Short Stories

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"You know what I don't understand?"

"What?'

"Life and sometimes people, how come they are the way they are? Why do things happen that ruin lives and cause pain?"

The old man smiles gently, "It’s our choices, child, our choices. We all make choices and when we make bad ones its hurts everyone".

The boy frowned pensively "Yeah, I guess it is our choices that matter." At this point the boy looked at the Old man and said with sadness and much anguish: "How do you make it go away?"

"Make what go away?" said the Old man gently again.

"Pain" said the boy with gritted teeth "How do you make pain go away, I tell it to leave but it wont listen."

The Old Man replied with tenderness: "You cannot make it go away because your holding onto it, when you are ready it will leave. Only when you are ready will it fade away in the midst of new joys. Rest assured though, It will leave it doesn’t hurt forever but while its here it will make you stronger and through it you will learn wisdom."

The Old Man continued talking to the boy as they walked "they say that when the heart is sad the soul grows wise. It hurts yes, but let hope be your guide because it will fade and you will be better than you were. Just don’t let it rule you and you will see a new day."

After the Old man was finished speaking the boy continued to ponder the words, he said. The Old man looked sideways at the boy as they walked. This time there was no reply but something was they’re that before had not been there. Patience. The boy seemed to be more determined to wait out his pain and keep his head up, ready for the metaphorical warmth of sunrise after the cold darkness of night that is his hurt.

The Old man smiled, for he knew the boy would be ok. He was hurting but he would learn, and the boy would be just fine. As they walked along side of a shadowy and rather dark wood, they saw a rose bush with fresh red roses growing from it. The Old Man smiled again and took out his handy and worn looking pocketknife from his pocket. With the nimbleness and familiarity of someone who had been using it for years, he flipped it open and bent down to cut a rose from the bush. He did so swiftly and held it with fingers perfectly placed between the thorns. He admired it in the light and then said; "Life is much like this rose my friend".

The boy looked at him with an eyebrow raised and said nothing.

The Old man seeing the look smiled and said, "Just like this rose, life is beautiful and exquisite. However, just like this rose it has its treacherous paths and thorny obstacles. Think as if you were an ant migrating up the stalk of this lovely rose. The path is green and verdant but with its thorns and bumps. Sometimes you have to go around them or through them and sometimes you can't, so you must migrate again around the stalk of the rose until you find a pathway leading back up where you wish to go."

"You struggle and struggle to make it to the top and there at the end are the velvety petals where you can have your rest and peace. That’s what a life lived in love is like. It’s not easy but at the end of your days, you can retreat to the rest and happiness of heaven itself. My friend, Ill tells you a secret that took an old man like me a long time to figure out. Don’t waste your precious time and energy after gold or power because they are useless in the end. Spend your life loving.... Just loving. Love everything around you and love God and you'll have the happiness you seek. Live your life slowly, patiently, and with a heck of a lot of faith and you will be just fine. What many people don’t realize is that like a rose, life is precious and fragile and you only get one. Make it count and preserve it because it’s the only one you will ever have... that is till you reach eternal life."

Th boy continued to think and walk. Think and walk. Think and walk that’s what he did, just think and walk. What the man had said made sense to him and had temporarily taken his mind off his pain. The Old man looked over at the boy one more time and smiled one more time because this time he saw the boy smiling as he walked. The Old man thought to himself "that’s much better, he will learn...it just takes time and some love is all but he will learn."

They continued their walk on the roadside, both of them smiling, and it seemed that the sun lit up that dank and cold wood they had been walking next to all this time. It seemed that the wood smiled with them. It seemed... that everything was much brighter.

© 2007 Luis Gabriel

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