There comes a point in one's life, if he happens to be of good fortune, where one senses that he has gone irreversibly and tragically down the right path. The dawn arrives from the West, usually after a protracted period of aimless wandering in one's youth, lighting the way toward a sense of linearity, direction, discipline, and reassurance that--worry not, young one--the brief sojourn here is to be fraught with meaning after all. The right path beckons. It assures him of its blessings and promises him a respectable life in the shadows. More than anything, it signals an end to the pain of indecision, of fruitlessly holding one's head above the fray, looking to the sky and back down at the people, to the sky, the people, and stifling an expulsion of explosive laughter at the people. At the midway point, the sky wants for an evening admirer and the young one has become the people.

How does it come to be? The right path is lined with fruit trees of all sort and carefully cultivated vineyards for some distance early on. Apples, pears, oranges, grapes, peaches, cherries--just the right tenderness and at the peak of ripeness. One cannot help but be mesmerized by the abundance. Was this what was missing all along? And the promise--the promise that more, greater, better, bigger is to come at the end of the right path. The young one is so engrossed in the beautiful surroundings, the aromatic fields, the sweetness of the fruit, he does not notice the trees beginning to thin, the weeds encroaching, the drone of the rattle off in the distance, the dusk mistaken for dawn.

His eyes become dry, his vision blurry. He looks back to see the beginning of the path. The smiling faces, the young girls with the tousled hair, the youth holding his head aloft. Where have they gone? He is alone now. The rattle grows a little bit louder. He must continue. It is too dark to go back, too dark to go forward. He must feel his way. He falls to the dirt path and pushes for right. His hands are cut, his knees bruised, his face withering under the heat of some unseen source in the dark. It is okay. A path cannot be traversed in the shade forever, not even the right path.

Years pass. The fruit trees have long since disappeared. An occasional crow lands on a nearby fence post, passes a disinterested glance at the youth before flying off in silence. He is heartbroken, angry, not so much for being deceived but willingly throwing away his treasure for a shadow. When his mind is aswirl with thoughts of the painful journey he's made, clinging, begging by now, for the end of the right path, he collapses in the dirt. He looks up at the night sky, exhausted, and it all comes flooding back to him.

The vastness of the universe, the smallness of the body, the hilarity of existence. The sore wrists from playing the Mozart sonata at a speed meant for an expert. The pages and pages of giant cream-colored paper spun with reckless gesture drawings in graphite. The shoddy reproduction of Van Gogh's village fountain. The right path. The path without glares, without deceit. The ungeometric, non-discrete path. The path with curves, expressions, tears, exhilaration. The path that guaranteed nothing but the best chance of meaning a little creature in a big universe could hope for.

The youth looked up at the night sky, and the rush of memories caused his eyes to well with tears, streaks of brown, wet dust staining his cheeks.