Here and There

Art by Shelby D.

"You can't get there from here," Abe said, thumbs in the straps of his overalls. Zeke nodded along.

"How does one get there?" I asked.

"You don't."

"What do you mean you don't?"

"It's real simple: you're either here or there. Can't be in both."

"Can't be both." Zeke added.

""I don't want to be in both," I explained again. "I don't want to be here; I want to be there. There has to be some way - however circuitous - to get there from here."

The two men looked at each other for a moment and then looked back to me. Abe contorted his mouth in such a way that the piece of straw hanging from his lips switched sides.

"So you don't want to be here?" he said.

"Yes."

"And you want to be-" he extended the question with a wide sweep of his arm- "over there?"

"Yes!"

"Well you can't get there from here."

Zeke nodded again as if it was a revelation.

"How does one get there then!?" I hollered.

"Not from here, that much I know."

"There are people there though, right?"

"Yup."

"How'd they get there?"

"Made different choices along the path I reckon."

"Different paths," Zeke echoed.

"Then I'll backtrack a bit and make different choices."

"Too late for that mister," Abe said.

"Too late, too late," Zeke, for his part, made the words sound like condolences.

"What do you mean it's too late?"

"Well, mister, I hate to break it to you, but you're dead."

"What do you mean I'm dead?"

"Just that. This is your hell, we're your demons, and you're never getting-" another wide sweep of the arm- "over there."