Paradise Found

“We will cure you of whatever ails you. Step right up!” The person dressed in a bright green dress with a flashing red hat screamed to the crowd. Three others with this person paraded on the stage behind flashing bottles of a blue liquid. This liquid roiled and boiled, turned and twisted as if to escape from the flimsy glass bottles into which they’d be trapped.

“Only $30 a bottle! Cash only! It’ll change your life! Paradise awaits! ”

The crowd surged toward the stage. Money flew to the bottle handlers. Bottles then flew to happy attendees.

I watched from a safe distance. Something about the promise of Paradise waiting for me sounded a bit phony. How do you bottle Paradise exactly? Who determines what that is?

Bottled liquid Paradise disappeared into the bodies of the crowd, only to make them more disorderly. All soon overtook the stage and the purveyors of the blue Paradise liquid. Cases of the Paradise were smashed, bottles passed about. Now no one was in control since the organizers had realized their Paradise had ended. They raced away with the remaining unsold contents of the product they’d hawked like the carnival vendors they were.

My Paradise waited a safe distance from this crowd of rabid animals. And they were coming my way. As I started the trek home, the crowd began to follow. But as they followed, a strange phenomena occurred.

Person by person they started to fall away. And not just turn around and walk away. They fell down. Dead. They turned a strange blue color. Then turned into blue dust. One by one. So by the time I reached the cabin, there was a strange trail of blue dust from the event ground to the edge of my land.

Until there was just one person left.

I turned to face this one person.

“How are you still alive?”

“I didn’t drink all the bottle, maybe that’s why,” she answered.

“Well, this isn’t Paradise you know.”

“I know.”

“It’s real life. It’s hard. But it’s all I know.”

“That’s okay. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

I checked her out. She hadn’t turned blue. Maybe she’d be okay.

“You can stay. But you’ll have to work.”

“No worries”

That’s been ten years now. We’re still building our paradise.


W/C 384