Morning Glory

Fine loam and overworked soil crunched under his feet as he made his way along the basin. Storm clouds rolled along in the twilight peace. The din of silence enraptured him under the blue-indigo blend of the sky. Dotting the endless plane before him, ocotillo and creosote dipped into their silhouettes. Valleys and bluffs—limestone, obsidian, and agate accented the land with buttes, hills, and mountains— not a single man in sight.

The breeze swooned over his gashed face while he grouped at the sand. Probing the terrain with his bare feet, he shuffled along the unfamiliar ground down from upon the mound. The black ash and shy violet rippled around his movements in an unfamiliar, mystic aura.

“Where am I?” he asked.

As he lumbered downwards, an unobstructed sunset came into view. The light materialized pack rats around desert plants, agave with nocturnal visitors and wolves tussling with their pack in the naked night.

Regaining his senses, he began to realize the heat was slowing him down; he was boiled down to a fatigued languor. His mind was tortured and old memories he had pent up began to spill out. He recalled the first time he disappointed his wife—the apathy and regret towards him in her eyes. The first time he snapped in front of his daughter—the irrevocable fear and tears. He kept stumbling on his own body as if it did not belong to him.

In some natural drive, he felt the need to keep moving toward the horizon. His feet were tripping on one another; his thighs turned into unfamiliar rubber.

The heat started smothering, suffocating him. Kicking up his legs, he made his way into a run. He was choking on the air, but he kept breathing anyway; the world wanted to snuff him out and he could not hide—he existed for a purpose that was yet to be fulfilled.

The further he pushed himself the more apparent his wounds became: his sides started to cramp and give way and draw blood. He tried suddenly stopping to make sure he would not fall apart and just tumbled downwards. Fading rays of sunshine bathed the back of his body as the cool sand beneath him chilled his front. Exhilarated by the tire tracks next to his head, ancient memories returned to him explaining his dark bruises and splintering sores.

Bleak white lights in a metallic room, blood soaked into dark oak planks, and dry wind fiddling with a cheap windmill. All of it seemed known to him, and yet it felt no such thing existed. With the precarious state of his wounds and mind, he was teetering on the abyss. All his emotions were running against each other, and all his anguish welled up inside him. He muscled himself up with his wiry frame and began pounding at the ground—a petulant and desperate charge at the world for its endless mysteries and machinations. Each fist shook the ground in a percussive boom that turned into some profound rhythm. The heat flared up in his nose and eyes and pores; he weakened into a violent convulsion. Only as he began to foam at the mouth and tears began pouring did he finally give way and eventually crumple into a fetal position.

He woke up and his sinuses burned like hell; he could still taste the acrid desert air. The only thing he remembers is his unbearable anger. He sucked down some of his saliva and tried getting up.

He was set up against a hillside and some underbrush let off a cool breeze around him. There was a kicked-out fire with some smoldering needles strewn around white plastic sheets. A couple of half-empty bottles of whiskey were racked along a dirty doctor’s bag.

He craned his head up to see that morning was here—he had slept through the whole night. Feeling his body for sores and tears, he rubbed over some cauterized flesh and strapped gauze. His arms and eyes were sunburnt—he could not bear the itch.

A lizard taunted him as it perched atop the discarded syringes; a creature that boasted its resilience to the omnipresent heat, amid the dying fire’s embers no less. Be it the smothering isolation or the iguana’s pomposity, he forced himself up.

The hillside was an overlook of the same sterile landscape. Roaming downwards toward a riverbed, he took a moment to relieve himself. The faltering water was an indecent wash—the grime was hard into his skin, and he did not want to expose his doctored wounds. Lain against some faded pumice, he dove back into his mind.

His memories waned and waxed, but he still grasped onto some—the important ones. He was shuffling along the gravel as his mission was materializing again, piece by piece. Volition fired up into ardor and he was ready to set out.

He jotted across the desert paper with long shadows punctuating the time. With adrenaline in his heart and passion in his mind, he left his body to his compulsions. His recounted goal shot out of his mind as he let his emotions and excitement take him up in an inescapable torrent. He wanted to stop, but he knew that if he did, he had a chance of losing his spirit—it was a gamble that allowed him to be at ease in the moment. Barreling for something he did not know and he understood if he desired—a messenger of a relay that meant nothing to both sides of the post.

In his rapid speed, he wondered where everyone else is, why no one can see him, and when he is going to die. Dying is unacceptable because he then failed his goal: a goal that means nothing to him but something to those that remember his mission—if they still did. Whether anyone would acknowledge his success or impact, he could not settle on who he was doing this for—he had no time to thoroughly decide; if he stopped, then everything would be ruined. Where did everyone else stand in their place in the desert—were their goals as impactful as his that drives him to such lengths where his body cannot even keep up with his conviction?

Tangled in the hypotheticals and convolutions, he escaped from his sprint into his mind—he was forcing himself into a place that he was never there to truly fulfill. Then, he tripped.

