The Sun spun round and round, a dance about him. At this point it wasn't even relevant. Up. Down. Scalding his skin. Incinerating his iris'. He had waited, sitting, sleeping, dreaming, for more days than he could count. Until there seemed nothing else to do but move. To run from the rising light in the morning, and chase it as it fell to dusk.
The miles moved were as uncountable as the days passed. Always in the same direction, following the fireball. Something had to come. An inevitable end from this desert. Something must be. Something beyond the illusions. The devastation of his mirages had changed to welcomed company ages ago. Their evaporation par for the course. Their brief trickster moments a relief from the infinite glare.
Over the dust he passed a stack of stones and paused. As long as he remained so did the rocks. After hours or minutes or seconds of staring he reached out and touched their rough ridged surfaces. The top rock rocked and rattled above the others below, but didn't disappear.
He couldn't make sense of it. There had been nothing for so long. Nothing beyond the Sun, Stars and dust. Sand and his Shadow. There had once been a single plump cloud, but it was so far gone he questioned the memory. Perhaps it hadn't existed, much like the rest of the hallucinations he'd encountered. Before these stones, the cloud's shade had been the only he'd seen other than his own silent, infuriating companion.
Further ahead was another short tower, and beyond it many more. He looped around the scattered stacks. No sense in their placement. No patterns. No single stones. No source. He sat amongst them and enjoyed their shadow's sundial roll under the sunlight. Time had no meaning to him, he couldn't tell the difference between slow or fast, it either was or wasn't. He'd forgotten its relevance as much as thirst, and hunger. The thought no longer even made sense to him, unsure, like the cloud, if it was something he'd made up. Thought hurt his head. Memories felt worse.
The stacks scarred the surface like the tallied scratches of days on prison walls. He stretched out below to rest. The Sun sat above and he squinted, fluttering his lashes across the light. Colours danced behind his eyelids, the only ones he was privy to. Everything else was in black and white between him the dirt and light.
He blinked again and the Sun was gone. His hands moved behind his head for a pillow and he numbered the stars. The amount of times he'd counted them was a higher count than he'd ever made of them.
And so he stayed. Another blink. Another Sun. Blink blink, and the stone's shadows swung. The wind picked up, and his lips split and stung. And yet he stayed. The Sun gliding over him like street lamps over car tops along speeding highways.
And then, one night, in the darkness without warning, the howls began. Cackling like jackals. As menacing as rippling hyena snickers. He bolted upright. From left to right, forwards and back he scanned the horizon. Nothing but vast emptiness. Matched by a new, deeper silence when the calls stopped.
And then a breeze.
It's chill kissed his skin.
That was different.
The Moon peaked from above, and the small towers of rocks pitched their shadows like arrows across the sharp gnarled surface. He stood. The wind picked up and whistled across the empty plains. His skin rose, and he was cold for the first time that he could remember. The Sun stopped burning him long ago, the night let him be, let him rest. But now he felt the temperature. He felt worry. And he marched.
He marched til dawn, until the Sun singed the skyline, bleeding reds, pinks and oranges above. The rock stacks had grown in size until they disappeared all together. No clue of their source, no quarries, or mountains had ever dotted the skyline. Frantic by their absence he spun about searching for the last tower he passed. Pure ray's pierced the horizon and his aching feet halted. The light was coming from his left. This had been the first time he hadn't gone West since he'd started moving.
Unsure of what to do with himself, he sat and wept. Quiet tears, another disturbing event, nothing like this had happened before. The salty drops mixed with the dust covering his cheeks as they fell, leaving muddy tracks and trails. He lay back and closed his eyes.
That sound, that menacing screech called him from his dreams. Panicked, he sat up again in darkness, afraid in the cold. Another tortured whine squealed to a taunting yip. His eyes darted, was there more than one out there? That's when he saw it, another stack, this one built of larger rocks, standing only a few feet in front of him. He scrambled backwards and ran.
His feet raced forward until they were numb. Until the menacing laughter like shrieks disappeared. Until the smaller stacks returned. Winded he paused, and surveyed as he caught his breath. Where had he run too? In which direction? Terrorized he'd bolted in a blind sprint. And now dare he wait for the Sun to rise again and point him westward? Brave their dark calls?
He did not. He marched on, wrong again in the light. When he needed to rest, he lay pointing his body in the correct direction so he'd awake oriented in the dark.
Again he woke in the cold. Again it was to the haunting call. Taunting him away from rest. He dusted himself off and walked onward across the endless dead plains, the calls echoing behind. In vicious repetition the days and nights and howls continued. Their haunting presence lurked behind the veil of the skyline. Waiting to cross the threshold. Waiting to cross the horizon. Just like him.
Thanks for reading!
Wazoo!
-Mr. Write