The Barren Wasteland

I know the Wolf has been silent for some time now, almost a week. And anyone monitoring / reading these, would probably like more frequent updates.  Life is making things crazy for me.  It may have been bad timing on my part to start a blog and to start writing more. I'll be teaching a class coming January at a local university.  It's my first time and I need to prep.  However, my passion is writing and will always be.  As Robert Jordan stated, "I'll be writing until they nail my coffin shut."  Well, sadly to the world of authors and literary talent... His coffin is shut.  So, I won't be using that line myself. However, as long as the Wolf within me is alive and well, I will be writing. 

This Short story - "The Barren Wasteland" has a redundant title, however, I chose it to emphasize the true descriptive and artistic qualities of this land I describe.  The assignment given by a writers group I was a part of was to write about child abuse using little to no dialogue.  This was a tough piece to write as I like dialogue and / or inner monologues of the characters.  So, this has one main character, almost no dialogue. (I had to use some, but it's limited).  And despite the main character being described as an adult person.  Think of the world written from a child's point of view.  Though the views are a bit mixed.  Think of this as a piece describing how a hurt child may see the world..  It's only speculation, but, I thought it was a great way to try out new artistic expression.

I don't like clarifying my stories for readers because I want readers to interpret what they read for themselves.  In short, I want my works to stand alone, but, this one, I felt was crucial to give a bit of back story. 

However, I will state, this piece is a bit dark.  Given the task at hand, I had to write this from a darker point of view. 

The barren Waste Land

by GrayWolf 8/20/2011

The wind and sand is like sandpaper sanding away all the scars upon my inner being.  Yet, defiantly I walk into the wind.  Disheveled hair, pale skin, sunken brown eyes, a leather worn pale tan jacket that’s been shredded as much as me.  You see, my boots are old and torn, My jeans, are filthy turning brown from the endless sand.  The few others that survive out in this barren waste land, that aren’t parched or withered up and mostly dead that ask me where I’m from, don’t really care because of where we are.

            If I had to answer, well it doesn’t really matter now does it. I’ve always been a lone.  And to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing me, would just be a moot point in this desolate land.  There’s nothing here. Nothing left.  The earth withered and died.  The few humans that remain are little more than festering zombies waiting to die.  I on the other and through some masochistic need to survive keep on living.  Surviving, just barely, on what I can find.

            I’d tell someone my name, but, what’s the point. There’s nothing here in this land that cares.  So, just call me that Guy. That’s all that really matters; is that guy that wonders the abandoned lands.  So, I wonder the lands surveying what’s left, trying to see if there’s any hope left, any place that maybe life could once thrive again.  So far I’ve only found death.  Not mine, mind you.  Never mind.

            A dusty tear runs down the dusty guys face turning to a small mound of dirt and grime on his chin.  That guy, swipes his dirt encrusted chin.  The sleeve of his jacket leaving more dirt and grime than was there prior.

            The Guy walks down the dusty path. Some ancient humans may have called this a road.  At best it’s a desert encrusted path to nowhere.  The path, sand covered, and deserted, contains a few large chunks of black encrusted materials broken and withered with thin rods of metal sticking out.  At one time this may have been called pavement or chunks of concrete. The large chunks stick up out of the ground as large obelisks to the sun Gods. A smile crossed that guys face at the thought. The sun Gods.  As if there were any Gods… Nope there was just That Guy walking down an empty desolate, hopeless path.  The other sign of a path were the odd shaped buildings. Or what was left of them.  There was nothing wood left. Time took its toll on perishable items such as wood.  All that remained was rusty shards of metal from former roofs,  the pumps of a gas station here or there sticking up out of the ground, buried long ago by sand and time. 

            Walking further down the path, boots making scraping noises against the sand every step the guy took.  With each foot fall the boots would sink into the sand.  The ground was so hot in places he could smell the stench of burning flesh.  There were no animals, just the humans rotting away.  From burning flesh to simply rotting corpses the stench reeked across the desert landscape. Humans everywhere lost in their hopeless struggle to live and all they did was sit in their misery.  Day in and day out they were unaware of the hell they kept themselves in.  The guy new better, what he saw would crush any soul.  Yet, he knew without a doubt these souls were lost. They may think they were doing something worthwhile.  He knew that they just sat their rotting away though.  He saw their reality for what it was.

