Home of Oasis

The woman heard a sound and it sounded like a whale even though she lived nowhere near water. For the first hour after hearing it, she looked toward where she knew there was no whale and she only breathed and watched. There were no other noises but the dead branches shaking and howling wind. The woman had been alone for a long while now and after the hour passed and she still hadn’t moved, she remembered how alone she was. There used to be a dog here with her, but the dog was dead. There wasn’t enough food and she couldn’t feed the two of them, so the dog died. It was a great big brown dog and she heard it had come from Europe as most dogs do. She buried it shallow because her only shovel was dull and the longer she spent digging the more lonely she felt.

The only water nearby was a creek that ebbed more than it flowed and that was behind her. She heard the sound again and she now knew where it came from. The woman did not have many things, but even the things she did have she did not take. A wide-brimmed hat, a canteen of water, food. Her home had become a place to store these things and nothing else. A small divet in the hills where sun only reached for two hours a day. For a long time now she had to sleep cramped and warm, though it was less so now that she was alone. The woman began to walk.

She was young and her stride was long. Her feet landed flat and pressed on and they were sunburned and half-covered by sandals. Where they weren’t peeling they were callused so she didn’t feel pain when the leather shifted around her toes. It had been a long time since she walked so fast but she was no slower than before she lived here. Her eyes were brown and they drifted every few minutes.

“I wish you would stop,” the woman said to the wind. It was blowing dirt up into her face and she wasn’t going back for her hat or her scarf. “You never stop, do you.” The wind lulled and the woman nodded her head.

The sun was reaching its apex now and if she walked barefoot her calluses wouldn’t protect her from the ground. She had walked farther than she ever had before and now she saw more rocks than hills. They were black and gray and had soft edges. What if the sound is echoing off the rocks, the woman thought, then it could be coming from anywhere. It was a maze and she could not tell where straight ahead might be.

"It's your fault," the woman said to the rocks. The noise began again, higher in pitch. "I wish you would stop confusing me," she said. A path became clear which led past the rocks and out to the open. There was no need to climb the burning rocks and survey the land. She walked past the boulders, and it was bushes and dirt and mostly flat. Without the possibility of echo, the noise was surely coming from where she faced. So she walked, and her feet hit the ground many times and she began to feel tired behind her knees and up her hamstrings. Her feet were tough enough not to burn, but the rest of her body was getting hot and the sun was just before its peak.

Thirty minutes passed and she saw a lizard. It had a blue throat and did push ups against the ground. When it saw the woman it scuttered to the shade of a bush and disappeared. The sound came again, louder.

"I know you are not the lizard. You are not the movement of the boulders. I cannot walk forever and I wish to find you," the woman said. Her arms swung back and forth and her hands alternated between clenched and unclenched. She was sweating and it was making her thirsty. The top of her forehead which was usually covered by her hat was beginning to redden and she knew it would bubble.

The dirt slowly turned into dead grass, brown and prickly. It was easier to walk on even if the blades of grass poked her blisters and popped them open. There was no water here. But there was water close. Open and unending and fast and cold.

The sun was now past its peak, and though she was following its arc, she could not keep up. It was now the hottest it had been yet, and the dead grass did not cool her. The tops of her hands were peeling and she saw shadows in the corners of her eyes. Her feet no longer felt like hers. Maybe that is because my body is protecting me, she thought. But it only serves to make me punish it more.

The sky held no clouds and the dead grass showed no signs of life. But there was water somewhere and so the woman walked. She had been walking for most of the daylight now, and there was not going to be much more. If it became dark before I find the noise, I will be well and truly tired and I might fall asleep and never find what is making that noise, she thought.

"I want to find you," she said. "Please do not stop speaking. I will be there unless my feet fall off," the woman said. The sound began again. "Yes, keep speaking. Do not be too far."

The shadows in her eyes grew denser and then dimmer and her hands no longer felt like her hands. Her hair flipped from her left shoulder blade to her right, and each brought a sting. I wonder when my body will stop being my body, she thought. When will my brain try to protect me from all this pain.

A pebble beneath her foot. A different sort of discomfort. A pond on her right and little baby fish inside. A patch of green grass. Cows in the far beyond. But underneath the woman were pebbles, some flat and some round and they became in number the more she walked. The noise burst out. The woman stopped walking.

Home. It smelled like grass and rocks and at night there was fire. It was a river with a forest on the other side. It was getting dark now but not too dark yet. She saw an elk swimming in the river and it got out on the other side and ran to the other elk.

To her right was her home. Three rooms and a small kitchen. She walked to it and her body had become hers again and so it hurt. The woman felt her body ache and sting all over, but she did not stop. The house was shiny and covered in linseed oil. Her mother and father would spend days every few years covering the house. She opened the door and went inside. The kitchen was cluttered and the sink was never big enough for all the dishes. There was a doll next to the stove and her sister had made it. It was the woman's great big brown dog as a puppy. The woman's eyes drifted away.

When the woman walked into her room it was small and the walls were slanted. Her bed was made of straw and she could hear people speaking outside. Her mother, her father, her sister. They were eating right now. Right at sunset. They said the falling sun gave dinner extra flavor.

"Wait for me," the woman said out the window. Three heads turned and she couldn't see their faces with the sun behind them. The woman walked out of the room and placed her feet on the cool pebbles and she suddenly felt like sleeping right where she stood. But she kept going and when she was about to reach the gathering, she heard the sound again. It was so loud she had to cover her ears but her family didn't seem to hear it. It went again, and it hurt.

"Where are you," she asked the river. She walked up to the current and just like she couldn't feel the blazing ground, she couldn't feel the cool water. "What are you," the woman asked. There was silence. But it was not the silence that gives peace. It was the kind that waits for its next moment to unnerve and anger.

Quietly, the sound began again. Deeper in the ocean, whispering by the time it reached the surface. The woman leaned down and she still did not understand. She got on her hands and knees and the water sparkled. What a frightening thing you are, she thought. But you are beautiful too.

It had been a day since she began walking and the woman now knew where the noise came from. Her family was laughing behind her and the sun was nearly down. She could not see her feet but they were no longer hot. Maybe if I swim toward you my whole body will cool, the woman thought. And maybe I won't be so tired and my skin won't peel. Maybe that is what you want. To reward me, she thought.

"Come eat," said her father. Her sister nodded and her mother ate smoked fish.

But what about the sound, the woman thought. It could not be a whale because this is a river and there cannot be something so big.

"I just want to go and look," the woman said.

"You have looked before," her mother said. "Do not look again. You will be lost."

The woman felt the current run by her knees and wrists. It was now dark except for the fire. She waited for a sound. For the water to speak. Please speak again, she thought. I said I would walk until my feet fell off and now I found you. You have led me here and now you are quiet. You are gone.

"Please sit," her sister said. "I've missed you."

The woman saw her sister and she was young and happy. She held up a cup and offered it to the woman. The woman was thirsty. She was tired and blistering and hungry. She went to her family and held the cup.

"I've missed you too," the woman said. She held the cup and heard the sound. Delicate, laughing. She drank the water.