The Journey

by Dan O'Brien

  Pivots and rotors of steel framed the creature.

  It was now the very core of what it wished to be.

  The Lonely looked upon what the Frozen Man had become.

  “You do not see a difference, do you?” queried the Lonely. “In yourself, when you look upon yourself. When you see yourself now it is as it has always been?”

  The Frozen Man nodded.

  “Flesh, humanity, emotion. These are devices and totems that hold no merit. We of the North require none of them. We are whole in our intelligence.”

  The Lonely was not satisfied.

  “Your intelligence cannot be complete when you see only one piece of the spectrum. To believe yourself whole by adhering only to the tenants of a pure intelligence, you neglect the aspects of other forms of intelligence. There is much more than accumulated knowledge. Can you not see that in all of your perceived wisdom?”

  “By shedding all human endeavors, we can understand what makes them weak, incomplete. In our objectivity, we need not experience them, only witness and catalogue,” replied the Frozen Man.

  “There is not one form of intelligence greater than that of another. You speak as though the ones inferior are not worthy of your time. They are equal in the balance of things,” offered the Lonely.

  The scream was like that of a thousand voices breaking upon one another. The mountains shook, the ice split at the feet of the Lonely.

  “Lies.”

  The Lonely stepped forward, moving away from an ever-growing crack at his bare feet. “They are not lies, but perspective, true objectivity. What you look upon as truth is little more than the subjective product of your unfair judgments.”

  The Frozen Man shook violently, the pistons of its joints spewed wildly. Its face, no longer masculine or feminine, contorted horrifically. “No, what you speak of is evil. Those are lies.”

  “Is it evil to speak the truth?”

  The Frozen Man had begun to hunch.

  “The Truth is. It is without right and wrong, for morality is created by societal law influenced by perspective. Therefore, information is neither evil nor good, but instead detrimental in the hands of those who do not understand.”

  The Lonely nodded.

  “Precisely, so what I speak is simply information that is hurtful because of what you believe. That does not make it truth or lies, it simply is.”

  The Frozen Man had been reduced to little more than a dwarfish version of itself. “There are no more answers for you here. Leave at once.”

  The Lonely opened his mouth to reply, but he felt a force tug upon the very fiber of his being. At first in one direction and then another, until his body was being pulled in so many directions that he felt as if he was going to be torn into nothingness. The world before his eyes was at once light and darkness and he faded.

  The Crossroads Revisited

  The Lonely watched as the world flooded back into view. Slowly ebbing like disturbed water and then eventually setting so that he could see his surroundings once more.

  “You have visited the Frozen Man?” queried the Crossroads.

  The Lonely remembered the tundra and rubbed his hands together. “I visited the Frozen Man, though I’m not entirely certain that it was a man.”

  “A relative term I am afraid,” replied the Crossroads.

  “Man?” asked the Lonely.

  He looked upon the Crossroads and the being now resembled a vagrant. A hooded robe covered him, but was torn in places and splotched with dark patches that appeared wet.

  “Yes, the term which you apply to the Frozen Man is not of gender, but of nomenclature. He is no more a man than I am a woman; or you a frog. It is simply what the being is called, only a word.”

  The Lonely pondered this for a moment, looking toward the north. He noticed immediately that there was no longer a signpost for the North.

  “Where has the sign gone?”

  “Which sign?” asked the Crossroads.

  “The one that pointed north,” replied the Lonely.

  The Crossroads moved ever so slightly, he seemed to shimmer through the air. He gestured with a covered arm.

  “The North is no longer available to you. Whatever it was that you were to learn from the Frozen Man has been learned. There is nothing for you now in the cold, hence you can no longer reach it,” reasoned the Crossroads.

  “So, simply because I have learned it, I cannot return to it again?”

  The Crossroads shook his hooded head.

  “Having visited there, you can never visit there again anew. With the knowledge you have now, the visit there would not be the same and the outcome would be different. Hence, you can never truly revisit the North.”

  The Lonely crossed his arms over his chest.

  “What was he, the Frozen Man?”

  “He was the Frozen Man: the accumulation of the North and its principles––the totem of ice and cold. He was the summation of cold logics that lacked passion of any kind.”

  “Was?” queried the Lonely.

  The world around the convergence of the four roads had grown gray and weary. The sky above was darkness and the air around them thick with haze and fog. Had the Lonely walked just meters from his spot, he would have been lost to the fogbank surrounding him.

  The Crossroads shifted yet again, this time taking with him a tendril of the fog. “The Frozen Man is no more. For you to have returned, he must be no more.”

