[A Short Story from My Heart] The Dust at the End of the Road
Young Choi, Professor of Regent University
At sundown the fields lay still, as though the long day had been pressed down and smoothed into a thin sheet of faded gold. A low wind moved over the land, lifting the loose dust of toil and memory, and carrying it toward the small town that lay at the end of the road, where men learned to live with what they could not change.
Joe stood beside his truck, working a rag over the engine with the slow, careful motion of a man tending something that had long since become part of his own body. The machine was old in the way worn things are old scarred by time, patient under neglect, yet stubbornly refusing to die. The paint had peeled away in brittle patches, like fragments of memory that had lost their will to stay together. He called it his “family,” though he never said the word aloud.
“Not going out today?” the old neighbor asked, standing in the dry light of evening.
Joe did not look up. “No gas,” he said simply.
The old man waited, then struck a match and lit his cigarette with unhurried hands. “It isn’t gas you’re missing,” he said at last. “It’s reason.”
The words drifted off into the wind like smoke, but they settled somewhere deep in Joe’s chest, heavier than they had any right to be.
That night, when the town had drawn its blinds against the darkness and the coyotes called from the distant hills, Joe went to the shed behind the house. Beneath a torn canvas tarp, he found a small can, half-filled with gasoline. He carried it carefully, as though it might spill not only its contents but something more fragile and final.
He poured it into the truck’s tank.
The engine coughed—once, then again—like an old man clearing his throat in the cold of morning. Then, slowly, it caught. It settled into a low, steady breathing, as if remembering a time when it had known purpose.
Joe did not go far. He drove only to the end of the road, where the cracked pavement surrendered to dust and weeds. There he stopped, let the engine idle for a moment, and then turned back.
It was a small journey, hardly more than a gesture. And yet, in that brief arc of movement, Joe felt something stir within him—something like a forgotten permission to go on.
The next morning, the town saw him again beside the truck, wiping down the hood with the same slow, deliberate care as before.
But there was a difference, slight and unspoken, like a change in the weather before the sky admits it. He looked like a man who had traveled far without leaving his place, and returned carrying the faint dust of roads that no one else could see. +++
April 20, 2026
At Sungsunjae (崇善齋)
{Solti}
한국어 번역: 길 끝의 먼지
https://www.ktown1st.com/blog/VALover/349086
Young Choi, PhD is a Professor at Regent University bringing a rare combination of technical expertise and creative spirit to everything he does. A scholar in AI, cybersecurity, network and telecommunications service management, he has published 37 books including AI and cybersecurity area books, 219 refereed articles, 21 book chapters. Beyond the academy, Dr. Choi is a passionate poet, essayist, and wooden block engraving artist whose reflective writing invites readers to rediscover life’s beauty in quiet contemplation. He lives under the motto: “Study hard and give generously without holding back! (열심히 공부해서 아낌없이 남주자 !)”