Guest Storyteller: My Father

Note from Donaya: I'm considering instead of having a guest blogger, having a guest storyteller, because I know many wonderful talented people who deserve a slice of spotlight themselves. My father, who wishes to be addressed as Veridad Haymond, has only ever written two or three creative pieces. This is by far the best and is in fact one of my favorite short stories in the world.


TO GET TO THE OTHER…SIDE

Life and Death in a Pastoral Setting


Why?

Why now? Why me?

As well ask why breathe? Why love? Why greet the morning?

Sun brightness, warmth on body, bustling society, the texture and crunch of sustenance. These are the joys of being.

But always the pull toward that other….

In youth I followed as siblings led, sometimes fleeing, sometimes reaching toward that other…

I watched in fright, in awe, in envy as the great ones crossed over, leaving only their husks behind, rustling in the afterbreeze.

I saw others taken before their time, escorted away by servants without ever tasting that other…

The Change Master is capricious, coming sometimes straight on, swerving sometimes suddenly to left, to right. A spice of uncertainty is thus added to the ritual.

Thrice now have I danced the dance, once so closely I reaped the whirlwind and my foot was lamed.

I have accepted the homage due one touched by the Master, but that lingering touch only hungers me for the fullness of that other…

When the connection is not clear, when the pull is not present, I hesitate, then continue along the parallel, the safe unthreatening limited parallel of this state. Not for now the blessed perpendicular….

But today I feel a gleam. A call, a tug. There awaits that other… And today is my day.

The Change Master approaches. Now for the dance of death.

Of death, said I? But why not of life? To wake from this pleasant but inchoate dream state, to move onward, to move beyond…

To live.

I begin to run, stretching shoulders to limber my pace, to move my crippled limb along.

The Master draws near, nearer.

Now is my moment. Now the connection is made. Now comes the pull toward that other…

As the Master enters my peripheral vision, I execute, again, that perpendicular that measures, that states our highest being.

Between? Beyond? I control the urge to fly this encounter, to flee from the new knowing.

Contact.

Explosion.

Light…



That’s why.

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The preceding meditation was inspired by many riding hours and multitudes of chickens on the rural roads of Laos. In particular, by chickens that would run alongside the road in safety and then suddenly dart in front of our vehicle, seeming to deliberately place themselves in mortal peril. This suggested to me a metaphysical answer to the immortal chicken/road riddle.