The Parable Of Being

In the sweltering sunlight of late summer, a young girl sat lonesome on a rock, watching an anthill closely with her chin resting on her knee.

A young boy came tripping past, and she looked up at him most hopefully:

"Can we be ants?"

The boy, out of his natural shyness, looked at her for only a moment before bolting into the woods.

Many summers later, a young woman sits again, though this time on a bench swing, peering into the murky pool of the pond resting ahead of her.

A young man, his face grown gaunt and determined, comes strolling by.

"Can we be ducks?"

With an involuntary smile, he nods his head and says "Of course we can."

It is some summer too far in the future to see. A woman sits quietly on the edge of the cliffside, overlooking miles of crystal waters and soft, yellow lights from the city below.

He comes back.

"Can we be?"

He runs his fingers through his hair.