The Desert's Messenger

The blazing sun would melt the skin off my bones, if there was any skin left on me. My form lies in the great expanse of sand strewn across the eastern part of my home, a tomb for many more before my time. There are no eyes to open, just large sockets filled with golden grains. No nose to smell the aroma blasted through the howling winds. Both ear canals have been blocked, preventing me from hearing anything above, if anything still exists. I feel one of my hands, white and thin in its skeletal design, slip from a sheet of sand, caressed by the wind and beaten by that most aggressive sun. There must be a reason for this.

How long have I been here, locked in by the land itself? I do not know. I died long ago, lost to history, lost to those who I cherish. A philosopher inspired by the great minds of my father's and grandfather's age, preaching new ideas, new ways of thinking. Life cannot progress without taking risks, without the courage to embrace pain to oneself, allow the loss of people to harden one's emotions; let the chaos of riots purge the weak-willed and incompetent from the city. To learn from the negative only enhances the positive, enhances the body and mind. It would increase the chances of earning a place in the world beyond by one's hardened resolve leading to greater things. Maybe even return to this world to greaten the impact one could have. Or so I thought. Some places do not take kindly to difference. Tolerance can only so far before the minds of those in charge break away from it in fear.

Fear. How hateful it is. How disgusting and vile and pathetic it is. It was from the fear of leaders that I was caste out into the desert. I was scared of the desert, scared of the endless blistering sands against my skin, I could barely travel far, trying to claw my way back into the city. That was so long ago, countless lifetimes. Something horrifically resembling existence has recently slithered back into me, and I am perplexed by it. Fear does not overtake me; that decayed along with my body.

Again the wind whips at the sands to unveil me, the heat blasts down on my head and chest and the rest of that arm. I welcome it after so long a burial against ground so huge and yet so cold. A sensation strikes me, it is small, a tingling across the bones I have been reduced to. The tips of my fingers move, wiggling without thought behind it. Fingers clench into the palm and make a lazy fist. I can move! I can feel and I can move!

It is hard with the sand weighing the skull down, but it is manageable all the same, and so my head breaks from pillows of hot golden grain, the sockets empty once more. I am upright. There is no need to breathe, nothing to breathe with, but oh how my chest rises after so long away from the air, spiced with heat and fresh with the year's seasoning. Difficulty is brought about in raising the buried legs, but the wind is aidful, blasting away their captivity. I stand, slowly but with great care and consideration. Just as all those years ago, when skin and blood were taken for granted, I see nothing but a blue sky, a belittling sun, and mountains of sand. The desert is cruel and yet kind when it wants to be. No, perhaps when it needs to be.

I am hollow. I am the inner workings of a man. Existence stretched across time and boundless to all things. Why has this happened? Why to me? What power is out there that brings one to a new fold in life? I recall no world beyond, but have I returned to create a larger legacy? Am I the only one to rise again? I may never know these things, but I do know something. The direction of my home, a city no doubt ancient in my absence. A guiding sensation. Maybe that is where the answers lie. Or not. But still, I must return. I must go.

If anything, I have a new practice to teach, a new philosophy to grant unto others. The enhancement and clear proof of my ideals: Life does not just end, it redirects back on itself if one is great and worthy enough.

And so I take my first step onwards.