Interludes and angels

Having arrived in Cannes a late, pink afternoon, I found myself having arrived altogether. There were a few problems with the bike, tires, repairs needed. But in all honesty, what I had set out to achieve was distance. Space to think. More journeys to come. I boarded a train to Marseille, where I sat next to a bald man who had just returned from South Africa. He asked if I was a traveler.

            "Yes," I said, and I believed it.  

            He told me that he'd been around the world twice. The train was full, my bike hung from a hook, the heavy bags still attached.  

            "Every continent man," he said. 

            "Even Antarctica?" I asked.

            "No, no." He was disappointed, glassy eyed. He reminded me of a dry sponge. He'd seen it all and was empty. 

            "South Africa, just back, man, horrible, country gone to shit since 94 eh." 

            "That's just because you're white," I blurted out. The train squeaked to a stop, everyone gasped, clouds gathered from nowhere and thunder echoed distress below the darkening world, or so it felt. He looked surprised. Three hours by train, then another train to Lyon. Things were said I won't repeat. The man had spent his life traveling and in doing so had lost some elemental virtues.  

            In Lyon that night, a pint was on the table and my bike was locked in the hostel. I sat down and wrote this parable: 

            In cold sweat the young boy tells his sister:

            "It feels we were blindly following the noise of the mountain." The sister pours tea and sits down, there are old pictures on the table. There's no way to know he's posing at Mount Fuji, he's in it, surrounded by rocks. 

            "It was slow going," he continues. "We were slower than the snails and the rocks that fell down at great speed behind our feet made me feel dizzy. I hardly ever looked up." 

            "Weren't you scared?" 

            His face softens its bravery when he hears her concern. "No," he assures her, and he tries to explain impermanence again. "My short life I walked with the mountain. That was the gift it gave me. Many people combat the obstacle of it. Confusing overcoming something with victory. Here, hold out your hand." He settles himself in the corner of the couch. It's cold in the house, the teacup's still too hot. She holds out her hand obediently. He takes it in his, she feels how much colder he is than her. She closes her eyes; she can feel a tear welling up inside her. 

            "It was so long ago," she says. 

            "You blindly follow the mountain, little sister. You follow the winding paths and sometimes, in moments of luck or despair, you gaze where you've come and where you'll go."

            "And then? she asks.

            "Then? You walk!" He laughs the way she always recalled, coughs how she remembers him, and releases her hand, the touch of which had almost left her. "That's all."  

            The tea cools on the table, the night revolves around the little sister fallen asleep. A courier blast brushes the outside cherry tree against her window, which wakes her. 

            She smiles at the pictures there on the table of the young boy and the mountain that took him.  

            I had arrived in Lyon feeling empty and satisfied. 'You wouldn't believe what once or twice I've seen,' Mary Oliver writes. 'I'll just tell you this: only if there are angels in your head will you ever, possibly, see one.'