Vast was the wasteland laid out before me as it had always been. A quick stop along the way well over it was time once again to move on.
Grabbing my baggage I smiled hesitantly afraid to admit I might have lost my mind somewhere back around Albuquerque.
There was a cold wind from the south this evening and the ever so slight smell in the air of rain. When it rains it pours. Without any other option I moved onward into the night. Silent. The cold sensation of being solitary swept over me once again as my eyes stared forward following the obscured path to my destination. Days perhaps weeks or was it years I had traveled this road and weary I am. Perhaps someday rewarded with the journeys end I shall find peace, but alas not today.
A stranger ahead as there have been many.
To take away my solitude and betray the silence with stories and tales of adventure, glory, suffering and pain that had driven them into the wasteland I call home. A stranger perhaps but treated as any other I walk in the company of madness. The smell of the soul ever so tempting, ever so tainted with the tragedies that lay in wait like a cancer only to rise unheralded and eat away the flesh of that which was once pure. My heart beats for them for they know not who they are.
Or what.
Tales had been spun and my judgment to be called upon as it has been and shall be forever again in vain.
Words with no meaning reach deafened ears that can not find solace in the soundless night which abounded so triumphant despite the intrusion of this stranger.
"Why would I care to waste what breath I have left in me?" I asked the stranger aloud. "But kind sir!" replied with the eyes of the guilty dog, "Your wisdom is great and your advice treasured but alas I know not wherein lies MY adventure."
A sadness fell over me as I stopped again. How long will it take till I reach my own end? Reaching down within to find only emptiness where once there was a boundless supply I could but stare back at the stranger and replied
"Son, your just plain shit outta luck."
With a gaze much like that of a hamburger the stranger appeared to be mortified in confusion at my lack of ability to really give a rat's ass about his predicament and with a voice much like the voice of a frightened child the stranger spoke once more. "Please?"
There could be no reply at this point that would not come in the form of non-physical violence, something I care not for, but at least have considered a possibility from time to time. In many years of my travels many strangers have I met many days and many years they come to pass and this stranger like all other would as well. There was no point. The stranger stared in horror as I turned and walked away. "What did I do?" was all I heard just before I turned and made the stranger go away.
I walked on in my solitude.
