The young woman walked the dirt road
in a slow and measured trudging stride. Her plain white skirt hung lifelessly
and the equally plain white blouse she wore seemed as dull as the day.
The damp dirt she walked over made
little noise and no echo.
She had been walking the same road
for more than five years now. Her plodding steps were rhythmic to her ears, but
the slow progress she made to wherever she was going was aging her another day
with ever passing step.
She was not a lovely, not a classic
woman. She was ordinary; neither pretty nor plain. She was unimpressive and
unadorned. She walked the road down the middle neither too far to the left nor
too far to the right.
She had features that made her not
stand out in a crowd and she'd heard one time that she could hide in a group of
five.
The air hung about her. It was
neither a cold, nor a warm day, just as it had been since she found this
never-ending sameness. The constant low hanging clouds obscured the sun which
never shown on her face since she began her walk. No shadow accompanied her on
her walk. She was alone.
The road had no scenery. Small tufts
of grass sprouted at irregular intervals along her path, but they were as
uninteresting as the dirt upon which she walked. The grass was as uninteresting
as its greenish-brown coloring.
She had had a coat when she began
her walk. She had used it to protect her from the environs that now had become
her monotony. The young woman's coat had fallen by the wayside. She believed
she no longer needed the protection of the coat, but in retrospect, she now
wishes she had the company of her coat. Walking along down this road had become
nearly unbearable to her.
Her days were always the same on
this road of loneliness. Mists from the clouds occasionally dampened her
spirits and made her walk more slowly. Sadness enveloped her on some days while
on others the monotony remained unchallenged.
The road she walked was nearly
always silent. No birds sang, no trees whispered, there was no distant hush of
vehicles going somewhere and she never heard an aircraft passing over her in
its destination to somewhere else.
Her solitude was close to absolute.
At times she would pass another
person on this road of solitude, but they had baggage she didn't want to have
to help carry. She often recalled the people who passed her, always men, some
had baggage filled with empty bottles, others had bags filled with lies or
anger, some had issues which were hidden in the bags, but she could tell their
burdens were heavy.
The young lady had baggage of her
own and she often wondered to herself if maybe she shouldn't shed some of it to
help make her walk easier. But the baggage was all she had of her past. With no
future in her sights, other than the road she now walked, she held her baggage
close to her.
Breaking the solitude on her walk
were gates. These were the openings she would pass where she would here the
voices of others. Every few weeks she would pass a gate. Sometimes they were
open to her only enough for her to see through the cracks, other times they
would open enough for her to slip through, but not her baggage. She wouldn't
leave her baggage.
She would look through the gates to
the other side. She had seen men happily playing with their children; she had
seen men sitting at their desks working. Through other gates she saw men on the
beach playing games. All looked as if they were waiting for someone to walk
through the gate and join them, but she never entered.
Many years in her past, when her
bags were few and she had been on a different road, she had entered through one
of the gates and had gleefully played with the man inside. They had made joy
and basked in the sunshine.
But the man had hurt her, had broken
her trust and defiled her soul. She left in pain and began her lonely walk down
this new road of solitude
Those memories were now in her
baggage. She vowed that she had been hurt to the core by that man and no one
would ever again have the power over her to hurt her so deeply.
The coat of her childhood protected
her somewhat from the pain, but it too became a burden she could no longer
carry. So her coat fell by the wayside and it was just her and her baggage.
She couldn't leave her baggage. So
these gates to fell behind her in her walk down the desolate road. At some
point in her walk, she even stopped looking at what was beyond the gates and
just looked ahead of her on the road, noticing how it narrowed further ahead.
She wondered at times in the road would ever stop for her, if there would ever
be an end to this ennui.
Well into her fifth year on the
road, she happened upon a swinging gate.
The gate was rusted and creaked from
the wind she didn't feel.
It had been months since a gate had
piqued her interest. She had become so used to ignoring the gates that she's
almost forgotten that they were there; almost forgot that there was a way off
this road of desolation and loneliness.
Her curiosity got the better of her
and she had to look at what was beyond the gate. It had been so long since she
had looked through a gate, she was somewhat shaken by what she saw.
Peering through the opening, she
could smell the fragrances of a thousand flowers; the stiff breeze that had
brought the gate to her attention assailed her hair. Colors, which were so
lacking in her world of mediocre grays and browns, attacked her eyes to a point
where she had to cover them. The sky beyond the gate was a blue she'd never
seen before. Her soul sighed in awe at the beauty.
It was only after her eyes had
adjusted to the startling yellows, luscious greens, deep purples and delicate
reds, that she saw the one thing that drew her attention the most.
In the center of the field, beyond
the gate, a man stood.
