Worthwhile

10 years of madness. That is how she remembers it. 

But she finally quit, sold her house and all her valuables. Like a hermit, she packed her backpack and boarded the next train out from the dreaded present. The journey to the countryside from the dazzling city was unsettling and yet strangely comforting. It was supposed to be a new start on a fresh canvas. 

The autumn sun shone through the train window, onto the old pages of the magazine she was reading. The warmth was comforting to her eyes. She felt drowsy. But the dreams were not easy. The bitterness ate her from the inside. She had spent all her years to build the company with her sweat and blood. Alas, it was all in vain. The fruits of the tree she reared now belonged to those heartless corporates. 

The train was speeding her away from the mess. It was a blessing, perhaps.

Walking down the unmetalled rural road she felt the panic return. What on earth have I done? Despair gripped her like stones had suddenly been tied to her feet.

“Looking for someone are you, Miss.” An old frail voice called from the nearby house. She proceeded towards the old woman, not sure how she should explain herself.

The kind and wrinkled eyes smiled at her knowingly, “I would like to hire a help. I’m getting old, you see. Need someone to look after the land.”

Relief was a welcome feeling in the anxious, mistrustful prison of her mind. But she hesitated to answer. The prison door had been unlocked but she struggled to make her way into the light. 

“Let it go.” The wise woman encouraged her as if she had read her mind. “Do not carry the dead weight of the past.”

A smile finally broke on her stressed face. For the first time, she felt the bright sunlight that were causing her eyes to squint. She felt the cool breeze that smelt like hay. She heard the babbling stream nearby and the chirping of a hundred birds. 

She decided to take up the old woman’s generous offer. The makeshift bed in the guest room of the farmhouse seemed amillion times softer than her branded comforts of the city. The night was uneventful and her sleep was finally dreamless. 

The next day she set out to do the farm work. The new jobhad a certain purity about it, unlike what she was used to. The bare hands with dirt and the bruises, the feeling of making something real. She dug her hands into the earth, feeling that feeling of a child digging their fingers into their first pie. And in that moment of revival, she knew that it had all been worthwhile.

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© YellowStylo

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