A Life Reconsidered

She was running out of time. She needed to find Frank, and fast. If only she hadn't lost him in the brush when she had found that stone. That horrible stone! What was she thinking? She should never have touched it when it had that inscription over it.

***

Right now, Sandra had a million regrets. She was now racing through the woods, trying to find Frank. She had just touched a stone that had this scripted on a plank above,

You Have Entered Through The Wide Gate

Beware Of Touching The Stone

You Will Regret It

What kind of person touches a stone with that above it? Well, of course, someone who is curious...curious of the unknown, curious of what it could mean, and curious of what could happen. How Sandra wished that she had never done it. Frank had even warned her not to touch it...but had she listened? No, of course not! Why would she listen to someone whom she had trusted for so long and whom she actually thought she might be falling in love with? She had every reason to, and yet she hadn’t. She felt like a fool and wished with all her heart that she could go back in time just a few minutes and change her decision. Perhaps she would still be with him, and this awful nightmare would not be happening. 

She had twenty minutes to go and then there would be no hope for finding Frank and telling him what happened and how she really felt.

***

CRASH! Sandra flew to the ground with a thump. What had she tripped over? She jumped up and started to run again and then decided to look at what she had tripped over…it was Frank.

In horror, Sandra knelt down to see if he was okay. He was as hard as a rock…what was going on? This was not what she had heard from the stone. Was it? It was said that in twenty-five minutes, death would visit her. Did it mean visiting someone close to her? Someone whom she would give her life for any day. Someone with whom she had so desperately wanted to share her life, future, and love. This couldn’t be happening? Why had the stone blinded her with its light and told her that death would visit but not tell her who it would visit? Why had she not listened to Frank while she still had a chance? Why? Why? Why? A million new regrets washed over her like a tsunami. She felt like she was drowning, and she wished that she was and this would all be over with. Why hadn’t it been her?

Movement caught her eye, but she couldn’t see what it was through the river of tears flowing from her eyes. She was in grief and despair…then she heard it. Was that someone talking before her? She couldn’t tell. She tried to wipe tears from her eyes in order to see but to no avail. Then she heard it again…what was it? Then everything went black.

***

Frank couldn’t see, but he could hear someone weeping. Who was it? He decided to ask.

“O a u?” What was that? Why couldn’t he speak right? At that moment, he realized that he was lying on his back…what had happened to make him so confused? Maybe he was in some hospital? Maybe someone was in the bed next to him crying? Maybe it was his family weeping? Maybe it was Sandra? Sandra! That’s it! She had been with him. Was she okay? Okay Frank, think, what happened to you?

Let’s try this again, “O a u?” Nope, it still wasn’t working.

Suddenly, the weeping stopped…

***

As Frank lay there in the black and silent damp forest, he began to remember what had happened and why.

He and Sandra had been on a walk in the woods. It had been a new wood out by the Old Guthry place. This particular day, it had been rather dark and dreary. They had both been feeling down, so he had suggested that they do something new and exciting rather than sitting around the house. So, they had gone out and decided to just walk and walk. They had walked until it was four and then they had turned around to head back, but there were two paths running nearly side by side for a while before separating. It was at that point that they had realized that they had lost their way. They had worried for a while that they would never find the right path or their way home because they couldn’t tell which one they had been on originally. But surely someone would miss them and send out a search party? The only problem was that they had forgotten to tell anyone exactly where they went for their walk. This was something that they dearly regretted now. After about three hours of wandering around on the wider path, they had stumbled upon a cave. It was getting dark at that point and they decided to spend the night in there. Of course, for modesty’s sake, they would be on opposite sides of the fire that he had built.

After they had tossed and turned for about half an hour they had decided to try and make a torch to explore the cave a bit more. After all, they weren’t sleeping anyway. They had found a crack in the wall and squeezed through to find a wide and spacious room. It was almost as if it had been carved out into a perfectly big oval. As they had started to think that this was the end of the tunnels they had found another crack in the rock. This time, however, it had been in the floor on the opposite side of the room from their original entrance. They had decided that at this rate, with only one entrance in each room, they could find their way back easily, so it would be okay to keep going, at least at this point.

They had crawled down into the floor to find a short passageway that appeared to be long but narrow. They crawled for a little bit and then found another opening; this time, it was in the wall to their left. There was a gate in front of the opening, but they had easily opened it and gone right through. It was a small room with a plank pasted to the wall over a purple stone. The plank had an inscription,

You Have Entered Through The Wide Gate

Beware Of Touching The Stone

You Will Regret It

It was at this point that he had told Sandra that they should probably leave, go back to the fire and leave well enough alone. But she hadn’t wanted to. Instead, she had been so curious that she had touched the stone. There was a white light and the next thing that he could remember was being outside. He must have been thrown out somehow and was now lying somewhere damp and dark.

Frank came to the conclusion that it must be the forest and that the person who had been weeping next to him had to have been Sandra. Had she experienced something similar, or had what she experienced been totally different since she had actually touched the stone? He didn’t know but thought that he would give another try at talking.

