It’s raining in January!” said my tread mill with a black disgruntled look. “So?”“Why did you go for a walk in the rains, you could have used me instead!”
“What could you have offered me, “I asked, “that is better than my walk outside? Could you have offered me the lovely earthy smell of the rain? Could you have touched my cheeks ever so gently like those raindrops did outside?”
“I could have offered you your favourite TV show while you jogged on me! You could have laughed out loud at the antics of the ‘Friends’!”
“I laughed out loud,” I said, “Not at the pranks of characters and actors on TV but at real flesh and blood friends, as they told me about how their yesterday went, at how they slipped in the glorious rain, at how their grandchild stared at their false teeth lying in a glass by their bedside! Oh, we laughed a lot this morning!”
“You could have slipped and fallen on the slushy roads, I could have offered you a dry run on me, in air-conditioned comfort!” “I nearly slipped and fell, and felt two strong arms holding on to me, and what a joy to know friends were there, ready to steady me if I fell!” “I would have seen you kept an even pace!”
“Ah how I stopped to smell a new flower that had just opened it’s petals! I walked slowly so that I could continue hearing the cuckoo in its stolen nest above me, crying to another cuckoo in the next tree! I didn’t want to quicken my pace.”
“You came back wet, you could have caught a cold?”
“How can you catch a cold with the warmth of a friendly world outside?” I asked the treadmill, as it looked at me sullenly. “The outside is God’s love affair with me!”
“What?” asked the treadmill, shocked.
“Yes, in the beauty of a sunrise, or that of rain falling I see God showing his love to me! ‘Take Bob,” He seems to say, ‘Take from this world and enjoy it!’ Take with you the fragrance of the flower, the whistle of a bird, take with you the sight of a caterpillar crawling onto a leaf and walking across, onto a stem, onto a branch and slowly back to the ground and then onto the next tree!”
“You watched all that?” asked my treadmill startled.
“Oh yes I did, and in the hazy misty sky and different shades of green, the various trees and plants had to offer, I saw a painter!”
“A Painter?” “Yes a Painter who was writing gigantic letters with His brushes, that said, ‘I love you Bob!’ signed, ‘God!’
