To walk a mile in the rain
5:22 a.m.
The moon is a lopsided crescent on a string of flickering pearls.
A drop of dew dangles on a leaf edge, stuck in a tense eternity between the loft and the fall. The birds are silent. The air is dense, and the sound of a distant train drifts on the blanket of fog. A freight train at this time is usual. Somewhere a jackal howls and a few more follow. Their last call before the crucible of the day churns the night into a layer of soft foam on the muddy waters.
I walk on. There are two people speaking in my ear, both Americans. A refined NYC accent. Not Boston, the R's are rolled and the T's are sharp like tongs on a piece of steel. A mid-western drawl and the sound of ruffled clothes. They talk about the AI revolution and how data is the new oil. My jacket is wet with all the fog around. The dew drop has decided its fate.
It takes a mile to walk into a dubious sense of clarity. You can sense a faint sun bound in a dense ocean of fog by its afterglow. The birds are awake, the leaves rock gently under the slow death march of the night. You sense the mess clearing up. The pending bills, that unresolved fight.
The lingering sense of existential doom.
No. Now there's this stream flowing by, and the birdsong is pleasant. The fog is strangely comforting in the dawn. The blanket of dew shines like a field of pearls awaiting harvest. A mile is more than a mile when I walk.
At all these stops I extend my circle of clarity deeper into the fog. The claw in my head stops fidgeting and grows deliberate in its stance. I will catch this elusive insight that has been floating off my mind's edge for a while now. What happens if I make a choice ?
What happens if the dew falls?