Read Parts 1-4
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'You can walk with me. Even though I was your enemy once we will walk together. I was sad when I realized that I was not the only creature to receive this gift. But now I see you are worthy of it, too.'
And they walked on in this way, the lizard using his senses to follow the smell of the coffee and the cricket playing songs that kept him from feeling sad. They walked on and on, ignorant of the noise and dangerous commotion of the city. They came to believe that they had been called to find the source of the mysterious gift they had both received. They would sit together when they rested and describe to each other the taste of the sweet rain that had changed their lives so. Finally, the lizard stopped near a drain set into the outer wall of a busy coffee shop.
'We are here, my friend. I am not mistaken.'
They crawled into the drain and emerged in darkness under a sink where through a cracked pipe poured the runoff from all the shop's beverage preparation areas. The cricket leapt in ecstasy and started in on a new tune of celebration, a rapid burst of almost inaudibly high pitches. The song rattled and vibrated so sharply that it disturbed the enormous colony of ants who had previously established themselves in the space beneath the sink. The ants swarmed out viciously and quickly overwhelmed the lizard and the cricket until all their parts had been ripped away and carried individually back down into the ants' nest in the earth below."
The train had stopped some time ago at its terminal station and when the old man finished his tale he departed. I stayed on the floor of the train for a few minutes, collecting myself and reassuring myself that I was now alone. I emerged from the station and wandered through New Jersey for a short time looking for a working ferry to take me back across. Instead, I found a shabby helicopter charter office. I negotiated a price about 7 times above the standard rate and soon enough was back in the city. That inflated rate I felt was perfectly justified and even something of a bargain when you consider that I lacked a reservation.
The End. Happy Holidays. |
