North, East, South, West

Oh, the bitter irony.

I’m a compass.

I’ll tell you which direction you need to go in, thanks to the handy-dandy magnetic fields of this massive rock we call earth, but I need an owner in order to do that.

Anyone? You… the skinny Scout with the red hair. Have you seen the fatter guy that was carrying me around? We were having so much fun that I could feel my needle bouncing across the metal pin in my center, getting jostled along on hikes. I’m usually so proud of supplementing the sun in keeping these boys on track, but apparently I’m not needed anymore, and they can all just blind themselves staring straight into the eastern light.

I’m directionless. Completely lost.

Hey! Slow down, kids. You might actually, you know, benefit from not getting mired in the deep forest during the autumn. There’s poison ivy out there to discover if you wander too far from the trail. Not that I should have much empathy for that. I don’t even have skin to itch.

They’re all gone now.

What do I do? Just lay here against this tree and start rusting? I’m a classic model here, folks, far from useless, with a strong tin casing and glass on the top that won’t crack under 50 pounds of pressure. Heavy-duty, maybe a little high-maintenance, but I deserve better than to…

Uh-oh. Squirrel.

He’s looking right at my face. I see you there, you hairy mongrel. Chirp away. I can even see the nuts you’ve stashed in your cheeks, so you’re a greedy one, too. What do you know about north versus south, anyways?

He can always tell from which direction he’s burrowing holes into trees, he says to me. But maybe… what? I would make a good decoration for the inside of your home?!? Chump, do you think I’m a concert poster or some kind of fru fru art piece? Go get a human, someone that doesn’t rely on instinct all the time.

Oh, now we’re going toe to toe, are we? Ouch. Stop biting my rim. The seal will break.

Great. I don’t usually do this, but I spin my needle as a threat. The whirring sound spooks the squirrel and he dashes off to gather more acorns. The red end of the needle settles back into where it should, and I check myself for dings and scratches.

Hey, what can I say? Out here in the wild, a useful tool like myself gets used to what it takes to hold one’s own. Ain’t no wildebeest gonna push me around. Fortunately, the guy didn’t even have a large enough paw to hold me!

The time passes by some more, so I reflect upon being held. I like being held. It can be a really dreamy, romantic experience. I’ve only had a few “palm partners” in my lifetime, but my favorite was absolutely the blonde sales chick at the travelers’ store in Atlanta. What a pleasurable place to go right after being manufactured; she showed me off four times, right in that gentle, supple hand of hers, before I finally got a buyer, and that’s basically how I ended up here, although with some blacked-out memories in between. I seem to recall an episode where a kid had an accident in his sleeping bag and the urine missed me by just a few inches.

Yeah, it can be gross being a compass.

Where was I? Oh, yes, the lust I had for that chick…

Don’t judge me. I’m not a moral compass. I’m just your run of the mill guy, and I’m not out to harm you. Ya gotta give me a chance before just ditching me on the side of the trail.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t get this mad about being abandoned. It’s not so bad in this mud patch, not so far anyway. I’m not sinking in very far, and the feel of the liquid is kind of cooling and refreshing.

Smooooooooth operator…

That’s me singing about my copper finish from back in the day, to pass the time. Never been one to value cleanliness, to be honest. It’s a rough-and-tumble world, might as well embrace it.

Oh geez! Dog!

This park ain’t big enough for the two of us, Rover. A German Shepherd’s being held back by a suburban mom, although you could say “held” with a bit of facetiousness, considering it’s pulling at its leash like crazy just to see what’s over my way.

“Treat?”

Mercifully, the mom’s four-year-old distracts the beast just long enough, with a big handful of kibble. The last thing I’d want is to end up as a chew toy. By the time the dog’s finished eating, a bank of clouds has retreated from in front of the sun, and the light reflecting off of me just happens to hit the dog’s eyes at the perfect angle. Glare to the rescue! So, it blinks forcefully and shakes its head a few times, then the entire family has moved on to further within the park. I can see that the kid’s already got her own iPhone, and wouldn’t give me the time of day if I asked.

