To Roam the Desert

He had always wanted to be human. His search led him to a mortal to which he would commend the whole universe. Perhaps his inexplicable indifference to bear the weight of the heavens had now made him a castaway on earth.

He walked for forty days, in what he feared to be a circular trajectory, until he found himself at a maze of water to submerge himself in. The horizon told him there was no end in sight. Still, he had to find the man he had wished to be. Perhaps the fluttering of the wings of a butterfly had brought upon him that hurricane leaving him shipwrecked and unconscious. That night he awoke in a fortress of stone.

They will think I’m insane, a liar, he thought but he could bare it no more and upon raising his voice he let out words into the air that captivated the citizens’ curiosity. They gave him ink and paper to drown his insanity. However, his words reached the whole world.

It will exceed fantasy until it becomes absurd, he thought again. Soon enough they called upon him, orientated him, and gave him supplies and advise on conquering the desert, that place sought out by so many religious leaders as something not to escape, but as a place to find themselves.

He spent about a century or more wandering the wilderness and all its abstract essence, chimerical horizons, and infinite skies. He had gone past the threshold of which he had been warned where, in the deepness of the desert, time is nothing more but an attempt to make death short and the waiting long while fusing together present, past, and future in a single breath.

Having heeded that advice he roamed the emptiness without finding what he sought to find. He lay tired and skeptical, perhaps disappointed. The desert waited for another anxious wanderer.



J-Lopez (Dario Mariategui)


San Diego


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