Which Road

In travelling to the other side of the mountain of his home village, a traveler debates which road to take.

No one mentioned two roads. They told me only to walk this way and I would surely find my way over and around the mountain.  Now I stand here and I have two roads of which to choose the direction I am to go. I can't afford to choose the wrong way for I have only enough food to walk this route once. If I chose wrong and end up farther away than I intend, I will have to live as the animals do. Scravaging the forest floor for food and warmth. I have to choose the right road. 

I come from a small village where everyone knows everyone's secrets and smells. There is no hiding in my village, you are left open to all who live around you. You sleep, wake, work the land and then you rest at death. You find joy in the family and community around you, never needing too much to survive. The village sits at the bottom of a mountain that we call Earth's gate. For our history we have known this mountain as being the gate between the world of pain and our way of life. 

Our ancestors came here on a mission to retreat from the world that laid on the other side of Earth's Gate. They had experienced the pain of the world before choosing to leave it. Heartbreak, disease, pain, suffering, slave life. The powerful broke their backs under the weight of expectation and status. Joy in the simple breath of life was nowhere to be found. 

So our ancestors met one night under the shadow of the moon and set out to escape to the other side of Earths Gate. What they found was a land with calm and rich soil which allowed them to grow fruits and veggies together and the stream which ran no more than three yards across, supplied a non stop fresh run of water. There were eight in all who made the journey. They were paired up man and woman and began the process of creating a community and now for three hundred years we have stayed in this village, ten thousand strong, loving life and feeling peace. That is why I am traveling to cross Earths Gate, I have succumbed to a calling I have felt all my life. One that tells me that life, real life awaits on the other side.

When I first went to the elders with my intention of crossing Earth's gate I was shut down from speaking any further. I was placed in the temple of our god and told to sit in silence and have our god speak some sense into me. Yet all I heard was that of  a voice saying to pack my sack and begin to walk on the thin line trail that leads to the climb of the mountain. When I exited the temple I told them of the calling that kept coming to me in silence and felt as if it was God telling me to travel.

"God?! You do not know God! For if you did you would know the wisdom of never traveling back over to the other side of Earths Gate! You are under the evil spirit that resides over that mountain pass." The elder screeched at me. 

"I feel it under a sense of compassion that drives me to that mountain pass." I tried to convince the elder I did not feel as though it is out of evil that I have this desire but that others should know of our way of living. The can be relieved of so much suffering.

That was of no use and I had only enraged them more. He pointed with his cane towards to northwest skyline of the village, "You can leave through there. It will take you to the other side. You are not to come back here. You leave, you leave for good. If you must see the other side, you are to lose the life you have here."

So I took off but now I sit at the two roads. No one ever said anything about two roads. Which road to go.