by J. Naomi Ay
He started walking across the planet, the red dust covering his bare feet, coating them with a thin layer of powder. The dust still held traces of radioactivity from the war; the nuclear missiles launched a millennium ago. It was hot and so dry his throat felt parched within mere moments. He wished he had some water and would have willed himself some had he known where some might be. He didn’t know any place on this planet. He was completely and totally alone in this dark hot terrain, guided only by the distant scent of the ocean, the slope of the landscape under his feet and the occasional sound of a speeder or a bird passing above him. Never the less, he kept walking.
While he walked, he tested himself. He forced himself to think on the past though he had tried for nearly a decade to wipe it from his brain with drugs. Nothing was forgotten. Every moment from the orphan home to the guards who came and tore him from the Lord Governor’s dead body was still there on the tip of his consciousness. Every emotion, every moment of rage still burned like an ember in his heart. He looked forward and knew that this would not always be. Someday he would be content. Someday he would even be happy, for a while.
He tested himself in other ways too. Throughout the desert of this godforsaken land, he tried his strength on boulders of rock and ruins of buildings that had once stood as testaments to a great people. He drew fire from nowhere and rain upon himself when he grew too hot and thirsty. When his feet grew sore and swollen, he summoned his wings and looked upon the land from the air, satisfying his hunger with the occasional snake or rodent.
When finally he reached the sea, he had walked and flown for more than seven days, and though he held no fondness for water, he immersed himself fully and washed away the red dust. Then he held the water in his hands and willed the sodium and ions to separate and fall freely back into the sea, leaving only the hydrogen and oxygen for him to drink. He drank and quenched his thirst and then turned back to the shore to rest from his journey.
It was while he lay upon the sand that he heard the Voice and quickly he prostrated himself upon his knees. The words of the Voice made everything clear, and now, he understood to where his journey had led. He thanked his Lord for the insight and rising to his feet, called forth his blade, long ago stashed away in a secret place. With his blade he cut the ulnar artery at his wrist and let his blood spill to the dust. Then he willed the skin to close, the wound to heal and took from the sea more fresh water. Already where his blood had lain there grew grass. When he added the water, the grass spread outward in long tendrils, its roots digging through the dead earth and churning it, nourishing it, bringing it and the DNA of long dead worms and creatures back to life. He sat back on his heels and listened to the sound of the grass growing. He inhaled the scent of chlorophyll. He ran his hand across the soft green spines and then he lay down upon them and saw forward to this place when a great forest rose on either side of him. He heard the distant music of a waterfall, the pond and the brook that would run through the forest and feed the ocean with new salmon. He felt the wind caress the tops of the majestic trees upon which he would sit and then he heard voices in a language he didn’t yet know. His heart raced when he heard the laughter of the woman, a sound like the sweetest music. He smelled her and felt the softness of her skin beneath his calloused palm and on his tongue.
Just as quickly as the sensations came, they were gone leaving only the night air cooling rapidly around him. Now he understood the task before him. He knew why he was set here and what he must do. He must heal this land and her people and then he too would heal. He felt the rage, the knot of anger that had burned in his soul begin to unravel. A peace and contentment washed over him. He turned on his side and fell soundly, blissfully to sleep because in that brief glimpse of the future, he felt something he had never known before in this lifetime. He had felt loved.
