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This is a spiritual sequel to "The Chase" albeit you shouldn't really need to read it to understand, just merely in the same vein.
Note: If you haven't heard the song "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkle, you probably should. Not that it's pivotal to the story, but it's a pretty awesome song.
I'm honestly not too satisfied with this, but this semester has been really killing me, so story time has taking a hit haha. Regardless, make comments and be harsh.
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He stood on the tall bridge, gazing into the river and the cloudy skies. A large orange sun sat among the clouds, as if gazing back at the man. The bright yellow glow from the sun seemed to evoke life onto the sky and the river. The water shimmered from the light of the sun, radiating with activity, as the birds flew by, bathing in the sun. Yet, as he gazed along, he could feel the wind, and he could see the clouds quietly trekking through the skies, heading right towards the sun. Slowly but surely, the once warm rays seemed to vanish into nothingness. He placed his hands on the metal rail of the bridge, gripping it tightly at first, before gently releasing it, a sigh escaping his lips as the sun drowned in the clouds. He gazed down at the rectangular rail, noticing the red rust on the surface. It seemed the bridge too had seen better days. He gazed back at the skies, less of a strain on the eyes now but not as pleasant as it had been before.
“Hello darkness, my old friend…” he sung softly, “I’ve come to talk with you again.” As he sung those words, he could hear them. Footsteps, they were faint, but recognizable in the absence of any other sound, barring his singing. Despite this, he continued.
“Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping…” And as he finished the sentence, another voice responded.
“And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains…” And on cue, the two finished,
“Within the sound…of silence.”
The man kept his sights on the skies, until he felt the presence of another person standing next to him, staring at the same sky. He turned his head to look at other person, noticing the rags which he wore, with the short, unruly beard he bore that barely hid a strange grin, beaming with satisfaction.
“Are you going to rob me?” he asked, before glancing back at the sky. A light chuckle escaped from the other man’s mouth.
“I do look like a thief, huh?” he replied, before shaking his head. “I barely have interest in my own belongings, why would I be interested in yours?” The man glanced at the peasant, arching an eyebrow.
“What belongings?” he asked curiously. The peasant smiled.
“Precisely. Possessions only weigh you down. Chasing after them only wears you out, though I feel like you know this just as well as I do,” and with that last comment, the peasant shifted his gaze from the sky to the man.
“What do you mean?” responded the man, confused at his comment about him.
“You know what I mean, going after these possessions, trekking forth, spending time, energy, and at times your own health to try to obtain them. It’s a tiring process, even more so if you fail to obtain what you sought,” he replied, shrugging slightly before glancing back. The man quickly replied.
“It may be tedious at times, though it’s the lesser of two evils.” It was the peasant’s turn to arc an eyebrow.
“The other evil being…?” he asked.
“Not attempting to obtain the desired objects. You know, that feeling of dissatisfaction when you can’t obtain what you want. To do anything but chase after them seems unthinkable.” With that, the man returned his glance back to the skies, watching the clouds slowly racing through the sky, the sun remaining trapped within them.
“If it so unthinkable, how did you think of it?” He asked him, in slight jest, “but this feeling of dissatisfaction that you speak of, it’s something we all know and have felt. We know this because we have taken such a path before. In general, however, it’s frowned upon.” The man gave him a slight smirk as his joking remark but remained confused.
“What path?”
“The path of least resistance, to give up, to not continue our search, or as my brother might say, to abandon the chase,” replied the peasant. The man was appalled by his suggestion.
“You can’t just give up,” he said, treating the remark almost like a joke.
“Why not?” The peasant asked.“Ask a kid what he wants to be when he’s older. He might reply with doctor, secret agent, or maybe even a writer. How many kids do you know attain those goals? We’ve subconsciously given up the search for such dreams many a times before and merely embark in new ones, starting a loop. The question is, why chase at all?”
“They are just kids!” replied the man, dissatisfied with his comparison. “There are things beyond their control which forbid them from succeeding in such illustrious odysseys to their desires.”
“Does that ever change?” the peasant replied.
“Does what change?”
“Is there ever a time in which you have complete control over your own search? Where it is solely by your own effort, your own struggle, that you obtain that which you sought?” The man opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. Shortly, he closed his mouth and a silence enveloped the two as they went back to gazing the clouded sky. The peasant placed his hands on the rail, his fingers applying pressure on the some of the weaker parts of the structure.
“Much like how you wish to part the skies, we are hardly ever in control, even if it may seem like we are times.”
“I’ve worked for the desires I’ve attained,” the man asserted, “some by effort alone.”
