Constant

Constant



The night was wet and Bitter. One of those nights when it feels like god himself had turn the knob on a spray bottle to mist, you know the type. My head laid heavy on my shoulders and I trekked relief. I began out the door and down the driveway, the gravel crunching under my worn shoes. Despite the chill of this night, I wore only a T-shirt and basketball shorts. You See-I don’t mind the numbness the brisk wind leaves behind on my skin; it instead blankets these peculiar feelings so often I have. Ah, and here comes the moon out from a midnight cloud. He knows why I am here…but do I? As I near that green glistening sign at the T in the road and lazily make my turn. Again the gravel at my feet now. It’s funny, something so hard and eternal, yet it is I that stand upon IT. I half grin at my own strange thought process as my eyes slowly fix upon the path again. To my right in the moonlight I can still make out what is left of that old house that I used to ride my bike by when I was young. Me and my brothers all skidding to a stop to see who was brave enough to ride past the family’s dog first. I feel the half grin reappearing and I’m brought back again to the gravel path. Darkness swallows me as I float on, a metaphor for my obscured mind. Alas I near the second T in the road. I do pause for a second and draw my eyes to the old church on the corner. Which I recalled my father telling me was also a small school house at one time. A wave of goosebumps confronts my body as I feel the energy of the church soak into my bones. So much life stuck forever into that foundation, yet here l gaze upon a very dead spectacle. Without thought, I whisper, “I understand” to the old church and welcome back the half grin to my face. A brief gust of biting wind sweeps the sacred spot and the old church voices me to press on. So I do. I recognize the rutted mud carving the road and draping trees above to be the final stretch in my journey. As I round the bend left, I can hear the water ripple against the rocks ahead. I smell the earth and moss upon wood as I proceed nearer. Just there, a break in the leaves for the moon to shine upon the old bridge. I still creep across it slowly even though I know it will hold me. I suppose I don’t know why I do that. I think it is because I don’t want to wake it from it much need slumber. I pause just in the center of the beaten bridge and look down through a hole at my feet, and in that, see straight through to the creek below. You see, it bowls out at this part, leaving a slow churning pot for the minnows to mingle in. They have found peace in the infinite flow of the stream, something many have contested for their whole life. They flash their silver scales at me in the moons reflection.  It is a beautiful thing, the moon. Yet I feel too few ponder its true magnificence. I lower myself on the edge of the wooden pallets and all in one motion swing over till I’m hanging on by only my hands now. I close my eyes and imagine what it must be like to fly-but just for a moment. I then drop to the sand bed below bending my knees so that my legs can absorb the blunt of the fall. Just past the minnow bowl, the creek strays to the left and becomes slim. I slowly step toward the free flowing water and take note to the sand beneath me. It grows more and more fragile with every step I take until I’m just to the water’s border. Dropping down to my knees, I feel the cold sculpted stones pressuring me. I sit here for some time and lose myself in the water’s drift. Have you ever seen something so constant? It reminds me of life, the way it carelessly travels about. I’m blind to where it begins, and to where it ends, yet I believe it will always be constant in its crossing. Here again a half grin rests upon my face and stays awhile as I contemplate the complexity of the thought. I only watch as my hands push themselves into the cold water in front of me, absent my command. A certain shock passes into my body but I welcome it. I press thought once again. The bridge and the stream seem to know why I’ve come here just as well as the moon. Even the church hurried me towards the matter. Yet I kneel here so aimlessly. What am I to do? Shall I pose the question to my company? I think not. Unexplained, the confusion aids my soul in response to the question at hand. I long to drift away in the current myself. My hands have grown quite numb now and I withdraw them to my knees. The chilled water blazing its own path of choice to the sand below me. Going back to the stream. Going back to the constant. I stand up and brush the wet sand off my knees. My shoes had sunk into the moisture of the bed and became wet, but I didn’t mind. I looked up at the stars and rendered the thought of my presence here tonight. I came to the conclusion with myself that I had certainly gone around the bend. But I didn’t mind.



-Lewis D Smith Jr

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