III. what we seek.

It’s not a moment of clarity that which we seek, but rather it is the idea of that momentous occasion that we regard so highly and with such reverence. Tilden walked calmly through the forest, dully noting the wanderers like him he would intermittently come across. They all seemed weary in contrast to him, he was following what he thought was a path of righteousness and light, but all of those he encountered seemed to be stigmatized by the journey and wore titles such as “vagabond” and “drifter”. He felt so detached from that image, for in his heart was a silver feather, warming him and encasing him with hope that at the end of the journey he would find what he truly desired and the emptiness of his being would be satiated at last.

Finally, after weeks of walking, Tilden lay dying in a field of ivy, his skin ruined by the scorching sun and his eyes yellowed by the elements and dehydration. He spoke calmly to himself, embracing the closing moments of his short life. He was still empty, though, he noted, and his feather-heart was still burning ferociously. As his condition worsened he begin to hear voices speak to him. Not one voice, not the voice of God, not the light of Heaven, but many voices.

“What is it you seek? Is it freedom from this existence, for that you have surely found,” begin one of the voices, to which Tilden shook his head. “What brought you to this point? Of course, you cannot hold an object like a feather accountable for your actions.”

Then another voice began to talk. “The feather took you on a journey, this is true, but what journey is that? You are here dying for the sake of something you felt in your heart, but it was not something you should’ve followed. You followed something and that is the problem. You must not take a path, but allow a path to form before you, the real path, the only path, not a deluded, ill founded alley out of the dark, for this is not a path, but a construct and your emptiness and longing will only be assuaged for a short time before the waves of hollow existence crash upon you again, and suffocate you with their might.”

“I did what I felt might be right,” He choked out through his operatic breath.

The third and final voice spoke to him, “Go easy now, Tilden, and let go of all you have, for this journey has lead you to the ultimate release, it is only in death that most can ever truly release that which binds them, those connections to what really isn’t. For in your passing, you will move through everything that is, and everything that was, and everything that ever will be, and you will see, my brother, that you were always one with that, so nothing was ever wrong to start with.”

With that, Tilden slipped into a coma and soon died. The voices mumbled something inaudible and then left that place. As time passed his body turned into what all bodies do and the Earth embraced his bones, churning them into soil and where he once lay dying, there was a feather, released finally from his heart.