The Trail

by Ethan Gallogly

Finding my way down to the stream in the moonlight, everything lit up under its soft glow, like in a Bolton Brown drawing. I sat there, just watching the water flow by. It was like looking at life. Then I saw a small trout hidden among the rocks, almost motionless, its body waving gently back and forth, keeping it steady against the current. “As I watched, the moonlight took on an almost iridescent rainbowlike glow. It’s hard to describe, but I could almost taste the different colors. The trees of the forest seemed to grow faces and I could almost touch the silvery network of roots and fungi running off from my hands beneath the soil, my entire body rooted to the spot.” There musta been something in that drink he had, like the ’shrooms I’d taken in my frat days. “The flowing water became the eternal stream of time. The trout would eventually die and be carried off to the ocean, but new things would be born and live on from its remains. I realized I was the fish, and the fish was me. That everything’s connected. That we all swim for a while against the current, until one day we’re carried off by the flow.”

What images come to mind when you see the struggle of the fish as it finds death? What images come to mind when you imagine your own death? How do the images are the images similar and how do they differ? Do you feel peace or struggle (anxiety) with the image? Do you want to improve or maintain your perspective based on where you are at in your life journey?