It was a bright summer’s day, during the noon time. I was sitting down at a café, and a slight breeze was blowing across the street. I was slowly looking over some old papers, that I was getting ready to show in a meeting. I just reviewed the last piece of paper when I went to sip my drink. The stack of papers flew off the table with the wind. In a panic I rushed to retrieve them. I was able to get all of them except for one of them. It had seemed to catch the wind just right. I jumped up to grab it, and as I did the wind blew it even farther up. I started a wild chase after the paper, and soon enough I was going down an abandoned alley way. As I ran the paper seemed to blow farther and farther away, and I knew I had to catch it.
As I ran I couldn’t help but worry about my career. This meeting was no normal meeting. It was a make or break for my career. If I didn’t do well I would probably be demoted, and never have this chance again. I had worked all night to get this right, and all that was standing in my way was one very important paper. I had to do well. Failure wasn’t an option.
Luck was on my side. The paper flew into a dead end, and lay there. I ran quickly and picked it up, just in case it might escape again. I looked at it, and made sure that it was not smudged or to badly wrinkled. I then turned it over and read the text on it. It seemed all very intact. Just as I was about to put it back, I saw on it a typo that I missed. I sighed, and knew that I would have to run quickly and print out another edited copy of the page.
I turned to head to the street, but something caught my attention. It was a man, about my same age, though it would have hard to tell if not for his eyes. He was obviously a bum, something I see every day. Yet, something was familiar about him. I looked at him again. He was my best friend from childhood.
I stood there in shock for a while. I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t kept in contact with him for many years. It was hard for me to imagine he could grow this low. He had always been the smarter of us. He was also more popular, and more likely to do greater things in life, not to mention his amazing moral code. I simply could not fathom him, a bum, on the street in ragged in clothing.
I finally had to speak to him. “Josh is that you?”
He looked up at me with a smile, and nodded his head, without saying a word. His hair seemed so ragged, and his teeth rotten to the core, but his eyes were still the same, if not more vibrant.
“Josh, what happened?” I asked “How did you end up like this?”
He looked at me, and his eyes pierced my soul. I couldn’t move, as if there look clamped chains on my entire body. I just stood waiting for a response.
“I am on a mission”, he said. His voice was as clear and piercing as his eyes. “And this is the way I accomplish it.”
I looked at him thoroughly confused. I couldn’t imagine what he was saying. Was he an undercover cop, or some kind of actor? I couldn’t imagine Josh in any of those roles. So I had to ask him, “What do you mean mission?”
“Well, here is a question for you? What is your mission?” he said with a grin.
“What do you mean?” I asked, rather caught off guard.
“I have a mission, but do you have one?” he asked with the same smile, with his piercing eyes staring straight at me.
“Josh this is crazy, what are you doing here,” I asked. I had wondered if Josh had gone out of his head.
“I am on a mission,” he repeated.
“What is your mission?” I asked with more force, showing visible annoyance.
“I am helping a friend right now, I just hope he can take my advice,” he said.
“Well who is the friend,” I asked with general curiosity.
“If you stay here long enough you will meet him,” he said. He then looked up to the sky, which was bright blue, and commented on the weather. “It’s going to start raining soon. It is quite a funny phenomenon. Every time it rains, the rain just evaporates and turns into a cloud, and then it rains again. It seems like an endless cycle.”
“Well if it’s going to rain come with me,” I said, “and you can stay at my place until the rain stops.”
“The sun is far smarter than the rain. It always shines, and takes its time, yet knows when to rest every night,” said Josh. “I suppose the rain just has to learn its lesson slowly.”
I looked at my watch, and realized I was going to be late for my meeting. I looked at Josh, and felt as if I couldn’t leave him. I scribbled down my address on a blank sheet of paper from my brief case, and gave it to him. “Josh I have to leave now, but here is my address. Come and stay with me if you feel you need somewhere warm to sleep.”
I rushed off to get to my meeting. The meeting went well, and I was told I would soon be offered a position as a vice president with the company. I walked back to my desk, and just as I sat down, the phone rang.
“Hello!” I said into the telephone receiver.
“Hello, this is Mary Caswell, calling on behalf of Josh Ruben. It seems that he passed away a few days ago, and they are holding the funeral for him very soon,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.
I was shocked! “That is impossible, I was just talking to Josh a few minutes ago,” I said anxiously.
“You must be mistaken sir, there is no doubt that he is dead. It seems that his car went off the road in a rain storm,” she said with an almost unchanged tone.
I hung up the receiver, and stared out my window. The clouds were floating bye. “When will the rain learn,” I murmured.
The phone rang again, and this time the CEO of the company called to offer to me formally the vice president position. I looked out the window one more time, and spoke very softly into the phone, “I am afraid I must decline.” The CEO’s voice was showed surprise and he asked me why. “I think I need to spend some more time in the sun,” I answered then hung up the phone. I looked at my desk, and then to a picture of Josh with my other schoolmates and spoke “I think your friend got the message.”
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