He was a nondescript man, neither
large nor small. He stood in the center of the field looking off to the
horizon. He stood strong against the warm wind that whipped his hair. His arms
were bare to the elbow and the small hairs on his muscled hands danced with
water droplets the size of teardrops.
The flannel work shirt whipped in
the warm winds and the denim jeans he wore were faded, but sturdy.
As the lady from the road watched,
the sun grew warm upon her face. Birds sang songs of summer and the winds
became gentle relief from the summer heat. Grass grew and waved to the sky
while she watched and trees blossomed generous leaves that provided shade to
the man in the field. Storms came and soaked the man even though he was under
the trees, but his face, haggard but sensitive, never lost its small smile.
Soon the cool autumn winds came to
blow summer away. The sound of rustling leaves startled her for a moment. It
had been a long time since the lady had experienced such raw life.
Thunderstorms rattled the man, but he stood staring into the distance.
Something he stared at made him
happy, the young lady concluded. That something must be very wonderful for him
to keep smiling that way. She wondered what rapture could bring such joy.
Autumn turned to winter and cool
winds became and icy blizzard. Snowdrifts formed around the man's feet. Ice
hung from his hair that was no longer whipping in the wind. The tree that had
shaded the man from the summer's heat now stood lifeless, cracking slightly in
the winds that blew the snow.
Frigid temperatures froze the young
lady's fingers and again she wished for the coat she had left behind.
As she thought about the coat, the
gate was nearly blown shut, cutting off her view of the man in the field. She
couldn't help herself, she had to watch that man and soon put all thoughts of
the coat away forever.
The gate again swung open again. The
man was still standing there, staring enigmatically into the distance. Try as
she might, she could not see what drew the man's attention. She wanted to know
what it was the man saw that caused him to stand in this field full of changes.
The snow, which had piled around his
legs, began to melt with the warm breezes of spring. Ice fell from his hair and
his eyes softened like the breezes. The spring rains caused flowers and grass
to jump out of their dormancy.
Birds once again sang their songs
and the warming winds kissed the man in the field as soft as a butterfly's
whisper. The man's smile widened just a little, but to the lady, it was the
first emotion she had seen in so very long, and she had almost missed it.
The lady compared this man's life to
her own.
Here there was a multitude of
weathers he must contend with, a series of challenges he must overcome. He must
face the stinging autumn rains, the ice and snow of the winter, but he also got
to hear the spring and feel the heat of the summer.
In her life there on the road was
nothing.
The road she walked was never
changing. It was neither warm nor cold. The sun never shined on her and she
never smelled the flowers of spring, but she never had the chance to feel the
cold of winter or feel the sting of a hard autumn rain. Her life was an
unending road of nothing, no emotions, no joy, no sorrows, no pain.
But how was this man's world
different from those in the gates she had passed before? What had drawn her to
this man in the field? What could he see in the distance?
She looked again at the man's face
as the summer sun beamed its light upon him. His smile was still as it had been
when she first looked. She decided this man must be happy. He always seemed to
enjoy whatever it was that he was looking at. She also noticed the baggage he
had beside him. There was a bag lying limply on the ground. It was small and
opened to her. She could see what he carried and it scared her not at all.
But it was the something in the
distance the young lady wanted to see. The young lady from the road, who had
grown in years and maturity wanted to feel that happiness.
The gate that blocked her way was
rusted. She could squeeze through, and for the first time, her baggage followed
her through.
Entering to field and cautiously
walking up to the man, her baggage fell to the ground. In the first few steps
she had already forgotten the reason she had kept the smaller baggage. They
fell to the wayside and were left to the field.
The young lady took a moment to
examine this man well. His eyes were thoughtful and she could see them shed a
tear. She supposed it was because of the beauty of the new day arising.
His hands looked strong but gentle.
As the weather here changed from blistering highs to frigid lows, the hands of
this man seemed to grow weathered but never cracked under the strain.
He stood tall against everything
this land threw at him. He never angered at the unfairness of the rains or the
heat that reddened his fore head. His calmness was a stark contrast to the
field in which he lived.
The lady, who had become a woman,
noticed that her baggage was being blown away in this man's field. The pain and
hurt, which she had been keeping with her, was fading into her yesterdays.
She had to know what it was that he
saw in the distance. She wanted so badly to feel the eminent joy he so
obviously felt. She had to know what it was that made this man so happy that he
would stand all the ups and downs this field was throwing at him.
Speaking softly she asked:
"What is it you see?"
Gently taking her small hand in his,
eyes never leaving what he saw in the distance, he spoke in a smooth baritone
voice: "Our tomorrows."
