|
I'm going to regret this the next morning, but in.
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2021 23:24
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 12:57 |
|
|
I'm here and I've got a kitchen timer that sounds like a ticking timebomb. This is going to go well.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2021 02:57
|
|
|
Affixed Word count: 1122 As promised, the bloody spires of the once great city gave off a glow that pierced even the thick dust. The rumors had also said the wizard lay at the heart of it. Instead, he sat at the edge of the city, staring over the plains I had just walked, scoured yellow by the winds of desolation. “Saw you coming from a way’s off.” His robes were rags. His staff, an iron girder, laid across his lap. His beard, as dark and dusty as my own. More than that, I couldn’t see through the haze. If he saw me, it was with eyes that looked beyond the reality I knew. “You didn’t stop me.” “Sometimes I like a bit of company before the end.” “I’m here for a blessing.” “No one ever comes for conversation. Shame. I used to be pretty good at it.” I thought about running, into the city, away from it. It wasn’t too late to change my mind. I didn’t have to pay his terrible price, whatever it was. But I wanted what I wanted and if you wanted more than the endless days of wandering and withering in the winds, of every day exactly as the last, you went to see the wizard. “You could just talk after.” “No one feels much like talking then. Though the way their jaws loll open, you’d think they were laughing at one of my jokes. Haven’t told one though. Not for some time.” The wizard gestured behind him. “You all come here wanting something. Never seeing what wants will get you.” “They say you give people what they want.” “Who says? I don’t know how word gets out when the people haven’t.” He chuckled. “Maybe there’s still some power left in these old words after all.” How could he laugh? If his powers were real then he could end the sand, end the wind. He could do whatever he wanted. He could end us all. “I’m not here for your riddles. Fix it. Fix it all.” “What do you know about fixing? Everyone out there is unfixed; wandering. I’m the only one who stayed, who remembers.” “We don’t have a choice.” “Were you there when the city came crashing down? When the rains dried up after turning the city red and the winds blew in and snatched everything and everyone from me?” “You did that to yourself!” He stood. His body stumbling as if he carried a boulder on his shoulders. But I was the one weighted. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move. I was already dead. “And I did it for all of them. Look at them now. They know exactly what life is, what to expect, and they are never disappointed. It’s what they wanted. Now, what do you want? Tell me so I can end this for both of us.” He pushed his face right up to mine, though I stood several inches over him. I could see his eyes now, tan, almost lost in the haze even this close up. I wanted to tell him. I wanted it over as much as him. But I didn’t want to let go of my hope. It had brought me this far. Where else might it take me? But there was nowhere else I wanted to go. “I want to stay.” “You want to stay? Now who’s talking in riddles. State your wish so that I can give you what you deserve.” “I don’t want to wander anymore. I want to live in a city and not always be beckoned by the wind. I want to put down roots and be a new kind of tree. I want to build up, not move out. I’m tired.” “You’re tired? You’re tired? You all come here with your hope. And you don’t see. You can’t see. I’ll show you how to see.” He raised the iron girder and pushed it into my chest. He spoke a single word and I sank to my knees. “That’ll keep you in one place.” He straightened up and moved as if his age had fallen away. His shoulders didn’t stoop and he barely fought the wind at all as he walked away from me and the city. He didn’t bother to look back or talk to me as he had longed for someone to do. I crawled to the wall where the wizard once sat and again a wizard sat. The burden on my back told me everything I needed to know to lift the city, to clear the wind, to bring back the rains. It also showed me the sorrow of the world before the rust and dust: the hate and dread and woe. In the winds, everyone could flee. They could run away from these burdens. All except one man. Here I sat, able to grant any and every wish, but cursed with the knowledge of every outcome. Every pain it would cause and those it already had. With tears in my eyes, I placed my palm against the ground to hear its cries of woe. The concrete at my back told me of sapped strength and failing supports. But this could not be right? The earth had been happy once, hadn’t it? This building stood tall and beautiful. I wished the wizard would return. He had known a life before all of this. I staggered into the red city and the wind died, blocked by the remaining strength of the perimeter walls. The dust still moved through the streets, but in eddies, not waves. I grabbed a handful and rubbed it against the iron bones of a building. The rust softened. I scoured the sand against the building, feeling like I was trying to erase time itself. I don’t know how long, but the red lightened to grey and my burden was… not lighter. No, there was still just as much despair as before, but it was balanced against something else. A remembrance of hope? I saw possibilities all tinged with sadness and joy. And together they made something better. Knowing pain every day, expecting no more than suffering may have helped us live in this inhospitable land, but the hope that brings men and women to the city, for a better life, for a kiss from their sweetheart, for a chance to see the stars, is what builds towers and plants trees. A hope that tomorrow will not be the same. But I got what I wanted. I need others. I need more people to want. And when they do, when that next person with the faintest glimmer of a tomorrow walks up to me, I will give them what they want. And we will fix it all together.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2021 04:57
|
|