The Longest Walk

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. Where had the time gone? It seemed not so long ago I had a friend on the Earth to assuage the darkness, to bring kindling to the winter. Now, the flakes fell in large, soft petals: ash on the field through which I trudged. Every breath shot out before me in mist, and to a younger, less unfortunate me… I would have thought of myself as a steam engine, and laughed.

"Why do you walk this way?" I can hear you ask, and of course the question is pertinent. A lone soldier, martyr for the alpha omega human instinct, slogging one boot before the other, naught but a frigid forest around them…

"I don't know why I walk," I say out loud in response. I re-shoulder my burden. There is a rope attached to something behind me. I cannot turn to it; I can only re-grip the harsh line and feel the calluses bleed on my hand as I walk. It is very heavy.

"Well, what's your name?" you ask.

I almost stop in my tracks, for the concept of a name seems only now to strike me as odd. "My name? I don't think I remember having one… ever."

"That's ridiculous. Everyone has a name." You tell me yours, but even as I hear it the word sounds alien, and it slips through my mind like smoke through a closed fist. I turn to my right… Impenetrable darkness. The odd forms of trees alit by the faintest moonlight diluted further by thick clouds. To my left is more of the same. From where, then, was your voice coming to me?

I feel you, more than anything else, before me, guiding me. I never stopped walking, but I grimace and dig my heels into the frozen dirt. "I don't have a name," I say finally.

You're silent for some time. I know it's a strange statement, even though I don't know why, exactly.

"Give yourself one," says your mellow, reverberating voice.

I don't know any names, but the first thing that comes to my head is not a name… "Walker," I say.

I can feel a warmth suddenly, briefly, as though you smiled. "Fitting."

Then, silence, and I think back to that vacuous feeling I had when my last friend… what was their name? left me. The memories are hazy, and it seems with each step, with each falling flake, another strand unweaves itself. What was my friend? Were they one person? Was it a feeling I had more than any individual?

The memory brings tears to my eyes - or rather, it should have brought tears to my eyes. The moons were uncountable in the days since I had begun this walk in darkness, and in that time I had lost any ability to cry. Those tears were spent, their icy remnants freezing on my face, an eternal reminder of the pain from which I was so woefully distant.

That friend… It was a person, I can feel that now, and not just any person, and more close than a friend. Their name still eludes me, but I can feel their laughter, their light. I can feel the time we spent together in a brighter world, before the sun was stolen away. When my dreams had hues and texture almost pungent in nature, and where I wasn't surrounded by menacing trees and the night everlasting.

"What is it you're carrying?" you ask, breaking the silence.

Silence is not the right word, actually. A thin breeze floats the flakes of snow at a slight angle, always steady, always against me. I answer. "I do not know."

"It seems heavy."

"It is heavy." I look down, only now realizing that drops of blood from my hands were falling to the ground, perhaps the only thawing agent for the dead grass. Where there were little patches of snow, the blood permeated throughout in flowery patterns.

"Why don't you let it go?"

Again, you ask these questions to which I have no answer. What was my life before this thing that I carry? I cannot remember a time without it. Or rather, I can remember that with my love, whose memory is fading slowly, I didn't have this rope over my shoulder.

"That's an interesting word," you remark.

"What?"

"Love."

I realize that there is some part of me exposed to you, more than the raw skin on my face long since dried into a clammy pudding by the chilled air. You had heard the monologue scraping along in my brain. I felt shame at first, but what use was there for shame when my legs cried out with pain at every step, and my back was on the verge of seizing. I answer, "I don't know why I thought of that word, but now I can think of no other."

"Can you remember what happened to that love?"

Silence from me, again, is all you receive. I cannot, but a flicker of hurt momentarily thuds with a heartbeat. The rope in my hand slips, as though the weight has gotten heavier behind me. I turn to look at it, but I can't rotate my head enough to see it. I say, "Nothing good… Something bad happened, but I don't know what."

"That's okay," you say, and your voice soothes me, lightening the load just enough to allow me to walk at my usual pace again.

The wind picks up and howls in my face, buffeting flakes of snow against my clothes. I look down and find myself wearing some sort of sweater and some thin pants. Hardly enough for weather such as this, but I do not think the cold could be repelled by any fabric. I can feel it grinding in every joint, washing through every muscle, prickling every centimeter of exposed flesh. I think to ask you a question, "Who are you?"

"I already told you my name," you reply. A repetition just slips through my mind again, totally foreign.

I clench my jaw. "I know that much. I was asking who you are past the name."

"There's no need to get frustrated," you chastise.

"I'm sorry," I say quickly. Of course, I never meant to hurt you, and the fear of losing my only companion, such as you are, causes the rope to slip once more.

I can feel the slight warmth from your smile again. "You're quick to apologize. Quick to take the burden of guilt. Do you think that's what you carry behind you?"

My head yearns to turn, but my shoulder obfuscates any knowledge of what I drag. In my mind's eye, I picture a large sled laden with dark crates. I don't know why. I say, "You can't carry guilt like this, can you?"

"I can't, but perhaps you can."

I'm still unsure, as I seem to know for a fact that guilt is an emotion, intangible, and certainly weightless. Judging by the droplets of blood which fall from my hand only to be crushed by my boot, the thing I carry is not weightless.

