There Is A Place To Walk

There was noise and there was darkness and there was something at the edge of my sight that I couldn’t quite make out. It flickered like the spark of a cigarette lighter and it was gone.

I am blind and I can see. Whatever it is I am looking for is not here. You are not here.

Where people converge on a dusty path I can see footprints atop footprints making it hard to know where anyone was going. There is no one here now. Except me, yet I am barely here.

In a moment I will turn around, I am sure of it. Yet as the time creeps on I cannot willingly do this for fear that the spark will appear again. What was it that I did not see?

I can imagine people moving in all directions, from the evidence I know they were doing this. But I am unsure where they were going, what they were doing, why they were out in the first place. Where do we go in our lives?

I see someone in the distance, walking away. Where are they going? From here they are a shadow against the darkness. Wait, I mouth. The noise doesn’t come out.
Is this you? Is this who or what I was looking for?

I walk the path until I realise that you are not following it. Off this dusty path is snow, thick and ankle high. I wish it were not so but I know that I must follow you now.

Each step is heavier than I have walked before, requiring effort I didn’t realise I was interested in exerting. It is work but it is progress. You are closer now.

Wait, I mouth. You will never hear the noiseless words.

Onwards I walk, in a clear direction, lifting each foot above the snow only to punch through more of it. This is harder than I want it to be.

My heart picks up and my body slows down. I need a rest, but when I look toward you I see that you are not resting. You are still walking, getting further away. So I must continue. I wish it weren’t so but I must keep going.

This feels pointless, I will never catch up. You have walked all this already and I am barely catching up. I look down and only now do I realise something. There are no footprints ahead of me. Were you never here? Looking up again you are still ahead. I must keep going.

And so it goes, onwards with every step, like pushing a wall it feels hopeless but in moving one foot at a time it is like carrying the wall one brick at a time. It is arduous, but as time passes it starts to look like I am getting closer.

And then, after however long, I see that you are within my grasp. I did not, could not, give up. My feet are sore and my heart is heavy.

Turn around, I mouth. Still no words leave me.

And I grab you.

My hand slips through you, your shoulder shimmers and you turn around. And I see who you are, who you always have been. It is me, looking at myself. And as this me
turns around and looks at me it fades to nothing.

I turn around and I can see all the footprints that led me here.