THE HITCHHIKER

One morning while driving west on a flat stretch of road outside Abilene, Texas, I saw the stranger with his thumb out long before I stopped and offered him a lift. He thanked me politely while carefully depositing his guitar case in the back seat. He had no other bags except for a backpack that he slipped off and deposited at his feet as he got into the passenger seat.

“Where are you headed?” I asked.

“West,” he answered.

“Me too. “ Looking directly at the guitar case, I continued, “Do you play?”

“Some,” he answered and without another word, he leaned his head back against the seat and fell fast asleep.

I pulled the car onto the road and drove west. Three hours later, we came to a shaded rest stop. I pulled off needing to stretch my legs and use the facilities. The Hitchhiker awoke when the car slowed to a stop as I parked.

“Rest stop?” he queried.

“Yes,” I answered, removing the keys from the ignition. “I need to stretch my legs. How about yourself?”

“I’m good. I’ll wait here and watch the car for you,” he stated.

True to his word, he was leaning against the car when I returned carrying two water bottles from a vending machine. I offered him one but he declined politely.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

I nodded and on down the road we traveled. I was bursting with unasked questions but simultaneously found his steady silent presence comforting and quelling to my curiosity and thus, my questions remained unasked.

“Westward we go,” I murmured.

He nodded and repeated, “Westward we go.”

We stopped at an all-night roadside diner for supper. He offered to drive on through the night to bring us further along, but wary of someone else driving, I declined. There was a motel next to the diner so I suggested we each get a room and a good night’s rest. We could get an early breakfast before dawn at the diner and head west with the rising sun at our backs. He agreed.

We checked into the motel, said good night, and settled into our individual rooms for the night. The walls were thin but the room was clean. I showered, got into pajamas, sat up in bed and was writing in my journal when guitar strumming and picking came through the walls from his room next door. It wasn’t a tune I’d heard before but it was enchanting in its own way.

I found words tumbling out of me into my journal with the flow of the music.

        Oh, the road is wide

The road is long

And I sing my road song

Glad to have you by my side

As my trusted guide.

I paused in amazement, how easily these words had flowed along with the music from the Hitchhiker’s guitar. I had never thought of myself as a song writer before. Now, I had written lyrics. I closed my journal, switched off the bedside lamp, and drifted off to sleep serenaded by the Hitchhiker’s guitar playing.

I awoke well rested before dawn to the chirping of birds outside my window. I got myself together for the day, put my belongings in the car, noticing that the Hitchhiker’s guitar wasn’t yet in the back seat. He was sitting in the back of the diner sipping coffee. He smiled as I joined him.

“Good morning,” I said returning his smile.

“And good morning to you,” he replied handing me a menu.

We ordered our breakfast and consulted a map he pulled from his backpack that showed the interstate highway west from where we were. Texas was huge, the interstate would take us westward and eventually out of Texas.

The food arrived along with hot, delicious coffee. He folded up the map and we devoured our breakfast washing it down with the coffee. He insisted on paying for breakfast, and I let him. We returned to the motel. The Hitchhiker collected his guitar and put it in place in the back seat. We each paid for our own rooms and left. We filled the gas tank before we left town. He paid. I told him I would buy the next tank. He smiled and nodded.

As we rode together in the early morning hours, my passenger began to tap out a rhythm with his hands on his knee. It was neither annoying nor pleasing. It established a rhythm for the road.

“Is there a tune that goes with that rhythm you are tapping?” I asked after a while.

“Yes,” he answered, “very old, like this land.”

“Have you been here before?” I asked.

“Many times,” he answered.

“Please tell me a story about one of those times,” I asked.

“Will you turn off this wide road for a story?”

Odd though this request was, there was nothing sinister emanating from him. I could only sense a plaintive yearning like someone returning to a long-lost home, so I answered, “Yes.”

The terrain was changing. We could see mountains in the distance. After a while, he told me to turn off onto the next smaller road that went north. I glanced down at the gas tank. I couldn’t believe my eyes. We had been driving for hours and the needle had hardly dipped below full.

