The Desert…

There comes a time when you realize that you will not last the distance; that your lungs will explode before the last lap; that you will go down as someone who couldn’t finish off. On such times you remind yourself of all those people who finished their race, try and motivate yourself, give yourself a false hope while all the while your heart knows it is a futile attempt.

I guess it is better to walk alone and let no one hear how loud your heart thumps against your rib cage. You can’t hope to have anyone hear the muffled cry of pain you hold back in your chest with every step you take and every day you plod through. When you walk with sand in your face an entire lifetime, your eyes use every opportunity to shed a few tears. Oddly enough, the scorching sun dries them up before you could use them for moistening your parched lips.

The desert doesn’t leave you. It slowly becomes a part of you. Your heart doesn’t pump blood any longer. There are sand dunes in your head, slow moving, forever changing, never resting. Your soul is always searching for an oasis. The quest never ends; the struggle never ceases. Mirages dupe you and rob you of your precious sap. You waste a portion of your life in these illusions trying to distinguish between love and lust and end up wasting yourself in the process and eventually die before the Sahara ends.

I owned a camel once and rode on fast and focused. It served well and was a faithful friend. I abandoned it for a beautiful deer. Stupid, isn’t it? But, that is what love does to you. You forsake your ambitions, your pride, your self-respect and often your wisdom for something that you never can catch or even needed in the first place. If you are doomed, you will end up trading camels for deer throughout your life until one day you realize a deer is not even worth the weight of its meat under the burning sun.

When the night falls, you end up digging a hole in the sand and using it as a blanket when the mercury drops. The same sand you were trying to shield yourself from the day, becomes your refuge in the night. The sand comes to your defense like a parent and doesn’t complain. Next day, you shrug it off your back again and keep walking.

In the end, it just boils downs to a drink. If you can manage to refresh what you lose as sweat, you live else you die. I guess I will take the last sip now and see how long these final few drops will take me. Not the entire distance I know, but it will be fun to push these old bones one last time, churn the remaining juice in my veins and stretch my arms before taking the final fall. Maybe it will be all worth it…