“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”*
Hiking along the chosen road, I am thinking about how can I incorporate into my life a bumper sticker admonition, “Practice random acts of kindness and commit senseless acts of beauty.” Traveling on, I soon perceive why this road is less traveled.
Not far from the fork in the road, (which I pick up and place in my knapsack) ancient and majestic oaks grow o’er the way, eventually shutting out the noon-day sun and providing only a dim twilight to illuminate the way forward. Thick and thorny underbrush steadily crowd in from both sides, forcing travelers towards the center and ever onward. Retreat finally becomes nearly impossible as thorns grab and tear if one attempts to go back.
The road, now a trail turned path, twists, writhes, and bends to and fro so often all sense of location and direction become scrambled. The very air grows thick and ever more oppressive with the deepening gloom and each forward step. One can almost feel malice emanating from the surrounding forest, feeding rising fear and urging speed to hurry forward to path’s end, leaving this cursed wood behind.
A state of depressed desperation occupies my mind as the trail seems to end at the mouth of a small abandoned mine. Tracks in the dirt ahead clearly indicate the path continues into what ultimately becomes a large cave. Passing through the entrance, I travel not far, when blocking my progress forward and any egress to the rear, are four large and starving trolls.
While I fight the urge to panic, which can result only in mental paralysis, the trolls force me deeper into the cave. Once near their cooking pots, just like in all the stories I’ve heard, they begin to argue on how to cook me for their dinner. Before their discussion can lead to some rash action towards me, I decide to turn on all my charm and personality in a ploy for them to release me unharmed. I do not use my good looks because I believe trolls are not influenced by human beauty.
I manage to convince them that I can supply unlimited food almost immediately, if I can but leave intact. At first they are against my plan, then skeptical, and finally in agreement. I leave the cave and fight my way back through the thorns to the divergent point of the two roads. I search all around until I find some appropriate old wooden planks and make a sign along the road less traveled but near to the divergent point.
My plan works perfectly. The next year, I replace the sign with a beautiful but fake U.S. Forest Service information sign, thus fulfilling the bumper sticker’s admonition. The sign is the senseless act of beauty and feeding the starving trolls is the random act of kindness.
The sign reads: “WARNING! Troll Cave Ahead. Enter at your own risk!”
The sign tells the truth, but the foolish don’t believe the warning and eagerly travel to the cave anyway. Thus, I provide our society with an act of kindness by slowly and steadily removing fools from the gene pool and proving once and for all that old cliché, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
Yes. I took the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference to the trolls, me, and many fools.
© 5 January 2015
*From The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, 1916
About the Author
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.
My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment