Premonitions

Breezes blow. Great white clouds drift across a blue desert sky, followed by their shadow counterparts across the rough and barren wasteland. A hawk circles slowly overhead, swooping low now and then to catch rising eddies of air that the arid hills cast off in shimmering waves.

Walking slowly, a Figure appears upon the skyline. He pauses to watch the circling hawk. Moving again, His shoulders slightly stooped, and with a slow yet deliberate stride, He walks on. Topping a rise, He hesitates as the breeze becomes wind, hurling sand wildly. Pulling His cloak about him, and squinting His eyes, He continues in the direction of a lone peak. Bending forward--head into the wind, hair blowing freely, clothes flapping--he moves up the steep slope, where He gratefully takes shelter behind a large summit rock.

Pulling His legs in against His chest, He sits with arms half-wrapped around His knees. Then letting His head fall back, He leans against the rock. The wind calms. His sky-turned eyes gaze into an infinite blue strewn with clouds.

The peaceful heavens are welcome relief to His tired city eyes. The clouds drift gently, unlike the frenzied movement of the teeming throngs in the city, where He walks alone in spite of being surrounded. People, yes, but still alone...always alone. Why? Sighing deeply, He leans His forehead against His arms, letting His mind drift with the pure white clouds. He thinks of them...the city people, the seething, searching crowd--purposeless, pointless lives with little to live for and less to look forward to, except perhaps death.

Death is their only hope...His death. But they do not know that, nor do they care. And it is because none seem to care or understand that He must continue walking alone. Perhaps someday they will know, someday they will care, but just now...

His eyes wander across the rocky, gray-brown wasteland below the sky. Something attracts His attention. Protruding above a nearby pile of rocks, a small red flower grows upward. It reaches for the sun as though heaven provides its reason for living.

Looking closer, He notices the edges of petals that have begun to wrinkle and whither. There is little water here, where wind and heat constantly threaten a flower's existence. It appears as if the arid desert is slowly draining the life from this solitary plant.

Suddenly a smile smoothes the care-worn features of His leathered face, because beneath this small red flower He sees the tiny sprouts of seedlings that have been dropped. They are groping their way through the shadowy places, reaching upward for the sun.

As the sun sets and the twilight gathers, observe the solitary figure of a Man silhouetted against the evening sky, making His way back. Back down the desert slopes--back to the peopled city. Desert breezes ruffle His hair and clothes...and far on the distant horizon a hawk circles.