Onward Bound

The sun was blistering over a cloudless sky and the old man was agitated. He adjusted the brim of his hat and narrowed his eyes across the horizon. It was nothing, and more nothing, except the distant shimmering haze indicating heat dancing through the air like flames. He lifted a near empty flask to parched lips and drank deeply. It was too hot. Too hot for too long; anyone else his age would have already perished. 

Another man, lean and wiry, cried, “Hey! Stop guzzling, that’s all the water we got!” He flailed toward the flask, but the first man snatched it out of his reach and quickly tucked it in a pocket.

“We’ll get there,” he snapped.

A third man, the largest, spat on the ground, muttering, presumably about the boiling temperature and dwindling water supply.

They trudged on, the sun’s invisible tendrils licking the sweat from their skin, relishing their misery.

An anxious query burst through the stifling silence, “How much longer?”

Only the sound of heavy boots plodding over cracked earth responded.

“How much longer,” the wiry man cried, lurching forward, scrabbling to grab a fistful of the back of the man’s dusty shirt.

Whirling, he forcefully shoved the wiry man away, bouncing him off the third man’s chest like some sad, broken doll. “Stop, you fool,” he hissed. “Your fear is getting us nowhere, and at this rate is apt to completely corrode your already fraying sanity.” He looked the wiry man up and down sneering, “Or worse, invite those dark spirits which roam this land to accompany us on our fine walk. Ha!”

The wiry man’s eyes were as wide as saucers now, darting furtively over their surroundings. Desolate and dry, with occasional small boulders dotting the terrain like swollen blisters, and the ancient earthen road slashing the land in two.

“We should be close, though. Right,” rumbled the big man, the last word aimed darkly at the elder. The old man looked away, toward the undulating waves of heat in the distance, and said nothing.

They tromped on, the road soundless but for the occasional raging of the wiry man and the stomp of booted feet kicking up tiny plumes of dust, like the last dying breath of a barren earth. The men’s shadows grew ever longer, stretched and contorted with the sun’s sweltering transit.

Then, in the distance, a narrow shadow to the right of the dirt road, rising sluggishly with the tilt of the earth as they advanced.

“What is it,” gulped the wiry man.

“Might be a sign,” said the big man, wiping streams of sweat from his large brow and peering ahead. As they neared it grew, tall and spindly. 

It was indeed a sign, worn and weathered, crudely cut from the trunk of some gnarled tree. ‘Welcome’ was slashed into dead, diseased bark, and nothing more.

“What! What does that mean? Welcome to what? Where are we?” cried the wiry man. He began banging his fist on the trunk of the tree sign making strangled noises of frustration.

The big man stood beside the elder. Both watched the wiry man’s tirade, seeing but not seeing. “You’re wearin’ yourself out now, watch it,” rumbled the big man.

The wiry man stopped his wailing long enough to pick up a rock and hurl it at the others, which missed by a good four feet.

“We’re dead! We’re all dead! I shouldn’t have listened to you and now we’re all dead!” He picked up another rock and threw it at the sign. “What are we going to do?!”

The old man gazed toward the horizon, the sun’s rapid descent coloring the sky a grisly crimson. “We camp here tonight, find a suitable spot to sleep. Move on at dawn.”

The wiry man ran his hands through his hair, sweat and grime forming stiff peaks. He looked crazed, his eyes red and wild, but ceased his outburst.

Departing from the road and sign, they marched around the hellish landscape, finally finding a decent spot to make camp, ringed by several boulders. The large man busied himself kindling a fire, while the others took stock of their supplies. The three men sat, circling the small flames, passing around what little water and hard biscuits remained.

Soon night fell, dark and ominous. The wiry man stood; he had been silent for once. He made his way to a small boulder and flapped out his sleeping mat, coughing from the dust. Using his tattered blanket as a pillow he curled up facing away from the men and the warmth. If the days were infernos, nights were ice, thought the old man.

The large man had taken out his knife and whittling wood, shucking in silence with the elder. The sound of the crackling flames meshed with the scrape of steel. In any other situation, considered the elder, the melody would be comforting. He wished it would lull him to sleep as it once did.

After a while, the big man spoke. “So, I ‘spect the witch was right then. I don’t think we will be findin’ what we’re lookin’ for. In fact, I don’t ‘spect we won’t be goin’ back either.”

Across the fire, the old man was silent. The words hung in the air, choking, stifling. The big man snorted, “huh, always was a talker weren’t you. Well, here’s what I remember you sayin’. You said we got an opportunity, you said we would finally get all that gold we’ve been dreamin’ of. All we got to do is follow a carriage.” The big man continued whittling, the stroke of his blade forceful now. “One stupid carriage with four guards, all green. Easy, you say! No matter everyone knows the road is cursed! Three-day job there and back!” The knife screamed violently against the wood. “No idea why the kingdom chose ill suited babes to guard the transport of a mighty sum of money; what fools, you say! Then the witch came. Warned us she did. Warned you. The road knows our intentions.” Quick as lightening, the big man stopped his movements and glared across the flames at the elder. “We’ve been walking this road over a week now. It won’t be allowing us out, I spect’.” Setting his piece aside, the big man rose, his tall figure moving to a patch of ground to rest as the wiry man had. Peering through the rising sparks and smoke, the old man saw he had whittled a cross.

When the old man awoke the others were gone, along with the supplies. He felt disoriented. The air was a furnace; it was already mid-morning by the position of the sun. Stumbling around he spotted a lump peeking out from behind a boulder. As he approached the lump became two lumps, large boots, attached to large feet, and giant legs, and then a body of a large man, his big head bashed in. Blood and bits of bone spattered elegantly around the big man’s corpse, alongside a heavy rock covered in gore. Bile rose in the old man’s throat, and he lurched away.

He was walking, back on the road now. The wiry man murdered him and took off, or been took himself, the old man though, swaying forward in the heat. One foot in front of the other, ancient one. He grinned vaguely to himself.

He had probably gone a mile, or more, when he heard something. Gibbering, from somewhere to the left of the road. The wiry man.

He appeared from behind a boulder, barefoot and covered in blood. “I walked that way,” the wiry man burbled madly, pointing at the barren expanse to the right of the road. “And now I’m this way.” His bone thin finger pointed to himself. “Ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!” He began spinning haphazardly, his words now sing-song. “It goes around, around and around! No way forward, no way back, no way to the sides. The cursed road it sure is! Because it just never ends!” He collapsed in the dust, coughing and heaving spittle and blood. The old man backed away, putting distance between himself and the soon dead. After a while, he looked back, only once, to see small shadows high in the air, circling. Vultures.

The day went on, searing and molten. Then came the night, and day again. The old man continued onward, and the blazing sun waxed and waned. Eventually, he no longer bothered to stop and sleep. The flesh from his feet was now gone, he had done away with his boots some time ago for one reason or another. His stark bones dragged through the earth, drawing jagged marks through the dirt. He picked at the thirsty skin of his arm, full of cracks and canyons. It peeled away like an orange. It was hot, so he peeled the rest of himself off too. Dragging and hobbling on, ever forward, to the shimmering horizon blazing in the distance.