Seven Lives, One Journey

How Imagination Gets Detained

I searched for the train line the elderly French said would culminate in the city center.

I sauntered along a path next to the highway with a contradicting fusion of dalliance and determination.

My bag became unnecessary like a life jacket on dry land. The denim companion rested abandoned by the roadside. I metamorphosed into a free spirit, an ethereal being unbound by physical needs. Relieved of the weight, I resumed my journey. The rest of my belongings fit into a lunchbox.

I approached a tunnel which forced me to cross the highway. My path hit a dead end. I set foot on the asphalt, determined to reach the other side indifferent to automobiles accelerating in my direction.

My life has been predestined; I know this is not my time to die.

Cars blew their horns and slammed on their brakes. A few threatened to slide off the road due to the abrupt change in speed. I ambled as vehicles dodged my body waltzed to the opposite byway.

Once on the grassy pathway, I retrieved my Discman and switched out the Ani DiFranco CD for another one of hers. The soundtrack accompanied an imagined film, with particular verses matching each of my steps. As a result, I’d discard any full-listened album, tossed over my shoulder. Every song played at the precise moment, as though the universe had composed it.

I took a quick break from my wandering. The lunchbox contained only the essentials. As I unfolded my wallet, I chuckled at the emptiness inside the bill compartment. I broke my debit card in half and threw it aside.

The diver certification credentials received a special farewell—it found its resting place within the earth. I imagined myself peregrinating through unknown territories, swimming au naturel in alien waters that didn’t require a wetsuit, air cylinder, mask, or flippers.

I gaited out of my flip flops and curled my toes into the dirt as I stepped away from my shoes. Jack Johnson reverberated into my ears with a Hawaiian luau vibe. The clouds pranced as the breeze grazed my placid countenance. I was in the moment and out of it when tried to figure out how the plot would proceed.

Should I wait for the others?

I finally reached the aimed train line but was not in such a hurry to progress with the journey. Doubts abounded.

Reconsidering my quest, I could keep traipsing freely eastward until the Land of the Rising Sun but only after my expected meeting with Jacques Chirac. I fantasized about that anonymous life of a wayfarer, foregathering people in envisaged villages along my Eurasia venture. Yet, I found it impossible to ignore the scheduled rendezvous that demanded my attention.

I perched at the summit of the valley containing the railway as a train cruised through it. I got into the process of digesting emotional baggage when I sighted a ladybug traversing a trunk. The self-identification was eminent hence in my mother tongue this red beetle is the diminutive of my given name.

I had the impetus of writing and hunted for a pen in my lunchbox. Nothing else was available to scribble on but the empty pages of my passport. The travel document was needless in my newly devised life.

The flow of words didn’t match the motion of my hand penning it down. I found it hard to encapsulate the essence of the tale using alphabetic symbols. Despite the challenges, I persevered and forced the pen onto the paper.