frail body

A murky vision appeared before me. A bright, light brown desert. The wavy heat rose from the earth as I began to feel my body. I was shirtless, and was clothed in tattered pants. I didn't have any shoes, and my feet began to feel the intense heat of the desert sand.

As I stumbled wearily through the desert, the bright sandy horizon grew clearer in my vision. The blinding light of the sun scorched my skin into a red sweaty layer of leather. My wobbly legs finally gave out, and my frail body stumbled involuntarily, then crumpled to the soft ground.

The heat was painful, and my breath drew in shallowly, rhytmically, as my heart beat weakly. I wiped sweat from my brow with my bare hand. The sand beneath me was blistering hot. The pain seared through me like electricity. My throat was as dry as desert bones. I had grown accustomed to the taste of sand over the course of my listless wandering.

"Rise." A loud, solid, confident bass voice bellowed. Startled, I raised my head to see the source of the command. That's when I saw the thing.

Looming nine feet above me, this great warrior gazed down upon my frail body in disgust. Covered in tarnished silver armor, his face was shielded. His black deepset eyes stared at my pathetic limp body. I was almost too close to the brink of collapse to bother being afraid.

But I was afraid.

"I command you to rise." His voice once more blasting down at me. With adrenaline awakening within me once more, I feebly pulled myself up, feeling lightheaded and inadequate.

"What? Who are you?" My voice quivered, sounding unusually thin and powerless.

"Look before you. Survey this land." He gestured with his metallic hand toward the panoramic landscape of endless desert around me. "What do you see?"

I gasped a couple of times, choking on sand. I coughed, and thought there might be a wrong answer. Surely this giant warrior was going to kill me, and that would be the end. "I...I see a lot of nothing."

"Fool!" Blinding pain struck my head as his backhand swiftly and gracefully smashed the side of my face, sending me sprawling on my back. The world began to fade, as the agony weighed my conscience into blackness. Briefly, I passed out on the hot sand.

"Rise." The voice snapped me back to the reality of bright hot sun, and his looming warrior body. "Rise, or be destroyed." My head throbbed painfully.

I forced myself to my feet. "You answer like a simple-minded fool," he corrected. "See all that is before you. Gaze upon it, and remember the days of your childhood. This is the very place you grew up. This is the place of your youth, simpleton."

"No." I began crying. "This is not my childhood home. This terrible, wastful desert is not familiar to me. I grew up in lush gardens."

"You sicken me. You cannot recognize your own surroundings?" The great warrior reached out to me, and grabbed my arm tightly. He lifted me up toward his flat, metallic face, and pierced into my soul with those deep black eyes. "This is your childhood home. What do you remember of it?"

I offered my true memories."It was beautiful. It was serene." He was squeezing my left arm so hard, I thought it was going to crush under the pressure. "So...magical."

"You are blind by your shortsighted ignorance." Apathetically, he tossed my frail body to the ground. I landed harshly, and I curled into the fetal position. His deep voice bellowed, "You will remember that time once more. I grace you with a second chance."

"May I die?"

"NO!" He retorted, angrily. "You will live, fool!" His finger pointed accusingly at my pathetic body. "You bring this draught upon yourself. In your selfishness, you have forgotten where you are." From his shoulders, magnificent wings of reds and browns sprawled open against the blue sky. Flapping powerfully, the great warrior slowly rose into the air. Then, with three forceful beats, the warrior rose upward into the clear sky. I watched with weary eyes as his body appeared smaller and smaller as he flew higher and higher.

Then, I was alone again. My mind drifted into the memories of my childhood. They were calm, vivid memories of carefree existence among the trees of the lush green gardens. Images of brightly colored flowers, bushes, and exotic plants freely flooded my tired mind.

A dark grey cloud covered the sun, and the sweet shadow cooled my dry body. The entire sky became grey cloud. Soft, cold rain began showering down in light drops. The air grew cooler, and my breath was deeper. I watched as plants and trees grew right before my eyes, in thick undergrowth. It was the familiar garden of my childhood.

Stumbling through this newfound terrain, a cold blue body of water rested before me. I bathed my body, and drank heartily from its flowing wells. I knew this was the beginning of a new era.

The End