“We are getting great gas mileage,” I commented noting the changing terrain of rock formations and ocotillos in bloom.

“Yes, that’s good, right?” answered my passenger continuing to tap out his road rhythm.

“Good, yes,” I agreed.

We came around a bend and I gasped. A large mountainous rock formation loomed ahead of us.

“Here is a good place for a story,” he said.

I pulled over. We got out and he pointed to a rock overhang. He slung his backpack on and walked toward the overhang. I grabbed my backpack and followed. It was cool under the rock overhang. We sat down on the sandy ground and I leaned against the rock which was surprisingly cool. I took a sip from my water bottle and waited for his story.

He spoke quietly, “This land was my home many times before now. Four hundred years ago when my people emerged and multiplied here for a while. I was also here much longer ago when all this was a sea and my people then came from the stars drawn by the multiple life forms living on the coral reef that followed the edge of where the sea and land met. It was so different then and now.”

I was stunned.

He looked into my eyes, “Hard to accept as possible?”

“Yes, but I want to,” I answered.

“It’s important to nurture the ability to accept that the impossible is possible. That idea doesn’t come easily to human beings,” he said frankly without rancor.

I nodded and mulled over all that he had just revealed and responded, “I can’t help asking why are you here now?”

“A visit,” he answered.

“Like a tourist?”

“Yes, something like that.”

“Explain, please.”

“I am a peaceful tourist with no intent to cause harm to any living creature on this planet.”

“How can I know that for sure?” I queried.

He smiled and made a cross mark over his heart saying, “Cross my heart and hope to die should my words be a lie.”

I nodded. We looked deeply into one another’s eyes. A solemn pact had been made between us.

“Is there more I need to know?” I asked.

“Not yet. All will be revealed in the proper time as we travel onward.”

“So, I’m on a sort of need-to-know basis?”

“Yes, but only for now,” he said reassuringly.

“What next?”

“Onward west we go. May I offer navigation tips?”

I nodded, making a mental note of how he said navigation, not directions.

We traveled north and then west again on an interstate driving through more populated areas until we took another road north at his insistence. At this point, I looked at the gas gauge and was shocked at how the gauge showed we still had between three-quarters and a full tank. We had traveled hundreds of miles, beyond a normal mileage range of a tank of gas. Data from the gauge was telling me that at this moment the impossible was possible, because the data on the gauge said so. Was it broken, I wondered silently?

The Hitchhiker interrupted my thoughts, “Your gauge is not broken. It is registering the correct amount of gas in your tank. Go ahead, push your reset button.”

I did so, and the gauge needle remained the same.

Pondering in silence, I kept on driving. As the sun was setting, we came upon a small town with another all-night-diner and a flashing vacancy sign on the motel next door. We registered for separate rooms and walked to the diner. Our second night on the road was much like the first, except for our conversation at the diner after we ordered our food.

The Hitchhiker started, “ Tomorrow is a big day for us. We will need an early start.”

“I like early starts,” I answered.

“We will be planting seeds along the way.”

“Seeds?” I spluttered. This news was unexpected. “What seeds?” I continued.

“Good ones. All will be revealed.”

I thought, traveling with him had been puzzling but not frightening so far. I sighed and didn’t question further.

We finished our supper and retired to our rooms.

“Good night. Sleep deep. Watch your dreams,” he said to me before entering his room and closing the door before I could say anything.

I prepared for bed. I crawled into bed hearing the sweet strumming of his guitar that lulled me to sleep like gentle waves on a faraway shore.

If I had dreams that night, I didn’t watch them or even remember them upon awakening the next morning just before dawn. I showered and dressed quickly. I gathered my stuff together and met him at the car. We stowed our gear in the car, except for our backpacks and headed for the diner.

“Did you watch your dreams?” he asked.

“I don’t even know if I had any dreams.”

He didn’t respond.

We seated ourselves in a booth in the back of the diner.