We live in the era of technology, my friends. I try not to remind myself that everyone nowadays just uses an app for this sort of thing anyway. But, what purpose does that serve if, clear out here, you don’t have an Internet connection or wireless signal? At least if I’d fallen somewhere near the cabins, someone would have turned me in to the lost-and-found by now.

So much time keeps passing by. It’s getting dark out here.

I’m feeling unusually lonely. Sleep isn’t really my thing, but if I were human and needed sleep, it’d be a much better way of passing the time than just lying here, face-up. Come on. I even have a clasp for keeping me latched to your belt. I guess my owner just wasn’t paying attention when gathering all his camping gear.

It’s starting to sprinkle.

Wet pitter-patters of the clouds’ tears run down my surface for several hours, and by the end of the rainburst, I’m realizing that they might as well correspond to what my eyes would be doing if I were human—crying.

But, no eyes here. Or “I”’s. Just N-E-S-W and four other directions. Eight ways to go while staying exactly where I am.

Hello? Can anyone help me?

The rain clears up and the sun completely sets.

North Star? Are you there?

Yes… he says. He winks at me from the opposite end of the universe, seeming to send a message of hope.

You’ll be happier soon. Patience is a virtue, and faith will take you far.

Faith?

Simply believe, my friend. Believe that you have value, and it will come true.

Thank you, North Star.

I repeated in my thoughts, I believe in my value. I believe in my value.

With one more lackadaisical spin of my needle, I stop paying attention to the enveloping darkness, and imagine the warmth of tomorrow upon my entire cylindrical being.

Hours more pass.

Then another day.

By now, I’m starting to get concerned that the mud has snuck into my gut and will smudge the lettering. I may even be sinking deeper, although is that just paranoia?

I pray. I believe.

Another day passes. More scouts use the park, but they’re even more distant than the last bunch, preoccupied with knot-tying and trust-falling just one camping plot away.

There’s always tomorrow. There’s always tomorrow.

Then…

There’s a crackle of leaves from behind me and I see a fist reach down. Suddenly, I find I am being carried!

Hello! Who are you, I wonder to myself. The man has wild hair and a jovial smile with a missing tooth; he’s inspecting every inch of me, knocks the mud off of me with a gentle tap against his boot.

“Helen?” he calls out over his shoulder. I see behind him a massive camper vehicle, out the door of which a portly woman sticks her head.

“Jethro…” she chides, “Can’t you see I’m still not fully awake?”

“I found something interesting over here!”

Jethro took me into his fold that day. He cleaned me, he polished me, he treated me like an absolute king. He said something about ‘possibly a fistful of dollars,’ if only he could dig up information on how I’d been used, he said.

I wasn’t going to share this with you at first, but you see, I’ve been a part of Vietnam. It was pure hell. So much noise and human suffering. I’ve just been yearning so much to return to something innocent for the longest time, it was like I was in denial of those years. Pretending like they never really happened.

My “palm partner” back then was a gritty fella of just 22 years of age, but I never got to know his full name. Something had been mentioned about him earning a Purple Heart, but now… Now, what does all that matter? I made it back to the States, and…

“Sell it to the local museum, Jethro! That soldier’s famous!”

Wait, what?

That’s exactly what happened, my friends. A trip into the city and some negotiation later, I get placed in a protected, full-length glass case along with a detailed mannequin, set of binoculars and several rifles, all as a part of a permanent display chronicling the tools of war.

The next week, the same skinny redhead kid from the park respectfully placed a hand upon my glass, and asked his father, “What were these used for?”

“Sometimes, son, those defending our country get lost in the wilderness. We needed to arm them with everything we could to make sure they’d not get lost permanently.”

“Permanently?”

“As in, died in combat, son.”

“This is like some of the same stuff I’ve used in the Scouts! I had no idea!”

I couldn’t see the stars anymore from under that museum’s roof, but my communion with the North Star told me in that mystical moment that that kid hatched a dream while looking at me. He went on, years later, to serve his country as a proud senator from Tennessee, advocating for the Veterans’ Administration and lobbying for the return of several hostages in an overseas conflict.

He certainly found his life’s direction.

And I’m immensely proud to say: so did I.