A man rode up alongside a woman.

Going my way, he asked?

Which is your way, she responded.

I’m going to the end of the road. He pointed in the direction of a statue.

That’s not the end of the road, that’s the beginning, she said.

How can you tell the end from the beginning? What clue do you have?

If I ride backwards then that brings me to the end.

What if you ride forward, then that’s the beginning.

The beginning of what? The road. Which road?

The road that will take me to the end. The end of what?

The end of the beginning.

The end and the beginning cannot be the same.

But they are. When you start, it’s the beginning, and eventually you come to the end of the beginning.

But how do you know when you’re there? Do you just keep going till you can’t go on anymore?

I have to keep going. If I don’t, I’ll never reach the end of the beginning and I won’t know where I am.

 

Roberta Pantal Rhodes

Roberta has had fiction, poetry, and memoir published in Parting Gifts, Confrontation, Bluestem-online Quarterly, Arts Medica , Cacti Fur and other journals.  She has also written three plays which were performed at American Theater of Actors.