Scene 7: [Campsite. The Visitors are breaking camp.]
Bernard: Tell me, Jean Arnaut, where to now?
Jean Arnaut: Finding our place grows more difficult with every passing year, it seems.
Bernard: Although it has never been easy.
Jean Arnaut: Maybe we’ll have to start selling peaches!
Bernard: God forbid! We’re apple people.
Jean Arnaut: It’s tough to teach old dogs new tricks. We’re just a dying breed, my friend. Human society is fast becoming a monoculture. We don’t fit in.
Bernard: Only cultivated fields everywhere, and less and less wild ones.
Jean Arnaut: And only the appearance of variety. Maybe young Hugo over there will figure it all out, what eludes us.
Bernard: I’ll put my hope in the lad. And in his hopes of raising wild horses. Maybe he’ll find a way to make life work.
[Hugh and Chloe enter.]
Jean Arnaut: What’s this? Another young man full of hope?! And it appears his hopes have been fulfilled!
Hugh: Jean Arnaut! Yes! I’ve never formally introduced you two. I would like to introduce my fiancé, Chloe!
Jean Arnaut: Fiancé?! Marvelous! Congratulations to the both of you! This is very hopeful indeed!
Chloe: It’s always wisest to put our hopes in deeds. Since people’s words alone are almost always disappointing.
Jean Arnaut: I’ve been plenty disappointed by people’s deeds as well. But now is no time for an old man’s cynicisms. We have a wedding upcoming! And new adventures await us! Where will you two be going now?
Hugh: If it is alright with all of you, we would like to join you, and travel the world together!
Jean Arnaut: Of course! We always welcome new friends! You both are very welcome to join us! Although, I should warn you, our path is not an easy one.
Bernard: It will certainly put your vows to the test, especially the part about richer and poorer.
Jean Arnaut: But what we lack in money, we gain in character and empathy. We love one another unfeigned, with nothing to gain and nothing to lose!
Hugh: We can do that!
Bernard: Life often has a way of ignoring our preferences. Can you live with that?
Hugh: Chloe, you once said you’d prefer to be rich, rather than poor.
Chloe: As long as I’m with you, I don’t care either way.
Jean Arnaut: Though that sentiment is often easier expressed when one is wealthy, rather than poor. What about you, Hugh? Would you feel the same about Chloe is she were poor, as you would if she were rich?
Hugh: Yes, either way!
Chloe: Hugh! Now that’s a good answer!
Hugh: Finally! And I wasn’t even trying.
Chloe: And what about all of you? How did you feel about our little town of Harmony?
Hugo: I liked it!
Jean Arnaut: I didn’t much care for it. But that’s life, like it or not!
[The End.]
~FS
Prayerful Life 