The Message
The fog was heavy as I walked through on the path leading to my destination. Where was that destination, you might ask? That is hard to explain since I don’t really know myself. I received this message that just said to follow the path of least resistance starting at the entrance to the park. There was nothing else on the message. Being the curious kind of person that I am, I decided to do what it said.
I made my way to the park, it was a very sunny and clear day when I started out. As soon as I got to the park and stepped across the entrance threshold the fog appeared blanketing out everything but a single path in front of me. This made me even more curious and a bit apprehensive. But I did what the message said. I followed the path. As I continued walking the path made some twists and turns; I continued as instructed.
After a while, I thought to myself, I clearly must not be in the park anymore. Considering how far I’d walked, I knew the park wasn’t that big. But at this point, I couldn’t stop. Looking behind me the fog had covered up where I had been. I had no choice but to go forward.
I finally came to a clearing. The fog dissipated and the path and park disappeared. Before me lay a vast garden of flowers. Each one had a different color, shape, and size. The aroma was intoxicating. The sky was clear but not blue as expected, but a sort of pale green and included two suns, both shining down on me. One sun was bright yellow as our sun is, and the other was bright blue. The thing is, as bright as they were I could look straight at them, unlike our sun which would cause irreparable damage to your eyes.
I was at a loss as to where I was or what I was supposed to do when I saw her coming toward me.
“I should have known,” she said. “Only you would be stupid enough to not only follow an unsigned message but continue walking once you stepped past the entrance to the park and fog showed up.”
“What?” I asked. “Was this some sort of a test? Who are you?”
It was then the suns began to merge. The flowers began to wilt and the fog appeared again obliterating everything. It took only a few minutes before the fog dissipated and I found myself standing at the entrance of the park again with the message in my hand.
As I looked down at the message, the writing had changed. Written in bold letters was “BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!” It was signed, Christina. But that’s my wife’s name?