“And because of that, you deem yourself in control?” the peasant asked, as he broke a small part of the rail, enough to fit on the nail of his thumb. “Your philosophy is based on the acquisition of the desired objects, whether they’d be physical, spiritual, or even nonsensical. The more you obtain, the better chaser you become. You become much like a rock,” he noted, placing the piece of the rail on thumbnail and held his hand accordingly to sustain it. “Strong and seemingly indomitable. Simple winds can’t knock you off your path. The more you obtain, the stronger you become, yet the more your possession weigh you down, making harder and harder to keep chasing. However, in all those stages, despite your apparent control, everything can fall apart in seconds,” and with that, he flicked the rock up into the sky. “For just as easy as you go up…you go down.” And with that, the two watched the rock reach its peak before pummeling down on the calm river, making a small splash, before the river returned back to normal. The man gazed at the spot on which the rock had landed, pondering as he saw waves in the water slowly came to rest and vanished.
“But you can’t base your life on thinking no matter what you do, you’re bound to fail from the start,” he replied, keeping his eyes on that spot.
“And by the same token, you can’t base your life on thinking no matter what you do, you’re bound to succeed with enough effort. In fact, should you keep chasing, the former assumption would seem to be more accurate than the latter,” replied the peasant. With that, the man turned around to face the peasant.
“How so?”
“You mentioned afeeling of dissatisfaction in not obtaining what you want. Does that feeling disappear once you do obtain it?” He asked, before returning his gaze to the sky. “My brother used to say, ‘the chase is never-ending’. If it really never ends, do you ever really obtain the satisfaction which you were seeking? The more you obtain, the more you seek. The more you seek, the hungrier your appetite for such things become, the more satisfaction needed to please you, and if you fall, you best get up for fear of having lost much more than you’ve gained. Is that satisfaction?”
“That’s life, however,” argued the man. “Life is not about how many times you fall, but how many times you get up. The chase is life.”
“But how many times can you get up? What if you fall and can’t get back up?” asked the peasant, glancing at the man, expecting a response, yet none came. “This whole ‘falling-and-rising’ seems so…robotic. You fall, then you rise, then you fall again, and you rise again, rinse and repeat, revamp and reset. How many times can you hit reset?” With that, he pointed at glanced at the river.
“Do you think the river ever resets its flow? By the mere definition of flow, it doesn’t. It merely goes, with no goal and no purpose. When we try to mess with this flow by our dams, when we try to give to a purpose, we merely end up damaging the ecosystem. You say the chase is life, but in fact, the chase is destruction, of not just yourself, but of life itself. You don’t live to chase, you chase to live, because it’s all you’ve ever known and it’s all you ever looked for.” Another long silence enveloped the two, as the man pondered over his words. With that, the peasant placed his hands into his pockets, awaiting a reply, keeping his glance at the clouds. After a minute, he finally uttered a response.
“But how can you live without a goal?” he asked him, simply. With that, the peasant smile, pulling his hands out of his pocket, revealing a petite green leaf and placing on the rail, then walked a little back, before turning around.
“A wise man once told me, ‘I am a leaf on the wind – watch how I soar’,” he replied, as he finished his sentence, a small gust of wind picked up the leaf, lifting off the rail. The leaf twisted twirled, moving up and down before exiting the bridge, drifting away in the sky. The man watched the leaf erratic movements, until it left his sight.
“But then…what should I do? What can I do?” he asked. And with that, his hands went into his pocket and he started singing.
“Hear my words that I might teach you…” With that, the man smiled, extended his hand out and sung the next line.
“Take my arms that I might reach you…”
And with that, the peasant pulled his hand out of his pocket and went to shake the man’s hand. To the man’s surprise, however, the peasant left a small object on the man’s hand. With that, the man pulled his hand back, and smiled as he walking towards the man.
“What’s this?” he asked, glancing at the object. It was a matchbox.
“An end to the never-ending. A final act of destruction,” the peasant stated.
“What do I do with it?” the man asked, and the peasant smirked as he kept walking.
“You may be unable to move clouds, but that doesn’t mean you must walk in darkness.” With that, he walked past him. The man remained confused, and stared at the matchbox for a moment, before opening it, finding a single match. Hesitantly, he pulled the match.
“A leaf on the wind…” the man stated, before striking the match. As he did, he watched the small flame which came upon the small wooden stick. Delicate, fragile, and weak, the flame danced so freely. As the flame came from the match, a small ray broke through the clouds, passing right through the match and the match box. He gazed to the right, looking at the sky, before back at the match. “Watch me soar.” And with that, he threw the match. The flame danced erratically in the air, twirling and spinning, before eventually landing on the ground. Upon making contact with the bridge, however, the small flame transformed into a larger fire. And with that, he watched the fire engulf the bridge. He watched the bright rays burst from the fire, feeling their warmth. He smiled, turned around, and began walking in the same direction the peasant had walked and left the bridge to burn.
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Remarks:
I've thought about adding a few more metaphors to make it more flowery and whatnot. I've had a few ideas. What do you guys think?
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