Three ages of man
The boy is waiting
for his seventeenth birthday, looking into the unknown future towards his age
of man, not knowing in which land it lies with its infinite branching
possibilities.
He does not know that his future is fixed,
just waiting for him to follow that one critical path.
He does not know that the arrow of
time does not move, it is just a pointer to show when he is. Time flows around
him to coalesce behind him to form his passed times and to add pages to the
history book of his life.
He is unsure about everything. He
knows nothing, but he knows that he knows everything.
How can it be otherwise in a
teenaging boy?
His age is but a
twentieth of a millennium, the mountain is four million times older, a Variscan
G G G G...Great Grandfather.
He clawed his way up the foothills of the
corporate mountain range until he reached the sunlit uplands of calm
acceptance, no more promotion, just the casual fending off of upstart steers
who would dislodge him from his upland summer pasture.
He waits for his pension, happy not
to strive but to graze efficiently with minimum effort until he leaves the
threshing floor at the five of each day to return to his dependable family.
The man is old, but
not old as the mountain knows old, the mountain that he can see with his one
good, though rheumy, eye . A rheum with a view.
His back is bent in a way that only
a wind resisting tree knows and his skin is barked like that same tree, the
events of many years embossed on the lignin.
His walking stick is cut from that
very oak; unfair as he does not care to prop up the supplicating sapling that
bows before the lazy wind.
Is there enough wood groan yet to
form his coffin so that he can dye happily in the scarlet satin lining?
Each one is a moving and meaningful account of the age, captured in the shortest form. You've used some great imagery to enhance your description. I love the mountain climbing and wind resisting tree analogies. I'm slightly sad though that a life can be captured in so few words!
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