The Missing Piece

It was a still, sultry day. In the little town of _____, a man loafing down the quiet streets surveyed in lazy interest a group of children flocked under a lone cottonwood. They were crowded around a boy in ragged pants and shirt, maybe twelve years old, though no one knew his age for sure. He didn’t know himself, having been an orphan since he was babe of two days. Being a hard worker, he managed to stay out of the orphan houses by supporting himself. He cared little for his physical state, living and striving for only one purpose.

           All the children were uncharacteristically silent, focusing intently on the boy. Finding nothing better to do, the man on the street walked closer, edging his way around the press of barefoot boys and bonneted girls to stand at the back of the tree and behind the boy.

           The boy was drawing. With a pad of paper and a single pencil, he was telling a story, flipping his pencil effortlessly across the white sheet and creating magic. With one eye squinted, he focused on bringing the page to life. The sound of the pencil strokes filled the silence. The boy spoke only when necessary, simply to add the meaning his pencil could not draw. His short sentences broke the still air as he translated the pictures that the younger children could not interpret.

           The man leaning on the tree recognized the story. It was a well known fairy tale, with a princess and a dragon and a good fairy, who called a page boy to rescue the damsel, for the good fairy knew that the page boy had more courage and honor than all the knights of the king’s court. On the sheet, the boy had depicted a mountain scene, with a cave perched among the rocks where the princess was held captive. Here was the dragon hovering above her, and now, a little below, the fairy was leaving in search of a rescuer. The boy drew the page boy balanced on a boulder, just releasing an arrow from his bow. Then, with a few quick strokes, the dragon was changed; now emitting a dying burst of flame as the arrow was seen in his side.

           “And so the dragon died, and the page boy rescued the princess, and returned her to her father.” The boy added a few more finishing touches and sat back, his picture complete.

           The children drew a long, satisfied breath, and one little girl tapped him on the knee.

           “Did the princess marry the page boy?”

           The boy wrinkled his nose. “’Course not!”

           “My drandma says she did,” said the little girl.

           “Maybe her princess did, and maybe these did, after a long time,” the boy motioned to the picture on his lap. “But the page boy did get famous.”

           He handed the picture to the child next to him to look at closer. Then he leaned his head against the solid trunk of the tree and stared out to the horizon and the crimson setting sun. “Someday,” he told the children, after a pause, “I’ll do something great, like the page boy. And I’ll be rich and famous and will have enough money to buy the best things to draw with and do anything I want.”

           The children looked with awe upon him, and knew that, as sure as the sun would rise in the morning, it would be just as he said.

           And it was just as he said. In less than ten years, he grew from rags to riches, from obscurity to fame. For years he reveled in the luxuries he was offered, delving into new worlds of paints, oils, and charcoal. The pictures he created were striking, detailed, and beautiful. The boy grew to be a man, and his amazing success story drew the attention and adoration of the public.

           More years passed. The man was famous now, and rich. But this did not fulfill him. There was a hole in his soul that all the wealth and attention could not fill. He lost the joy of his art, and drifted from one place to another, searching for a thing he could not name. Known as a wanderer and an eccentric artist, the public became used to him disappearing from social life for months at a time. But his times spent alone wandering the countryside did not satisfy him.

           The paintings he now produced were wild and chaotic, reflective of his inner unrest. The colors clashed and the lines were harsh and made the eye dizzy, but since they held his name, they sold.

           One day the man locked up his estate and left. He walked for weeks through the open countryside, with nothing but a knapsack containing a change of clothes and a small amount of money. He had no purpose, no eyes for beauty, and no joy. Sometimes he slept for a few days at a small town or village inn, but he couldn’t stay in one place for long.

           The man wandered far and wide, finally coming to a place he knew, one that stirred long buried memories of his rough childhood. He stopped on a rise and looked. It was still a small town – hardly even deserving of the name – a dusty warm place with tiny dust and seed particles highlighted in the afternoon sun. It was calm and quiet, situated in the midst of a group of low hills with mountains rising sharply in the distance. The man wondered if time stood still in this place, for it was exactly as he remembered it to be.

           Walking through the village of his birth, which up close hummed with soft activity, he turned in at a modest building with the sign of an inn hanging above the door. Outside a large cottonwood tree offered a welcome shade to busy parents and playing children. The front room of the inn was full of tables, with a high counter along one wall. He wondered if they were the same tables he once scrubbed to earn a few coins.

The man sat down at a table in the corner, tired from his many days of journeying. To his surprise, he rather liked this sleepy town, with its farmers and housewives, although it seemed like a dull, boring place to stay for long. But here he would be unknown, and he hoped, undisturbed. He hadn’t returned to this place since he left it as a teenager. No one would recognize him. All he wanted was rest, but the empty feeling never would let him have it. He couldn’t remember being strong or invigorated… The man’s dirty and unshaven head dropped lower and lower, until it rested on his arms. And he slept.

