Dell's Journey

Chapter 49: Return Of The Desert Of Uncertainty

With the same suddenness with which his senses were

muted upon the platform, Dell's senses rushed back upon

him. His eyes opened and he beheld a vertical line

dividing two colors. On the left, a very light blue, so

light that it was almost white, on the right, a light

yellow-brown. It was painfully bright and he shut his eyes

tightly. It was also painfully hot. He moved his head and

felt like granules of sand were scratching the side of his

face. He sputtered and spit as numerous pieces managed to

get in his mouth.

He was, in fact, lying on his right side in the midst

of a vast, desolate landscape. Sitting upright he

recognized the line which divided the two colors as the

horizon, and the two colors as the sky and the thirsty

desert respectively.

He made a slight moaning sound. He looked wearily

into the distance. A dusty-colored shape was making its

way across the sands, perhaps 300 hundred feet from him. A

scorpion? A mirage?

Though Dell could not explain the impulse, he was

immediately on his feet, rushing eagerly toward the shape.

He closed the distance quickly, only to discover Pet – his

pet – panting and whining and falling all over himself in

excitement.

"Wha-ha! Ha ha! What? Pet!" he bellowed. "How in

the world...?"

Pet continued his delighted fawning.

Dell laughed a little more and tried to catch his

breath. What on earth was the creature doing here? What

was he doing here himself? Why a desert? None of it

mattered. He picked up Pet, hot and sweaty, but he didn't

mind at all. He had given up the notion of keeping clean

by this point.

You have read the beginning of the story already,

wherein Dell and Pet were lunging forward with their last

bits of strength, clawing their way up a hill in

exhaustion. You recall that Dell was quite certain that

his death was imminent, and that to his surprise, he hardly

minded.

"We're going to lay down here and die," was what he

had just said when we left them. Here is what happened

right after he said that:

Dell slipped into one of his dreams. He heard bits of

the song that monster had played in his cave many days

before and felt the beauty of its haunting melody. He saw

the monster leaning over him, inspecting him with a grave

look in his deep, dark eyes. Dell moved his arms like the

flapping wings of a great duck, feeling for Pet, but he

could not feel him anywhere. The monster's face

disappeared. Again he heard the sound of the mournful

music, the harmonies dancing, pushing and pulling him with

along as they moved restlessly, going somewhere he didn't

know. He could have sworn he heard birds joining in the

song with that strange organ. Their shrill voices were

surprisingly fitting to the song, he thought, as though it

had been made for them. Was this a bittersweet melody that

only a creature who daily witnessed both darkness and light

could express? He wondered if he was delirious or on drugs

– everything was so overwhelmingly perfect. Those cute

little birds singing; he imagined them with their eyes shut

and their heads reared back, their beaks wide open. He

smiled at the thought.

"Ahh reality."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that reality is nice, in a way. It's cozy,

you know? It's what we know."

"I don't think we do know it, though. Not really."

"Oh stop it! Yes we do. Of course we do."

"Uhh...not really we don't."

"This is your problem, right here: you are

speaking in the abstract when you say that we don't really

know about reality. When it comes to the day-to-day

experiences of life, you do. You do for all practical

purposes. And why wouldn't you judge by all practical

purposes? Why invent a way of thinking about things that

is not at all related to your actual experience of life?"

"Hmm. Yeah, that's a good point."

"I know it is. That's why I said it."

(Ha! Ha!)

"But I guess we must not think the abstract way of

thinking is totally unrelated to our experience, right?

Otherwise we wouldn't ever do it, right?"

"Maybe so."

"Well, (sigh) I don't know."

(Ha! Ha!)

"What's that music?"

"Oh, just something."

(Ha! Ha! Ha!)

"What's so funny?"

"I don't know (he! he!), lots of things."

"That's true (ha! ha! ha!)!"

(Much more laughing...everyone seems in high spirits.)