Jared seldom thought about life. But he did on that gray, overcast day.
As he walked through the neighborhood, wrapped in a thick coat, he thought of how he’d lost his job a month before.
What gives value to life? he wondered. He zipped his coat all the way up.
Happy days? Days when all pain is forgotten?
Or is it actually the pain? The pain that makes you remember the happy times?
Is life truly valued, Jared wondered, when you walk through a gray but momentary place like this–where you can grasp the pain if you’d like, then release it?
The feeling he had now: the impression that he could, in a quiet moment, appreciate the changing weather of life–even the clouds–was that wisdom?
Thoughtfully, he continued down the sidewalk under the threatening sky back to the place that was his home. To remember the feeling, he took a photo of his house with his phone.
By default the filter on his phone made gray skies blue and dim colors unnaturally bright. Picture perfect.
. . .
Twenty years later Jared looked at his old photographs. He came to one of his house. The sky was blue, the colors were bright. It seemed a happy day. Picture perfect.
He tried to recall something–a feeling, maybe.
He couldn’t.
Short Stories by Richard 