Decades had passed since their wedding night at the humble motel in the cheap part of town. Ben and Anna had preserved the memories of their first night together, as if snapping an entire 12-shot roll of film on their Instamatic camera.
Now they wanted to see the place again, after so many years down life’s road together. Life had been busy – Ben, compactly-built and full of vigor, had become a practicing attorney. Anna, tall and lively, had successfully trained as a registered nurse. They had each rigorously worked their way through school. The eventual satisfaction of the professional payoff had been fleeting; their jobs were demanding, kids came along early, and time evaporated quickly.
Appointments to serve on various boards had rewarded them with satisfying recognition, and they had managed stepping into increasingly larger houses as family and prestige required and finances permitted. But the departure of each son and daughter, now in turn leaving the residence for places of their own, made its rooms increasingly echo, leaving little else behind but memories and the fading bumper stickers that heralded their status as honor roll students.
Life accelerated hard and had landed them, at times, where they had not expected. Friends and family had moved away. Without them along, the vacation cruises had been a bit flat. Plans for trips to serve in developing countries gathered dust. Their overly-enthusiastic faith in the stock market yanked the financial carpet from beneath their feet.
Their bucket lists containing all they wished to accomplish in life remained, they believed, largely undone.
This day, for better or worse, Ben and Anna would recall where it all started in the motel room decades ago.
Pulling into the motel’s drive, they recognized the building on the left. Newly painted in beige with lively colored trim, it had fared well over the years, giving temporary shelter to lives on-the-go and in-the-making.
Next to it, it seemed, was a newly constructed addition. Or was it? It shared the older building’s substance and color, but it seemed curiously flat. Slowly, they perceived its meaning. A mural had been whimsically painter over the bare wall on the existing building, depicting an expanded motel. The mural’s fantasy ended only when parked cars beneath interrupted it.
Momentarily, Ben and Anna caught their breath. On the mural’s second floor stood a man of Ben’s stature, arm raised to waive, several decades younger. On his right, tall and attractive, Anna stood beside him. They appeared optimistic, eager, as if challenging the future.
The mystery of how the mural came to be remained unsolved. But Ben and Jennifer puzzled over the greater mystery all the long way home. Was the mural an apparition of what had already been, or a vision of what could yet be?