I feel the burden of my journey now, feel the years and miles like a weight upon my back pressing me, grinding me down, as the final stretch is in sight. I have heard tales of those who fail just before the end, and tears stream down my face as I understand. I brought nothing with me; only memories.
Pressing on, trying to forget, I stumble over the hot sands, the quiet lean-to, its paltry shade, an inky blackness under the tyranny of the noonday sun—I blink the tears of pain and regret away, keeping that humble structure in view.
Death is beside me now. I hear the clicking of his airy ribcage and grinding of his dried out joints; I smell him too, the scent of dust, ancient sands, and all that is forgotten in the deserts of the past.
He does not speak with me, and I do not acknowledge him. He is my only true companion on this journey, and it has been a long and weary way I’ve come.
My hand stretches out, I reach forward, for it, and the course skin of my often scarred palm caresses the weathered plastic of the shanty. I’ve touched it. The end.
Falling to my knees, my head drooping low, I crawl under the little structure. There is no floor, but there is some food here, and a smooth enough rock I can press my back against and rest. I gaze out the door I’ve just come through and ponder the vast and twisted path I’d taken here.
As though seeing it all, I can almost find the jungles and cities, their faint shadows, the oceans and little, forgotten towns, the faces of people I might have known and loved—how I longed, ever longed, to stay and know someone.
I sigh and forget these dreams. Death has come between me and my view, his tattered cloak waving there at the mouth of the lean-to.
“This is where we part, old friend,” I gasp out, surprised by my own voice. It sounds dry.
“There are others,” the fading shadow of death whispered, “less kind than I.”
“Thank you,” I said, my eyes closing of their own accord. “Until then, then. Thank you.”
And the world faded into dreams.
Tale Told 