I scratched my head, looked around, and didn’t like what I saw. In the twilight of the evening, I arose, gathered my things, and left that place like a thief in the night. I kissed my boy, whispered a promise to him him, hoping subconsciously he’d hear his father’s words, and I took the long road to nowhere.  The dawn was approaching, the slaves and laborers wiping the sleep from their eyes, begrudgingly arising, grinding aromatic beans with the hope of stimulating their spirits, an assist to prime the motor, synthetic injected life. Over the horizon, the radiation began to visibly pulsate, the waves from an unfathomable distance. My pace quickened, for I did not want to mingle with my own kind, no, I could not be one of them.

Same design, same flesh; different tones, tufts, styles, but sinew, joint, bone, thought; I was no different, though I didn’t want to wait around and find out if I was. The great fiery globe was now traversing the dome, and as I tried to control the burning urges within me, it burned me from without, not having, not holding, not knowing, feeling the heat, the blistering, sweltering heat, and not being able to outrun it. Endless thoughts bubbled up, rising, falling, yet boiling like the mercury.  Was this not what stirred me to rise in the first place? A sudden, unexpected gust of wind blew from the east, and I, ever fleet of foot, did give chase. Caught up in the moment,  a full speed burst, the pounding of an accelerated heart, beating rapidly, mesmerizing rhythm like a drum. Thump. Thump. Thump.Thump.

Reaching out my hand to catch her, the wind, but each time it seemed I was there, she just sped off again, swirling, whispering, dodging, hauntingly, as if to hector and heckle, yet heralding an audible theme of hope, reminding me I’m not in control, but to not give up. When the pain began to overtake the bliss, the chagrin, the cauldron of emotion being exhibited between the world of the real and surreal, when it woke me, I surveyed my surroundings. Remote, barren, dry, withering life, flora camoflouged as prickly, spiney, elevated forks springing forth from the earth. I gazed at this thing in wonder, the unintelligible sounds being uttered from my mouth, as if to ask how it survives, nay thrives, in such an environment. Somewhow this monstrous thing was not only growing, but reproducing, it’s very essence had the water of life within it. I marveled at the possibilty of being able to destroy this living thing and take out this water, a source of life for myself. By destroying another living thing, life would spring forth for one, as it was emptied from another. Even out here, there was no escape from the laws the governed the nature of our existence, but nature cannot define what goes on in the soul. The realization was not that nature does what the scholars indeed already knew, but that through these sometimes apparently unfair and most unjust of circumstances and ways, there lies a comprehension to the enlightened that words cannot describe, scales cannot measure, caskets cannot contain, prisons cannot bind, man cannot explain.