           With a start, the man lifted his face from where it lay on the wooden table, rubbing his bleary eyes and numb cheek. He must have been asleep for a good while. The sun slanted in through the windows, accentuating the warm tints of the wood interior. He pushed himself so that he sat straight and realized that he was no longer alone. A little girl was bent over a table in the middle of the room, with a sheet of paper and several pencils. She was focused intently on her task, with her brown braids tied up in loops and one eye squinted hard. Lifting the pencil from the page, the little girl realized suddenly she was being watched.

           Twisting her head, her big brown eyes were suddenly looking full into the man’s. They stared hard at each other for a moment, and then a smile lit up the younger one’s face, like the morning sun bursting over the mountains. The man was so taken by surprise he almost smiled back before he realized it. Squelching the smile almost before it began, the man abruptly turned and began fussing in his knapsack.

           But the little girl had seen the smile in his eyes. “Hello,” she said cheerfully.

           The man glanced in horror over his shoulder. Was she talking to him? She was still smiling at him, her braids hanging around her face. The man grunted and turned his back squarely on her, hoping to frighten her off.

           It was quiet for a long while. Carefully, the man stole a look behind him. The girl was gone. Breathing a sigh of relief, the man turned back to his bag.

           “Want to see my picture?”

           The man jumped. The little girl-child had somehow appeared at his elbow.

           “No,” he started to say. But he mistakenly looked down and was captured by the clear, innocent glow of those brown eyes.

           “All right, fine,” he said gruffly.

           The girl climbed onto the chair next to him, clutching the page to her chest.

           “I drawed it,” she informed him importantly before spreading it carefully out on the table.

           “So you did,” the man pulled his eyes from her round little face and to the picture. The look that had meant to last a few seconds stretched longer as he stared at the scene on the page. He felt resentment growing inside of him. Here, drawn out plainly in front of his eyes, was pictured the source of all his confusion and dissatisfaction.

           It was a simple drawing, filled with bright colors. Standing on a hill were five figures, people as a child draws, with sticks for arms and legs and large heads to allow room for facial features. There were flowers on the ground, and brown and green and white mountains behind them. A giant, brilliant sun was drawn in the sky.

           “Why?” the man demanded harshly, turning back to the girl.

           Her large eyes were confused. “Why what?”

           “Why are they so happy?” the man pointed to the people. “Why are they smiling?”

           The little girl cocked her head and the man tried to explain.

           “Don’t they have to work hard? Why should the world be beautiful? Doesn’t it get sick? What happens when the weather is bad and people can’t grow their crops? They work, and don’t get anywhere in life, and even the ones who do and get rich and famous have nothing to look for except that one day they’ll die, and what good is life when you’re just going to die anyway? We should just die now and be done with it.” The man pulled his hair in agony and glared at the girl. “I should just die now and be done with it.” The girl just looked at him. The man broke down before those eyes. “But I can’t,” he whispered. “Because I’m scared.” Somehow confessing this to the girl felt freeing. “I’m a worthless, measly coward.”

           The girl was still looking at him. “Sorry,” the man shook his head in frustration. “I shouldn’t have said that.” He shook his head again. “I’m talking like this to a four-year-old! What is wrong with me?”

           There was a pause.

Finally, the man said, “It’s a nice picture.”

           Another pause.

The man was thinking about leaving. If he left now, he could get a ways out to the wilderness again before making camp.

           “I’m five.”

           The words jolted him back to the inn, and he looked at the girl. She was still staring at him with big eyes. The man couldn’t think of what to say to that.

           “I guess you don’t know very much.”

           “Not everyone would say that,” the man said wryly, thinking of the many admirers he had.

           “But you don’t know why people should be happy!” The girl wrinkled her forehead. “And you don’t know why things are so bewtiful.”

           “Well, do you?”

           “’Course I does.” The girl smiled again, and settled comfortably down on her chair.

           “Then tell me,” the man challenged.

            “’Cause of God.” It was so matter of fact that the man was taken aback.

           He snorted. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

           The little girl was not fazed in the least. “God is bewtiful, so the things he makes is bewtiful. And God loves us, which is why we should be happy.”

           “All right, so that is why things are beautiful,” the man said. But why should we be happy about it? And how do you know God loves us?”

           “My momma says bewtiful things say that God loves us.”

           The man stopped. He stared at the girl in amazement.

           “Beautiful things say that God loves us,” he repeated in a daze.

           It was quiet for a long minute. The girl looked at the man with curious eyes while he gazed out the window onto the heather-covered hills that had turned golden under the setting sun’s rays.

           The coldness of popular but unproved theories of a world without purpose, without God, suddenly lost all their persuasiveness. Why would a series of accidents produce the beautiful? The beauty of the world was not necessary to its survival. Beauty was an extra. Beauty brought pleasure, joy and awe to the human race. Pleasure, joy and awe are not necessary to the survival of the human race.

           “Only something good would give extras,” the man whispered in amazement. His face lost its harsh, bitter expression, and the lines in his forehead softened as he realized that there was intention in the world, and if intention, purpose.

           “God is real,” the man told the little girl. “That means that He is what is missing!”

           The little girl smiled. “Do you want to draw a picture with me?”

           The man drew a deep, cleansing breath. “Yes, I do.”