He sits on a stony bend of the mountain stream, listening as the cold waters burble by. The air is warm. The light is tinted green by the canopy. A lush bed of moss and fern covers everything. Birds call out their myriad songs.
He inspects the broken watch. A small stumble is all it took to break something that has been passed down in his family for generations. He felt his heart sink when he saw the damage. Couldn’t bear the thought that something so precious was now irrevocably changed, any all because of his error.
But sitting here, in the gentle palm of nature, this tragedy takes on a new perspective for the young man. His fears about his ancestors looking down on him are washed away. They were, as much as he knew them, good people. They would care more about him than some watch. And besides, all things end, don’t they?
The young man sees then that perhaps endings aren’t things just to be mourned. That they are not simply the antithesis of beginnings, nor that beginnings are wholly good. Endings are a statement of time. A notch in the wood.
He places his hand in the mountain stream and feels the cold waters run over his fingers. Here one moment, gone the next, but neither ended nor begun. Just flowing. One beautiful thing cascading into the next.
Paddy Dobson
26th July 2022