The Pilgrim headed west.
The Pilgrim headed west, unaware he was answering a quiet call to duty. The Pilgrim began gathering their things as the villagers all around him watched. For all of the village knew that the west was a foreign land, a dangerous land, a land beyond their peaceful valley. The villagers continued to gather around the Pilgrim as he gathered his things.
“You might not ever return!”
“What if you get hurt along the way? What if someone tries to hurt you along the way?”
“How could you be so selfish to choose the needs of your ‘adventure’ over the needs of the village!”
“Do you not find this life enough?”
The Pilgrim continued to gathering his pack and supplies in silence, as if almost transfixed by a song or tune heard only to him, heard on the rising and falling winds of the far mountains. The people around him continued to grow frustrated, confused, and more emotional as the Pilgrim continued to quietly work. The people and crowd around the Pilgrim slowly faded into background noise, as he finally shoulders his assembled pack, and steps towards the village’s boundary.
“Are you insane? Have you lost your mind?”
“Why would you trade such a good thing going, for something that might not even be?”
“We have problems that need fixed here first, don’t you know?”
“How could you do this to your family?”
The Pilgrim was used to not being understood, how could they after all? An invisible strand, an ethereal voice, a magnetized charge pulled him further and further away from his village. It pulled him further, and further away from his people. It pulled him further and further away from the chanting of the ignorant crowd, as they faded into cosmic noise and radiation.
The Pilgrim placed his first step beyond the village’s wall. That first step felt like the entire world fell below him, as the stars of the cosmos rose from their hiding places to greet him on his path, as he finally realized this, he could begin his journey of understanding into the universe.
The Pilgrim headed west, across the golden plains, towards the evergreen ridges, upwards the snowy mountain tops, until his shadowy figure crossed the apex of the tallest mountain the villagers could see.
The Pilgrim headed west.