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| The Milky Way by � biidsis We were traveling, in the night. It had been a long hard trip from Indiana to Minnesota. Road weary, the four of us. One with a bad attitude, one an abuser of alcohol and people, another abused, and the last a terminal squirrel, full of hope and promise. He was impatient to arrive at this place he�d never seen. He�d never been north of Chicago, and was excited, he had heard wonderful stories of the Great North Woods. He spoke non-stop and the closer we got to home, the more infectious his enthusiasm became. We were traveling in a van that we had put together piece by piece. It was comfortable at the start, but now was full of our travel refuse and smelled of hundreds of cigarettes. Ms. Attitude was the wife of Terminal Squirrel, she didn�t want to be there but Squirrel had convinced her to come with us. We didn�t know it at the time but they were soon for divorce. I still miss Ms. Attitude. But it was for the best all the way around, they each had their lessons to learn and so they did. After hundreds of miles and hundreds of Squirrel�s stories we were finally within fifty miles from home. We stopped for gas and the usual; sodas, snacks and more smokes. Squirrel was impatient, he didn�t see why we couldn�t wait to get there," After all it was only fifty miles". Stubborn and pouting he stayed in the van. We finished our business in no time, and we were back on the road in minutes. Still he pouted and teased us about being wimps. But we just took it with renewed anticipation of being close to home and loved ones. Being the abused, I was not looking forward to this trip, I knew what it meant for me. His drinking and wild drunken rides and picking myself up out of the dirt after trying to get the keys away. So the closer we got, the worse I felt. We had all become quiet, thinking, in our own worlds by now. The Abuser anxious to get started, to get together with the ones who worshiped him in his small pond. Myself worried about what this trip would mean for me, knowing. Ms. Attitude, well who knows? By this time her head was cocked and her eyes downcast and full of hatred. But what of Squirrel, why had he become so quiet? The van rumbled on, bumping on this late night two lane highway and Squirrel had fallen silent for the first time in nearly seven hundred miles. If we hadn�t been so wrapped up in our own little worlds, maybe we would have noticed. Maybe we would have seen him squirming around in his seat. Finally, he couldn�t take it any more, about six miles from home, he begged the Abuser to stop. It seems he did need to "rest" back when we did, and underestimated his own stamina. So laughing and back in the real world, we found a place to pull over. Oh, how we teased him, "Only six miles from home!!! What are you a wimp???" We threw all his words right back at him as he stood outside, obtaining the relief he had so long denied himself. Suddenly we heard him call out "Oh my God!!! I have never seen anything like it!!!" So six miles from home we all piled out of the van to see what he was ranting about and we were blessed by the scent of fresh clover and pine. "The sky!!!" he shouted. So we looked, I saw nothing unusual for a cool Minnesota summer night. Again he shouted "Look at the sky!!! I have never seen so many stars, never!!!" We had forgotten that this young man had grown up near the steel mills of Indiana and that the air and sky were so contaminated that the stars all but disappeared. He asked us what was that long cloud like thing, was it a storm? I looked at him, puzzled, and i asked had he never seen the milky way before? We all stood there in wonder, forgetting the dismal thoughts we had entertained only minutes ago, As we were returning to the van and the road, we heard him call out again "Ohhhhhhh! What is that???" We were being blessed by a spectacular show, provided by the Northern Lights. I will always be thankful that Squirrel was given this gift and I hope the memory of it has sustained him, I know it has sustained me. And I am thankful still, that the eyes of an innocent showed me the sky again and the hope that waits there. biidaaban |