  The Lonely pondered this.

  “Did I kill him?”

  “Would you wish him dead?”

  “No, but the way that he thought, seemed to me in many ways to be a form of death. I suppose I felt he was already dead. His logics, his mannerisms, were such that I truly believed him to be the machine that he resembled in the end.”

  The Crossroads looked at the Lonely with his vacant stare. “And thus, he is no more. You have yet to understand why you are here. Do you believe that this is a journey with an end or an end to a journey?”

  The Lonely shook his head, his arms crossed over his chest. “It is a journey, is it not? I am searching for something, answers to which I do not yet know the questions.”

  The Crossroads nodded, but did not respond.

  The Lonely continued.

  “So, then my conversation, my words, killed him?”

  The Crossroads moved about the dusty patch of land that they occupied. “There are four paths and four totems, one totem for each path, and each life. There is a truth hidden among the four: the Frozen Man, the Burning Man, the Wicker Man, and the Translucent Man.”

  “Four totems? Of elements? Totems of what?”

  The image of the Crossroads morphed again; now, he stood as a wintry traveler. A gray fedora covered his silvery hair and a wool coat wrapped his slender shoulders. Smoke drifted from a pipe at his lips and the bill of his hat covered his eyes. Only his lips moved; the subtle glean of his teeth white.

  “Four totems of life.”

  “I don’t understand,” said the Lonely.

  “You are not yet meant to. There is still much to search for. As I recall, you cannot even remember your name or from whence you came?”

  The Lonely hesitated for a moment.

  The Crossroads had not previously been so candid with him.

  “Indeed, that is true. Can you tell me my name or where I have come from? Even from what time I come?”

  “When?” queried the Crossroads. “Have you begun to question your existence?”

  The Lonely shook his head, looking to his feet once more: no shoes, tan skin. He was more confused than ever.

  “I am not certain of anything, though I believe that you know more than you are telling me.”

  “I can assure you that I know no more than what it is that I am supposed to know. Just as you are only certain of those things that are most certain to you,” replied the Crossroads.

  His stoic tone belied the mirth of his riddle.

  “Riddles? Truly?” queried the Lonely with a raised e
yebrow.

  The Crossroads seemed incapable of anything except movement––emotions, characterizations; some levels of humanity were beyond him. “I do not wish to burden you with the riddles of the eternal. I will begin again. I believe you remember how this goes. I am the Crossroads.”

  The Lonely stood up straighter, as if he had been scolded for slouching. “I am the Lonely.”

  The Crossroads spread out his hands, the fog dissipating as if it had never been there at all. “What path do you choose?”

  The Lonely considered for a moment.

  “I have already seen the North, witnessed its logics. I feel as though the south calls to me––the Burning Man.”

  The Crossroads remained still.

  The fog had settled farther from them now.

  The Lonely could see clearly the remaining three signposts.

  “It is just as well, I suppose,” said the Crossroads.

  “Just as well what? What is that you are hiding?” asked the Lonely challengingly.

  The Crossroads shook his hooded head. “There is nothing more than you already know. The South is now your path. Go in peace.”

  The Lonely nodded and started south.

  The fog was cold on his face and he closed his eyes, envisioning a broad desert, palm trees in the distance. There in the distance, he could see the Oasis, the realm of the South. Time tugged upon him, space toyed with his form, and soon he was transported once again.

  The Southern

  Oasis

  Like waking from drifting dreams, he opened his eyes.

  Bleached white desert extended for as far as his eyes could see. His bare feet felt no heat from the sands, but instead a resolute coolness that frightened him.

  The sun beamed overhead.

  Broad tendrils of a mighty star crawled across the entire desert, leaving nothing unturned. The Lonely placed one foot in front of the other, committing him farther and farther toward an unknown destination with each step.

  The desert sand swirled and danced in places.

  Translucent columns of warm air and sand maneuvered side by side like darkness teasing the setting sun. The Lonely watched as shadows in the distance took shape.

  The Oasis was magnificent.

  Tall, bronzed walls rose high into the sky.

  It was higher than the Lonely could perceive without shielding his eyes from the blistering sun overhead. Twisting columns of undulating stone stood guard at the steps of the monolith.

  The Lonely stepped from the cold white sand onto the hot stone steps of the structure. Had he been able to react to pain, he may have cried out with the suddenness of the temperature change. Instead, he gazed up at the mounting stone windows and decks that rose into the air and hung as sand-colored clouds.

