Backstage Traveler

With a nod of thanks to the postman, he cradles the paper and string-bound package in his arms, and closes his front door.  Glancing at the assortment of exotic rainbow-colored squares affixed to the parcel’s upper right hand corner, he’s inspired to remark to no one other than himself, “My goodness!  Just look at all those stamps!”

Carrying the box over to his horsehair sofa, he sits nearest a bookcase cluttered with an impressive collection of objects from a host of foreign countries, and framed by walls covered with gelatin silver photographs of ocean liners and pagodas.  The Eiffel Tower. Startling white cliffs, and the Golden Gate Bridge.  With deliberate care, he unknots the string and peels the paper away, and lifting the top of the box, feels a rush of excitement as the secrets inside are revealed-a picture of the Great Pyramids, a diminutive stone sphinx, a fossilized fish, and a jar of sand.  “Egypt!” he exclaims, like an enthusiastic school boy responding to a teacher’s question.

Shifting his weight forward, he stands up-creating a flutter of paper and string-and conveys the box over to a large globe near his front window. “Now then, where exactly is Egypt?” he wonders aloud, slowly spinning the green and blue sphere until his eyes single out the block-lettered name.  Tracing a finger tipped line from Alexandria to Aswan, he follows the route Lawrence may have taken, and as he does so, the familiar flood of admiration mixed with envy washes over him.  Lawrence, his identical twin, fearlessly traveling the world, while he tags vicariously along on this smaller, less daunting version of it.  If only Lawrence and he truly were identical.

Lifting the jar of sand as he sets down the box, he unscrews the lid-and pouring a few grains into his palm, he can only imagine how hot the desert must be this time of day.

 

Welcome to my new blog, replacing my former blog-For the Love of Pete.

I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be to suffer from extreme agoraphobia… 

This weeks prompt:  The third definition of the word DELIBERATE
1: characterized by or resulting from careful and thorough consideration <a deliberate decision>
2: characterized by awareness of the consequences<deliberate falsehood>
3: slow, unhurried, and steady as though allowing time for decision on each individual action involved <a deliberate pace>