A hard lesson

The stubborn donkey wouldn’t budge despite Juan’s lulls and bribes. It was a hot day. The sun angrily beat down on the comedic duo: one anxiously glancing forward toward the eerily empty road ahead, pressing onward, and the other dumbly looking back, committed to those roads already traveled – those paths already deemed safe. Juan could feel his impatience slowly turning into rage. Despite his beckoning, pleading, and assertive commanding, the burro remained rooted in the caked earth, his passionless black eyes coldly revealing nothing. Juan turned and walked toward the back of the ramshackle cart. With a huff he unsnapped the whip from it’s home below the box where he stored his tools. He walked back around behind the cart with a deadly gleam in his eye fully prepared to vent a lifetime of frustrations on the poor beast.

“All right you have a choice. You can pull the cart and we will proceed to San Luis or you can continue to dumbly sit and be punished for your defiance.”

The donkey casually looked back, his tail swatting at a pesky horsefly.

“Fine.”

Committed to his decision Juan reached back and with all of his strength lashed the donkey’s back. The donkey stiffened for but a second, his emaciated body attempting to lessen the cruel sting of the whip. A bloody, raw line remained in the donkey’s soft brown fur along the length of his bony spine. Despite the throbbing pain the donkey was resolute. His black eyes gazing forward, revealing nothing. This steadfastness… this "defiance"…. only fueled the fire that had begun raging inside Juan’s soul.

He lashed the donkey again. And again he was met with stoic silence and unwavering stillness.

Juan became angrier, driven down the dangerous path of unthinking blind rage he continued to whip the donkey. Blow after devastating blow was rained upon the poor beast’s back, sides, and rear. Where once the donkey’s coat was a perfect, velvety brown, it was now a marred landscape of gory skin and a sickeningly thick layer of sticky, matted blood. The donkey’s knees buckled. The rickety cart tipped over and the contents spilled. The combination of the heat, the pain of the numerous wounds, and the stinging bites of a thousand horseflies that now covered his broken skin, drawn by the scent of blood, was too much to bear.

Exhausted and out of breath, Juan leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees. He wiped his mouth and angrily spit a thick clump of bile and saliva onto the cracked dirt. He blankly stared at the pitiful donkey that now lay on the ground wheezing in pain, disoriented and scared. As the adrenaline ran its course in his bloodstream, reality began to set in. “What have I done?” He thought to himself. His pensiveness was interrupted by a voice behind him.

“ Where are you headed on this hot day?”

Juan turned to see a man, finely dressed in black slacks and a crisp white shirt. He was clean shaven, his hair carefully combed. The man had handsome features and wisdom in his eyes.

“ Oh, I didn’t see you there. We travel to San Luis. I have work waiting for me.”

The mysterious man’s eyes flitted from the cart, to the bleeding donkey, back to Juan. “ You’ll be there in no time at this rate.”

“ If you’d like to help you may, otherwise proceed on, your sarcasm does not humor me.”

“ I won’t help you but I offer you this advice. San Luis is closed to outsiders. The town has been struck with the plague. All of its inhabitants are dead or dying, including the rats. Only the cockroaches remain. You may continue on if you’d like, although I assure you, the consequences will be dire.”

Juan paused. A bead of sweat slowly ran down the length of his face, beaded on his chin, and then, as if in slow motion, fell to the earth.

The stranger continued. “Perhaps in the future you should stop and listen. Be mindful of your anger and observe the wisdom you’ll invariably find all around you. Now you are left with nothing except a long walk home, wherever that may be.” As he said this he nudged toward where the donkey lay. Juan followed the man’s gaze. The poor animal was no longer breathing. His service to Juan forever ended. Once proud and faithful, now merely a meal for the flies and vultures.

Juan turned back to address the man only to find he had vanished.

Juan was left standing in the hot sun, his upturned cart, spilled wares, and a dead donkey his only company.