  The steps crept into shadow and the Lonely paced with them. Beneath the overhang of the monolith, the Lonely was given a reprieve from the heat.

  Music waltzed over the air.

  Drums beat.

  Horns flared.

  A cacophony of sound and rhythm floated over the air like so many stratums on a fall day. The Lonely moved closer to the massive twin doors that framed the overhang beneath which he had found himself.

  Twin rings of gold were centered on the doors. Their surface was covered in runic symbols. Together, they formed such a pair of iridescent luminance that the Lonely would have been blinded if the sun had glinted off them.

  The heavy light of the sun surged against the back of the Lonely.

  He reached out for the doors, but stopped. Inward the massive doors swung. A gust of florid aroma slapped him across the face. Cool whiskers of air caressed his face like the subtle touch of a woman.

  The music was louder now, more pronounced.

  He could feel it deep in his chest.

  “Welcome to the Oasis of Eternities,” called the gentle voice.

  The words sang in his ears.

  Her voice was as the cooing of a thousand doves.

  “Here you may rest,” she continued.

  Raven’s hair hung past her shoulders, wisps carving the delicate musculature of her back. Not the hardened or rippling muscles of a trained athlete, but the grace of cat: sleek, elegant.

  Her tan skin was nearly obsidian, her hazel eyes sparkled as gems in the darkest of mines. A shimmering white dress clung to her perfectly as a second skin.

  “I am Ilori and you are the Lonely.”

  The Lonely stared ahead.

  Her beauty was a unique treasure. In the North, he had not seen a woman, much less anything that could begin to rival such splendor.

  “I have come for the Burning Man,” he spoke, his eyes never leaving hers.

  She smiled.

  The even white line of her teeth was accented by the crimson turn of her lips. “In time….” she replied and then her gaze fell upon his uncovered feet.

  Her smile slipped and was replaced with a frown.

  “You look so sickly.”

  The Lonely looked at his hands, his feet.

  He was indeed dirty.

  Before he had thought himself tan, but now he saw that he was much lighter than Ilori. “I arrived like this. I did not know any other way to come.”

  Ilori stepped closer to him now.

  She smelled of lilies and honey, of magnificent fruits and fragrant gardens. Her hands touched his forearm. “We will see to better garments. You are a guest here.”

  The contrast between her polished skin and his own dirt-marred flesh was such that the Lonely had to resist the urge to pull away in terror. He smiled politely and as she lifted her hand away, he hid his arms deeper within his tattered clothing.

  “I would appreciate that very much.”

  He felt like a child.

  She looked like she was not much older than a young woman.

  He moved forward as she turned.

  Her lithe frame seemed to glide and prance across the floor.

  The doors closed without a sound and soon the Lonely was being ushered through the Oasis of Eternities of his own accord.

  The walls were cream-colored.

  The floors carved of marble.

  Tapestries lined the walls, enormous, ornate rugs that depicted beautiful, unfathomable things. Gems and artifacts lined the way speaking of histories and peoples unknown and forgotten to the sands of time.

  Each room was shaded, despite the location of the monolith deep within the desert. Trees, potted and pruned, dotted their path as they moved from one hall to the next. They passed other inhabitants, most of whom were alabaster women of such beauty and unmentionable grace that the Lonely could only look upon them in awe.

  Soon, the rooms passed faster and faster, until they appeared to all be the same. Ilori walked at such a brisk pace that the Lonely had to jog to catch up. As she rounded a corner out of sight, the Lonely dashed forward, but stopped short as she was waiting for him patiently.

  “This is the bath house. Inside you will find suitable garments. Rest within the waters and find peace. When you are ready, join me in the room down the hall marked with three diagonal slashes,” she spoke.

  “What is the significance of the three slashes?”

  She twisted her lips.

  “There are many rooms in the Oasis of Eternities. To wander these halls without a guide is to wander for all time. I allow you this one passage without a guide.”

  The Lonely wished to ask more questions, but at that moment he was struck by how tired he was. In the North, he had not felt the need for sleep or hunger. But here in the Oasis, he felt as if he had not slept in ages.

  His stomach rumbled.

  “I will do as you say.”

  Ilori nodded and then turned swiftly. Her ethereal dress swirled at her waist, her dark skin glistening as she moved beyond his reach.

  The Bath House was grandiose.

  Situated at the center of the room, a clear pool churned with turbulent waters. Steam rose from the water, sweet smells emanated throughout the room.
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br />   The walls were black granite, striated with thick crystalline lines. The Lonely ran his hands over the smooth surface, once again feeling cool despite the temperature outside.