out of sight. He walked toward her.
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I really loved this piece, and even now I’ve finished reading it, the imagery it conjured still lingers with me. I was deeply moved by his choice to keep walking. Even while voices pulled him this way and that, he had already decided his path. The journey remained his. And that ending, with his mother waiting between the trees, felt strangely peaceful to me. Not frightening at all. More like he had finally arrived home.
Stunning read.
~ Nerra ⚔️⚡️⚖️
The hair on my arms is standing on end. That was beautiful.