A Traveler's Burden

A Traveler's Regrets

Here he sat, awaiting his death. It had been hours—it was morning now—since he had left the clearing.

His regrets came rushing back to him.

Why had he hid the stone tent from his family?

Why had he let Janis go to the City?

Why hadn't they expanded the crops, so much so they were completely independent?

Why did he go to the City?

Why hadn't he gotten enough supplies?

Why had he even come back after being infected?

Why had he let himself be infected?

Why was the bus so late?

Why had he been so short with Tanya?

Why had he always avoided Jacobi?

Why did he let Jacobi disappear all the time? Now he missed his chance to say goodbye.

Why had he left without saying goodbye to his partner and son?

Norman rubbed his face, which caused a burning feeling all across it and now on his hands.

Then he sat up straight.

He had brushed against Becker.

Did that mean...?

No, it couldn't have... Could it?

No. He had to think about himself, now. It was too late for that.

Why had he ever associated with others?

Why didn't he associate with more?

Why had he never settled down, truly?

Sure, he had stuck around here for some time, but even then he stayed moving around this general area. For a short time, they had lived on a hill, until they realized it was more efficient to live down in the clearing.

Despite his connection with the stone tent, he had never made a serious connection with one place.

Even if he left here right now, he would probably only be sad for a day or two, if even that. He may just be disappointed, really.

When Tanya left her parents, in their own wooden homes, she seemed depressed for weeks. Everything made her look as though she hadn't slept in years, and even sometimes like she had lost her own child. Why had he never felt that for any place?

The place his father died, on a strip of walking path that went over the river, was too easy to leave. They had lived there for a few seasons in a row. His father liked the place, but he never felt any connection to it at all. Not once. Not even after it became the last place he saw his father. He left the day after his father changed.

What was wrong with him? Why had he never connected with a place, fully?

What of his connection here? Was it nothing? Nothing more than it merely pleased his aesthetic? Was it love of the look, not the feel, which he had confused for a connection all this time?

Why was he questioning this now? What did it matter? His time was gone, if this wasn't a place he connected to, he had no other place or chance to connect with a place.

Norman sighed and watched the rain occasionally hit the window.

Why didn't he connect more with his family?

Why did he have such problems connecting?

His father was like that, in a way.

So was Janis.

Maybe it's how they were.

Maybe it was their personalities.

Maybe it was his personality.

Maybe it was because they were travelers, who sometimes didn't have enough time to connect, or left so much because they couldn't connect.

Maybe it was because he was a traveler, who couldn't connect because he left too often, or left because he couldn't connect.