Serendipity & the Serpent

Back To The Future (Epilogue)

The California sun reflected off of the fall leaves, giving the atmosphere a warm, orange tint. You looked out of your car window in awe, watching a few leaves fall, joining their companions on the ground. You had been back home for quite some time now, but oh how you missed this while you were gone.

There was about an hour of sunlight left, and you let it wash over your skin. You tapped your fingers on the steering wheel, following along with the radio as it played Bohemian Rhapsody. You smiled at the fond memory that felt like a lifetime ago.

And looking back on your story, everything seemed so simple.

And you assumed it was. You were a teenager then, too foolish and immature for the world ahead of you. What you had with Johnny Lawrence was young love. You replayed your first memories of him all the time, cringing at how quickly you became a hopeless romantic.

With one hand on the wheel, you laughed silently under your breath, reaching for your cup of coffee in the cup holder, with the other. As you drove, the autumn leaves dropping to the ground, reminded you of your first fall here.

When you first met Johnny Lawrence.

Of course you and Johnny had broken up after high school. The two of you were going strong for quite sometime... that is until you moved to New York City to pursue your dreams of music. You went on to be a songwriter for some big name bands and artists. But recently... you wanted to start writing for yourself.

And what better way to do that, then to go to the source... where it all started?

Home.

The feeling of home was welcoming in a sense. Sunny California, where your life was flipped upside down forever. The memories came flooding back to you the moment your plane had landed six years ago. You recalled an image of Johnny Lawrence looking into your eyes, had followed. You remember scolding yourself for questioning what he had been up to after all those years apart. How was he? Was he married? Did he have any children? You couldn't find him on any social media platforms, so your perception of him now was strictly assumptions.

Sighing, you thought back on your time spent away from him after high school as you drove through the back roads, colliding with the forest. You took the trip down memory lane more seriously then intended.

You tried the long distance thing with him for awhile, the phone calls with a pricey outcome, the letter writing and the adventurous postcards, but none of them stuck. Before you said your final goodbyes, you sent him one last parting gift: your Walkman, to make up for the two of his that you broke. It was a mutual breakup, one in which you both agreed to never forget each other.

It was sappy, you knew that. But it reigned true for quite sometime. Even the fact that you were thinking about him in that specific moment, spoke volumes to your soul. You never really got over him.

You had sporadically dated throughout your lifetime, but none of them ever came close to Johnny. And in a sense, you were glad.

Because just as time pushed you together at one point in your lives, it had done the same again all these years later.

Within the first week of arriving back at home, you had come face to face with him. In fact, you had rekindled your stories in the same spot that you were driving away from at this very moment.

Mr. Miyagi's grave.

As a songwriter, you spent days upon days trying to come up with lyrics that would trigger a certain emotion within the listening audience. When you heard the news of Mr. Miyagi's passing, you dropped everything.

There was not enough words in the dictionary, or any human language, to express the love you had felt for a father figure such as himself. He was caring and kind, sacrificial, and simply wonderful.