Remembrance & Departure

“Once you’ve slept somewhere, so long as you open your eyes the next day, you can never return there.”

“A traveller’s rule?”

“A curse.”

I rubbed my dry eyes, painfully adjusting to the pale light of the morning. I had dreamt of a sea of sunflowers, stretching out to the horizon. With a small yawn, I brushed salt out of my lashes. Last night we slept out in the open, upon a hill with a view of a lake. The grass would tickle my ears when I turned my head to count the stars I hadn’t gotten to yet. That grass which caressed my face, ever so gently, ever so beautifully…

It was very regrettable to have to part with such a place, but that was a conversation the two of us had already gone through. Whether we slept in a bed of mud or a bed of feathers, by the time we woke up the next day, we would soon find ourselves walking again all the same.

When we don’t know where we’re going, we just keep going. We rest when we need to and walk when we don’t. If we end up near a village by dusk, we look for some place to stay the night. Otherwise, we sleep on the ground. It took me a while, months, to adapt to that kind of life. One without roots.

Of course, as one might expect of a worldly traveller like him, he wasn’t just wandering without any purpose. Back when we first met, before we ever knew each other– Hell, we hadn’t even seen each other’s faces yet– he asked me a single question.