The Stake and Big Frank

The stake in the trail was a question mark that puntuated every walk, hike, or run that Big Frank had. There it was . . . just to the west side of the trail, with a small remnant of a chain. He often passed this stake and he often wondered what it meant, and why it was there. Everything happened for a reason, right? What was the reason for the stake? Or was it everything happened for a reason with people, but with stakes - there need not necessarily be a reason. This stake, perhaps, had no explanation; it resulted from nothing - it just was there. No, Big Frank rejected that because no stake drove itself into anything - somebody drove this stake into this trail - that was what it resulted from, just as his pondering resulted from the stake being there, and so . . . he thought it did indeed mean something. At first the cliches emerged: "a stake in the road" - did he have a stake in the road; "stake something on this road" - he was staking his walk on the . . . NO, he was not going to play the cliche game. This stake meant something - it was a symbol that went beyond the cliches, or it was a metaphor for something, or maybe it just wanted to be noticed. That stake then has accomplished its purpose - thus!