Myriad Istoria

The Fence

Yellowing blades of grass grew sparsely out of the coarse, dry ground. Pebbles and sand covered the cracked surface, getting tossed around in the cold wind. A gray sky loomed low overhead, giant clouds blocking out the dying sun. A fence ran the length of the open area, stretching as far ahead as I could see. Small, twisted trees dotted the landscape irregularly, giving it much-needed variety.

I rubbed the dust from my eyes and looked towards the horizon. Even though I squinted and leant forward, I could see nothing but the fence, the ground, and the trees. Not a soul was in sight, and the chances of me living through this were bleak. I was completely exhausted by moving on foot for nearly three days straight — and I had run out of both food and water on the first day itself. I had a long way to go still, but something told me I wouldn't make it.

Throat dry and parched, I coughed and sat down on the ground. I licked my cracked lips and held my scratched hands to my face, wondering what it was that had brought me this far - and if it'd take me any further. Sharp pebbles dug into my skin through the thin, torn fabric of my dirty clothes. I looked around with a frown, not wanting to move from where I was. But I had to get as far as I could, I had to show them that I could get away.

I massaged my sore, dusty feet and sighed, my voice but a cracked remnant of itself. I was breathing slowly and steadily, still wondering whether it was worth going up to the fence and resting against it for a while. It would bring me some form of comfort, and anything was enough now. I got up, slowly and painfully, and began to limp slowly to the low fence.

What the fence separated, I could not tell. As far as I could see, it was merely a purposeless boundary between two identical plots of land. I continued to head there realising that maybe I should have stayed close to it instead of straying away and running of my own accord. The nights would have passed better had I done so.

The dust under my feet rose up slightly. A cold draught fluttered against my back, rushing through my netted brown hair. I turned around to look back at where I came from — and stopped in shock. There, in the distance, where everything had been clear just moments ago, was now a cloud of dust, thrown into the air by the winds. They whistled past my ears and brought tears and grit to my eyes. I buried my face in my arm and turned around to walk on towards the fence, which seemed to be miles and miles away.

I stumbled several times, falling to my knees more than once. The howling winds pushed me forward, seeming to encourage me in a brutal way. Finally able to see again, I squinted at the fence which was now but a few feet away. Smiling sadly in relief, I increased my pace — immediately toppling to the ground. I groaned and got up, still looking at the barbed wires and crawled the last few feet.

A flash of blue caught my eye. I turned to look closely at it, the dust blurring my vision slightly. It was a scrap of blue fabric, caught onto the wires and fluttering freely in the wind. Cloth? Here, in this barren land?

Someone had been here. Before me.

And they had left a piece of them behind.

How far had they gone? Were they still alive? Why had they been here? Were they, too, running from the cruel misery that I had tried to escape?

I reached out and felt the fabric. Still soft and relatively clean, it seemed like it had been here for only a few days. The person that had left it behind had missed my arrival by not more than two days — and we both had lost out on the support. I slowly loosened it from the wires, fraying some of the precious strands while doing so. Sighing, I rested my back against the hard iron, the knots pressing into my bones. Eyes half-shut due to the dust, I stared into the distance.

The winds still rushed past me, cooling my chest and throwing back my hair. As it caught in the wires I continued to brood, listening to my life drain away with the winds. They howled and whistled, raising up the dust and frantically scattering it everywhere. I wiped my eyes and leant my head against the wires, a single tear streaking my dirty face.

And there I sat, fondling the silken scrap, as the last of my tears dotted the faceless ground.

--Anonymous