This story is from my new collection of short fiction, What the Tree Saw.
When they were kids, they needed no philosophy of creeks and hills. They didn’t need to know why they swam and rolled. Sean and Hannah were neighbors back then and never thought about tying marriage knots. Now, they got up and brushed teeth and brushed past one another in the halls. She went downtown to work in a high rise. He sat at home and called people he didn’t know on behalf of a product he didn’t believe in.
So, yes. Now the question of purpose, of philosophy, of ultimate ends, flowed in their heads like creek water, rose in their spiritual periphery like sun-inflected hills. For Sean, the question “Why” roiled in his coffee-warmed gut every single morning. For Hannah, it spun with pigeons in the air, bounced like the cotton bells on women’s coats in Central Park.
But they both stowed away such questions. Everyone did. They also tried to forget the creeks and the hills. Everyone must.
Easier that way. Harder that way. Like flowing with a current just to end up swimming against it.
Great thoughts of then and now. When the geese honk above and the cacophany of tree frogs and cicadas confound our thoughts of a quiet evening, God the Creator sees that it is good. We can rest in His beauty.