The Forest

The Ledge

His defeat was alive with a privilege few rarely accomplish.  It salted wounds and ignored worth.  It climbed by without wonder and trampled on veins of rock still surrendering within his reach.

The ledge, now flourishing with unknown footsteps and neglectful minds, left a cold scar behind him.  And he let go of all the shine he so desperately wanted, leaving his palm on a course of freedom he hoped to find again.  He watched it drift further away from him while he climbed up out of the shadow that kept him there to find the chase of glitter again and the way back home.  His hands, burdened with loss and the haunting riddle he fought against, would steady on untouched stone and unspoken thoughts, just like the one rattling in a jar on the baseball bleachers from the hands of a man he remembered.

One by one, they started falling in a cadence around him, never stopping to damage his route.  But his stone survived.  It carried him to the depth of heights in a consuming stride that pursued the morsel of hope she promised.  The mountain ahead of he and Jule envied the survivors who persevered in its glory and challenged its strength.  It showed no remorse and left no mercy.  It rained, it snowed, it froze and it laughed through the cracks of its rocky skin.  It was slippery, it was cold and it was humiliating.  But the tracks he followed were his own prints, stepping on the safety of a hand that already knew the way.  

He was exhausted and completely aware of the rocks of misfortune existing against his body and the exposure at his back.  It claimed its victory in an angry defeat of shale he chose to avoid.  Up and down and over the boulders of jagged rock, they stayed on a course to find nothing.

"Jule, I'm tired. I can't go on much longer."

Jacks' breath was slow and bleeding into the ice face when Jule stopped to stare into a frail mind on the mountain. 

"Close your eyes and I will tell you a story," he said softly. 

Jack steadied himself on his encouraging words, hoping his tale would bring him the power to persevere.  And Jule, sitting above him, looked down out toward the steep, angled path they just climbed with absolute certainty his view would lead to answer the secret of the mysterious and complicated sign post upon entry, "The Riddle of Masterpiece."  The one that Jack uncovered etched on a tree when he tumbled into his dream. 

Jule began.

"Once there was a man. He was quiet and strong. He watched the world go by as if he wasn't in it. His success, a legacy. His failures, glorified. He waited his entire life with an endless tolerance to indifference. Then one day, he was given a gift. And it sat in a box for a very long time until he opened it. It sat inside the box alone, completely immune to a source. He stared at it closely and intently, like somebody else had the ability to make it real. He envied it for its strength. He admired it for its power. And he praised it for its wisdom."

"It waited for him. It waited and waited in its shiny box that reflected on a young man's dream. It waited alone. Until one day is wasn't there anymore. And the man searched and searched for it everywhere but he couldn't find it. He couldn't understand how it could just disappear or why it would leave him. But it was gone. And the young man was forced to accept the grief of losing his treasured gift."

Jule slowly exhaled out the last few words of his story like he suddenly forgot the ending and Jack was startled. He opened his eyes waiting to hear more.  But the words didn't come and the air went silent and cold. Jack's body, flushed with an uncompromising chill that weakened him further, stole the last morsel of hope he had.  His body quivered and his hands slipped down on rock barely under his grip and he began to feel the curse of gravity within reach.  His breath spit out words he despised. 

"Why Jule? Why would you tell me such a horrible story?" He gasped.

Jule sat without words for a few minutes while Jack struggled to remain still below him.

"Do you really think it is such a horrible story Jack? Why do you think it is so horrible?" Jule questioned.

"Because it is. The man lost the gift he was given and he never even knew what it was."

"But the man did know what it was Jack."

"How did he know? How? You didn't tell me. What is it?"

Jack quenched his words in anger and demanded an answer of Jule.

"Jack, listen to me carefully. You'll find it left and right. It is trust and it is doubt. It is strong and it is weak. It's belief and disbelief. Bravery and fear. Acceptance and rejection. It is love and it's spite. And at the pinnacle, it is persevering or surrendering. You see Jack, the gift the young man lost was a choice. And he will never get it back again. But what you fail to see is that you are clinging to a gift at this very moment. A choice you and only you can make."

These vaguely recognized sounds of encouragement he heard trying to survive on his mountain rattled inside a jar waiting for him on the other side.  And the stars, now towering down over the mountain side where he climbed, lit up the sky with an unmistakable will to decide.