Young Once.

He sits until much time passes, seemingly impervious to everything around him, the breeze that rolls across the green grassy meadow, the soft rain that begins to softly beat down on the lengthy expanses of Crows Crossing Road. It seems like Jacob Kyler has been waiting forever. He looks up at the crow perched up on the longest branch at the very edge towards the top of the tree line. He draws in a long sigh. Its almost dusk and he still isn’t there, he thinks aloud to the crow.
“Maybe he isn’t coming tonight. Maybe he’s finally forgotten about me.”
“Jacob.” The crow tells him, “Give him time, what else have you got?”

The boy sits down in the meadow grass and pulls his knee’s up to his chest and stares out into the darkening sky, finally he sees a lone vehicle slowly roll to a stop at the edge of Crow’s Crossing Road, the engine stops and the drivers side door opens as a lone solemn figure begins to slowly walk into the meadow, thirty yards, in he stops at a tree at the edge of the woods. A large branch extends almost from the bottom of the trunk three quarters up to the height of the tree some thirty feet into the air. He bends down and places a bouquet of flowers at the trunk, he closes his eyes as they begin to tear up. And as the rain begins to fall around his mind begins to take him back

It is august 31st 1961, it is a beautiful late summer day, and Miles Kyler has been put in charge of his nine year old brother Jacob by their mother who has to work today. He is suppose to take him to the carnival that is in town but instead, Mile’s picks up his girlfriend and decides to head for Crows Crossing Road with his little brother in tow. They find the perfect makeout spot, so he pulls the car over and he lets Jacob out and instructs him to go play in the meadow so he and the girl can be alone. Jacob like any nine year old boy would, seems eager at the prospect of playing in and around the woods so Miles Kyler thinks nothing of it. He and the girl begin to kiss, their passion slowly building, that is until he glances in the direction of the woods and sees young Jacob scaling the side of a tree, he is almost fifteen feet into the air when Miles spots him.

He pulls free from the girls grasp and opens the car door and begins to yell out at Jacob to get down from there. He hadn’t noticed the clouds roll in, he hadn’t noticed the soft rain begin to fall, and now the boy is near the top of the limb but the bark of the tree has gotten slippery and he loses his footing, his legs slide over the edge of the tree limb as he clings to a smaller branch. He looks out at Miles who is now running across the meadow in what seems like slow motion, he sees him yelling but there is no sound. His finger slide free from the wet bark, and when nine year old Jacob loses his grip entirely, he falls from almost twenty feet in the air to the ground breaking his neck and killing him almost instantly.

The images have never left him, nor the feelings of guilt, he has carried it with him his entire life, through three failed marriages. Through the alcohol dependency. Through the drug addiction. And even though he came through it all and had somehow survived, he knows that he can never forget, nor be forgiven. He can never be whole. He opens his eyes as the rain softly mixes with the bitterness of the tears. His mind hopelessly going over every single “If only I had..” He places the flowers at the trunk of the tree and Miles Kyler’s 65 year old eyes slowly scan the dark skies surrounding Crows Crossing Road, finally coming to rest at his own feet.
“Maybe someday Miles. Maybe someday.”

He doesn’t hear the voice, as he slowly turns back to the road and moves towards the gray Lexus. He doesn’t feel the rain, nor the wind, he grabs the door handle and opens it finally stopping to look back at the trees now he see the crow sitting on a line fence post. His lips slowly begin to move as he stares at the lone bird.
“Could you-” he stops to wipe the moisture away from his mouth before looking back up at the Crow.
“Could you tell him.. That I’m so sorry. And I have always missed him?” he begins to cry. “and I hope to God that somehow he has found a way to forgive me?”

He turns to the Lexus and now the crow is perched above the drivers side door. The sight startles him.
“How did you?”
“It isn’t Jacobs forgiveness that you require Miles. First you must forgive yourself, only then will you know peace.”
He looks back over his shoulder and for a brief moment he sees the young boy standing at the edge of the woods, smiling and waving at him, he looks no different in 2009 than he did in 1961. And Miles Kyler tries to force his lips to smile.

He slowly raises his trembling hands to wave back as the boy disappears from view. He gets in the Lexus and starts the engine, and pauses to stare out the window as light slowly gives way to the dark. Tomorrow will be a new day, a new chance, to learn to forgive, to heal, to be whole again.
Tomorrow will be a new day here as well, where the tree lines are endless, where regret is non existent, and hope reigns supreme, and every spirit roams free, forever young, here on Crows Crossing Road.

~Scratch A.B.T. copyright © 2009.~