Companions

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The road had forgotten where it was going. It climbed the hill because hills are what roads do, and the man climbed with it because there was nowhere else left to climb. The cart rattled beneath the weight of everything he still owned, though ownership is a strange word for things that can be counted in bags and balanced on four tired wheels. Beside him walked a white dog, tongue hanging in the warm afternoon, stopping now and then to glance at the man as if to ask whether they were still headed toward tomorrow. The man never answered. He only leaned harder into the cart, his back carrying years that no one else could see.

People who passed might have called him homeless. They would not have been entirely wrong, but not entirely right either. Home had become smaller than a house. It had become the length of a leash. The soft sound of paws against concrete. A hand reaching into a worn bag to find half a sandwich before breaking it into two uneven pieces, pretending not to notice that the larger half always went to the dog. There are men who own land and still cannot find home when darkness comes. There are others who have only a faithful animal beside them and discover that love can pitch its tent almost anywhere.

At the top of the hill the man stopped, not because he had reached his destination but because everyone must stop somewhere. The dog looked back toward the valley they had climbed from, then forward again, ready for whichever direction the man chose. The cart creaked softly in the breeze. The grass along the edge of the road bent and straightened as though applauding a victory no one else had witnessed. We measure success by arrivals, addresses, by things safely put away in closets. But sometimes courage is simply pushing what remains of your life uphill while someone who could leave at any moment chooses, instead, to walk beside you.

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