“Is that you, Sandra?” There, it had come out clearly. Thank goodness! He had been afraid that maybe he couldn’t ever talk again after whatever happened between that light and the damp dark.

There was a stirring next to him. Then he could feel a cold hand touch his arm.

“Did you say something?” He heard Sandra’s quavering voice next to him. “I thought that you were dead. I must have passed out from fear, anguish, or something.”

“I did say something. You don’t know how grateful I am to hear your voice. I was beginning to think that I was all alone in this darkness.” Frank responded.

She heaved a sigh of what must have been relief. And then there was crying again.

At this point, Frank began to see again. He looked over to Sandra. She was blurry, but he could see that she looked different. Maybe it was her hair? Was it lighter than before?

Out of the blue, Sandra looked him seemingly straight in the eye and said,

“I only have a few more minutes to live; pretty soon, I will have grown old and died. But before I do, I want you to know that I love you.”

“What?” Frank nearly screamed. He was in shock; did he just hear what he thought that he had heard?

         “Yes. I only have a few more minutes to live; that is what the stone told me. I was running all over the woods to tell you that so that you know what happened and that I do love you.” She said frankly, but Frank could tell she was terrified. What could he say to help? There was literally no hope that she would live…or was there.

“Maybe the stone was wrong…you could still have years to live yet. We can still get married and have a life together.” As he said this, he realized why he had thought that she looked so different…she was indeed getting older by the second. How weird, scary, and strange.

They sat in silence for a few seconds as the truth of their situation sank in. Then Frank broke the silence.

“What should we do now? Try and make it back home. Then we will see if this thing is really going to kill you or if the rock, or whatever it was, is really legitimate or if maybe we were in an explosion. That might be how we got out of the cave.”

Sandra was quiet for a few seconds after he asked but then replied in a strange way. She was talking very slowly as if she had to think a lot as she was talking.

“We. Could try. To make it…but I somehow don’t think that I will. I already feel like I am dying. Like maybe I really am getting older every minute…O how I wish that we had stayed home and not come on this wild adventure. It doesn’t even seem like an adventure…it more feels like a nightmare. Like something that should never have happened. It is more like a dream than anything that I have experienced.” She sighed deeply.

“I feel like it is the end of the world,” Frank said, and then they were silent. All they could hear was birds, wind, and rain. Frank looked at Sandra again…she was turning all white, her hair and skin…he couldn’t bear to look at her any longer. She was breathing harder…she was definitely running out of time, and he didn’t know how to save her. It was hopeless.

Frank could hear Sandra breathing harder now and was sure that it would not be long before he would have to go home alone. He decides to take her back to the cave to see if there is some way that this could be reversed. So, he scooped her up and took off running in sudden urgency.

“Do you know where the cave is?” He asked with concern…they had already wasted too much time.

“I think that it was that way?” Sandra faintly replied as she pointed to their left.

As he ran, he couldn’t help but think that there had to be something, anything that he could do…but there was nothing for sure in that. It all seemed so hopeless. He felt as if they were living in some Greek book.

***

“I see it!” Frank said excitedly. “It’s over there!”

There was no response…so he looked down. She was gone. It was too late. He had failed her…

He sat down and began to openly cry. How could this be? They had been so happy this morning…well, maybe not happy, but together…but now she was gone. He laid her down gently on the moss and decided to see if he could destroy that stone. How could it have ruined their whole life? How could it have so cruelly taken her from him? How? How? How? 

As Frank looked into the cave, he could see that it was noticeably different. There was not only that hole in the wall that they had slithered through that had gotten them into so much trouble, but there was also another hole, a smaller hole. He looked through and saw that it led right outside to the place where they had parked his car…if only they had taken the narrow path, Sandra would still be alive. This was utterly devastating. Before going home, he still wanted to destroy that stone and then get Sandra’s old body.

So, Frank took the same path that he and Sandra had taken before, only this time this adventure was no adventure at all. It was a path of destruction, shame, guilt, anger, and dread. How could this path have looked so light before they found the truth of the horror that it held? As he reached the gate at the entrance of the small room, he could see that it looked positively evil. How could this have looked so good? Maybe he shouldn’t go back in? The path of evil can look so fun and adventurous until you learn the truth about it. Frank knew the danger of this place now and didn’t want to take a step closer to the evil that had ruined his life. From now on he would always look for the good way to go. The way that led to life and restoration and not to death and destruction.

***

Beep! Beep! Beep!

“Are you awake, Frank? You’re running late for work. You know that you will be fired if you are late again.” Called his mother from the door with obvious concern. He hadn't saved up enough from his job to get his own apartment yet.

“I’m up. I’m up.” He said, groggy and confused. “Where is Sandra?” He asked as he looked around.

“I assume that she is home getting ready for work…like you should be…Hint. Hint.” She prodded, trying to get him to get up. “You’re late. Remember.”

“Yes. Yes. I’m going.” He said as he hopped up and ran to change and get to work. Now, it was his turn to be running out of time. He wanted to make every second count and search for that which leads to life. 

What a dream!