That Thinker

The man totally absorbed in deep thoughts, sitting in front of the gate to hell while resting his chin on his hand stands up ‘I wonder, where he wants to go?’ He didn't take the open road but a narrow maze like path between sorry-looking high walled wooden fences. Is it because he is naked? Even if it is so, the narrow maze is too miserable for a waking man who long had thoughts: it seems that the life has no preference over one or another. Nonetheless, since, time didn't stop, he stood up after 120 years of pondering, he couldn't go and sit back down again. He proceeded in the maze groping and when he hit the wall, he turned back to find another way, just like a mouse in a laboratory, searching for the food. And finally, when he found the open way in the light he walked out from the maze though, there he sees a decaying wooden pillar standing ahead. On the pillar, he saw St. Peter hung upside down, and from the Saint's neck, two chained keys swing; Peter's arms were spread open pointing two different ways behind him. He, the thinker, was confused, is the way to the heaven on the right or the left, the Saint directs. If the Saint stands on the ground with his two feet and points the way, simply take the right because it leads him to heaven; however, he is upside down, so, it's very difficult to make a decision, which side of right is the true right, or which way is the trustworthy way him to take to heaven. As the Saint gazed pitifully, the thinker took a narrow pathway between two roads, because he was unable to read the Saints pointing the way to heaven. Although, one who experienced Purgatory and Hell, following the great poet who once said "it is easy to go down into Hell; ...but to climb back again, to retrace one’s steps to the upper air - there's the rub, the task,"(1) and to tour the Paradise lead by "the glorious lady... maternal, radiant and comforting,"(2) had thoughtful guides, but to him, Peter was the only guide available. The path he took became diminished the ways to Heaven and Hell became farther. As the path dwindled he missed his footing and fell into a bush on the side of a valley which no one ever escaped from; it was a dense fog covered Iris'(3) valley where, from the beginning of the world, they had conceived all kinds of thoughts that men can ever think of. 1. Virgil 2. Beatrice 3. Rodin. Iris, Messenger of the gods