Written in the Sand (A Short Story)
Monday, 11. August 2008, 06:05:53
Though his beard sprang forth from his face and fell across his chest, it did nothing to keep the cold from him. The desert sands carried that cold in every particle, and those sands filled everywhere they could.
Ridiculously, the man marvelled at how cold the desert could be, thinking it a place of endless sun, despite the fact that this was his fortieth night wandering after forty days. At times he felt more a creature of the sand, shambling on paths made of the same substance as himself, and – when his eyes sought solace from this – they were rewarded only with more sand.
Until it came to pass that the man spied in the distance through the grit and the dry a house made of stone. Knowing it for nothing more than illusion, he nevertheless found himself moving toward it, hoping instinctively that illusory shelter might prove better than none.
No bigger than a single room, the house was made of stone seemingly cut from the sand and hardened. A worn wooden door showed the evidence that trees once existed, though the man could not remember what trees once looked like until – pushing the door open – splinters bit hands as weathered as itself.
Expecting nobody to be home, the man was rewarded with that as his reality. The darkness inside seemed empty with no sand swirling through it, though the cold still commanded his attention.
A bare stone floor he could feel under his feet, the contrast to the sand of the past weeks almost overwhelming. Moving with the momentum of his travels, the man continued to place one foot after another, until the splinters of yet another door – this one in the floor – attacked his feet.
Needing to get out of the cold – desperate now that he knew he had a chance to – the man felt through the splinters the rough-hewn wood for something resembling a handle and was rewarded when a metal ring – colder even than the desert – drew his fingers to it.
He tugged and the door in the floor opened.
The man could not see inside, but he knew there were stairs. He placed his feet over the edge into the darkest abyss and felt more stone in the familiar shape of descent.
And he moved down into the room under the desert.
Reaching the floor of the room, the man started as the door in the floor above him slammed shut, blocking out all noise of wind and sand outside. Eyes full of grit blinked – presuming hallucination – when the walls gave a wan glow, like that of a phosphorescent mould.
In the middle of the room, with this weak illumination and the concentration only complete solitude could bring, the man spied the vague shape of a scroll. Beside it were stained bottles of some dark substance – presumably ink – and a feather. Near the scroll, a pile of sand, into which the man sat.
Somehow knowing this might be the only way to transport himself somewhere warmer …
… the man began to write.
The man wrote of his surprise that the ink in the bottles had not dried. He wrote of the surprising volume given out by the feather as he dipped it in the ink and scratched it across the emptiness of the scroll. He wrote of how he could just see what he was writing.
And writing of seeing what he was writing, he saw all the more clearly.
The man wrote of the phosphor walls producing not only light but heat, and the room brightened and hove detail into view with its newfound warmth. Alone in this world of the room under the desert, the man soon wrote a companion to instruct him in its ways.
His companion grew from the shadows and proved to be a thing of sand. The face of his companion was strong and – in the holes where eyes should have been – the man knew there was an ancient wisdom.
Writing his conversation with the Golem, the man brimmed with questions. He asked what his new world was. He asked how writing could bring anything to life, let alone heat and a fellow traveller. He asked how such a place could come to be when the desert was nowhere, everywhere, nothing and all. He asked who created this world of the room under the desert.
Whether his answers were of his own making as they ran from his hands onto the paper, the man did not know. He only knew that he was beginning to feel further away from the desert than he could possibly understand.
Writing the answers without meaning to, the man heard the Golem speak with a voice dry as the sands he’d left behind.
“You create worlds when you write”, his companion said, “and they create you”.
The man pondered this for some time. Then …
“And if I were to stop writing … ?”
But the words trailed off into the air and were lost among the whisper of pen and paper.
Feeling warm and comfortable in his new world in the room under the desert, the man nevertheless wondered why an answer to his question was not forthcoming, then knew there was only one way to find out.
And he tried …
… but he could not stop writing.
Fear lurched in his mind, trying desperately to claw his muscles back away from the paper, to let go of the feather …
… but they would not.
The man’s eyes cast about in a frenzy for a means to escape, for the warmth of his new world in the room under the desert had suddenly transformed into a prison. Spying the door he’d entered by, he nevertheless knew that, as a prisoner of an unresponsive body – a body that could not stop writing – he could not leave!
Terrified, the man’s eyes pleaded with the Golem, but the Golem was now nothing more than sand, dust on the stone floor. The phosphor of the walls turned cold once more and the glow dimmed.
Unable to control his actions, the man took the quill and stabbed it in the artery of his opposite wrist. The blood that jetted forth when he removed it was the same dark colour as the ink in the bottles, and he realized then that was exactly what it was.
Knowing he was dying, the man’s body – of a volition not his own – picked up the bottles and held them to his gushing wound. When the blood filled one, he would reach for another, all the while silently pleading for himself to stop, to get out, to live.
Only when the last bottle had been filled were the man’s despairing entreaties seemingly answered. But by then it was too late.
As the glow of the walls faded and faded, the man’s body – still covered with the sand of the desert above – seemed to take on more and more of that texture. Shrinking upon itself, all moisture was wicked away into the cold night air …
… and where the man had been, a pile of sand sat in front of the now-blank paper.
And the room under the desert was patient and waited, knowing more travellers would come this way …
Copyright © 2008 by David Scott Aubrey
All Rights Reserved
1,212 Words
This short story is a work of fiction. Any and all names, characters and/or incidents are either products of my imagination or are used fictitiously. Where any such resemblance may exist to actual persons (living or dead), actual events or locales, it is purely coincidental.
Please don't assume that my characters speak for me or carry my own opinions on various matters in any way, shape or form (though some might - you never can tell).
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