Lost Appointment

Exhausted and parched, he struggles toward a promise that may never come.

The sun hammered down on his skull, merciless. Strength left him with every step. In the distance, a lone monolith held its ground in the middle of nowhere. He fixed his eyes on it and staggered forward, his legs already starting to betray him.

He went down to his knees on the burning sand. Crawling, inch by inch, he pulled himself into the rock's thin wedge of shade. He unscrewed his canteen, upended it, and licked the dry mouth of it like an animal. A drop or two.

From his pocket, he fished out a crumpled map. The oasis — if the damned thing was right — couldn't be more than two hours away. He stared at the lines, trying to make sense of them through the shimmer.

"How does it work?" he muttered, half-laughing, half-delirious. The map, the desert, the whole rotten arrangement.

He decided to wait for dusk. Move when the sun loosened its grip. Somehow, he'd make it.

The Reaper, meanwhile, lay beneath the palm trees — an idle shadow propped on a stick, picking at dates. Patient. Watching. Waiting. For a man who never came, because he'd taken the wrong road.

Their meeting was simply postponed.

In a straighter kind of time...