The Children's Road

Our mission is to help others reach the mountain.

The tiny child opened her eyes.  She was standing in the middle of a wide, muddy road, with vast, hazy expanses of yellowed grass stretching out to either side and the road itself traveling on before her in a seemingly endless highway of brown.  The girl’s bare feet sank deep into the soft, damp earth beneath them, but she was not dirtied by the mud.  In fact, she didn’t even feel it.

The little girl looked all about, a somewhat confused expression on her tiny, delicate face.  She began to notice the other figures around her, all young children like herself, and all facing the same direction on the never-ending road.  Behind her, the muddy highway faded into faraway indistinctness, just as it did going forward.  But somehow, the child knew that that was not the way she had to go.  All the other children, before and behind her, were walking forwards - and so, the girl picked up her tiny, bare feet from the clinging softness of the mud and joined them on their course.

As the little girl walked along, other children began to appear on the road around her.  There was no sound or grandiose display to mark their arrivals - they were simply not there one moment, and there the next.  Each would stand in the mud for a short while, looking around as if mildly perplexed, and then, placidly and without even a shrug of resignation, would join the march.  Some appeared very far down the road; looking back, the girl saw that others were joining the ranks behind her, springing into being even at the very edge of the haziness that marked the end of her range of vision.  There were children materializing close to where she was, too.  At one point, a small boy arrived just to the right of where the girl was walking.  She looked at him with interest, though she was not surprised by his coming.  He had only a small amount of short, black hair, but it was very thick, and his eyes were a rich shade of green.  His face was pale and round, his nose still characterized by the softened indistinctness of babyhood.  The boy’s thin eyebrows were raised in an expression of mild puzzlement as he regarded the scene around him.  At last his green eyes alighted on the girl next to him, and he fell into step beside her.

“Hi,” the little girl said after a moment.

“Hi,” the boy replied.

“What’s your name?”

The boy’s brow furrowed in thought.  “I don’t think I had one yet.”

They continued walking in silence for a while, squishing through the softness of the mud yet never being tainted by it.  The girl had the strangest feeling that she had forgotten something, that there was something she was supposed to do that had been left unfinished.  She kept looking behind her, though she somehow knew that what she was seeking was not there.  After a moment, she turned back to the boy.

“Why do you think we’re here?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” the boy answered.  “Because we were put here, I guess.”

“Who put us here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did they do it?”

“I don’t know.”

The little girl’s gaze dropped to her feet, and she said nothing more for a time.  But in her mind, the feeling grew - the feeling of something that had been lost, of some forgotten mission that must be carried out.  After walking on for a long time, watching the mud squelch up around her own tiny feet, the girl looked up again.  Immediately, she noticed something different.  Instead of a blurry vagueness at the distant end of the road, there was now something there - something large and dark, shaped like a cone, so tall that its upper part was wreathed in clouds.

“We’re going to the mountain,” the boy said.

The girl nodded in agreement, for indeed, that was exactly where their road was headed.  But suddenly, something else caught her attention.  Standing next to the road on her left was a woman.  No, not a woman - a girl, no more than seventeen, wearing faded jeans and a dark gray sweatshirt.  She had light brown hair and freckles, and her body was of average build.  Her nose was elegantly shaped, her eyebrows arched, her pale gray eyes wide and expressive.  But now, those eyes were staring unseeingly across the road to the barren field on the other side, seemingly oblivious to the millions of children passing beneath their gaze.

Something about the teenage girl struck a note of recognition in the mind of the child on the road.  The little girl suddenly broke away from the boy at her side and raced towards the young woman, her feet sinking deep into the clinging earth beneath her.  She reached out desperately with both her arms as she neared the edge of the road.  But suddenly, her hands collided with an unseen barrier, like a solid, invisible wall of glass.  The young woman continued to stare into the distance as if unaware of the child’s presence.  The little girl lunged frantically towards her, but she could not pass through the wall.

“MOMMY!” the child shrieked.

The teenage girl did move then.  She gave no acknowledgement of the child standing before her, but her face contorted into an expression of utter anguish.  She pressed her hands to her stomach and sunk to her knees, her body shaking violently with slow, heaving sobs.  She bowed her head to the ground as the little girl banged wildly against the impenetrable barrier, crying uncontrollably as she did so.

“MOMMY!” she continued to scream.  “MOMMY!  MOMMY!”

The little boy was standing beside her again.  “Come on,” he said quietly.  “We have to go.  We have to go to the mountain.”

The little girl turned to face him, sobbing as she pressed her hands futilely against the invisible wall.  “But that’s our mission,” she cried, tears streaming from her reddened eyes.  “We have to get other people to the mountain.  That’s our job.  How is she going to get there if I don’t help her?”

The little boy shook his head sadly.  “We’re on this road now.  There’s nothing we can do.”

Still sobbing, the little girl turned her gaze back to the young woman, who was curled in a ball on the ground, overcome by agonizing grief.  She watched the teenage girl weep for a long time.  Then, finally, reluctantly, the child turned away and followed her companion down the muddy road.  After a long moment, she looked back, hoping to catch one last glimpse of the crying figure.  But the young woman was gone.

Some time later - a minute, a day, a century; they had no way of knowing how long it had been - the boy and the girl finally approached the foot of the mountain.  Here the road gradually transitioned from clinging mud to dry, dusty earth, though again the dirt left no mark upon their feet.  As the two of them neared the base of the stony peak, they saw tall, winged figures, robed in white and shining with brilliant radiance, swooping down and gently picking up the children around them in their arms.  A pair of angels came to the boy and the girl and lifted them up, cradling each of them gently in a strong embrace while their feathered wings carried them swiftly away from the ground and towards the cloud-enwreathed heights of the mountain.  As they ascended, the angels’ voices rose as well in the soft, melodic words of a healing song:

Come now, dear children, to the gates

Where Love’s unending joy awaits

Let go regret, let fall your tears;

There is no pain nor sorrow here.

The little girl did let fall a tear, a single drop of shimmering grief that fell to the earth to turn the dust of the road into mud.  A tiny sigh escaped her lips as she entered the gates, a sigh of joy and everlasting peace.  Her only regret was that she could not have helped her mother reach the mountain.

Author's Note

Please be respectful with any comments. I appreciate it.

Reviews

[Érenn]

This is a very touching story and a story that left me smiling yet I couldn't help but shed a few tears. The imagery and the way you describe things is so wonderful and so vivid. I was sucked into the story. There are many instances where your the usage of words has been exemplary. I especially loved the last paragraph and in a way you have given a certain backstory to this whole scene that's taking place. (referring to the wet mud here) It had decent pace and a certain mystery to it as well. Loved it all ^^ Good Job ^^

[AliciaB]

Thank you very much! I'm glad it could have such an impact on you. Thank you for sharing that - it means a lot.

[Taylor]

This is the first of your work I've read and I'm glad that I found you. This is a very enigmatic and powerful story -- couldn't help think in the beginning of all the poor refugee children making their way to camps in the Middle East and elsewhere in this world. Your writing is lyrical and graceful. I love the images of the buddy road and the purity of the children and the mountain -- reminds me of the promise, "A little child shall lead them." Thanks for sharing this.

[AliciaB]

Thank you very much for the wonderful review! It means a lot. This story is, at its heart, an allegorical work about aborted children, but I am glad that you were able to draw other, equally profound meanings from it as well. That's the idea - that we need the souls of these beautiful children to lead us. Thanks again for your thoughtful words.

[Taylor]

I did understand that it was most likely about aborted children when the mother who was beyond the partition was a teen. Just to let you know that your intended message did get through!

[AliciaB]

Thanks! I appreciate it.