Three Roads

There are three roads.

The first, is in Mexico; a young man is walking along it. The road rises softly through forests of palms, it is heading west; a van is approaching.

The van is heading west too; two other young men, Americans, are looking for the perfect wave. 

They stop and give the first young man a lift.

They drive through the forest and at the top of the rise they can see the Pacific Ocean, but they can not smell it yet; today it looks grey.

 

The second road is also grey; it runs more or less parallel to the railway lines that head out to the coast.

A young man is walking along the road, he is drunk.

He has just left his friend’s house; they were celebrating a birthday.

It is the first time that the young man has been drunk; he does not feel sick, yet, just wobbly.

Suddenly he does not know where he is, nothing makes any sense to him; he does not understand what he can see around him.

He has not realised yet that he has fallen and is lying looking at the stars through the leaf canopy above him.

 

This road leads home.

It starts in the valley and climbs through the evening light towards the forest.

An elderly man is driving, alone, towards the north; on the seat beside him there is a bottle of wine.

The wine comes from far away to the south, from a place where the sun never sets.

Tonight in the forest the sun will set, and the wine will be drunk.