THE AMERICAN DREAM (An Original Short Story - Part 4 of 4)

With the camera still rolling he looked deep into Jeremy’s eyes and asked, "Do you think you might ever want to give the world another chance?"

Jeremy didn't even pause to reflect before he answered straight to the camera, "Hell no! Not the world you’re from. Michael, let me tell you, when you've been away from it like I have and your mind is clear you can see it so plainly. That world out there is way too far gone; it is nothing but a fragile house of cards. When it folds it will only be people like me who survive."

As they said their goodbyes and Michael handed Jeremy all the cash he had in his wallet, about two hundred dollars. Jeremy argued but Michael insisted. Michael figured this would keep him from going hungry for a while and this comforted him greatly.

Michael Callahan fired up the engine of his filthy, cluttered RV and started on the road back home, eager to get on with the rest of his life.

All he could think about on the drive home was how he would edit the footage. The documentary that started out being about the perils of homelessness in America was transformed instead into a film about the root cause of the problem, the broken system that created it.

In the film credits Michael dedicated the his work to His Savior and called it, "The American Dream". When it debuted at Sundance the very next year it was the runaway hit of the film festival. Michael had poured his entire life savings into the project, roughly twelve thousand dollars. The film grossed one hundred and twenty-three million dollars in its very first year.

Michael was moved by Jeremy's story and the power of it changed something deep within him. He realized once again the nagging voice in the back of his head had served him well. His interview with Jeremy was the Holy Grail of his documentary and was a testament to the fact that one small act of kindness, something that costs absolutely nothing, can ripple forth in waves and touch the lives of countless others.

Time after time it was always Jeremy's interview that woke people up and touched their hearts. Michael went on to produce a string of successful films and acquired every single material thing he ever wanted but was very careful to live his life with a certain sense of balance. He developed a wonderful knack for spreading the good fortune around to those who needed it. He never forgot the lesson he had learned through listening to Jeremy, his savior.

Three years after the release of, The American Dream Michael escaped Manhattan and drove down the coast with nothing more than his iPhone and a duffel bag full of banded hundred dollar bills. During the drive, he reflected on the fact that he had met Jeremy at the exact moment he needed to and how everything unfolded the way it did for a reason. He was awed by the fact that all actions and reactions are part of an amazingly complex web that can best be deciphered in reverse. Michael thought about how if success would've come his way before it did, he would've have likely been sucked into the very same hellish world that Jeremy had narrowly escaped from.

On the drive South towards Florida Michael entertained many fantasies about what Jeremy would do with all that cash. After more than a decade of being homeless maybe he would finally be ready to make a brand new start and reconnect with his wife and child. Maybe he would just squirrel the money in the woods and live out the rest of his days in peace, never having to wonder where his next meal would come from.

He took the Rockledge exit off I-95 and his heart thumped in his chest as he got close to the patch of woods that had served as the incubator of his rebirth. He quickly put his Prius in park and grabbed the duffle bag, making his way down the old well-worn path. But this time something seemed different. At first Michael couldn't put his finger on it.

Then it dawned on him, the presence that he once felt in the woods no longer seemed to be there. He made his way deeper down the path and noticed a bright yellow bulldozer standing motionless near a pile of fallen trees with heaping mounds of twisted roots and raw earth on either side of it.

He cupped his hands on either side of his mouth.
"Jeremy! Jeremy!" He called out frantically.

Holding the heavy duffle bag, he called out Jeremy's name a few more times, each time getting progressively quieter. He sat down on a fallen tree just long enough to realize how foolish his original intentions for making this trip made him feel. Michael smiled as he realized that this lesson had many layers and he had just peeled back yet another one. He knew in his heart that Jeremy and his friend had moved on to another place the moment that progress had encroached on their peace. Michael reached down and picked up a rock from the path that looked different from the rest, dusted it off and studied it in the shaft of sunlight created by the fallen trees.

In a year, when the magical patch of woods is destroyed to make way for yet another shopping mall or outcrop of condominiums, he figured that he would have only the single stone to remind him of this wonderful journey.

All of a sudden, he felt a tingling sensation on the back of his neck and he noticed the hairs on his arm were standing straight up. His eye caught something in the sunlight near his feet. He reached down to pick up a cloudy and weathered Ziplock bag. Michael unraveled the bag and in it he found a piece of paper with Asian characters flowing wistfully down the page.

His gut told him that he held something very special and he kept it close to him on the ride home. The first thing he did when he came across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan was to head to Chinatown. It was the only place he knew of where he could get this treasure translated. Michael double-parked on the street in front of a small souvenir shop and ran in.

The owner of the shop was a stocky man with a stump of an unlit plastic tipped cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth. Michael inquired about the translation and the man happily obliged to do it for fifty dollars. The man leaned over the outstretched paper on the counter and, with furrowed brow, quickly scribbled the following translated text on a piece of crinkled yellow paper:

From the Land of the Lost

This life is a free-falling dream
In which time is the only gravity
reach out, but there's with nothing to cling to
Until you awaken to discover your wings

these wayward wanderings will bring
many a lonesome stings
but your soul is a phoenix
and a most faithful guide

make your journey to the peaks
and take comfort in the sunrise
of each day born anew
taste the wine and know in time
that you will make your way
from the land of the lost.

Michael stood there enraptured by the wisdom of the words. The man Jeremy had told him about was indeed real and possessed a kind of unfathomable wisdom. He quietly thanked the shop owner and walked out of the shop in a blissful daze. To him, these words were a testament to him that no matter what negative forces were out there they could never, ever extinguish the good that dwells in the depth of the heart of humanity.

Michael carried these wise words with him on a laminated card for the rest of his days. It served as a reminder not only of Jeremy and the smiling man who never spoke, but most importantly it reminded him not to ever forget the things that mattered most; the sunshine, birdsong, the kindness of strangers. With these words, as long as he was mindful to hold the things that truly mattered close to his heart, Michael knew he would never, ever find himself among the ranks of the lost.

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Did you miss installments 1, 2 , and 3 of The American Dream? If so click below to read them:

https://steemit.com/story/@ericvancewalton/the-american-dream-an-original-short-story-part-1-of-4
https://steemit.com/story/@ericvancewalton/the-american-dream-an-original-short-story-part-2-of-4
https://steemit.com/story/@ericvancewalton/the-american-dream-an-original-short-story-part-3-of-4

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