John Vespasian - THE DAY I SAW THE TRUTH: A SHORT STORY ABOUT CHANGE

I parked my car in the village and took the path along the stream. It was not difficult to find the house. Just as they had told me, it was a ten minute's walk. I stood still in front of the door and looked around.

The sunshine on the grass was bringing out a dozen shades of green, the air was chill, and I was too tired. During my drive from Marseilles to Brig, I had remained oblivious to the Swiss landscape. My mind had been too busy rehearsing what I was going to tell Elise, the precise words, the exact intonation.

How long had I known Elise, her husband, parents, and friends? Ten, fifteen years? Elise's sudden departure had taken all of them by surprise, but not me. I had been sort of awaiting it. I had long sensed her hunger, her wish for change. Water always gets warm before it boils.

Elise opened the door before I had gathered the courage to knock. In the Swiss mountains, her smile had grown warmer, wider. She listened to me patiently, with the kindness of an old friend who knows you too well. I gave her twenty reasons to return home, to her husband, to her former life.

We drank coffee, as Elise told me about her new life. She told me about the shop she had started in Brig and about her expansion projects. The shelves on the walls showed a collection of her pottery. "People love hand-made ceramics," she explained, "because each item is different." She had also met someone, she added, but it was still too soon to say.

As I listened to her, I searched for further grounds to support my pleads. She could retake her former job, but her decision to change was firm. People were waiting for her to return, but she obviously didn't care. She had already taken with her all that she liked best.

I finished my coffee in silence. I knew that further attempts would be of no use, but I was unsure about the reasons for my defeat. "Come back to visit whenever you want," she invited me affectionately, "whenever things get too complicated." She kissed me softly and, from the doorway, she waved me goodbye.

Why had she left? For what had she exchanged her former life? The answer dawned on me as I was half-way to the village. I turned around, stood still, and heard a bird's cry above. Elise's reason was not the mountains, I realized. It was the freedom.

[Text: http://johnvespasian.blogspot.com]

[Image by Stephanie Costa under Creative Commons Attribution License. See the license terms under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us]