My heart returns to love… There is an aspect of torment at the notion of loss. I had it, and now it's gone, and something tells me that I am at fault for losing it. Something tells me, deep within myself, that the love was not ripped from me unjustly.

A fresh tear forms in my eye, which I had not thought possible. The memory of warmth, of light, of beauty… I know of these things only in faint feeling and distant recollection, hazy from my time walking through the field. That hurts me further - to know of these things yet to have no way of ever feeling them again, particularly from that one love…

"You made a mistake, didn't you?" I hear you ask.

"I-I don't know," I stammer. It's true.

The cold deepens and your voice is stern as it pushes, "Yes you do."

"I… I lost it, but I don't know how. I lost that love - the only thing I can remember about my past, and I lost it."

You lose the sternness. "And you feel horrible about losing it, to the point that you would do just about anything to have it back, correct?"

The answer comes to my lips before I can think about it. "Yes," I whisper.

I did not expect silence from you this time, but indeed that is what I received. I again re-shouldered the thick length of rope tying me to that sled of dark crates, or whatever it was. All I knew was the walk. All I could feel was the agony in every limb, the burning of my body juxtaposed yet not tempered at all by the winter around me.

And it was then that a biting thought nagged at my mind. It's resentment, and it is directed at you. Before you came along, I knew my purpose, however meager and aching. I knew I had to walk, and carry this burden, and that is what I did until time became an endless streak of paint on an endless canvas. Those memories, those faint recollections, always existed, but I had buried them into the pain of walking, into the pain of carrying this burden. From your first question, you had awakened in me this sense of loss, of deeper struggle. I wish you'd never come to me. I wish I could walk on eternally without thinking of love - of loss, again.

"I can see you're mad at me," you say mildly.

My voice is not used to being harsh, so I overdo it in my reply, "Yes, I'm mad! Why are you asking me these stupid questions? Why are you reminding me of what I lost?"

"Do you know where you are?" you ask, almost amused.

My head swings from left to right, seeing nothing but trees and darkness. In fact, the night seems to have descended into pitch, the moon hidden behind more menacing clouds. I say, "I don't know."

"That seems to be a common answer," you say, definitely amused.

I feel the brush of heat from your smile, and I cannot help but allow it into my heart, bolstering my spirit. My anger melts into annoyance. "Do you know where we are?"

"Where you are, not me," you say. "And yes, I do, but the answer is not important right now, trust me."

For some reason, I cannot help but trust you.

Then, maybe by some of your intervention, a memory flutters into my head.

I'm standing at an island in an expansive kitchen, looking at papers and feeling tears run down my face. I know I have done this to myself. I know it is my fault that these papers are here, and the house in which I stand is horribly empty, echoes of a past life trapped in the walls.

Reality comes back to me, and I almost stop walking. "What was that?"

"I think that was shortly before you began your hike," you say.

"When did I begin?"

You take a breath - I can feel it because it seems the wind lessens as you do it. "Time is a strange thing in this land, isn't it?"

A question percolates to the top of my mind. "Why did you start speaking to me?"

"Perhaps you're interesting to speak with."

"If that were the case, you would have spoken to me… days, weeks, months… maybe even years ago. Why now?"

You do not answer the question. Instead, you say, "That rope that's causing your hands to bleed out, can you let it go?"

I hold it tighter in response. "No… It's all I have."

"Those memories of love which you accuse me of burdening you with, are they causing you pain, still?"

"All I know is the aching in my bones and body," I say. "That is all I have felt for as long as I can remember."

"Do you think you have walked long enough?" you ask.

"No," is my immediate reply. "I mean… I don't know."

You smile, and this time I can feel you beaming at me. The snow lightens, and the moon's light penetrates the clouds more than it had in all my time walking through the forest. Your voice is kind. "Let go of the rope."

I sense it is some sort of command, and I can feel my body rejoice, yet I hesitate. "L-let go of the rope?" I repeat. "Are you sure?"

"As sure as the ocean's tides," you say. "Forgive yourself. Let go of the rope."

My fingers, stiff and bled down, unclench just enough for the rope to slip through my hands, leaving one last burn as they go. I stumble forward, the weight which was slowing my walk now gone. Turning back, I can see the rope, and as my fingers uncurl, blood dripping down their lengths, I'm tempted to reach out for it again.

"I still can't see what I was carrying," I say, still walking. Now that my hands have tasted liberation from their burden, my legs cry out for the same mercy.

And, as the sky lightens further, I hear your voice say, "I think you've been here quite long enough, Walker."

"What do you mean?"

"Stop walking."

My legs obey, yet they are so stiff I can't help but fall to the ground. The snow falls so lightly now, so lightly as I flip myself onto my back, my body numb as all the pain is released. Your voice is closer now, in tune with my own as though in harmony. "Take your time," you say. "It's all over."

The sky brightens suddenly, the snow giving way to a brilliant dawn bathing the rippling clouds with a reddish orange glow. The tops of the trees are illuminated for the first time, and I realize I have come to rest in some sort of clearing in the forest. There is no sign of the rope anymore, and I feel my breathing slow. The memories of love, and loss, come back to me in full color, but they no longer torment me. As the pain in my legs and hands ebb, so too does my guilt and the sorrow of what has passed. The sky opens before me, a brilliant shade of azure. I hear a melody coming from all around me as I close my eyes, the music of the world resonating in my bones as I breathe my last.