Remembrance & Departure

We had already moved on from the village. Thick clouds loomed overhead, completely covering the sky. Cottonlike wisps hung down from the clouds’ underbelly, like steam rising in reverse, blown to and fro by the cold winds. An all-encompassing shadow stretched across the land. In silence, we trudged onward. In silence, I stared at Kaiser’s back. We were ascending the steep slopes of yet another mountain.

Arduously, we navigated through the stone forest, hauling ourselves up ledges and leaping down from rocks. My fingers grew battered and numb, my breath ragged. The higher we got, the stronger the wind blew, threatening to send us flying to our deaths. Clinging to the weather-scarred face of the mountain, I looked beneath me.

The ground seemed as if it were miles below me. My foothold was hardly thicker than an inch. Wiping snot from my upper lip, I inhaled, and I took the next step.

The moment I wavered was the moment I’d fall.

I took the next step.

My hair clung to a sheen of cold sweat on my forehead.

I took the next step.

I couldn’t feel my fingers– Dizzily, I looked at my hands. The skin was cracking and the flesh was purple.

I took the next step.

A pebble grazed my shoulder. I looked up. Kaiser had dislodged his foothold, flailing his leg about to find somewhere to step. I squeezed my eyes shut.

I took the next step.

I was coughing and wheezing. Every breath was excruciating.

I took the next step.

I didn’t know how much longer there was to go, but every second that passed was more painful and exhausting than the last.

I took the next step.

My fingers could hardly close to grip the icy stone. My legs were giving out.

I took the next step.

This was the end. But my hand reached up and found no further surface, firmly falling upon flat ground. With a final burst of energy, I pulled myself up. My muscles tore themselves apart. Gasping for air, I rolled over onto the hard ground. That was all there was, and now it was over.

Kaiser was on his knees, panting. We locked eyes. Seconds became minutes. I swallowed and wiped the sweat from my face. Taking a deep breath, I uttered one word.

“Why?”

Kaiser looked at me, half-confused and half-contemptuous.

“Why do you go so far… Just to get nowhere?”

Kaiser closed his eyes, wincing in irritation.

“Have you forgotten why we walk? Why we gave up our homes, our families? Even if you regret it, it’s already happened. We both made the choice to throw everything away for freedom. This is the price we paid.”

I drew in a ragged breath.

“That’s bullshit.”

Kaiser sneered.

“You’re still a preliminary human being– You don’t understand anything yet. You can’t even fathom how much you’ve yet to change. You’re a stranger to the man who will die wearing your wrinkled skin. But you have a purpose, just like anything else in this world. To keep living, to keep moving forwards, to see the future become the present. The world won’t wait for you to catch your breath.”

“How wise.”

“You think I’m wise? You think all I do is spew aphorisms? That all I know how to do is ascribe a reason to a tragedy and move on? Is that how you see me– Some kind of monk enlightened to the way of pessimism?”

“Pretty much.”

“If only fulfillment was so simple. No. I am far less than that. I am a fool. I am nothing. We, the slaves of the present, are infants. We’re blind to the future and powerless to our fates. The wind is our bible. The earth is our bed.”

I choked, then I coughed. My cough became a chuckle. Before I knew it, I was laughing my head off.

“Blind? Damn straight. In all the years you’ve been travelling, there’s one place you’ve never been, and it was in the corner of your eye the whole time. You knew it, too. The ‘true blue sky’ you’ve been searching for… It was just an excuse to run away. I mean, you knew! You’re the one who told me, just yesterday, about Lucy, and everything that happened. It all made sense. And you knew.”

Speechless and defeated, Kaiser lowered his gaze down to the ground. We both knew what he told me last night.