            Leaving the semblance of what was left of civilization. The human rotting and stench surrounded him.  They were all around. The dead, the dieing, the hopelessness contained in their eyes.  He plodded on looking into each of their eyes to see if any had any hope.  None that he had come across yet, showed any signs of life or hope.  Sure they lived their lives.. Yet in this reality they were doing nothing more than rotting. Flesh hanging from bones, Empty eyes staring up at nothing.   Oh some had the strength to understand the Guy.  They were blind… They were all blind, they couldn’t see reality.  He dismissed them, waived them away.  They had nothing that the guy sought.  Nothing that would keep the overbearing sense of hopelessness at bay.  The world was as hopeless as he felt.  The sun beat down, cooking the ground, the flesh, the vegetation, and even burned the exposed skin of the guy’s flesh.  He was used to it though.  The burning had deadened him to the pain and now, he walked on through the desert. 

            One step at a time he traveled the vast expanse of the world in search of something.  There were a few stumps of trees. They were all dry and petrified.   The entire earth was a desert.  So far the Guy hadn’t found anything that peaked his interest. Until one day he came upon an intact building.   It resembled a school.  He decided to check it out.

            Heading over he saw movement inside.  Most he came across could barely move in their rotted state.  This was different.  He braced himself for hope as he opened the silver glass paned doors. The steel was strangely cool to his touch. It should have been scorching.  This certainly was different.  The school building was completely intact.  No signs of disrepair.  No signs of mass destruction.  He walked in and immediately was nearly frozen.   The inside was cool. Colder than anything he’d experienced.  His dust encrusted leather jacket and skin smoldered and smoked in the new cold temperatures. 
            The Guy walked through into the building’s wide halls.  Marble floors caused his boots to make huge clinking noises.  He was not used to walking on a solid footing.  He stumbled a few times trying to make his way into the building.  He heard noises.  Something wasn’t right.  Then as he rounded into the first classroom he saw a nightmare.

            He saw children in fairly good shape.  But, he saw the same empty stare from their eyes. Upon closer inspection it was their clothing that looked good. They were actually as rotted as others.  However, there was something different.  Next to each of the children was a black wraith.  They looked to be a black shadow of a floating shroud. Within their face were beady red eyes staring out. 
            Each one was hovering over the children sucking energy from them.  Several of the wraiths came over to the guy.  They reached out and started pulling at his flesh and pulling at his arms and legs. Wherever they touched hunks of skin blacked even further and started to fall off.

            A dry scratchy voice came from one of the children. It was barely audible, but the guy caught it.  Not missing a thing.  “Help us.  Save us.   Help us. Save us.”  First one kid, then another joined, then the whole classroom cried out in dry scratchy voices, echoing throughout the whole school.  Every classroom must have been full. The voices cried out “Help Us. Save Us. Help Us Save us.”    The black whisps of wraiths floated around the children as they cried out.  Their empty eyes penetrated the guy’s eyes.  The children stared him down crying out.  The wraiths joined in raising their wispy arms into the air singing out in quiet, yet demanding scratchy voices; “Yes, Help them Save them. Help them!! Save Them!!”  Over and over the echoes sounded throughout the school.  The guy saw the reality of the suffering of the children.  All of them,  were in the grips of horror beyond understanding.  This was their reality.  The guy could do nothing to save them. No more than he could for himself or any of the rotting corpses outside. 
            He continued on searching. Now he continued to see the wraiths, they became more and more common.  They hovered around, seemed to follow him, snatching away bits of his life. Clawing at him.  His hope was dwindling that there was anyplace better.  His faith was waning.  All he had now was to continue on.  But, his body was thinning, his strength was failing.  Soon he would be no more than the corpses lying around in the barren wasteland of hopelessness.

