My Mama Walked With The Unborn Me

Chapter 3: The Real Desert

Buildings, crumbled and silent and abandoned, passed by into thinner clusters as the sun peered faintly on the eastern horizon.

Anna had embarked on her journey before the twilight had hardly become evident. And now at the break of day, sun and sand came alive, replacing the chill of the night.

It had been in her mind that the journey will be long and she needs to maintain the pace to keep up with her stamina. But the thought of the Town off in the seas with her trapped in it, staring at the waters beyond to her death. And of Hers.
She pushed ahead.

It had been a blessing, the Town. And the real journey unfurled once she left it behind and there were sinking sands beneath her feet instead of rigid roads.
Though it was nine in the morning, the sun doesn’t need twelve to arrive to set the desert ablaze with its dry hearth.

The Real Desert.

Her baggy clothes flared with the wind, telling where it had taken the course, opposite to her way. Another challenger in her path.

Her boots though it kept the sand out, became sodden with sweat and heat.
The sands afloat with the wind darted at her skin like tiny needles, the impact of them never stopping. She pulled her clothes tighter, concealing whatever part escaped and exposed to the gusts.
By the end of the noon, her body had been aching to numbness. She felt that she shouldn’t force such labor on her body, but then, time was scarce, as was her choice.

She set down her burden on the sand, her body swaying from imbalance. It took her an hour or so to get the torn tarp set and stable. The course of wind and sun made it a little difficult to do so and for that, she had to climb down a dune just enough for her to climb back again.

It was quite late for lunch. But oh! How aching this hunger can turn into?! She had not known.

She would usually devour the bulk she’d brought at once, had Laurelwen still stood. The bulk she needs to keep dragging for who knows how long.

She nibbled on the scrape-like-food she’d divided to keep her from craving the others. She rested the entire evening. But woke just before dusk.
She had planned to walk through the night since they were unforgivably cold at night, she thought walking would best keep her warm.

She prayed for no strong gale or sandstorm or any further trouble.

The golden sands had turned to carnelian coloured expanse when she rose from slumber. A more realistic and natural reminder of the dying sunset. In the Town, the settlement stood an obstruction to its absolute beauty. Now only the darkening blue of the sky was the break from it.

Anna doesn’t want to see the sunset, a remembrance of the fresh wound. Which better be healing off.

But what a waste this ignorance was. The sun wasn’t in her view, but the entire desert itself was inked in its parting colour, from horizon to horizon.

And it was enough for reminding her. Again, what she has left behind, what she had lost. Her chest grew heavy with the weight of guilt. Guilt born of sorrow. Guilt that she couldn’t even bury him.

A burial that this man called Eddie well deserved.

But what is left on our part, Nature fills it in her own way. Nature always keeps the balance.

Soon, when all will lay still in Laurelwen, the sand will take her Golden son in her final and eternal embrace, following the brothers fallen before him.

Her feet settled in the constant movement of back and forth, push and pull, dragged by her burden. Almost a penguin walk it seemed, only it was hot loose sand she was treading, not some ice compact.

Her eyes did no duty of watching the reality around her, for her mind was replaying the horror, of another reality, of a time passed.

She had grown too weary to avoid the train unwelcomed, of memories, so she let it cloak her, may even break her further.

Those fallen brothers, she remembered, they had been brothers to her as well.

And Protectors and caregivers too.
She remembered all their faces, kissing the sand, some were marred to her displeasure, some were placid and drained out of colour, a more painful sight to recall. Because they were the ones who spoke out the louder.

Spoke out the desires of their hearts painted in those eyes which no more lived. Which refused to close as the life was taken out of them. As if afraid to lose the one last sight of their home, or maybe determined.

It wasn’t just Eddie, it was all those brothers she was leaving to Nature’s final care. Hoping it will best give the rest they need.

Those men who became a clown when she was sad or tensed, from the changes that came in her life as she took the path of motherhood. The men who became musclemen when her body became frail and she could feel that she was nothing more but a little girl flying in her brothers’ arms.

How will she ever be able to forget these souls whom she came to know
deep to the souls?

How will she ever be able to restore the hollowness they left behind in her heart, soul and life.

How will she ever be able to conquer the guilt of letting those men die for her? Who owed her nothing.

Yet they died, trusting her to live on and to live themselves in her memories. Forever.

The Sons of Laurelwen, who now share their mother’s grave.