The Reflection

Many season back, an old man walked through the frozen woods. The branches weighed heavy with snow, leaning bent and crooked like his back. He walked with a slow shuffling gait, one leg limping and leaning upon his hard ironwood staff. His long grizzled beard, white with winter’s kiss, swept gently like a white broom against the powder snow. And as he neared the familiar place in the forest, his piercing ice blue gaze fell upon the pool.

Surrounded by ancient knotted oaks, gnarled and woven by the seasons into forming a writhing canopy of snake like branches, there stood the pool. The trees were dusted with the same snowy powder, the air sharp and crisp and hard as a knife’s edge. The old man in the faded blue robe, pulled the grey cloak tighter about him as he stepped inside the sacred space of the oaken weave. And there, neath canopied sky, in the dark of the folds, he drew neigh the pool.

The soft water’s surface stirred and scattered his reflection in many tiny waves that ran and skittered about. A breath stirred on the windless air. A voice calling in the silent emptiness. The old man stepped forward and peered into the reflection of the pool. And so the agitated surface became still. And the two pairs of eyes, deepest blue, looked back at him.

“The end of me has come.” Spoke the creaking old one.

“It is but a beginning.” Said the child in the water.

“You don’t know that. Nothing is certain. Men come and go, season pass by, the years proceed ever onward into the immortal folds of time’s bosom where there is no comfort found for the souls of men.”

“Some things are certain. Spring always follows Winter. Sunrise always comes after Midnight. The simple truths are the hardest to see, hardest to find, hardest to love. But upon them stand the entirety of the world.”

“Why bother? Everything is vain, futile, a voidless chaos of empty emotions and untrue facts. Life is but to move towards death. There is no joy left.”

“What causes your heart to grieve? Because you must pass? Because you are not immortal in body? Are you so foolish? Are you so blind? Life is but to move towards death. And then the greatest joy.”

“What are the answers? Where can they be found? What is meaning of my existence?”

At this the child in the water, the reflection upon the waves, rippled with laughter as his dimpled cheeks revealed rows of milky white teeth, his deep blue eyes sparking with ageless knowledge.

“You know I can’t tell you. It’s a surprise. I can’t spoil it.”

“There is no secret, no surprises left. The world is growing colder, ever colder. The sun has lost its warmth, the fire, its light. Darkness covers the faces of the innocent, and the evil ones pry upon all that is good and decent.” The old man said as he coughed haggardly into his shoulder.

“There, there. Old but foolish one, I will show you one of the secrets you say do not exist. Where greatest suffering abounds, there too abounds greatest joy. Where greatest turmoil is found, there is greatest peace. Peel away the darkness and you may discover the light it tries so vainly to extinguish.”

“Oh! But you are merely a child! What know you of the world and its ways? I was once like you! Yes I was. And you will someday be as me too. And then you also will walk to path to the pool and sit gazing at your own boy and he shall speak the same to you. All is empty and inevitable. You can not see because you have not opened your eyes yet.”

“All of life is but a mere dream for what is to come. You grasp not my meaning, because your eyes are ever open. You have forgotten how to dream. And so you have lost the way to the dream. Let me help you, old one. Let me guide you back to the dream. Let me guide you home.”

“What was this dream that I forgot?” asked the aged man, leaning on his staff as he looked into the pool.

“The dream that one day the world will be bright and good. The shadows will be driven off and all that shall remain is the shade. That darkness shall be driven away and all that shall be is the glorious night. That the stars will fall like fireflies and be caught as the butterfly in her net. That children will laugh, old ones will be remembered, crops will grow, the sun will shine and the rains come again.”

“Yes, yes! I remember now!” called the old man as tears flowed down his blind eyes. “I remember what it was like to dream! That one day the sword shall be beaten into the plow and never strike down again. That the fire shall only warm, never burn. That the rainbow will stand still and its end be found. But no! It cannot be! My many years in the world has taught me that fire burns and rainbows ever run from you.”

“Shh. Be still. Grasp the dream again. Take hold once more. Remember the dream of the light. The pure, undefiled, unending, guiding light that once shone so brightly in your heart and mind. Find the light. Grasp the light. Never let it go again. For where there is light there is hope.”

The old one fell on his knees, crying in a croaked voice as he called, “Find the Light! Grasp the Light! Never let it go! Because! Where there is Light! There is Hope!”

The warm sun rose over the woven oaks. From its mists a young boy walked forth. He was garbed in a bright blue robe with a black mantel upon his back. His deep blue eyes scanned the horizon as the breath of a new year filled his lungs. He walked from the pool and into the morning light. And as he did, he knew he had found the light, and would never let it go.