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It'll Take Your Watch and Wallet (But It'll Leave You So Much More) [Pictonaut Challenge]
RIGHT. SO. One of my friends runs what he calls the Pictonaut Challenge every month, where he posts a picture and invites people to write 1000 word stories based on them.
So. Right. September. I hadn't written anything in... Call it six months. Maybe more. PROBABLY more in fact, because that's how my brain has been working. And there was an image that struck me, and... Yeah. I somehow ended up with 500 words of STUFF that I kinda... Felt like I should own to up? First thing I'd written in that long, first thing I enjoyed... Might as well. Even if it's bad, doesn't make sense, might even be PRETENTIOUS, the works.
ANYWAY. The point is, because I have no shame and a taste for public judgement, I am taking my crappy 500 word story, and I am posting it here on the grounds that I might as well. My journal has seen worse.
It'll Take Your Watch and Wallet (But It'll Leave You So Much More)
If anyone walks before her, they don’t leave footprints. This doesn’t surprise her; the marks of her own steady pace vanish within minutes, as though the desert is erasing her traces before she’s finished making them. It is just… She has no way to know if anyone else is travelling, if anyone else is seeking the light with her. Perhaps no one has gone before her. Perhaps others have gone before her, but have discovered that there is no route to the light. Perhaps she should go back the way she came, a small part of her whispers. Even though there are no landmarks but the mountain, and not even her own footprints to mark the path.
(She keeps walking.)
She hasn’t fallen prey to these thoughts yet. She watches her feet sink into the soft sand. She watches the sky glow gold with the light she follows, and she trudges on.
Sometimes she sings to keep herself company, but the sand dunes swallow her voice. Sometimes she thinks that she can hear other voices singing – but it could just be the desert throwing her own voice back to her.
(She keeps walking.)
Once – at the start of this journey, perhaps, although she’s not sure how long it has been or how much of herself she has lost to the eternal glow of sand and sky – she had railed at the desert, at its trickery for making her think that she was not alone. She had sobbed and shivered, huddling inside her cloak, cursing the desert for lying to her.
(She had not stopped walking.)
Now – perhaps weeks or months later, perhaps only days that have been stretched out by the haze – she draws comfort from it. She feels like something wants her to keep going, and the dull echo of her song is to keep luring her forward.
(It works.)
The ground is rising beneath her feet, a hill or a larger dune. She smiles beneath her hood – she will have another glimpse of the mountain, another chance to see the true light before she descends and it is hidden from her again. It will sustain her, a light that she can hold inside, one that will help her keep her measured pace.
(Except.)
There are shapes below her. Dark smudges that waver in her vision, their lines lost to the heat haze. She tries to count them, but there are too many, all spread across the desert below her. Some are alone. Some are in ragged groups. Some are walking alone, but near enough to others that they might not feel it.
She tries to tell herself that they could be rocks. She tries to tell herself that they could be too far away for her to ever reach. She tries to tell herself so many things, but the simplest one is all she can cling to.
She is not travelling alone.
She cannot look at the light – for the first time on this journey she does not want to look at the light. She cannot tear her eyes away from the shapes that might be people.
Her feet start to move. Slowly at first, sinking ankle-deep into the sand as ever and then faster, faster, her cloak flaring around her like wings as she runs. Her voice flies from her in a song, a song through laughter and tears, as for the first time her voice rises above the sand.
So. Right. September. I hadn't written anything in... Call it six months. Maybe more. PROBABLY more in fact, because that's how my brain has been working. And there was an image that struck me, and... Yeah. I somehow ended up with 500 words of STUFF that I kinda... Felt like I should own to up? First thing I'd written in that long, first thing I enjoyed... Might as well. Even if it's bad, doesn't make sense, might even be PRETENTIOUS, the works.
ANYWAY. The point is, because I have no shame and a taste for public judgement, I am taking my crappy 500 word story, and I am posting it here on the grounds that I might as well. My journal has seen worse.
It'll Take Your Watch and Wallet (But It'll Leave You So Much More)
If anyone walks before her, they don’t leave footprints. This doesn’t surprise her; the marks of her own steady pace vanish within minutes, as though the desert is erasing her traces before she’s finished making them. It is just… She has no way to know if anyone else is travelling, if anyone else is seeking the light with her. Perhaps no one has gone before her. Perhaps others have gone before her, but have discovered that there is no route to the light. Perhaps she should go back the way she came, a small part of her whispers. Even though there are no landmarks but the mountain, and not even her own footprints to mark the path.
(She keeps walking.)
She hasn’t fallen prey to these thoughts yet. She watches her feet sink into the soft sand. She watches the sky glow gold with the light she follows, and she trudges on.
Sometimes she sings to keep herself company, but the sand dunes swallow her voice. Sometimes she thinks that she can hear other voices singing – but it could just be the desert throwing her own voice back to her.
(She keeps walking.)
Once – at the start of this journey, perhaps, although she’s not sure how long it has been or how much of herself she has lost to the eternal glow of sand and sky – she had railed at the desert, at its trickery for making her think that she was not alone. She had sobbed and shivered, huddling inside her cloak, cursing the desert for lying to her.
(She had not stopped walking.)
Now – perhaps weeks or months later, perhaps only days that have been stretched out by the haze – she draws comfort from it. She feels like something wants her to keep going, and the dull echo of her song is to keep luring her forward.
(It works.)
The ground is rising beneath her feet, a hill or a larger dune. She smiles beneath her hood – she will have another glimpse of the mountain, another chance to see the true light before she descends and it is hidden from her again. It will sustain her, a light that she can hold inside, one that will help her keep her measured pace.
(Except.)
There are shapes below her. Dark smudges that waver in her vision, their lines lost to the heat haze. She tries to count them, but there are too many, all spread across the desert below her. Some are alone. Some are in ragged groups. Some are walking alone, but near enough to others that they might not feel it.
She tries to tell herself that they could be rocks. She tries to tell herself that they could be too far away for her to ever reach. She tries to tell herself so many things, but the simplest one is all she can cling to.
She is not travelling alone.
She cannot look at the light – for the first time on this journey she does not want to look at the light. She cannot tear her eyes away from the shapes that might be people.
Her feet start to move. Slowly at first, sinking ankle-deep into the sand as ever and then faster, faster, her cloak flaring around her like wings as she runs. Her voice flies from her in a song, a song through laughter and tears, as for the first time her voice rises above the sand.