On the cusp of a thought, on the threshold of a dream, close to realizing what it all means, he stumbled.
“No!” he shouted into the dust. “Not this time!”
Slowly, painfully, he wrestled the thought back into his consciousness. Excruciatingly, he pulled the dream into himself. With one last mighty lunge, he sprang into realization. His eyes lit with a strange fire and, just as suddenly, extinguished.
“That’s not it, either,” he muttered.
“Better keep trying,” said a nearby voice. It was an elf — a pretty Tolkien elf, not a big-eared Rowling elf — and it smiled with the patience of the gods.
“Why don’t you just tell me?” he sputtered in frustration.
“You need to earn it,” the elf said, “and you wouldn’t believe me anyway. It has to come from you and not from somewhere out here.”
They stared at each other across the garden path.
“”I am on the edge of discovery, the very brink, and you won’t pull me over the top,” he said almost savagely.
“I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t.”
The elf considered. “Nope — it’s can’t. You have to take each step on your own.”
“Even the last step?”
“Especially the last step.”
It took longer than he cared to admit, but once he arrived at the inevitable conclusion, he saw that the elf had been right all along.
What was the answer? What does it all mean?
I wish I could tell you.
But I can’t.
