Healing Across Time; Bonding in a Field

A View from the Middle

Early morning a middle aged man walks amongst the fields his children once played, barefoot, planted.

Smiles, joy, after arising from the seated plane.

Is he dreaming?

He spots an old man sitting on a bench dedicated to someone who was loved and lost.

The old man watches the young man (by his standards) begin to shadow box, shirt off feeling the sun across his body as he moves kinetically.

An energy moves between them, a recognition of something not touched upon, not spoken.

“Do I know this old man?” thinks the man. His long gray beard, the cane at his side. “What is he hiding?” he thinks.

He goes about his business, slowly working in combinations, slips, rolls, etc. The mirror of an opponent within his grasp.

Suddenly, he feels a presence behind him, coming forth from the East, where the sun still rises.

He turns, a boy, with a smile, bright blond hair, a crown on his head, wielding a sword, steps out from the shadows.

Bright blue eyes, he knows but not knows, sees but not sees.

“Do I know this lad?” he thinks.

“Hello kid.”

“Hello mister, what are you doing?”

“I’m using my hands how you use your sword. Why do you have a sword?”

“I pierce the dragon, keep him at bay. But he tends to wander in the dense forest behind my house.”

A kid after my own heart, he thought.

“Sometimes I imagine he is in my house, my closet. On some nights I am afraid, other nights I slay him. Depends on….” he looks down, melancholy.

“I know,” the man says.

“Who and what is your enemy? I don’t see anything, just you punching air.”

“I’m training for the real thing.”

“Like make believe.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“I think I’m going to add a new game where I rescue a princess from the clutches of the dragon. What do you think?”

“Don’t rush it kid. Maybe know his habits first, how to trick or turn the tables. Then worry about rescuing her. But you got bigger things to worry about then.”

“What could that be?

“Keeping her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just because you rescue, doesn’t mean you know anything about charm.”

“What’s charm?”

“Exactly. Don’t worry about the princess. Just hold down the castle for now.”

The kid got closer, the man bent down, looked him in the eyes, and said, “I know why you have a dragon, I know why you want to slay it.”

The kid teared up. He put his arms around the man’s shoulders. They hugged, tightly. Time stood still, green ground gave way, the field was expanding under their feet. Suspension.

After what seemed like forever and no time at all, the boy backed away and smiled. So did the man. The boy looked over at the old man who was still on the bench.

“That man, how long has been sitting there?” the boy asked.

“I don’t know. I looked and he was there. When I opened my eyes, he appeared.”

“He sure has a long gray beard, doesn’t he? Grayer than yours!”

“Ha ha, yes, he does.”

The boy started to pretend battle the man with the sword while the man pretended to box him, feinting and such. They laughed and played.

They stopped suddenly and looked over at the old man again. He had risen from the bench which was dedicated to the dead.

He started to wield his cane, like the boy did with the sword, quite agile, quite skilled.

“I like your style old man!” the middle aged man shouted.

“As I do you, young men!” he shouted back.

“I will leave you two to it. But know this, the reaper comes forth in his time. My time is short. My path laid out. As the ancients did, I am now Westing. I head that way.”

He pointed West.

“Do I know you?” the middle aged man asked.

“Me? Not really. You did once, but no longer. The man you see now is merely a memory to you. Congratulations for that sir.”

The old man looked at the little boy and said, “Take heart to what he told you. Especially regarding the princess. Or you will end up like me.”

“Like what? What do you mean?”

The old man chuckled to himself, looked down and said, “That’s for me and me alone.”

He clapped his hands together with his cane, smiled, and said, “Hetep.”

He walked to the west, a pep in his step, a vitality and a twirling of the cane. Charlie Chaplin at his finest.

The man and the boy watched him vanish.

“Wow, it’s like he never existed, he just vanished in thin air.”

“Oh he existed all right. Parts of him. He left us the rest. The best part; they’re no longer scattered.”

The boy looked up in contemplation and said, “I think I know what you mean. My mom is calling. I got to head back that way.”

He pointed East.

“I’ll be back here tomorrow for a new day,” the boy said. “What about you?”

“You won’t see me for awhile. I’ll come and visit here and there. When you need me.”

“Or when you need me?”

“No, I’ve graduated. If anything, I’m moving closer to the old man, just without the old.”

“If you keep punching like that, you will stay young,” said the boy.

“Hey, look at me,” said the man. “Sometimes, it’s ok to the let the dragon rest. Remember this.”

With those bright eyes, smile of wonder and joy only on a face with life right in front of him, he said, “I will,” and the same wonder and joy passed into the middle aged man. His eyes welled up.

“Bye,” said the boy.

“See you kid,” said the man.

The boy walked across the field. Before crossing onto the concrete, with that last blade of grass under his feet, he looked back, crown resting upon his head. He smirked that smirk the man knew oh too well. As the boy smirked, he eyed the sword in his hand, took a long hard hand across it’s metal (which was plastic just a few minutes ago), looked back with the smirk, turned, walked onto the concrete and vanished in the shadows.

The man stood there for who knows. In the middle of the field. He laughed out loud and was joyful.

“Was that old man Merlin to my Arthur? Or are we merged? I guess time will tell.”

He didn’t walk off the field East or West. He remained in the middle. Walking off into the infinite.

AWAKE