            The burned, tormented, tortured, and lost guy traveled the wastelands. Searching, using all his resolve to find what he sought. He walked along barren paths, in extreme heat, with little to carry him on but the one rumor that there was a promised land.  He searched day in and day out. Weary from the emptiness all around. For years he searched on and on, every day getting a little weaker and dying a little more.  He came upon a strange place.  It was a small pool of water in the ground.  It was only a few feet across. Blackened and dirty, yet it’s surface was highly reflective.  Initially the guy washed his face in the pool.  He then saw his reflection in the pool. There was no breeze, no wind to disturb the water.

            Gazing into the motionless pond it drew the guy in more and more. He had not seen this much water as he wondered the desert. This was a new site so he stared further into the water trying to figure it out. He heard someone crying, he looked around and was unable to anything remotely alive around him.  He just felt the unbearable scorching heat of the desert.  He turned back to the pond and stared again and he heard the crying again. He concentrated further on the pond and as he stared into it he could see a bed, a room where a little boy laid. Concentrating further the guy could see tears streaming down the little boys face.  The boy prayed through his sobs for God to protect him, to provide an angel to him to help him survive.  He prayed and cried until the boy was asleep.  This was a site that the guy didn’t know. It was a reality he didn’t know.

            He pulled himself away for a moment to try to grasp what he was seeing. It was an unreal site.  A person truly alive not being drained of their soul, not being attacked, and not wasting away into nothingness.  He looked back into the puddle and the puddle had grown in size.  He looked in and the boy was still in his room grown now, into a teenager. The prayers were the same though. “Help me, Save me, Help me, Save me.”  He cried tears of torment and agony. 
            The guy stared and noticed tears streaming down his eyes and as they came the pool got smaller.  There was a balance between the two worlds.  The guy stared into the pool the more the boy cried the more the guy was struck down in agony. 

            The wraiths came and just stood watch over the guy.  Then they saw the pool and began to claw at the boy through the pool. His agony increased, his torment was ten fold.  There was nothing left for the guy nor the boy.  No one came, no one cared, no one loved, no one was there, no one stopped to stare.  He was rejected, he was alone.  The guy knew the feeling all too well.  The barren wasteland was no home for him.  He was rejected from the world of the tormented and dyeing.

The little boy was rejected and tormented in the world of the living.

            The two were intertwined.  In just a matter of minutes the world began to get more barren, it got hotter, and the sand began to melt into glass crystals.   Soon, the whole world would crumble in the heat.  The guy had to do something to save the boy. Their fates were intertwined. 

            He jumped into the pool of tears as it dwindled and he found himself as a grown man in the boys world.  The boy got up from the bed. Walked over to the man, and gave him a genuine hug.  The boy said amongst his sniffles “Thank you for coming to save me for I was dieing.   I know you will no longer reject me. I know you will always love me.”

            As the man reach down to grasp the boy the two became one.  The whole world shifted and the pool to the barren wasteland vanished. There were no more signs of wraiths come to irradicate the soul.  There was no continued scorching of the land.

            There was no more emptiness.  The boy was rescued.  Not by anyone else but himself.  The boy and the guy sometimes disagree. However, the guy whispered to the boy one last time “We will no longer be rejected.  I accept you as you are.  Not many will understand us, not many will accept us.  Many out there will reject us.  Just know that I am here to protect you, That is my job. No one can ever again harm you.  You and I are one, I will protect you.”

            The spirit of the boy nodded and shifted into that of the image of the guy, and the guy that roamed the barren wasteland for what seemed like an eternity got a soul.  In return, the guy agreed to protect that little boy ever again.   Whether rejected, whether scorned, whether hated, whether unaccepted, it doesn’t matter, the guy will be there to protect the boy from all the harms of the future.

            As for the barren wasteland;  the pool of tears watered the ground.  The water fostered life.  Barren plants began to grow, and over time the strength of will between the guy and the boy fostered the barren wasteland into a garden that rivaled even Eden.  Life abounded.