Trail On

I woke, my fire dead under the glare of the rising sun and so, rising, I set out again. My ramblings had to go on until I found that perfect place to rest, where the fire never burn out. A place I could devote to the memory of you, the one they had taken, away from the mocking watchers gathered behind me…

I walked a little further along the trail, watching as stones comfortably followed old paths down the mountainside. They caught in trees and gullies on their way and none quite managed to reach the valley floor. So, I kept on walking, my mind drifting back to you, to the last I had seen of you, lying next to me. My mind had kept you there all night, peacefully beside me, but the morning loosened its hold and you faded, and I found instead the scrap of pamphlet that replaced nothing.

I topped a rise and turned to see the city I had walked through the night before, curving almost into a cylinder, squatting in the pass below. The overpasses that had stretched into every inch of it now lay shattered on its many roads. Glass blocks jutted haphazardly from the debris, reflecting the broken structures at unlikely angles. I lost myself for a time, staring back at that place, until I found the will to move on, further into mountain’s proper.

Some had told me you had gone out to sea, out to catch the last of the great squid that hid beneath it. I saw that your boat was gone in the morning when I walked to the docks. But you had left without me and the squid they said you hunted was too well tangled into the floor of the world that even an attempt at a catch would be pointless. No, they took you from me, hid you deep in the bowels of their city, deep in the place they knew I would never go back too.

Now I walk past the streams and the mountains that lie beyond them, were they can’t get at me, get at my memory, so I can keep those memories from being locked away with you in the dark. Soon I will find a place to rest, somewhere to rebuild myself in the image that you held of me. I could never come back for you, they keep you somewhere I can not (will not) reach, but I can hold a part of you free out here, far from them.

And so, I walk, watching the old cities crumble and the breathing rock shift with a purpose lost to itself, seeing the dead and remembering their lost homes. Each of my steps echo louder as I wander further towards the rising peaks.