ONE HUNDRED-THREE: Pilgrimage

ONE HUNDRED-THREE: Pilgrimage

It was a dusty day, hot in the never-ending summer of the desert.

Arous walked the long gravel and sand road that she knew would take her home.  Over each shoulder she strapped a water bag.  Each carried a half gallon of water, which she hoped she could ration enough to take her through the dessert until she could reach another water supply. Oh, how she wished she’d thought of digging Arcadia from the rubble; she would’ve had a shorter trip home.  

“If I could’ve fixed her, unshadowed her, which I doubt,” her voice cracked. “I hope this is the road to the hoveh lift at Plateau’s Edge, I hope this is the road . . .” she kept the prayer going on in her mind.

She kept her eyes ahead of her.  She watched as the heat made the road seem to disappear into a liquid haze far into the distance.  She heard the sound of her own feet hitting the gravel. She fought to keep her mind on what lay ahead and not on her thirst and grief.

“I hope Plateau’s Edge . . . ”

Her mind fought to recall how she had gotten to this place. But, dredging up such memories proved painful.  Her world imploded because of the choices she made and she wondered if ever she would be the better for it.

“I hope the road . . . ”

Arous had been on the road two days and she was hungry. She’d thought ahead to hide the water in the woods but left too fast to grab bread. In the distance she could see birds circling in the air. They climbed higher and higher, dropping then resuming their climb.  They circled around, around, down, up, up . . . Around, around, down . . .

She knew they circled something dead. A day old dead carcass roasted over an open dessert fire couldn’t be worse than the slop she’d been eating for the past month. With each step off the gravel road more and more sand got into her shoes.  Each footfall seemed to come harder and harder.  She glanced over her shoulder, not sure of what worried her. Her stomach kept pushing her forward.  She couldn’t turn back now, for she could almost see a shape ahead of her.  Several birds hovering around the shape; they flapped their wings and looked up waiting. 

She increased her pace since it beginning to get dark.  Shadows got longer and stranger as they crept across the sand.  Part of the sun had sunk below ground.

Amazement stopped her: before her was a rotted, half-eaten carcass.  She moved closer.  It was a human.  It was so grotesque that she couldn’t turn away.  The figure was twisted as if it had been flung down and landed on its stomach but the torso had twisted around. The naked body lay exposed except for a towel that covered its head. She stepped up and jerked the towel from the face.  The sandy-blond hair was instantly recognizable if the badge hadn’t identified him as Captain Hodges-Baire.

The hot wind turned.  The smell invaded her nostrils quicker than she could turn her head and faster than she could get her hand to her mouth. Her stomach did a flip and her head lurched.  Something at the back of her throat started fighting its way out.  She turned and ran back toward the road, but running felt like swimming as her legs fought against the sand.

She dropped.  Her knees hit the burning sand a split second before her hands.  She coughed, sputtered.  She heard the flapping of wings overhead as a dark shadow dropped beside her.  She turned her head to the right to find herself eye to eye with a large, black bird.  The smell overpowered her.

The warm wind whipped from behind her and across the baking carcass bringing the smell back to her, the memory of murder, a tsunami.  The bird made a hop, flap toward her.  It screeched beating its wings.  Another shadow dropped beside her.

Arous catapulted forward.

Less than a mile later Arous collapsed. She felt like a dead rotting carcass inside and out. Tears began to roll down her cheeks.  She couldn’t bear to cry, not now, but she had no control, powerless to stop the tears that refused to be held in any longer. As her heart broke the tears came faster, furious.  She could no longer see the road ahead. But further on, she could just make out the tall stretch of a cactus and the shade cast by it and a few bushes around it. It would protect her as she rested from the unrelenting mid-morning desert sun. She struggled to her feet.  Her entire body ached with the dire need for rest.

She reached the dwindling shade ahead of her and her body slumped into it.  She opened one of her half empty water bags and began to drink with a furious thirst.  Not a wind stirred, not a bird chirped and not rattle rattled as she settled into the small shade.  She curled into a ball so the shade of the bush covered her body.  The tears began to roll again as she looked out across the dessert.  Nothing but flat dessert, bushes, and cactus spread out across as far as she could see.  She looked despair dead in the face and began to cry hard. The reality of the barren landscape weighed down her heart.  She could no longer ignore the emptiness insider her as her surroundings paralleled all she felt.  She started her journey as a thief, stealing what the Diofe set out to give her. She had added murder to thievery on her pilgrimage. She looked at her hands.

She began to weep until she fell asleep.