The Way

One day many years ago I went on a long journey to a faraway place and after many obstacles and missteps and suffering, I found a marvelous treasure. It was truly wondrous, the kind of abject beauty one doesn’t know to look for or how or when it even comes to be, yet there it is, perfect and complete. It wasn’t a shining stone or a spell or sword or anything one could sell. I’m not sure what to call it now, but back then it was the most important thing to me, because it was rare and beautiful, meaningful and hard-earned. And most importantly, because I couldn’t take it with me. It was firmly rooted at the end of that dangerous, fantastic journey I had traveled. 

After I left it and returned to my homeland, I cherished it for years and years in my memory, and even as it lost its luster and refined edges, I didn’t worry because I had held it once, and I had a map, I knew the way back to it. 

And indeed one day, a few years ago, I did return to marvel at it once more. The map served me well, and as I unfolded its tattered edges, flakes of paper fell away, and it somehow revealed a new shortcut to me. Before I knew it, I was back in that foreign get familiar land, back at my original destination from years before, basking again in the treasure’s brilliance, warmth, and heavenly aura. At the time, I remember it looked and felt different from before, slightly duller and smaller, but I didn’t mind because I was just so happy to have it once again after so many years, and via the map’s shortcut on top of that.  

Many more years passed, and I’m sorry to say that I nearly forgot that first journey I took that revealed the treasure, and the treasure itself and how overjoyed it had made me. Although my life had become very busy, and some might even say prosperous, I started to think about how lovely it would be to study the map, travel that nostalgic path, and gaze upon the glory of that treasure once more. It almost felt like I should do this not only for my own sake but for the sake of the past, or the sake of beauty. 

I resolved to do it. Just a few days ago, I set out on the journey one more time, and it will be my last. I’m writing to you now in a lost and bewildered state of mind and time and place. Over the course of a couple days, the map dissolved into an obscuring fog that now blocks even the light of the noonday. Both the original route and shortcut conceal themselves from me; so too does the way home. I don’t belong here, and I realize now how blind I was to think I ever did. But the greatest and final horror is that the bygone cherished treasure is utterly defaced, disfigured beyond understanding, not just today, my last day alive, but in all of my yesterdays. I held it not even once.