By: Javier Leonardo
It feels like this is a good moment to stop. I’ve been walking for a while without looking back, or even noticing what surrounds me. I don’t feel any pain in my legs, but somehow I know I’m tired. The dense dark fog in front of me waits for me, silent and mysterious as always. Behind me, all my memories and decisions. A big path, already walked. It’s the road of my life, one that only exists because I’ve made it here.
So I stop, just for a second, and I can feel something is not right. The fog in front of me makes me scared, and I miss and have missed everything I’ve left behind. There in the fog, I could find something nice, but the long road here teaches me otherwise. Lately, the fog has dispersed to scare me, anger me or sadden me, so my body doesn’t push forward by inertia anymore. The path is dark in front of me, and dark behind me.
Something is not right, so I look around for a clue. Many different roads open up in front of me, and I notice Oli sitting right at the middle of the intersection. His tongue is out, his tail is wagging, and his body seems full of energy, like when he was a pup . His right eye is brown and fierce, and his left eye is blue and always worried.
“Where should I go?” I ask him, hopeful for the miracle of hearing a voice that has not spoken to me in more than 10 years.
My voice’s echo thunders around me. What surrounds me is a different reality. I just asked a question to a dog that kept me company during high school and college, and I have no doubt he can understand me.
“Anywhere you want,” he barks.
His voice is the same sweet voice I always imagined. A voice I would imitate while we played. A voice that never existed, but I heard many times when I needed it. Hearing him talk makes this one of the best moments of my life, a dream come true. But his intervention might be too late.
“I will take whatever path is easiest… or the shortest,” I said with sadness and exhaustion.
“Not the shortest! It’s better to keep going than to stop,” Oli replies. “Trust me. The short road, by definition, cannot take you that far. And there’s no easy path. If you don’t keep walking the time will move you, but you will go nowhere. It’s better to keep going and see what’s in the fog. Face your next adventures.”
“I’m tired. I don’t want to go on forever”.
“And what do you want?”
Of course, the question with the infinite answers — therefore none at all. I look back and wonder if I should trace my steps back to when I knew where I was headed. Oli does what he always does best and goes on ahead of me. He runs into the past, forcing me to run behind him, making sure my beloved guardian doesn’t run into trouble. All the roads I walked are full of intersections: sometimes just two roads, sometimes as many as every single opportunity or chance. We ran past all of the people who walked some part of the road with me, before they unavoidably had to return to their ways. We see many buildings that made me safe, places with short, sweet memories, and others I wish had never been a part of my journey. Oli stops in front of his aged body. There’s nothing around us, because I don’t remember a single thing besides his dying gaze.
“Remember this?” Oli barks. “I do.”
“And why did you bring me here?” I responded hesitantly. “There’s no intersections, like in most of the path. There’s fog, even though it’s a memory. Such a sad memory.”
“There was only one choice back then. Remember what it was?”
“To stay with you.”
“All you could do is lay there. People were screaming, your phone was buzzing. A lot was going on. Yet you stopped. You have always been indecisive, but back then you just decided to stay with me.”
“Of course… I wanted time to stop.”
“And then it didn’t, so you kept going. There’s nothing but me around here, in these memories, which I appreciate. You stopped moving forward for a while, feeling safer in memories, but the time kept going, and you were not going anywhere”
“You were a part of the road for so long. It was definitely different from here on.”
“Different, but the same! You eventually kept going and there were good and bad days, like always.”
“I wish you were there for all of it,” I say, sadly.
“Couldn’t be there, but you always knew I was here.”
The warmth of my life companion eases all tension on my shoulders and back. It takes a couple seconds and the future decision slows down. The fog to which I’m walking stops approaching so fast.
“Are you not here to help me? Tell me where to go?” I ask Oli.
“I’m here for the same reason I always was, because you need me,” Oli takes a look around. “The fog slowed down, and now you have some time to figure out which road to take.”
“There’s so many… How will I know where I will end up?”
“You can’t know where you will end up, but you can always choose where you want to go,” the dog paces wisely. “And then, if that road makes your path longer, or harder, you can take another one. The road will be the right one as long as it leads to where you want to go, right?”
The question pops in my head. This moment, spiritual or insane, makes more sense than anything else I’ve lived before.
“Can I go with you? Stay here?”
“And why? You were already here, and now this is here forever. Now more moments like this will come. But if you keep going, there’s nothing but new moments,” Oli smiles.“Sounds pretty good to me”
Suddenly, a loud snore breaks past the infinity around me. The accidental lack of breathing normalcy of the man next to me scares me and all the critters nearby. Our dog Appa has his head up, with worried eyes aimed at mine, one brown, and one light blue. What a fateful dream, and such a comforting image to wake up to. I wish I could stay in the moment a little bit longer, but I can feel my eyes close, and another world takes over.
As I drift off into sleep, I realize that it’s not so bad to stay on the road, fighting against the fog not just to get to the end of the road, but to enjoy every step, every path, every choice, every “walking buddy.” A road made easier by looking around, enjoying what is and what was, excited for what will be.
Woof!
Deja un comentario