The Road

by Ram V

[box] Have you thought about how many different interpretations there could be to the word ‘Road’? Ram V gives you one perspective—a rather spiritual one, in his work of non-fiction. The road is so many things. It is life, time, destiny but it is also simple; a path to be walked on, he says. Read on.[/box]

No, this isn’t a Cormac McCarthy novel. That’s a different road. This one is shorter and is the one I am traveling on right now. It is made up of words and where it goes, is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. But the words are coming, and I am laying them down one after the other, the best I can, so we’ll see.

Would you like to join me then?

Why do we walk down roads anyway? You’ll find a great many people who will take the logical route and say, ‘to get to the end, of course’ and you’ll find a great many romantics who’ll tell you it’s all about the journey. Me? I say we walk down roads because we must walk. We must go on. It is the one thing that we do, always. In good weather and bad, in good times and dark hours, we always walk on; the story of our lives, written one step at a time.

Someone wise once asked, “How many roads must a man walk down?” Douglas Adams traveled to the ends of the universe to find the answer. Bob Dylan wrote a song about it and then said the answer was blowing in the wind and I figure, the only way to catch up with the wind, is to keep walking.

See, the beautiful thing about roads is the fact that all it takes is one wrong turn to end up someplace completely new. So take that wrong turn. Go someplace new. Live a little. Perhaps all the wrong turns will only bring you back to an old place, but you may see it in a new light. Then you’ll realize that life on the road is all about the wrong turns and you’ll realize that you’ve been taking all the right turns, when all you had to do was take the left one.

Sometimes the road can be scary. The lights are all out. It’s raining something evil and there are more holes in the ground than in Swiss cheese. In times like those, you can be sure of one thing. The road goes on; past the dark, on to drier land and higher ground and if you keep to it, you’ll come out the other side, a little battered, a little bruised, wet and wiser for it, just in time to watch that sunrise you’ve always wanted to see.

It isn’t to say that the road is without its perils. Some roads lead nowhere. Some lead to worse. But there isn’t much to do when you’re on a road to ruin. You must keep your feet and walk until the road sees it fit to let you walk off it. There are those who will stop and walk no more and those who will attempt to walk back to where they came from. But it is a fool’s errand. Once you stop you’re as good as dead and there is never any going back; ever. The road, for all its twists and turns only ever runs one way; forward.

Not all roads are great and neither are all of them fraught with danger. But the road in your backyard, down to that cozy patch of grass where inspiration, it seems, truly does grow on trees, is no less important and no less intimidating. We each have our own roads to walk down.

The road is a powerful thing. It has toppled nations and inspired us to many great things. Ernesto Guevara rode his bike down a road that led him to a revolution. Gandhi walked two hundred and forty miles down a road to break a law. If you have the chance to walk on such great roads, take it, keep to it and thousands will walk the road with you. If you betray the road or worse, if you betray yourself, you will find yourself alone and reduced to a mere footnote in the pages of history.

Now before I lay these last words, to this road’s end, I have one final thing to say. The road is so many things. It is life, time, destiny but it is also simple; a path to be walked on. So although a journey may be long and arduous, leading to unclear, yet rewarding ends, all it takes to get started on one is a deep breath, a good pace and a far stretching road.

Ram is a fibbing child turned writer, who has kept his love for concocting tall tales alive despite being warned against it! His short stories have appeared in fantasy and sci-fi publications and he is currently authoring a graphic novel. When he isn’t writing, Ram spends his time with books, film and music or generally wondering about everything.

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