The Journey(revised)

The Journey- by Brittany Kaye Miller

Gray skies cluttered with thick clouds signaled to the Old One that a storm was going to appear. Storms were rare, normally the sky burned almost white hot, the atmosphere encouraging the bone breaking winds to blow strong and relentless. Long ago, when the Old One was a young one, the vegetation surrendered to the sweltering pressure cooker of the blazing sun. The only plants still living were those grown in the cave formations of old, once called Eoilan caves. Natural fortresses made of ancient sandstone rock where those clever enough to survive, planted their saved seeds and harnessed the sun using pieces of shiny-shiny looking glass that was still found in big pieces in some of the abandoned places.

The abandoned places were where the Old One was coming from, where the Old One had to go to help the Young One. There were not many young ones left; humanity had quickly succumbed to the plagues, the hunger, and the heat. A once bountiful home turned hostile, claiming all life that it could. Those that were smart, the ones that remembered the old ways; the ways of the First Nation, they survived, but barely. Eventually the Great Creator would call them all home, that is something the Old One knew all too well. However, they had to try; they had to look for hope. The Young Ones were the key to the preservation of hope, and so the Old One had to carry on, had to believe the Young One’s fever had not taken their life’s breath just yet.

Taking a deep breath through the ragged cloth face covering, the Old One reached into their travelling bag. Gnarled hands with callused covered fingers searched deep looking for the water skin within. Cool temperate metal brushed against the gruff fingertips. The Old One stopped short amidst their search to focus on the foreign object they had found in the debris of the abandoned place. The Old One winced at the memory of the abandoned place. The place that had no smell, no sound, and no life.

The Old One knew that the abandoned place had once had a name, a name like the Old One had when they were young. Time and loss had taken the name from both the abandoned place and the Old One. The golden object found next to the bones of the dead had symbols sketched deep in to the metal. Symbols the Old One knew had come from the language of before. The Old One lifted the golden heart shaped locket from the travelling bag and let the cool metal cascade in to their palm. Turning the foreign object over repeatedly tracing the etchings with their fingertip, trying to remember what the symbols meant when put together. Stopping on the hinge of the locket the Old One turned it, and pried opened the trinket. Inside the gold shaped heart, a faded picture of a pretty woman with a happy smiling face holding a young one beamed up. The Old One smiled to themselves, the Young One would like this treasure, it was something new, something old, something that had survived despite the world moving on.

Quickly sensing the shift in pressure, the Old One returned the locket to the traveling bag careful not to drop the prize into the sand below. Grabbing the water skin in the same swift gesture, the Old One silently mouthed a prayer to the Great Creator for the luck befalling them. Water was scarce outside of the caves, and the journey to the abandoned place had been long and full of hardships, the water skin almost empty. Thick heavy drops of rain started to cascade from above, opening their water skin to accept the gift of life given from the Great Creator, the Old One removed their face covering and tipped their head to the sky allowing both to be filled until full.

With the heat temporarily abated, the Old One knew the respite would not last long, they gathered up their walking stick, moved the cloth covering back over their nose and mouth, beginning the journey home once again. Taking sinking steps into the thick sand below, laboring against the rain, and looming darkness overhead, the Old One resolved their self to finish the journey no matter what obstacles that still arose. Thinking long and hard about the symbols engraved on the metal, the letters spelling “L O V E”, the Old One knew that even though they could not remember what the symbols meant, somehow, and some way they knew the feeling was what was driving them. The feeling was carrying them on their journey back to the Young One, back to their home.