I have been having a hard time writing lately as I have touched on in another post but I keep showing up everyday with pen and paper to see if anything shows up. A few weeks ago a song emerged and today while working on a post this story showed up. I have been emailing back and forth several people who are going through grief, pain, lostness…etc. I was thinking about them as I was trying to write. I couldn’t figure out what to say but as I was trying to find the words a story about a boy came out instead.
City of Light
A boy walks lost on a darkened road his flashlight shinning just enough to see his next few steps. He is searching for the city of light. He is hungry, alone and things emerge on the path that scares him. A tiger appears and he runs into the woods, in the woods he finds a clearing with berries, fruit and water. He stays in the clearing thinking he will sleep but mosquitoes and bugs bite his skin so he pushes forward through the woods and bushes. He can’t find his way out. He feels hopeless. He stumbles onto a girl in the woods. She looks at him with kind eyes, takes his hand and leads him to the path again.
He is grateful for the girl and they walk together but the boy grows impatient and wants to run. He wants to get where he is going so he runs and runs and runs….stumbling through the dark. The girl begins to fall behind. He can only hear her now in the darkness but he keeps running. He cannot keep up this pace. His stomach turns and he falls sick. He cannot move. His companion catches up. She fetches him water, wets his forehead through the fever, and makes him a bed on the road. Her kindness in the face of his helplessness changes him. A seed of light is planted and something in his soul opens up. He doesn’t feel like running anymore. He watches the bees on the flowers as she cares for him. He sleeps and emerges refreshed.
Together they walk for months and months. They are content with only seeing the next step. They cross a bridge over a charging river. The river sweeps the girl away. He jumps into the river after her. Swimming with all his might, his tears mix with the river that carries him, but she is gone. He pulls himself out of the water. He weeps for seven days. He has lost everything; his love, his flashlight, his friend. When his strength comes back he climbs the cliffs of the jagged canyon and begins to walk again in the darkness. He is leaner now, stronger, and focused. Even in the darkness he sees her kind eyes everywhere and in everything.
Out of the darkness comes a small child with a baby both hungry and cold. He discovers the light and love she gave him still burn hot inside him. The boy looks at them with the same kindness of the girl and takes them in. He gives them his coat, his food, his water, leads them by the hand and carries them both when they are tired. In turn they share their light with him.
The boy becomes a man along the path and raises the children. He feels the seed of light the girl planted in him growing; it is becoming a field, an orchard, a woods, a forest and all he wants to do is give it all away. He no longer worries about his destination; his only concern is to care for the children and the garden inside him.
At a fork in the road the children, now grown, leave him. No longer needing a flashlight he gives it to them, kisses them farewell and walks in the darkness. As he walks away he sees the seed of light the girl gave him burning in them now and he smiles. He is alone again. His skin has become thin, almost luminous, his eyes are bright. He grows weak and tired but is overjoyed as he finds before him an enormous field of lillies. He lays in the field staring up at the stars. He thinks of all of the calamities and struggles that have lead him to this exact place, this field of flowers. He stares up at the stars and as he does he feels his skin slipping into the soil and underneath his garden of radiance bursting forward. A door opens in the dark sky and there before him the destination he sought when he set out so long ago. With his last breath he puts his foot forward and enters the city of light.
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