Bread and Marmelade

I drove for hours, under a dark autumn sky. Dawn was approaching and there were strips of light, glimpses of the new day drawing near in the east. I held my eyes open even though my lids were sinking and my mind wanted desperately to drift into the pleasure of sleep and dream. I had been driving all night. The road up ahead was winding this way and that, the trees whisked by steadily as I heaved the car between second and third gear. I couldn’t see past the corners of the turns. I couldn’t see what lay behind. There were just more trees.
Some had lost most of their leaves. There were still some hanging on to the hope of a summer long gone. Bare branches arched towards the heavens as if crying and pleading with god to let this autumn end and turn into spring. I guess they forgot about winter which was just around the corner. We just couldn’t see it yet and were still in second gear.
The strips of light cut through the trees like slits of white and yellow. It was a cold sort of colour, the kind you knew wouldn’t send warmth into your heart.
I held on to the thought of my goal, of my final destination. I sort of knew where to go but couldn’t fathom what I would find there. A piece of paper lay crumbled on the passenger seat of my two-door golf. On it were scribbled notes about where to turn, where to go. It was my handwriting, very fanatic and hardly readable. I had been in a hurry to write them down, had stolen the information from a stranger in a library. There are no coincidences in life. It all leads somewhere however scratchy and vague the directions.
My head tilted forward as I was fighting off sleep. The day brightened as my eyes got smaller. I lost my sunglasses. Squinting, I turned a sharp right and then suddenly noticed a clearing up ahead. The road led straight between a row of trees dancing in the wind. There were no other cars, beyond the row there were vast fields of a greyish brown. There were no houses, no hills, only fields stretching as far as I could see. I sped up and a new breath awakened me. I was full of hope and certainty. This would lead me to my goal. I drove until the autumn sun jumped out of the horizon like a pale fire-ball. It was distant but piercingly bright. I tried to shield my eyes but it was of little use. I pulled over to the side of road and waited for my eyes to adjust when I spotted a small shack of a house about 300 metres from me. I drove on the unpaved shoulder very slowly and carefully, the tires crunching along. I stopped in front of the fence of the house which looked deserted yet still cozy at the same time. I turned off the engine and wrapped my scarf around my neck. I pulled my mittens from my coat pockets and got out of the car. It was a chilled morning that pierced through my cheeks like daggers. I took a cold breath in and closed the car door with a sharp clang that echoed into nothingness. The trees hissed softly in the wind and I walked up to the old, wooden fence.
The house was old, small, and square. There was nothing to it. Its red shingles were dulled to a light auburn and its bricks shadows of grey lost their brilliant white of a time long gone. I noticed a faded blue mailbox. It was charming in its simplicity. There was a name on it. My last name, as I noticed with comforting surprise. The letters were cursive, very elegant and clear. With added anticipation, I approached the house. The gate had been left open, and my steps grew lighter and slower. The unpaved ground was crisp in the morning frost and my breath smoked all around me as the cold sun rose into the sky.
Someone still lives here, I thought. There were flowered curtains inside and I could see faded smoke rising into the clear, blue sky. There was a garden in the back. It had been covered to protect it from the cold. Someone still cared for this place. Someone still lived here. I was convinced. I stopped in front of the brown door and sighed. Before I could knock an old woman opened the door. Behind her I saw a man sitting in a chair, drinking coffee. The scent of warm bread and marmalade snaked its way into my nose. She gazed up at my face and her eyes instantly filled with tears. She recognized me at once and said “I thought we had lost you...”
In a broken yet overwhelmingly happy voice, I replied, “You did, but now I have found you, mother.”
The sun had risen in all its glory and its rays like wings enveloped the entire area. And somewhere, in a tree that still clung to its leaves, a bird began to sing.