Thursday, June 30, 2011

the path to all good things

here's the scene.

You're driving, your hands moist against the leather of the steering wheel. You can feel the engine's vibrations cursing through your fingertips, the roaring traveling up your leg from where your foot is gently pressing ever more downward on the gas.

Around you is only darkness and light. There is no in between. You can vaguely make out shapes to either side of you. The right, those must be mountains, but they are only an obscure black outline to you. The left, the woods, but you cannot make out individual trees; it is all one shadow.

You are traveling down a road that cuts between these two black shapes. Ahead of you, you can see a few other cars speeding along the road as well. Red lights occasionally lighting up and blinking back out. Ahead of you even further, beyond the end of where your eyes can see the road, is the ultimate darkness. A vast spread of black that is littered with specks of glowing light. The stars. They are beautiful.

Your eyes trace the path of a car, much like your own, racing along the path ahead of you. It speeds around a corner as it climbs around the side of the mountain, and disappears into the air, becoming one of the stars that litter the night sky.

Your heart beat intensifies. You can feel it pressing against your ribcage. You will soon be in the heavens. Finally, you will be in the heavens.

As you begin your curve around the edge of the mountain the lights of a city fill your view. The road does not continue it's upward ascent but instead dips downward into a bowl shaped valley. At the center there is light. Hundreds of glowing, blinking and moving lights.

These are the stars that could not make it to the sky. These are the stars that gave up on the path to all good things and instead fell. They sit there in their bowl of light, thinking that they followed the path and merely ended up here instead. You ease your foot off the gas.

Pulling over to the side of the road, you get out of your car. There is a mountain in front of you, but at the top of the mountain there is only darkness, and there is only light.

You begin your climb.

8 comments:

  1. Is the top of the mountain a KFC? because I've been tricked before...

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  2. You have a great artistic writing style, I love it.

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  3. Very nice, I enjoyed it.

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  4. I really like the amount of detail you put into this, and the underlying message is inspiring. Thank you for posting this!

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  5. this could become a really wicked poem. if you cut out all the telling, you're left with a really graceful piece

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