The Wanderer

It had been so long since I had had heard something even vaguely human that the first time it graced my ears I stopped, dead in my tracks. I remembered the night well. It was a frosty night, cold enough to freeze the tips of the wavy grass around me and the sky was clear save for a few stars that dared to wake up from their slumber. I had been walking barefoot, enjoying the gentle tickling of the grass that massaged my foot after a particular hard journey on the road and I was dragging my feet, my eyes closed in pleasure despite the bitter cold.



I can’t remember what I had been wearing at the time but that is irrelevant anyway. And then I heard laughter in the distance, darting through the trees and soaring low over the fields before tumbling into my ears in waves.  I stopped and I supposed my eyes widened as I stood still I the shadow that was night. The laughter chimed again and I held my breath, worried that by moving I would somehow chase away the laughter back into the woods that were to my right and where I supposed the sound was coming from.



The suddenly a draught rushed past, drowning what I had thought to be the starting of another bout of laughter and for a moment, all was silent. I stayed quietly where I was, still not daring to move and waited for some silent signal from the world around me that it was safe to continue my silent walk. The laughter did not sing again and after a few minutes of pure silence, I turned away from the woods where I felt the sound had come from and continued dragging my feet through the grass.



At first, it was first quiet and I had lost some of the relish that I had felt running through me before the laughter and I felt like a child who continued playing right after one of his playmates had been told off. At first, the other children were quiet and their games were played half-heartedly but in the matter of minutes their boisterousness and joy shone through them once more and they were playing just as vigorously as before. Now I was walking steadier and the relaxed mood that I had first felt was returning slowly but surely through my veins.



The laughter had unsettled me. For years I had lived in exile, for years I had wandered the earth, sometimes sleeping underneath the trees or in open view in the fields and not once, in all my years of exile had I heard any sound representing human life except for my own breathing and screaming.  I would talk too, sometimes when I wanted to remind myself I was not an ordinary animal roaming the forest but a real human being, but that is hardly the point.  I looked up at the moon that had now decided to show itself and saw the reflection of my own face staring back at me.





They say you can look at the moon and see the person you miss most but all I miss is myself. To some, that is selfish, to think of one’s own self but really, I can’t help it.  In my reflection, I am smiling and my eyes are full of joy and power, my posture one that demands authority and yet here I am, trudging the very land I once ruled, reduced to an exile.  I miss that look in my eye and I miss that smile. I miss everything about my old self, from his dirty habits to his kindest acts.  It’s funny isn’t it? I’m talking about my past self as if I was an entirely different person back then. It some aspects, I suppose that is true but still, aren’t you always the same person no matters what happens?



On the day of my exile, I felt changed, reborn somehow. I felt like I had left everything I had been behind and was being bought into the world for the first time again. It wasn’t a happy feeling but it wasn’t a sad feeling, it was more of awareness, but nevertheless, the awareness has never left me.  I shook my head of its thoughts.  There was no need to think about the past, that was already over and there is nothing I can do now to change my past.  I forced myself to relax, breathing in the cool wind of the breeze before continuing my steady pace.  It was him, I knew it was, his laughter was as exactly as  I remembered it even after all these years and once again, he was haunting me, the carefree sound of his joy will once more be the undoing of me.



  I remember his sweet face, that joyous smile and that flippant attitude that had amazed me from the very first time we met.  His words of wisdom and his peculiar quirks came back to me, it was still there among all the pain and suffering and somewhere, along with that part of his memory that I had hidden from all others was a part of me, long discarded but not forgotten.



  He had asked me, one fine summer’s day to not fail him in whatever I did and I had promised, only to break it a week afterwards. I remember his screams as he was dragged out by men and I remember how he looked at me, scared, worried and shocked but most of all, hidden in a corner of the deep irises of his eyes was a single piece of disappointment that I have never forgotten. Age may have dulled my memories of my family, my past life and my hometown but he was hidden so deep inside me that Age, nor anything else could touch it and ravish it.

                                                                                    ******





Now, the sun was high in the sky and I realized I had been walking all night without rest. The laughter had set me on edge more than I knew and even now, I was still tense as if I expected the laughter to start up again.  I looked around me and saw nothing but the rugged terrain of a Mountain. There were rocks everywhere, cluttered by the paths, almost blocking them from view and I could see where the small mountain paths rose up into the mountain itself, beginning the long journey upwards.  The area looked familiar but after five years of exile, all places did.



Maybe he may have already traversed this route before but anything was better than staying in what spot and giving up. If you stayed to long, bitterness would reach your heart and devour it without mercy, unheeding to your cries and pleas. Before long you would be nothing but a slave to Darkness, walking without vision or direction, already half dead. There was never hope for you if this happened and if you ever found and bought back to civilization, you would be changed for the worse. The friends you had longed for before would become dull and unappealing and even the closest family member would become a thorn in your side.



  I had seen it happen before, those poor souls being marched into the villages, not an ounce of strength in them as they looked at you with emotionless eyes, being nursed to health only to become hated by all surrounding them. No, I would never let them happen to me for Adrian’s sake if nothing else. I had already failed him once before and I would not again for if there was even the slightest chance that fate might smile upon him and give one last glimpse at Adrian, I would be sane and his own, nobody’s slave.  I felt my feet steadily rising and I realized that I had already walked up into the mountains. I glanced at the scenery and saw the green of the grass and trees and the brown of the rocks.



Once again, the mountain felt familiar and I felt something in my mind stir, but I pushed it aside. I had never been here before and if I had, so what? Those who are exiled do not get to choose their routes.  For the next half of the day, I walked like this, pushing memories aside and ignoring my tangents, not glancing once at the view, just walking, walking to who knows where. Finally, around midday, I reached the top and gazed down at the mountain on the other side and craned my neck to see a village. There was none and the view was the same. Rocks, trees and grass stretching endlessly over the ground.



I turned around, my back to the view and saw a small tree that was not quite grown but grown enough to produce shade.  It was a hot day and so, I made towards the tree and sat down. Then the memory exploded in my mind and my open opened wide with the force of it. He had been here before, long ago before my banishment, with Adrian.  I remembered how we had climbed up, talking about nothing in particular and how we had stopped here, underneath this very tree to share a squashed sandwich that Adrian had hurriedly packed in his rucksack.



It hadn’t been a very filling lunch and they had both been hungry afterwards but the day had been so pleasant, later on they always took out the fact that they had almost starved themselves to exhaustion.  Suddenly, like a whirlwind, memories of Adrian came back to me, some happy, some sad and I was powerless to stop it. I leaned my head back against the trunk of the tree, closing my eyes. I had almost become a slave of darkness by keeping memories of Adrian inside of me and as always, Adrian himself came to my rescue. He was telling me to remember him, he was telling me he wanted me sane and so for Adrian’s sake, I will remember. Even if finish weeping, screaming in agony over what I had done.