perseverance, unconventional love, insight, determination, metamorphosis

Linda Gaupp Tovaas’ five word:

perseverance, unconventional love, insight, determination, metamorphosis

He was running over the moors in a speed given by nameless fear no words or no imagination could describe or explain. He stumblet, got up and ran driven by a fear behind himself, behind his understanding. He came out of the moors, fell on earth, and his fingers grabbed and grasped in the lyng.

Outside the moors were some small farms. He stumblet to the nearest one, knocked the door and fainted on the steps.

He was generally a daring and brave man. Among his friends he was acknowledged perseverance in cases and situations important to him. A noble, brave and persevering character. He had been walking on the moors just for hiking, no special reason, no determination. Just a walk for the fun of it, a leisure walk to get more fit.

The farmer, as solid as farmers living close to the moors are, heard the knocking, opened the door and found a fainted man on his steps. He brought him in, got him to bed and hoped he would sleep away whatever was troubling him. A good sleep could cure much, the farmer used to say. His guest lay motionless and the farmer for some moments wondered whether he was sleeping or in a half fainted coma. Still he let him be in bed. A bed can cure many troubles, the farmer used to say.

Two days later the moor-man opened his eyes and looked around him a bit bewildered, and then fright filled his eyes, that special kind of fright that can be seen in the eyes of the one who has seen and experienced unwanted things and who has got an unwanted and undesirable insight into matters one can’t pay oneself out of. That kind of fear filled the eyes of the moor-man. The farmer watched it and wandered what his guest could have experienced that brought that immense fright into his eyes. The stiffened body underlined the situation. He bent towards him and said the only things that came to his mind:

- I shall bring you some water and food. You must be thirsty and hungry, my friend. You have slept for two days here.

His guest didn’t react to the offer, but the farmer fetched water and food and got surprised as his guest sat up in the bed, drank and ate mechanically as if he didn’t know what he was doing. He then rose from the bed and stumbled to the door. The farmer tried to stop him.

- You are not yet restored, my friend, he said, and a good rest in bed will help you. I will suggest you go back into bed, my friend.

But the moor-man left as a sleep-walker, and as a sleep-walker he started to stumble back to the moors.

The fear of what he had experienced came back stronger and stronger as he crossed back in his own footsteps.

Soon he stopped in front of a stone hedge that quite clearly was made by hands, not by nature. By the wall he saw the left-overs of his meal. His thermos lay where he had been sitting having his packed lunch. His rucksack was near by.

The moor-man sat down, lent his back against the wall and folded his hands for his last prayer as a common human being. He thanked his Good for the unconditional love from his parents, wife and children. He thanked for the life he had been blessed to lead up to now.

With folded hands he met the metamorphosis.