We’ve all seen the Energizer Bunny, beating his drum interminably; we are told the batteries never run out. But out of camera range, he doesn’t keep going and going and going as advertised. Nothing does.
The all-young jogger passing me by, all-grinning, all-carefree, all-future-driven doesn’t really keep going and going and going. What I don’t know about is the slow drip her boyfriend is draining from her life.
The schedule-driven train hoists passengers within, clickety-clacking monotonously, horn religiously blasting watch-out-for-me-I’m-coming-through at each crossing gate, but it doesn’t keep going and going and going. A car stalled on the tracks or a broken crossing gate posts all red signals and eight-hundred passengers are late for their jobs, miss conference calls, forgo a college entrance exam.
A cold has the head in a vise, stabs the throat at each swallow and muffles the hearing with a throbbing ache. Chronic pain claws at the lower back, and the arthritic big toe tries to balance a lurching, ailing system that doesn’t feel like going and going and going.
Just then, a street lamp posts an unanticipated sermon at its base—“Hey,” with an arrow pointing upward.
Upward. Oh, yeah. Upward.
A voice from somewhere enters the head, and the voice says, “I still see you!”
And with that, the world falls away.
We can keep going and going and going a bit longer.