All roads to roam

It's hard to beleive that all of a man could cower this way. Give wind a chance and watch him crumble like the leaves on a tree in autumm, swept in his breath. He wouldn't dare be so lucky. With his bones piled up and held between his arms, this was his Integrity.

Deep inside his carved orbits, purple and dark from a lack of everything, seemed to burn two little suns. Sharp and focused on his obsession. The nights with their silence and their cold sweats were the closest thing to what fresh water was. Although... had he ever known what water felt, smelled and tasted like? The fire. Burning thing in the sky. The God. The sun. The blisters on his skin. The salt in his eyes. Draining him from all of it.

No insects at this hour. Too cold. They were so deep below, in the ground, in the sand, keeping their blood hot and close to the core. Was water really like cold nights? he licked the little pearls formed on his skin. It's like urine he thought. I like the taste of my blood too. But I don't know how much I hold in... he thought out loud while running his index down and along the big vein in his forearm. It looked like a big root under the pavement. Ready to crack open the concrete. You're gonna wake up. His eyes went from east to west nervously. You're gonna rise. You lie! You're allways hungry...I ha...hate you! he sudenly brought his fist to his mouth. Maybe the God had heard him this time. I'm sorry I didn't say that. And got lost into justifications. Talking to himself untill dawn slapped him back to reality.

Golden clouds were stretching across the sky. A long shadow betrayed the Road. The track was the only thing he trusted. He had found things half burried and had collected some of those items from the ancient days. Black Feathers sewed up like in the image, covered his shoulders partly. A broken watch tied to his right ankle. And a mirror stuck in his belt who served nothing but to keep the grey rags from vanishing. He got up before the sun would. Because...just because. Man always had to be the first at something. At one thing at least. The beast would reign over its domain.

The tires on the cars, the plaster on the buildings, anything he could feed on. Nibbling away on the world's white bones. So he got up just because he could and with a very long and a very last step, his foot would rise from the sand and start moving foreward. His back hunched under the very thought of the sun, this merciless ball of hunger. And very slowly, with every painfull step he would walk along the track. Endless into the horizon. He had found an article...part of an article... which asserted: "The track is the only human construction left" visible from space. Whatever that meant, he followed it, That's all that he had ever done, thats all he ever remembered. Following the road. Never crossing the path of anyone.

Another day, another night. Another dream. The same dream. He'd pick up the mirror and look into it, although no reflexion would reveal itself to him. He'd wake up in sweat. Why? he asked. why? His head down, knowing nothing and understanding it all as when he looked up and saw all of the spaceships at the end of the track, dead and still, looking up to the stars. He knew. All were gone. All but him. Alone here with the cruel sun.

From behind the hills in the East, he guessed it was him or he. without even looking up, he reached down to pick up a piece of teared metal. And, in two quick strokes, slached his wrists. The sand was moving around him. Coming up from earths guts, the insects were rising, they smelled the blood splashing onto the sand. The sand was moving.

The end