Som'lorea

I stood in the middle of a great salt basin, staring into the distances around me; nothing revealed itself to me but the wide horizon ahead. I could not tell how far it was, not that it would matter; for it would surely be followed by another horizon, equally as elusive. But I determined to move as the stillness reminded me of the heat that was radiating through my body—I hadn’t felt water on my lips for three days; and they were now as cracked as the earthen crust before me. I pulled my foot from the ground with a loud crunching sound; the wind had blown up piles of salt, forcing me to expend more energy, weakening my spirit. The sounds weren’t comfortable, I thought. But, nothing seemed to comfort me, here. With both feet freed, I began moving forward. Each step felt light at first; I had lost mass in my body, so it was a strange, unnatural weight—one I wasn’t used to. My daughter had always excoriated me for ‘burdening my bones unjustly,’ as she put it—but that was a different life, one that afforded me such a privilege. 

Crunch, crunch, crunch, said the ground; it was an eager entertainer, so it performed its greatest symphony—a rather repetitive one, but something to listen to, nonetheless. I had loved music, before—had an estimable taste in it, since my youth; but it was a capacity that only diminished my life, now. I continued my paces, looking down every now and then, careful not to put my brown oxfords, which now deteriorated from the heat and salt, into one of the shallow cracks; I had done so twice already despite my precautions. You will forgive me for my dull observations of my surroundings; it is true that most fables are remembered by the waters of great rivers, or through heavy mountain passes; or beneath boisterous waterfalls, ripping the earth in two; or at least by some other mark of beauty; yet I could provide you with no such vitality, for it was beauty that had killed me. 

It had happened in this way. I had a terrible habit, you see, much like smoking; it was an addiction that I held to ferociously, something which I could shake off no better than a tick that had clung to one’s skin. At first, my urges were mild, mere imitations of what they would become. I remember well the first time I had felt it; I was sitting on the porch of my “aunties and uncles” at the time, on summer vacation away from home—I was thirteen at the time. There I sat on the porch swing, letting the slow, whipping wind wash my face of all melancholy; listening to the mesmerizing creaking of the chain; smelling the honeysuckle, intermingled with spruce; and then, seeing—it was the seeing I loved most; there I sat, enraptured by a sunset of orange and red hues, dipping past a tall range of verdant mountains—it was perfection, pure symphony. I was so taken by it that it became my life’s work; it became my work to write of it, to record it in perpetuity for all generations. And so I did.

But I have left aside the details which are perhaps most interesting to you, my reader. I first began my journey in this desert not long ago, but there are still just allotments of time for every profession here; potters give sweat to the labors of their craft, for there is plenty; and stoneworkers and culinarians to theirs—as well as others, of course. Yet the potter lacks her eyes, and the stoneworker his hands; and to the cook, every ingredient has been given; it is only the faculties of taste and smell that she lacks. And to the writer, pen and paper, enough for many millennia, have been given, and it is only the landscape which he lacks. Yet, amidst my dull mutterings, I cannot deny the fellowship which I have found; after all, even hell has its writers, and to them, it owes much.