🕰️ The Traveler on Mile Marker 217
Fog draped the mountains like a shawl that morning,
soft as breath, silver as memory.
Bearz pulled the van to the overlook—
the one where clouds spill into valleys like slow smoke—
and brewed coffee on the camp stove,
watching steam curl upward,
a private offering to the sky.
That’s when they appeared.
Not walking so much as arriving,
as though they’d been part of the mist all along,
coalescing from dew and déjà vu.
A figure in a long coat that shimmered like stormlight,
its folds carrying dust from a thousand yesterdays.
“Beautiful morning,” Bearz said.
The stranger smiled, eyes deep as winter stars.
“It always is,” they replied,
“—here, then, and elsewhere.”
They talked quietly while ravens traced circles above.
The traveler spoke of centuries as if they were minutes:
the first flute carved from bone,
the first word whispered across firelight,
the hum of cities still unborn.
Bearz listened, heart thrumming like a tuning fork
to some ancient frequency.
“Do you ever get lost?” Bearz asked.
The traveler looked toward the horizon.
“Only when I forget I’m part of it,” they said.
“Time isn’t a road; it’s a rhythm.
Those who remember the song can always find their way home.”
When the fog lifted,
the traveler was gone,
and in the seat beside the thermos
lay a single silver compass,
its needle spinning slow and sure,
pointing not north—but inward.
Bearz sat there for a long while,
watching sunlight gild the treetops,
feeling the gentle ache of wonder
and the certainty that time, like love,
is only another word for returning.
by Bearz Lumière | Bearzimages.com | October 12th, 2025