“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
The man was walking, in no particular hurry, along the side of the road, toting a half-full Hefty bag. Herbert pulled his wagon alongside him, pacing him for a moment until the odd fellow had finished what appeared to be some kind of private dialogue with himself. Only then did he turn and notice the wagon, the young driver, and Lady Beatrice the mule pulling them.
They paused in the road—Herbert in his driving cap, the man with a head of unruly white hair and white whiskers somewhere between unshaven and beard. The dirt road stretched unremarkably before and behind them through the spare rural landscape.
“Need a ride?” Herbert offered.
The man beamed a radiant smile. “Well, sure,” he said, and Herbert scooted over to make room for him on the wagon seat.
“Where are you headed?”
Still smiling, the man stabbed his arm decisively forward. “That way,” he said. “Opposite of where I’m tailed.”
“Same as me,” said Herbert.
“A fortuitous concurrence,” the man replied.
They trundled along briefly in silence, then Herbert said, “Do you have someone you’re meeting?”
“Do you?” the man returned.
Herbert searched his memory. “I don’t think so.”
“See?” said the man. “You’re thinking something even if it’s nothing. Which proves that something and nothing are the same. That must make you feel better.”
“Yes,” said Herbert, venturing a smile of his own. “I guess it does.”
Because, oddly, it did. Sun and shade create each other. Fair and foul are next of kin. Goodness exists by the grace of its absence. And place? A place is just another place so how can you go to another same place? It’s just wherever you are. Herbert chuckled reassuringly to himself and felt a little surge of pride as they passed people walking on the road, or when an athletic young man stroked by on a bicycle. They didn’t have such wise and amiable company.
And so the miles passed. The road was bumpy at times, with some long dull stretches, but mostly smooth and pleasant. The landscape, likewise, was at times nondescript, at times dreary, at times picturesque. Clearly they were on a journey, were they not? And if sometimes Herbert wondered To where?—with him on board, he could push the question aside and just enjoy the ride. A little piece in the puzzle of everything.
The man knew so much you would have thought he belonged somewhere. When Herbert asked him what he did, he answered, “Nothing, sir.” Then smiled. “Which we have heretofore established as something on a different day.”
There was no question, however mundane or cosmic, he couldn’t answer, but he wasn’t bossy. He understood Herbert’s faults, but wasn’t scolding. He knew a million jokes and stories, but was a good listener. Perhaps a connection there. And sing? Get out of here. Sense of humor? Your manic uncle Otto times ten. And don’t even get him started on the primacy of love. Even the dancing particles, you know.
❦
As the afternoon aged, they fell into a brooding silence and the road grew a little rougher—and as a gray dusk dulled the horizon, the man said, “This would be a good place.”
“For what?” asked Herbert.
“For us to part. Just pull over here.”
“You’re leaving? But you haven’t gotten anywhere yet.”
“I’ve gotten halfway there. As always.”
Herbert pulled Lady Beatrice to a stop. “I thought we were traveling together?”
“We were. But it’s time for me to let you be on your way.”
“On my way? To where?”
“Well, sir, I have no idea. But I’m no more than that myself.”
“What?”
“An idea.”
Herbert looked ahead to the darkening road, and then it became a wrestle with memory, and of course the man was so completely gone he might never have been there at all.
But Lady Beatrice was.
There was nothing for it but to go on.