Travail

A small bird chirped from the clacking branches of an ice brittle tree. Its call a

quick "chick-a-dee". His breath crystallized before his eyes when he tilted his

head toward the sound of the tiny creature. He then shifted his feet in the deep

packing snow to shake the fur of his boots clean of rime. The young man, now in

the prime of his life, had never been content. He'd always been a dreamer. The

daydreaming gave him an insatiable lust for knowledge and a fire in his heart

that blazed as bright as the northern lights in a gelid tundra. That lusty warmth

pushed him to search. It pushed him beyond the boundaries of his home, away

from the comfortable closeness of his mother's hearth and away from the

simple existence he grew up in.

    Now he stood atop a hill which stretched a seemingly endless expanse into

nowhere. He stood there alone, completely alone, in a derelict winter landscape

overlooking the icy whitecaps of a primeval ocean. There was possibility,

potential and purity in this land and he'd come a far way to find it. He craved

possibility, potential and purity.

     Again he exhaled and his breath fogged his glasses. The man grunted his

displeasure and pocketed the pair in his bulky winter coat. The chickadee

chirped again and hopped down to another branch. He watched the creature,

awed by its movements and felt a slight, sick pang rise in his chest. The

sensation stuck in his heart like the frost still clinging to his boots. There was no

one to see what he'd just seen but he alone and it was a wonderful sight. He

found himself fervently wishing he had a companion with him and the wish

became a tingle of longing deep within. For all he'd searched, all that he left

behind to pursue the cruel avail of fairytale daydreams, he was still lacking. He

tried to push the thought from his mind and replace it with thoughts of his

journey, his travail. He stood up and made his way toward the edge of his hill,

comely face poised before the path ahead, dark hair facing the sky.

    The hammer round his neck swung, rocking against his bare skin, exposed by

openings in the front of his shirt and coat. He put his hand on it instinctively in an

unconscious attempt to warm the frozen metal and halted at the cliff's edge. It

gave way to a steep decline forged of plated rock that lead out to the shores of

boundless, opaque waters. Somewhere, through those perilous waves, beyond

that orange sunset horizon, there was a home. And somewhere, far beyond

these windswept, lonesome lands, there was a lover waiting for him; waiting to

share his desires, daydreams and the fire that burned like a long drag of rye

whiskey in his heart and his belly.

       He just didn't know where that somewhere was. Or, how to get there; but his

insatiable lust pushed him ever onwards.