text: Night was beginning again and sure enough, an orangish, redlining began to strum the edges of a dusty horizon. Far off somewhere amid the endless miles of dunes walked a half-dead corpse, treading upon what so long ago thrived. But now in every direction, sand stretched across this barren wasteland, engulfing the so-called world few inhabited. What lived, killed, and what was killed, rotted alongside the souls of the living. Each grain of sand this corpse-like-traveler kicked up was one of sin and pain, a breeding ground for death and despair. And with each step one took echos from beneath strained in your ears, begging and grasping for anything. Hell couldn’t have been any closer. Klunk, Klunk, klunk, klunk. “Daum this bad.” Cliunch, cliunch. “Daum this is really bad. Did that old, mute codger tell me to take a left at the crossroad or was it a right...Daum.” The traveler had crossed many deserts all part of the whole, not one was any different than another. The traveler sought a town that rested beyond the red of a sand dune somewhere seemingly past infinity. This town was supposedly large in size and in number. And the city had golden gates that stretched miles across hairs of green grass. The glimmer and magnitude of the gates were marveled by all who stood facing it from any direction. And the inhabitants that resided peacefully within the city’s marvelous gates, were mostly in the older stages of life. Yet despite their old, grouchy, highly envied lives, the residents kindly welcomed all who sought their heavenly oasis or so he was told once long ago by his mother. Eventually making up his mind, the weary traveler decided to stay left at the fork and slowly, yet surely, he made his way, sticking to the dirty beaten path he has tread upon for so long. The traveler had walked many miles, day after day, month after month, and year after year, and not once had he come across a town that met such a description. Yet the traveler stayed upon this path, completely relying on hope and the whisper of a fairy tale ingrained within his heart. On the verge of yielding his search, the traveling man crawled to peer over one last reddish sand dune, and to the world’s wonder there stretching off into the desert a magnificent gate, a gate that seemed impossible, until now, to find. The man broke down upon his knees and wept until the sun had fully dissipated into the horizon. His search had come to an end. After traveling seven years upon this wasted world his seemingly endless search had reaped benefits. The traveler made his way closer and closer to the city’s gates, hardly believing what his eyes made out. “Surely.” he said to himself, “Surely this is it, this must be it, Surely.” The traveler, now sprinting toward the gates, yelped out into the night, begging the sun to rise once again so as to cast light upon the golden egg of the blood-stained world. In fact, he believed if the sun did at once rise again he would welcome death in any torturous way. Eventually, the man couldn’t stand to wait in the dark any longer, he must reach the town, he must reach the heaven on hell. Two figures in soldier’s armor approached the traveler steadily with spears and spoke out, “What is it that you seek young vagabond?” The traveler still stained by the tears from before responded with the words spoken by a transformed man: “I seek a life within your city of gold and green. A permanent stay if at all possible. For I am exhausted and tired of traveling upon this desolate, life straining world. Since the very day I found out that there was a city such as this hidden amongst the dirt, I have yearned to learn more about it. So I could be in this very spot, talking to you. ” The two soldiers glanced at one another, then in unison, both took off their helmets and placed them upon the grains of hell beneath their feet. “Welcome, we will humbly accept your request.” The two soldiers, leaving their helmets stranded in the abyss, turned towards the gates, and instantly cracks of something bright unlike light began to seep through the crevices of the opening masterpiece. The brightness of the inside overwhelmed the traveler so much so that the two gatesmen had to pick him up and carry him inside. Within the walls, there were wondrous pieces of art and sculptures. And houses of gold and silver-lined the city streets, each leading in different directions and met up in many different ways. Instantly the two solders dissipated back into the night, possibly to retrieve their helmets from before, but neither one returned. The traveler gradually regained his bearings and as soon as he did he noticed the difference of color upon the ground. Thereupon the ground was grass, the greenest of its kind. The traveler flopped upon the strands in ecstasy, crying out-loud in triumph. Upon the grass not far from the traveler, a group of children danced and sang merely. The words the children used in their melodies were recognizable to the traveler but put together with the melody, each word sounded similar to an infant's speech. And Old folks trod grudgingly past each other block after block going somewhere, but where too would never be determined. The brightness that once overwhelmed the traveler from before now yielded to darkness which swiftly swept over the buildings and citizens in only a moment's notice, yet the children and old folk’s actions were completely unfazed by any change of any sort. The traveler, shocked by all that had taken place, stooped around upon the firm soil bewildered and frightened. The world he dreamed of for so long ago seemed so different than what appeared before him now. The gates he envied to see for so long, that were only a few footsteps behind him, had vanished from sight along with the brightness he saw once he first entered the gates. From up ahead an old man approached the traveler, he wore long silk stockings and a baggy suit with columns of buttons running down the sides of his sleeves. And his body stretched outward farther than it did upward. “Hello, there good sir! You must be the stranger the guards picked up outside the gates. Is that right?” Mumblelishly, the traveler managed to make out somewhat of a yes to the old man. “Alright, ok ok, and they did mention to me that you’d wish to live here freely, is this also valid?” “Yes”, said the traveler once again, this time with a slightly more lively tone to it. “Righteo, then lastly..., I assume then that you do have something to give to the rest of the residents in compensation for allowing you to live alongside us?” “Huh”, said the traveler still utterly confused by the changes in his surroundings and now, even more so, bewildered by the previous statement. “I asked you, dear sir, do you have anything to give to us in compensation, for allowing you to live here.” “No sir, I do not.” responded the traveler monotonously, looking now at the rounded man. “So, you have nothing, is that truly true?” “Yes sir, that is correct. I have nothing of worth to give anyone in this town, nothing at all. I was told by many that this town was free of charge to dwell in, but it appears now that I am here, I would be mistaken." An impish grin consisting of both fire and malice rose upon the rounded man's face. "Indeed, you would be mistaken, no place as such lies on this earth. This world is consumed by evil, and evil is all it will ever be." The ground beneath the two began to tremble, and spurts of sand gushed up from beneath, smothering the grass and the soil. Yet the children didn't relent from singing, neither did they hesitate from laughing. Not even the old folks faltered when they walked through the sand pits, which we're building up all across the ground. Fear along with sand gripped the wanderer's body, and there was nothing he could do about it, for the roundish man he had once been conversing with dissolved into the sand which was gushing out from almost every place, there was absolutely nothing that he could change. Nothing at all... And so with that thought in mind, the young man leaned back and embraced the sand upon which he will forever lay.