So awhile ago, after school one day, i discovered i had this thing called free time. So I wrote this story in an hour, and have not really revised it at all. I think I like it, but I’m not really sure. It really is more of a philosophy; an idea. You might even call it a personal manifesto on life, or maybe not. The grammar is probably all screwed up because I wrote it in an hour, but I really don’t care. Also Riley, you should illustrate a scene from this. If you want to – no pressure.
There they stood in the desert, him with her, or her with him but no one was there to tell the difference. Nonetheless, they were lost and without a map. She asked him,
“So how do we get out of here?”
He stared off slowly in every direction, “I’m not sure there is a beginning or an end.” He said.
“Well a map would tell us that”, she said
“Actually, I don’t think it would”, he paused and seemed to be set in one direction “We don’t need a map”, he said, resolutely.
So they set a direction and they called it north. She was afraid that they were going south, but he assured her they were going north. They walked for a while and eventually she found a stick. She held it up and displayed it for him. It was a nice stick with the appropriate knots and lines. She handed it to him and for a while they wondered what to do.
“Try putting it back in the sand” she suggested. He complied and they found that the stick seemed more comfortable out of the sand.
“I don’t think we should leave it” he said
“But what if it wants to stay?” she mused
“Well, we’ll never truly know, so we might as well take it with us”
She was filled with anxiety,
“But what if we come across more sticks and they are better”
He wondered the same himself
“There’s nothing we can really do; we need to make a choice. I think this is our stick”
She stared at the stick again, and the stick stared back
“I think it is” she finally agreed
They stood there for a while,
“I don’t know what to do with it now?” he said
“Well”, she said “It is our stick, so we should do what we want with it”
He stood looking at the sand and in a moment of spontaneity drew a line. He was half animated when he did it and he didn’t think about it until after he did it. The action was almost not his own.
“What did you just do?” she asked
“What did I just do?” he repeated
She stared at the line. It was about two feet long and was not perfectly straight. In a moment of spontaneity, she walked along side it. He looked at her.
“I think we should follow the line” she said. He now started to think,
“I think we should follow the line” he said. So he followed the line and he reached the end. They stood together and he handed her the stick. She drew a line; a long line. He followed and they stood at the end again.
“Well I don’t want it to end here” he said
“Then take the stick” and she handed it to him. He drew a line that curved at the end.
“Should we follow that line”, she said “It curves to the side”
“I think we should do what we want to do, it’s our stick, it’s our line” he paused “we are the masters of our fate, we are the captains of our soul.”
“I like that” she said “Let’s follow it”
And so they followed. They continued to draw lines, some straight; some curvy. Some were straight then curvy. She drew one that made an abrupt direction change, and he drew a short one.
“Why did you draw a short one?” she asked
“Well, why not?” he said
They continued on until they decided to stop. They turned around and looked at the lines in the sand. They looked at the stick. They looked at each other.
“I like the lines we’ve drawn” she said
“Do you think we should stop” he asked
“Yes, I think we’ve drawn enough” she announced
They laid down in the sand and stared into each other’s face
“I’m glad we went together” he said
“Well, no one does this alone” she said
They laid there for some time, and some time more. They laid there forever. The sands shifted and their bodies faded to dust. The dust shifted with the sands. The lines blew away. There was no trace of them. They had wandered in the desert and then reached the end, their end.
