A Journey

I initially wrote the following story several years ago when my boss was murdered. It was something I found difficult to come to terms with and this story arose from a mantra one of the pub regulars gave me. This isn't strictly geeky, but when I started this blog it was with a vague idea that I would share some of the fiction I write. 

A Journey

He dragged his burnt body from the wreckage, wincing as the intense heat sloughed the skin from his bubbling flesh, blackening his bones. Each breath was an eternity of smokey, choking agony; razor blades ripping through his mouth, throat and lungs. His raw hands pulled his wretched body from the blaze, far enough that he could breathe and he collapsed limply to sob against the unforgiving landscape. Tears left dirty, sticky paths along what remained of his face. The fire burned no less fiercely behind him, but the tears helped quench the inferno that threatened to overwhelm him from within and after a time he had the strength to rise to his feet.

Dizzy, bleary, he peered ahead to the promised green fields. He couldn’t see them, but kept himself on his feet. The first step to reaching them is to trust. The next step is moving your feet. He shakily did so, lifting his right foot and placing it a few inches in front of where it had begun. A small movement, but a start. Another breath of razor blades and he was ready to try to move his left foot. The underwhelming victory felt overwhelming and strengthened his faith. Another step with his right foot. Another with his left. The motion became a little easier. A gentle breeze threatened his stability as it caressed his singed flesh and he was forced to pause. Beginning to walk again was as painful as the first time but he managed a few steps further before his legs could not take his weight. Would it be easier to give up and lie here? It didn’t seem to be an option – the only option was to continue putting one foot in front of the other for as long as you could. His legs buckled before he had his weight fully on them. Tears stung at the edges of his eyes. He heaved himself instead onto all fours and continued his journey crawling. All around him the voices of survivors: put one foot in front of the other and one day you can look back.

One foot.

The heat and light of the fire behind him masked the darkness as it fell, but eventually he fell from his crawling position and rolled onto his back and looked up to the smoke-filled night sky and he realised he had already travelled further than he thought. There, with no shelter but the smoke of the disaster he was trying to leave behind, he slept. Dark and empty oblivion.

The sun woke him, reminding him of the agony of his broken flesh whilst revealing that the black clouds were beginning to thin. He prayed for rain, but managed to find his feet and continue upright. The broken glass beneath his feet sliced his soles to shreds.

One foot.

The other.

The sun beat down upon his slowly healing flesh, revealing the writhing maggots that ate his injuries clean. The desert was otherwise devoid of life. Even a circling vulture would have offered him some confidence that he was not alone here. Despite the heat, he found he could breathe a little more easily. Perhaps the maggots had already emptied his lungs of decaying flesh. Perhaps he had finally burnt out all feeling there.

The voices of the survivors echoed:

One foot.

The other.

And one day.

He started suddenly, his body jerking and twitching to prevent himself from falling as he realised he had been sleeping. He swung his legs from the no longer comfortable bed and felt the familiar crunch as they came to rest on the destructive surface across which he had been walking. Not a dream then. This was what was real. One day. One foot. But what did it mean? What did they know? You can’t see them, how can they help you? The slap across his face jarred and threatened to stop his journey again as he fell to his knees and sought comfort in tears that would not come. Did the heat come from the day or the distance? Splinters of glass freed trickling streams of blood from his knees and he knew he had to keep moving. Maybe the fields would be in view soon.

He wondered how long it had been since he had last eaten. A lifetime, at the least, and yet he was not hungry; or rather, were he hungry he could not tell nor would he be able to eat. The fire behind him, hot enough that even here he could not escape its intensity, pushed him onwards. He yearned to leave it behind him, wished he had never seen it, wished things could be as they were before but everything had eternally changed. He thought he could smell food, felt the tasteless texture of it in his mouth, yet could draw no sustenance from the illusion. The never ending desert stretched before him and the crawl of maggots was his only comfort and companionship as he fought himself to cross it.

One foot.

The other.

And one day.

And one day what? The green fields are a myth, surely, for he has seen no evidence of them. Even the maggots have left him as he navigates his way through the stifling desert.

And one day.

You can look back.

So he does so, but the blaze still burns so fiercely he can see nothing else, and his heart burns in his chest.

One foot.

He once more puts the wreck to his back and draws a breath into his leg, giving it the strength to take the step which he has learnt offers him a kind of strength he has never known, has never needed, before. Follow with the other foot and keep walking. The broken glass is as smooth as skulls. Keep walking.

That night, it seemed to him that he awoke and the desert was impossibly filled with almost tangible life. For the first time since being reborn into this emptiness, he did not feel utterly and emptily alone. A smile teased the extremities of his mouth when he arose to continue his journey.

One foot.

The other.

And one day.

It was still too soon to look back, and this time he knew it yet couldn’t keep his body from that slow turn. Again, the blaze hurt his eyes and healing body, but it no longer threatened to blind him and he found he could breathe whilst looking at it. When he turned to face ahead once more, he realised that the glass had given way to gravel and there was something in the distance perpendicular to the flat and forbidding horizon. And maybe, just maybe, beyond that he could see a shade of green. A tear fell, the first in many months.

And one day you can look back and see how far you’ve come.