It was late in September. The autumn leaves started to fall on the highways and the smell of the golden leaves mixed well with the cool breeze of the early holiday season. The sky was azure but it wasn’t hot, just enough humidity, fair day to call it.
‘T was the day I saw a creature like a half man, half divine riding a red horse. He was fair… as fair as the day as I described it. Suddenly he was transforming into a winged creature like a white hawk if there was one close enough to describe an angel. And in the middle of an ordinary day, he left me with extraordinary lessons in life. He left me wondering and wandering inside my own world.
Oh! But this white hawk has flown away.
I wonder how could we possibly be lost in our own home? How could the cradle we’ve known for so long could become a trap? How could we possibly dig a pit just to jump into it?
Oh! Those lessons I thought I already knew not until it was right there – right off bat. It was damn eerie to see it coming and all you could ever do is to watch it.
The white hawk started singing a lullaby so familiar yet so strange. It sounded too fascinating but the lyrics were so vivid. He was singing those words of promises that started too long ago inside of him but it was just then I’ve come to know. The melodious symphony was like a vision from a never-written book. I was so mesmerized by the song and by the white hawk itself, leaving me inside a dream box like a willing prisoner with all those dancing illusions underneath the silver moon and the golden sun all at the same time.
Suddenly the world has stopped and the white hawk flew away but the red horse stayed with me like a good servant.
Those old yonder dreams started dancing inside of me and made me shiver under the sun. Those old dreams were good dreams but somehow they did not work, but at least I’ve learned how to distinguish dreams from nightmares from what was real.
There are (so many) things in life that no matter how hard we try to make them real, they are just simply not really meant to be. But we can always try for who knows if it was meant or not in the end.
I swear I did try my best or was it just a better part of me? But God knows I did something. But… is destiny more powerful than love? Or is fear greater than love? If love is the greatest and if love never fails… who then failed? Who failed in this story written by the hands of eternity? Is love destined to fail sometime… or most of the time? Is love and destiny mortal enemies? Why can’t destiny just go along with love? Or why can’t love just go along with destiny?
Oh! These questions I never dared to ask not until the white hawk has flown.
The universe conspires but it could never understand the earth’s time. A day on earth is just as eternity to the universe. But there is a reason for everything. The reason why it came so late and why it has to end too soon.
The white hawk could not have passed by on my way but it did. .. Just to ruin my one day that could have been my entire life or even eternity itself. A day of eternity has come and suddenly forever was gone. But the missing piece suddenly became vivid in my sight. It was true, that often times we missed what is missing because we are too busy missing the other people’s missing pieces and not until someone will popped up on our way and mess everything will we come to finally acknowledge what is missing. Yes… the reason why they’ll just come and hurt us then simply go away.
Simplicity is a real challenge. A challenge greater than complications. I could have shared the story of the “supposed-to-be-life”. I would have shared that with the white hawk but it flew away and I was left all alone writing my own story. Actually, I was the only one writing OUR story. I would have traded freedom for a chance to escape. But if there will be a chance to right what has gone wrong, I swear, I know I’ll grasp that chance tight enough to kill the time.
Sometime in our lives we’ve done that one great wrong decision and the rest is history. And also, once in a great while, life gives us a chance to correct it. Sometimes it would take all the courage we’ve gained in our entire years on earth just to finally grasp that flickering moment of risk to change what had happened to what was supposed to happen. We have to choose between the peaceful lives we’ve learned to live with after the wrong decision and the risk of taking another battle just to correct it without any idea about the pros and cons that will come along with the risk.
Sometimes too much light is blinding, more blinding than the darkness itself. Sometimes, too much peace is annoying, more annoying than the war. Sometimes, too much silence is deafening, more deafening that the noise.
I was trapped and there was no other way to go but towards the point where the white hawk stands. Now, it was a dilemma between happiness and what was right.
This would probably one of the hardest thing anyone could ever cross through in their lives – being caught between what is right and what makes you happy.
Rationally, we have to choose what is right, but not until you’re right off bat you will come to know the bitterness and the pain of two surfaces raging against each other and you are in between the friction. They say it is easy said than done – but not always. Sometimes, it is hard to do and the same way it is hard to say it in the most suitable words. Words are like sharp swords that could kill anyone.
But still, choose what is right because happiness is just a state of emotion that could eventually fade away. But what was right even after eternity, it will remain right and that right thing you did could give you that sense of fulfillment and eventually – “MAYBE” happiness too. I’m NOT saying it could guarantee happiness but I say it could guarantee you that fulfillment that once in your life you stood firmly for what is right.
The good holy book is right… “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” (1 Cor.
From the dust of the thousands country roads, I hear songs from those blue-eyed grass that could actually reckon me. The white hawk has left me with so much more that what he took from me. But there’s another creature inside that white hawk which I can’t seem to handle. I’m not good enough to let it out and I’m not sure either if I could handle it if I will ever be able to let it out. For some reasons, I have lacked the effort though I knew I should at least show some efforts. Efforts should come from both sides. That was the last thing I’ve learned from the white hawk just before it flew away – that airports are made for airplanes to land.
***EPILOUGE***
As the autumn kissed the winter, so as the pain kissed reality. Forever came just a bit too late… too late for forever to come. The phoenix watched the white hawk dance with the night lark not so far behind those golden trees. Behind her was the red horse and the old wise owl. The phoenix sighed and said – “The white hawk is a good creature, He doesn’t eat grains sent by the wind.” The red horse smiled bitterly and asked the phoenix – “Are you jealous?” The phoenix replied bitterly brave – “No… but it just made me wanting the white hawk more and more… perhaps for myself” The red horse laugh and the old wise owl started laughing too. The phoenix smiled but she could not give in to the laughter. The old wise owl sensing the friction inside the soul of the phoenix (who had been dancing all her life in bitter poignancy) stopped laughing and said – “You are such a pure soul and a kind heart… God has blest you.” The phoenix said – “Then why He did not blest me? Why did He not try to lift even a single finger on my destiny?”
The phoenix did not wait for the reply but silently flew away northward. Sensing that someone was following her, she stopped on one of the branches of an old oak tree.
I look back and saw the the white hawk again. This time he was talking like a fully pledge man and no longer an avian.
He asked me – “who are you?”
I replied… “I’m
Fin.