The Sands (II)

I got enough strength to move on after they rest. Get away. Get so far away and move out on my own. They’ve been slowing me down all this time. Slowing me down on this journey and I can’ t have that. Too many more days in the sun and I won’t be able to stand it. I’ll suffocate. I’ll die.

Look at him. Like a ghost. The others frightened of him as if he were the one coming down to strike justice upon us. Perhaps he is the one who has lead us all this way to show us something. Perhaps he knows where there nearest city is. But he is but a man. Always walking with us. But was he leading? I thought I was…but I don’t remember the others either. All these men and I don’t remember one of them as I walked. And when I look down, I see only a single pair of footprints….and whose are they? God what is this test? I want to know.

He can lead us. He knows the way home. He knows and we can follow him on. My back is bent and I’m tired. I’ve always been wheezing and they probably will call me slow as we plod on. These two who seem to have come from somewhere else. And who is he? Dressed in white? Green eyes, black hair that catches lightly in the wind. As if he was an angel? An angel? No. No such thing. Just another man with a good sense of what he knows and does not know, and a determination not to let us falter here. I believe in him. That is all there is to believe in….that and me…but I have given up on that for so many years.

“What do you know?” The strong man folded his arms and stared up.

“I know very little about many things and a great deal about others. And I can tell people what I know, and I can hide what I do not. Can you trust me anymore because when I speak you understand? No. You don’t even know my name and I don’t know yours. But what I know is that there is no point to all this. No fate or strength to believe in. We all affect each other and all in our own ways. You have but some control upon your life. You can believe in things, and some cannot. You can resist things, and some cannot. There is no absolute and there is nothing that can defeat the worlds variety. We are all alike and all different and all one and all separate.”

“So what do we do now?” The man wheezed and brought in his breath defiantly, trying to hold himself up.

“Go on that way.” The man held his hand out to the right. “Push on and do not stop. If you live you live and if you die you die. You may rest here if you wish or you can push on. It is your decision what you do and none can be blamed except you for it. And even then, you cannot blame yourself completely, for sometimes safety is such a strong desire that we cannot forsake it for our own desires.”

“He speaks truthfully. Though I do not agree, I think we can but press on.”

“The night will make it easier.” The strong man looked to the preacher, and both nodded and set off in the direction of the man’s still pointed finger. The man on the cane followed after, moving along through the night with some drive and some hope, and also some despair.

The ghost man turned around and stared at the city but a mile or more away, its torches burning brightly as the men moved off in a different and odd direction. They could not see what he saw, but they were not meant to. And neither was he.

So much already lost and I cannot regain it. When did I lose all this? How did I? Would you have never given me what I desired, do you still hold out yet there may be hope? Do I fight on, or fall right now, or press on to another city where I shall find another who will captivate me more….less. There is nothing sure. Nothing sure but that that has already happened. We walk in dreams and do not understand that there is much much more to all of this. Those three men but wander, yet they may still come and cut my breath or break my limbs or hurt my heart though I think it numb from you. What is it we ever learn? Have I truly learned or am still but a man who thinks too hard on things?

He stopped his thoughts. He had heard them echo in the sands and roll away upon the wind, like the other’s before him. Had he heard them or just assumed? He still did not know and wagered he never would. He sighed, turned, and followed the men into the desert as the city’s torches one by one, winked out in Time.