The Lone Traveller with A Pocketful of Happiness

He stared at the vast ocean dancing joyfully in front of him and felt exasperated. This is the seventh sea that he has to cross and exhaustion started to envelop him. ‘Just seven seas and the journey will be complete', he reminded himself of what she had told him. He sat on the biggest rock where the waves smash themselves to smithereens. The moon was in full bloom celebrating the night alone as the clouds hide somewhere else asleep. The color of the immense space reminded him of the coffee he swallowed with his bitterness night after night a long time ago.

He came from a wealthy family in the midst of a lonely town. He has everything money could offer – material things disguised as friends, admiration, and attention. He was smart enough to recognize the reality under the veil of deception. So, one night, he left the town he loved.

It was on the fifth mountain that he had met her. She is not different from the women he knew, nothing special about her that would make him realize that this is the woman he’s been waiting for. He definitely had met better women back in his town –more beautiful, smarter and kinder than her, begging at his mercy to love them. Consequently. for him, this is an ordinary encounter or a new found friendship.

The encounter, unknown to them, was written in the stars’ rays of light. It was written with a happy ending – his hand holding hers in the eternity of deep friendship and romance. But because of quirk of fate, it didn’t happen. For some reason, reality didn’t coincide with what was cosmically written. He didn’t feel the supposed to be calmness whenever she looks at him, that familiar forgotten feeling and that tenderness meant for him and for him alone.

“I seek to find happiness. Do you know the way to where it resides?” he asked.

She could have answered no. She could have told him that the path is arduous that many failed to reach it. She could have made his high hopes crash to the sea but she chose to give him his’ life’s delight.

“Yes, I know the way to the mountain of happiness. You’re halfway there. You just have to cross two oceans more and when you reach the mountain where rainbow ends, you’re there.”

She saw his eyes twinkling with so much enchantment and she felt complete inside. She wished to freeze that moment – the moment where she handed him what he needed to hear.

With that brief answer started a new beginning – a beautiful friendship. It lowered his defenses. The defenses he built around him so not to be attached, to be moved and to be manipulated by emotions. He stayed for a couple of days on that mountain. They talked and sat beside each other by day and candlelight. He stayed until the droplets of water on leaves melted to the sky, until the roots of the grasses grew underneath the bountiful soil, until he remembered the personal journey he has to complete.

“Come with me”. He said one night extending his hand to her.

She trembled. She knew that the journey should be a solitary one and that it would be a visit to the abode that only he can enter.

“I can’t.” She wanted to say more but the pain was so intense to take. She wanted to plead for him to stay. She wanted to be the heroine in the book of his love and not just a memory in one of its chapter's yellow pages. But she should not nurse her self-seeking feelings. The journey is what he needs and not her. Not now.

The next morning he packed his bags and said goodbye. She wished to hear promises of commitment. She wanted him to ask her to wait for his return but he didn’t. She came to him, hugged him and slip something to his pocket. “Keep it.” she said.

So he ended it as swiftly as he began it. He left without looking back. She called his name but only the ghosts of the caves answered.

That was a brief encounter to any standard, too short for them to realize that it is certainty that comes once in a lifetime. That was too short for him to recognize that he had found his soul’s friend. He has heart as cold as ice and ironically, the sun and the rain are his allies.

When he found his strength again, he stood up, dusted off the salt and sand on his pants and crossed the last sea. Shortly, he saw the rainbow’s end. With fervor, he ran and climbed the mountain.

The peak of the mountain was not the place he expected. It was barren, empty and cold. There was a woman sitting beside the tree not far from where he stood. He walked toward her and asked her if he reached the right mountain.

“Yes, my name is Happiness and I dwell in this mountain. You’ve reached the place you have been looking for.” Her voice echoed to the whole mountain that the birds flew, the wild hollered back and the rain started to fall.

“This is not the place I expected. Ahh, the men in my village are right all along. The mountain of happiness is just a myth. I was a fool to believe the lies. I can’t believe that I left the town who loved me only to reach this forgotten land!” he sat beside the woman beneath the tree. He bent his knees to his chest and his arms around his legs.

“You are partially right. This isn’t a place where gold swims beneath the shallow river, or where angels sing all day. Nevertheless, this is where realization of true happiness dawns.

“What do you mean?” He cannot understand the riddle on her speech.

“This is the place where people will uncover the place where happiness hides. In your case, it is in your pocket. It is in you. If you’re in another place, you wouldn’t appreciate the value of it. It is only in coldness that you’ll recognize a trickle of warmth. I will leave you now, my friend. Put your hand in your pocket at the break of dawn and you’ll find what you’re looking for.” She left after that conversation

He sat there until dawn. When the sun peeped from the boulders of mountains, he slid his hand in his pocket and felt something smooth, soft and tender.

He took out the small bag she gave him. He was stunned when he saw her HEART.

--not the end--