Restless

D’you ever wonder why we’re here, living and breathing, and doing our damndest to survive this thing called life? I mean, it all seems so damned temporary and at the end of it all… well, what I’m wondering is does life have a purpose or don’t it? Everyone needs a purpose, I reckon. Makes no sense otherwise, though I’m damned if I know where I fit in.

I thought I could leave my old ways behind me. I thought I could knuckle down, raise crops and reap the rewards of my labor like any other good citizen. Yeah, a lean mean rootin’ tootin’ fella like me, trading potatoes and tomatoes for sugar and spice. Hell, I was even gonna fix the barn, but it ain’t gonna happen now. Miss JJ was right; farmer I ain’t. If I didn’t know it before the crows came and took every seed I sowed, I surely knew it when Miss April asked how I was gonna make the water run uphill from the creek.

Course I wouldn’t admit I was licked, not then. Earlier this evening I was still telling Nameless about the big plans I had. Trying to convince myself, I guess. Well, Nameless ain’t dumb. He just looked at me with those big sorrowful eyes and shamed me into silence. There’s no fooling a dog that knows what you’re feeling inside. There just ain’t.

When truth hits you in the eye and the wayward wind calls, the wayward get restless. There’s a big world out there, a world where a man can come and go, do as he will, and answer to no one. It’s my world. And that’s where I belong, with or without a purpose.