The Kestrel
He walked slowly back across the campground, not because he was tired, but because there was no reason to hurry.
The dragon had stayed behind in the van.
It always did.
The dragon belonged to the interior world.
The campground belonged to another one.
Children rode bicycles between the rows of trailers. Someone laughed over a game of cornhole. A grill hissed somewhere beyond the trees. Nothing extraordinary. Just many small lives being lived at the same time.
Then he saw the kestrel.
It wasn’t hunting.
It was performing.
It landed on the shoulder, turned just enough for him to notice the white and rust of its tail, then lifted again, never quite leaving, never quite staying. It moved ahead of him as if saying, Look here.
He smiled.
“You’re trying to move me.”
The bird flew again, low this time.
He followed with his eyes, and then understood.
The nest wasn’t where the bird was.
The nest was where the bird wasn’t.
Without thinking, he crossed the road and continued on the opposite shoulder. The kestrel circled once, then slipped quietly back toward the place it had wanted him to ignore.
He kept walking.
Something inside him had become unexpectedly still.
When he reached the van, he climbed inside, removed his shoes, and sat opposite the dragon.
The dragon was exactly where he had left it.
Patient.
Neither wise nor mysterious.
Simply present.
He poured a glass of water and looked out the window for a long while before speaking.
“Can I ask you something?”
The dragon said nothing.
He smiled.
“I know.”
He rested his elbows on the table.
“When I sat with the fortune teller and her crystal ball, I wasn’t really asking about the future.”
“I was asking if someone could tell me where I belonged.”
“The dragon never answered.”
“The fortune teller never answered.”
“But today…”
He looked back toward the road where the kestrel had disappeared.
“…the bird didn’t answer either.”
“It simply asked me to move.”
He sat with that for another minute.
“I’ve spent years wondering what the world means.”
“But the kestrel wasn’t making meaning.”
“It was making space.”
“It didn’t recruit me into a story.”
“It didn’t ask me to admire it.”
“It didn’t even want my attention.”
“It wanted my absence.”
He laughed softly.
“That may be the purest conversation I’ve had all week.”
The dragon seemed unchanged.
As if that answer had always been available.
He continued.
“I used to think wisdom meant seeing farther.”
“Now I’m beginning to think wisdom sometimes means interfering less.”
He remembered something else.
The van.
The Peloton.
The campground.
The shuttle.
The cabin by the port nacelle.
None of them had become more important.
They had become more defined.
Each had found its purpose.
The van was for traveling.
The cabin was for friendship.
The shuttle was for missions.
The dragon…
He looked at it again.
“…what are you for?”
Silence.
Then, almost against his own will, he answered himself.
“You’re not here to predict.”
“You’re here so I have somewhere to bring the questions that don’t need answers.”
The realization felt rounded.
Not urgent.
Companionable.
Outside, another kestrel called somewhere beyond the trees.
He did not rush to find it.
He had already learned what it came to teach.
Not every living thing is trying to communicate with me.
But if I learn to recognize what it is trying to protect, I may discover the right way to meet it.
He reached over and rested a hand on the dragon’s shoulder.
Not because he believed it was alive.
Because the gesture completed the thought.
Then he looked through the windshield toward the campground.
“So perhaps,” he said quietly, “the crystal ball wasn’t wrong.”
“It simply wasn’t made of crystal.”
“It had feathers.”
WE&P by: EZorrillaMc&Co
Travel in Life 