The river water was peacefully humming next to him. Some warm blood was running along his shoulders. His head and eyes were bubbling; he was not sure if he could get up— not sure if he wanted to. Morning was here; he had slept through the night again.

A hawk was preening its feathers on a tree and a wolf was ribbing some rodents in the shrubs. His blemishes were torn open—he reeked of filth and his skin was mottled with shades of red. The clothes were sticking against his skin in a terrible odor; he had only a few more days before he would succumb to his wounds.

The matted sand invited him to rest, and the dull sky urged him to close his eyes; he was bolted to the floor. He was gifted some health, and he had squandered it with his impulse—what a fool he thought. He resented himself; he resented the world that is certain, but now he vilified himself even more.

He was spared some rare grace and he had completely forgone it; he let his newfound strength pass him by. Others were not at fault for his condition more so than he was—he was only a child making revelations he should have long exonerated in the distant past. So caught up in a goal he never even gave the time to ferment, he lost track of his health and dignity. He was making himself miserable and he could not escape his punishment.

He was cramming his torment into every nook and cranny of his mind—he deserved it all. His kinship and peace were banished as soon as he failed his family; a painful limbo where he could not even remember how he had failed them, yet that no longer mattered.

“I’m going to die all alone and in this desert.” He said in a sudden ramble.

He realized- at that moment how pointless all this effort was; he was killing himself over something that he did not know—that he clearly did not care enough to remember. Some phlegm built up in his throat, then an itch, then a chuckle, and finally a laugh.

Deliriously, he let out some hoarse yelps and shouts. His heart fell into his stomach—he was gutted, and all he had was laughter.

All he wanted to do was sink. He threw himself onto his side as he padded some sand near him into a bare headrest. There was no more anger at this point—just a faint yearning for what he could have made of himself. Regret was imbued in his filth and injuries, and it was a reminder that he never wanted to remove— an anchor to his hopelessness and despair.

He kept chuckling to himself and failed to hold his laughter back. Biting into his cheeks, tensing into the sand, and clenching his muscles as he absorbed his futility.

Yawps and screams wrenched from him, and he had no more energy to lift his fists. He was defeated: he slept the day once more.

Some spotty images of the moon flashed by him in the middle of the night. He was irresolute—he had no idea what he was to do and why. The moon was a modest companion as he toiled over his existence. This was the first time he had a chance to look at the moon—to really look at it. It was bumpy and imperfect, but it shone its light. It did not care it was the reflection of its sister sun; although it was a derivation of someone greater, it fulfilled its potential. The reason why it did something did not matter—it did it for itself. It aimed to achieve what it set out to do—to shine; if others reaped the benefits of its light, then so be it. It achieved a perfect image of itself, and it wanted to be no less than that.

His thoughts began to fade as his mind grew weary and his eyes groggy. He dipped back into his sleep.

He heard spots of water beginning to chime—it was raining. Some storm clouds were puffed up in a ready vanguard. He traced a prairie dog roaming along; it seemed lost and anxious—its whiskers frizzling in the cool desert breeze and nose testing the air. Marching to a stop, the rodent looked at its dirty self and sat for a moment.

“Huh,” He noted.

Then it went on with its march; the dog bumped along the horizon and eventually went out of sight behind some thick brushes and blistering thistles.

Water was welling around him, and his temperature started to chill. He rose and took in his surroundings for a moment— in all of its perfect designs. The limestone and hard clay were beautifully eclectic; strata jumbled together to form a rudimentary mosaic. Succulents and

creosotes that crooned into an intimate portrait. The rain and its petrichor turned a barren wasteland into his personal oasis—he was full of the inclemency and drunk on the wet smell.

His brown rags grew heavy, and his tattered gown tore away. He was bare across the fertile lands with his wounds completely exposed—his spirit and mind clay to the sculpting world. He was to be born again.

He pronounced his step forwards like he was learning to walk for the first time. His hands hung from him like arms rather than limbs; his chest ballooned with a new life. The air soothed his heavy lungs and strained eyes. Peering along, he saw the same scene—it was no more fertile than it was under the desert poverty; the only difference was his lens. The rain cycled onto the ground in the same nature he could run through his ideas and values. The whole world was in front of him—a domain completely his own.

The sky was unchanging, and the sand unbothered— the imprisoning cycle aching him. The sky woke him every dawn and the sand baptized him every dusk. In every instance, he was new—the world refreshed—and his abilities restored if he desired or not.

He made his way forward into the same brush and found the prairie dog in its den; it dipped into the peace of its burrow with the same motion it grew anxious at hunger and isolation. It was free and fulfilled—a necessity for every object, creature, and man.

Moving forwards, he tied the string of his ambitions to his legs and the sinews of his hopes into his arms. He moved across the desert with a goal as simple enough as leaving it—so he did.