“Eat a hearty breakfast. My treat,” he said as he handed me the menu.

I ordered a hearty breakfast. He ordered his usual toast, scrambled eggs, and coffee. Our food arrived and we ate in companionable silence.

Once on the road again, he began to tap out a new rhythm that had more beats than the previous one. We quickly drove out of town and into a green and golden countryside. We drove past fenced horse farms. After a while, the terrain changed again into a high desert terrain with rock formations, yucca plants and Joshua trees. There was no sign of human habitation.

“This will do for our first planting. Please pull over at the next opportunity,” he announced.

In another mile or less, a small shaded rest area appeared. I pulled off the road. We got out of the car and slung on our backpacks. I followed him as he walked into the landscape away from the road. After about twenty minutes of walking, we couldn’t see the car or the road. He halted.

“Water break,” he said.

We sipped from the water bottles in our backpacks. They were full, and I didn’t remember filling mine.

“This is a good spot for our first seed planting,” he said as he reached into his backpack and brought forth a bulging leather pouch. “These are our seeds to plant.”

“What will grow from these seeds?” I asked. 

“Trees. They will look like those trees,” he said pointing to a few Joshua trees a little way from where we stood. “But,” he continued, “they won’t be Joshua trees. Our trees will be able to bond with other Joshua trees, and without harming the others, become entangled in their communities, but our trees will also remain separate entities unto themselves. They have their own destiny to fulfill.”

“Will these seeds grow into big trees and bear fruit?”

“All will be revealed. Watch and do as I ask.”

Consumed with curiosity, I nodded, and watched.

He dug a hole about three inches deep in the sandy soil. He filled the hole with water. He held a seed from the pouch in his hand and said, “Join me in the ritual to awaken the seed. Repeat each line after me.”

I nodded. He paused after each line until I repeated it exactly.

        “Awaken great seed and grow

        This world’s great need you feel

        And know you came here to heal

        By bringing understanding to all

        Human beings to see

That the impossible is possible

That entangled threads of love and life

Both near and far are real.

Grow, great seed, reach for the stars

And do your destined deed

Helping humans to do better

Because they know better.

Ho!”

He stopped as the air around him vibrated. He looked at me.

“Ho!” I repeated forcefully.

He gently placed the seed in the damp soil and covered it with sandy soil while humming a sweet tune. He patted the spot and stood up.

“Now, we wait and watch,” he said and walked toward a shaded outcropping of rock.

I followed. We sat. We watched. Within a few moments a seedling appeared and began to grow. The Hitchhiker got up and gave the seedling some water. He bowed to it and returned to sit beside me.

Within two hours the impossible had happened. I had seen a seedling grow into a mature tree bursting with blooms that each held seeds of understanding and healing power. I felt rooted to where I sat.

The Hitchhiker stood up and reached out a hand to help me to my feet.

Suddenly, a strong, desert wind swirled around the mature tree shaking its seed-bearing blossoms into its vortex and then the wind moved across the land beyond the horizon carrying the treasure of the seeds of healing and understanding to new places to take root.

We returned to the car.

“What next?” I asked.

“We continue planting the seeds,” he answered.

“Until…?”

“Until we reach the end of our road together.”

“And how will I know we’ve reached the end of our road together?”

“The boundary you perceive between the possible and the impossible will no longer exist.”

“You’ve definitely made inroads in that department, “ I replied.

We laughed together and traveled on.

We planted many more seeds until we reached the Pacific Coast. I dropped him off where he requested along a highway by the sea. He thanked me for the lift, and I thanked him for his company. He smiled, slung his backpack on his back and carrying his guitar case walked across the road.

I drove off slowly. In my rear-view mirror, I saw the Hitchhiker put out his thumb and another car stopped and offered him a lift.

I smiled remembering all I had experienced on the road with him. Thanks to my travels with him, I felt strengthened by my understanding gained from those real experiences that the impossible can be possible. I laughed as I drove on into my life.