Search for a Hidden Place

On certain days I can remember scenes from a time so very long ago. Only fragments remain but each fragment retains a distinctive and unmistakable clarity. Too few pieces though to compile a complete picture or to recall the entire story. 

Maybe the missing parts have been faded by the passing of years. Perhaps the sketches I try to rediscover when I close my eyes and let my thoughts wander are only fractured memories of the dreams of a young child; a time when spiritual imagination compensated for the lack of wisdom and the inability to make sense of the world.

An age of silence is difficult to believe, a time when noise was considered nothing more than the moaning sounds of cold November winds blowing through bare tree branches. 

Imagine an era when the waters that flowed in streams and rivers or rested in ponds and lakes were not poisoned; a time when a man’s thirst could be satisfied almost anywhere by drawing water with cupped hands.

If possible, try to conceive of a time when most travel was by foot and major routes were no more than wagon trails; a time when miles of tree and brush-lined stone walls divided parts of the land into rectangular patterns, and footpaths crisscrossed the countryside.

Remember with nostalgia when villages were once small enough to walk through in a matter of minutes and all faces were familiar; a time when large cities were merely thought of as very distant, far off places because they were.

Such eras and places once were and the time that has passed since then may not be all that long ago; however, until there is such a means for one to go back, then the time elapsed is forever, and that is, forever gone. 

Lost! 

Impossible to find and return to! 

Then again, that is the nature of this one-way journey through time that we call life.

The Oddblock Station Agent