Reflections

I stand like a fence post at the edge of a desert, without a purpose. All of my possessions are lost, and now, frayed with travel, I stand here and breathe the hot air of this rancid afternoon. My pockets are empty. My keys, along with my previous life, have fallen through the holes. I cannot feel my fingers or toes. Only my mind remains, shifting upon the pilings of unclear memories and the ebbing tide of my exhaustion. Who am I? I would say if I knew. A breeze wafts garbage along like tumbleweed. The crumpled paper sticks to a tuft of grass.

This is the edge of civilization. No one lives here. No one is that stubborn. It is the weekend refuge for adolescent drinkers, frustrated clerks, dropouts and young lovers. Here they light a fire and shout defiance at the night. They taunt the edge of the dark, daring it to reach out and snatch them away, half-believing that it could. But it never does. They leave their trash and return to their lives. They leave the night and return to the sunlit windows of their daylight existence. They left but I remain. Something in the dark wouldn't let me go.

Where civilization ends, a human being is forced to question how he defines his own existence. So much of what we normally use to define our existence is absent here. I have no car, no driver's license, no money, no photographs, no companions. With each passing moment the recollections of my former life become more transparent. I feel as though my mind is overexposed. It has turned the color of the world prior to creation.

The sun hangs motionless above me. I have no way of telling how long I have stood here, without thought. For me, without a watch, time is measured by passing thoughts, and only now my thoughts begin to flow, slowly trickling through the stones of a featureless landscape.

There is something alluring about the line of the horizon. In the desert, one's attention is invariably drawn to it. The line of the horizon acquires an almost supernatural quality. It ceases to be a mere visual reference and becomes a destination. It becomes the answer to every question. The line of the horizon is the perfect promise. It is the physical embodiment of faith. My thoughts begin to gravitate toward what lies just over the visible horizon. With these incipient thoughts I take my first steps. I am walking toward the edge of the known and beyond, into the desert.