Sky Mackerel

If Haruki only looked close to his feet, the road seemed straight and flat.  But with a raised chin, the slight rise and subtle curvature to the left is evident.  And with eyes shielded against the brightening sky, he can see the sloping spiral that builds into that glowing horizon, until it becomes faint and disappears from sight.  

The feel of it was never what he expected, so he left his shoes behind long ago.  Even though it all looked like pristine concrete, some of it was as soft as fresh grass, and some of it your feet sank into like beach sand.  Sometimes it was cold, and he would stamp his feet to get blood to circulate, or run to stay warm.  Sometimes it was hot, and then Haruki would feel his tender feet burning, and he’d hurry between spots of shade.

And through it all, the same rise and twist of the road.  Slowly drifting upwards, winding on itself up into the sky like a lazily coiled snake.  Or, maybe it had always been like Ouroboros, eating its own tail.  People walked on both sides of the road, so that if you looked far enough upwards you could see them upside down from you, and heading the opposite direction.  Their goals and directions were opposite of his own, it was such a struggle to understand people like that.

Sometimes he’d find street vendors on the road, selling treats or passing the time.  This morning, a Panda smoking a cigarette and sitting cross legged near the road’s edge nodded his head toward Haruki as he passed.  He seemed interested in nothing more than enjoying the book he was reading, the sunlight of the warm day, and passively greeting travelers.

As Haruki walked, the street turned warm and soft, with the smell of fresh grass.  If he closed his eyes, he could feel it spilling up between his toes.  When he opened them, he saw a small crowd gathering at the edge of the road.  With the sudden crack of a bat, he saw that off in the clouds a group played a baseball game.  He bought a small bag of popcorn from a passing old man, and sat as near to the edge of the road as he dared.  

The game was between the people on this side of the road, and the people on the reverse.  Of course, he rooted for his home team.  He understood the justness of them, knew that their direction was right and true, and that since the universe rewarded such things they must win.  But with each inning, they continued to be ousted, to give ground.  He knew how it would go in the end, and considered leaving to not witness the final defeat, but he hung on.  

The loss left Haruki in despair.  When he looked to his right for commiseration, there sat the same Panda from this morning.  His feet dangled over the edge of the road, as if there was no concern of falling over.

Seeing the pained expression on his face, the Panda said to him; “You should try to see things from their perspective sometime.  Really, they’re no different than us.”

“But they live upside down from us, and walk the other direction.  They’re the most different!”

At this, the Panda laughed heartily, and pointed backwards down the road.  “What do you see down there that they walk towards?”

Haruki followed his finger with his gaze, and looked past the crowd to the spiraling road.  It stretched out in front of him to the horizon, yawning into the distant sky.  Suddenly confused, he looked back to the direction he was heading.  And just like he knew, he found the same sight in that direction.  The road stretched towards a horizon at either end, seeming to curve into infinity until it disappeared from sight.

“It looks the same in that direction, how can that be?”  How had he never noticed this?

Laughing, the Panda put a hand on his shoulder.  “The end is the same, no matter which direction you take.”  His truth given, the Panda rose and lit another cigarette.  He walked away from the crowd, and finding another spot in the sun, sat his great mass down to read his book.

Haruki walked on, but with the sureness of each step somewhat faded.  There was such glorious purpose before, and now he found his eyes drawn upwards to stare at the people moving the other direction.  Several times, he seemed to wake up in the middle of the road, and realized he had been riveted in place thinking on the opposite-siders.  

A great indecision took him, and instead of continuing to walk, he spent long hours sitting on the side of the road and watching people move in either direction.  And staring at either horizon in turn.  Like a slow growing gray moss, age took him, until years had passed unmoving.  

One day, a fat orange tabby that walked upright came down the road.  He wore a wide brimmed straw hat, and carried several fishing rods on his back.  Seeing Haruki’s spot in the sun, he sat next to him, but faced away from the road.  Interested, Haruki watched as he ignored the passersby, dangled his feet over the edge, and cast out into the clouds.  The cat hauled in several juicy sky mackerel, seemingly uninterested in anything but the activity.

Without a word, Haruki left and returned with an old grill that had been abandoned by a vendor.  He returned to find the tabby already cleaning and preparing the fish, and knew then that the cat had expected him to find a way to cook them.  Over the next hours, they grilled mackerel, and once they had their fill, they shared the leftovers with other vendors and travelers, until there was a great, contented crowd huddled around the grill.

“Thank you, fisherman.” Haruki said, and in that moment realized the true gift he had received from the tabby.  He hadn’t thought of travelers moving in both directions all day.

With a twinkling perception in his eyes, the cat looked back at Haruki.  He understood the weight of those words.  “Please, take one of my fishing rods.  It’s a simple life, but I believe that you’re in need of some simplicity.”  And with that, he held out the wooden rod that he had used all day.

Like a man that had been looking for a life raft for years and not realized it, Haruki grabbed the rod from the cat.  He stared down at it for some time, and then back up to the orange tabby.

“It’s not always about the meaning we find at the end, but also about the meaning we find each day.”  The cat said, and stood.  He bowed deeply to the still gathered crowd, and kept walking on the road.  In ones and twos, the crowd moved on, until Haruki was alone on the side of the road again.  He stared after the cat, and down to the rod, and felt something inside him shift into place.

The next day, and every day thereafter, he spent on the side of the road fishing for sky mackerel and grilling them for travelers.  His fears finally quelled, he dangled his feet over the edge, and delighted in the shifting gravity he found.  With his legs so near the opposite side of the road, he could feel the attraction of each side, and finally came to peace with them both.  

Occasionally, he would travel down the road in one direction to find a new place to fish.  And then later on, he would walk off the edge, and land firmly on the opposite road.  He’d follow this opposite road the opposite direction, and then stop to fish.  He repeated this so many times that he forgot which way he had originally headed, but it had ceased to matter.  He no longer felt any drive to reach a destination.