Planet Freedom

This is something I've had around for awhile, been through quite a few editing stages. Here's the latest stage of it so far. Just a short story is all.






His head hung low, bowed as if in penitence, cradled between two worn and dusty shoulders, hanging like a noose hangs from a scaffold. The taste of sand still filled his bone dry mouth and throat, and he no longer had any water to wash the taste away with, much less an oasis. His entire body ached with the longing to stop, to quit and let nature take its course, and his mind was journeying the same path as well, not quite there yet but making plenty of progress. Nothing but far stretching sand devoured this barren path he walked. There would be no end to it just as there had been no beginning, no walls to this maze to guide or trick him, and the only thing this land promised was hopelessness. Even the tracks he’d left behind him, his evidence of existence in desolation, were being erased and covered by sand, and soon there would be no more tracks, no more erasing, and none of him left over. But there, even in his loneliness, he could see the horizon waving to him as he continued after it.
Omens of death hovered o’erhead, waiting to devour body and carry soul into that seemingly endless horizon which sat upon the seemingly endless sand. They cast their shadows upon him, and he felt the wind from the flap of their wings, those wings that so resembled Death’s. The old ’50, his beautiful piece-o-crap that had served him loyally over the years, lay hundreds of miles behind with the road, caught in the rays of never ending abandonment. The sun smiled sinfully upon this. Everything he’d tried to bring along was now either useless or buried in sand, and all that was left was himself and the tattered clothes that concealed his humiliating nakedness from the sun. That damn sun… He’d think to himself, knowing how badly it wanted him down.
There were no reptiles or other desert creatures, or even a cactus. It was just one barren wasteland that led to the same place no matter which direction you took. Nowhere, he thought to himself. His shoes could no longer bear the journey, and that part of him tore at the seams, breaking away from him, abandoning him. Next the socks ripped holes in themselves, destroyed themselves, to escape him and his fate. Both shoes and socks were buried in sand not even a minute afterwards. All this time, he had believed he was getting used to this environment, becoming stronger, but now he realized he was growing weaker, gradually being taken down piece by piece, grain of sand by grain of sand.
The horizon continued waving to him, teasing him, saying “Come, come, here,” and he waving back, responding, “I’m coming, just stop running away.” His body was so worn, so tired, so weak now, and there was no water, only reality. And, of course, the horizon, always running away. But he vowed to catch it, catch that impish horizon, teasing him. The jealous sun would not have it, however, and finally forced him to his knees after so much pushing, and all of his efforts to stand and all resistance only sped up the inevitable, sped up the hourglass sand.
The omens continued stalking him, preparing for dinner, hopping on their scaly talons along the sand with such ease. He was left to crawling, like a child, but with one major difference. When he was a child, he had so little life behind him with so much before him, and now it was that he had so much behind him and so little before him. He crawled, pawing for the horizon. His head screamed Wait! But the horizon soon vanished, his vision filled instead by the image of endless, towering sand. The dunes around him grew bigger, taller than him, while his own sand sank, little left in his glass. They towered over him, and he feared their crushing fall, feared being buried in sand like his shoes and socks. Oh how he wanted water so badly.
Hot frustration, hotter than the sun, was coursing through his veins and it made love to his fear, giving birth to desperation. This desperation became his master and ordered him to scream with his entire being, scream with air his lungs did not possess, an inaudible scream with no tangent words. The dunes collapsed upon him, he crushed by the weight of the sand, the glass finally empty. The omens carried out the usual ritual, removing the body from his world and allowing his soul to catch the horizon. The sands continued to flow.

You know, the forum settings for posts and texts and such make this look a lot smaller than it is.

That's quite good, Nuthead.

I enjoyed that read.

The last sentence was sort of a much shorter desert version of the last line in Moby-Dick (before the epilogue).

very nice.