Somewhere in the darkness, a phone was ringing. Harry wondered how a phone could be ringing in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
He felt something pressing against his forehead. The phone rang again. It was loud. Incredibly loud.
Harry lifted his head and opened his eyes. Confusion swept through him. Where am I? he thought.
His eyes adjusted to the light. The phone rang again. He was sitting at his kitchen table. In Ohio.
Harry looked around, struggling to make sense of his surroundings. He could still smell the damp earth of Vietnam. But he was sitting at his kitchen table. In Ohio.
Harry looked over at the phone. Not knowing what else to do, he stood up and walked over to it. His head was spinning. Dumbfounded, he picked up the phone.
“Hello?” he asked tentatively. He felt like he was dreaming.
“Harry, it’s Barbara.”
Barbara? Harry’s mind reeled. Barbara?
Harry struggled to speak. “Uh, hello Barbara,” was all he could come up with.
“Harry, change of plans. Dr. Mercer was in a car accident on his way to school this morning. He’s in surgery now. Head trauma, primarily, with lacerations to his face and possibly broken vertebrae in his back.”
Dr. Mercer? Harry hadn’t thought of him, or Barbara, for many years. At least, it felt like many years.
“Harry? You there?”
Harry rubbed his eyes and leaned against the wall. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He was in Ohio.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he finally said.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Harry answered. He was beginning to forget about Vietnam. The memory was fading quickly. “So Dr. Mercer will be out of commission for a while?”
“Yes. So I’ll be running the meeting this morning. And as you know, I don’t share Dr. Mercer’s opinion about your situation. This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. I’m going to tell the board you completely agree that it was a bad choice on your part. I’d like you to write a brief letter stating your reasons for doing what you did, and I’ll give a copy to each board member and each parent. Bring the letter in by noon. You can have the rest of the day off. Your substitute is already here. I’m confident this whole thing will blow over, Harry. But you’d better not try anything like this again.”
“Oh, that won’t be an issue, Barb. I think I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Good. I’ll give you a ring later to let you know how the meeting went. In the meantime, do something to get your mind off of all this. You sound terrible.”
“Thanks. I think I’ll do that.”
Harry hung up the phone and slumped back into his chair. His disorientation was fading quickly. And he felt a sense of relief. His job was safe after all. But he had just had the most amazing dream.
The details were hazy. He had been sitting on a hill. There was a field nearby. And trees.
Other images flashed through his mind: a farm, some sort of pyramid, and people - lots of people. He was in a very strange mood. As if he had just been somewhere else. And for a very long time. It felt odd to be sitting in his kitchen, as if he didn’t belong there. As if he wasn’t supposed to be there.
Gradually his confusion faded. He thought about Dr. Mercer and his car accident. The timing was amazing. A coincidence, perhaps? Harry didn’t know what to think of it all.
But it appeared as though he was off the hook. He still had his job.
And then an odd thought occurred to him: did he still want his job?
Did he still want to teach science to teenagers? In the back of his mind, he felt the answer. He heard the small, still voice, deep within him. Softly, the voice was saying: no.
“No?” Harry said aloud to himself. “No?” And he knew the answer was the right one. He didn’t want to teach science to teenagers anymore. There was something else calling him. There was something else to do with his life. But what?
Harry walked out his front door and sat on his top step. He realized he had been contemplating that very question for months, if not years. What were his passions? What did he want to do with his life?
And yet the tension that had always accompanied such questions was gone. The question itself felt wonderful, freeing.
Something had happened. While Harry had slept at his kitchen table, tears drying on his cheeks, something strange had occurred. And whatever it was, it had caused the tremendous weight he had been carrying around for so long to fall away.
Something had changed. Another door had been opened. But this door was different. This time, there was nothing on the other side: no expectations, no goals, no pressure, no anxiety. Nothing.
He could go on teaching, or he could stop teaching. He could stay where he was, or he could travel. He felt limitless. With an ocean of potential at his disposal.
As he sat there on his top step, he noticed the neighbor’s cat walking though his yard. The cat crossed in front of him and disappeared around back.
After several minutes, Harry felt the sudden impulse to follow the cat. He stood up and walked down the steps and around the side of the house. When he reached the back corner of the house, he stopped walking and scanned the backyard for the cat. There was movement in the back corner of the yard, and Harry watched as the cat emerged from under a pile of bricks with a mouse in his mouth.
“Well, good for you!” Harry called to the cat. The cat then proceeded to carry the mouse across the yard and up onto the pile of dirt that stood at the back of the property.
Something about the scene struck a chord in Harry. He experienced a sense of déjà vu and felt the undeniable urge to climb to the top of the dirt pile himself. He started to walk toward the pile when he realized he was still wearing his slippers. It would be difficult to climb to the top of the pile in slippers, he thought to himself. Too bad there wasn’t a set of steps leading to the top of it.
Without thinking, Harry glanced over at the pile of bricks.
“Hey, now there’s an idea.”
He walked over to the bricks, selected a few good ones, and carried them over to the dirt pile. When he got to the pile, he bent down and pressed the bricks into the soft soil at the bottom.
“There,” he said. “It’s a start.”
Harry stood up and surveyed his work. “Yes,” he said with a smile. “This will work. This will work just fine.”
Then he turned and went to get more bricks.
The End.
