In my house we have two PlayStation3’s. Both are loved because my spouse and I both love video games. On the PSN the online store for PS3 there is a wonderful little game called ‘Journey’. There is no real story just a basic outline of a traveler on a journey. You have your characters and sometimes if other people are playing the game too you can see other travelers. The first five minutes of watching him play this game build a fire in my brain. I had to write the story that was just bursting through me. It is flash fiction and I wrote in about 15 minutes. It is 593 words long (for now :-D) . Here is it.
The wanderer
The sand stretched endless before the wanderer. It stretched
endless behind too. Nothing was here but sand, sun and the journey. No one made
journey’s anymore they were the things of legend and lore. Only to be spoken of
during the long winter’s nights in the place that the wanderer came from. The
wanderer was clothed head to foot in a traveling cloak red as the sun that
burned down on her. Under the hood some thought she was beautiful but in her
small village she had the madness. It was a madness like they had not seen in
four hundred years but was so bad that it was still talked of also on those
long winter nights. The last one who had was also a woman, beautiful too but
her beauty was nothing when seen with her madness. She wanted to see what was
on the other side of the mountains. She wanted to know why the sun rose and
what happened when it fell. She was wise and beautiful and untouchable because
of the questions that poisoned her mind. Those questions were only for teachers
to know and she was no teacher. The teachers had not come to the village in
more years than could be recorded. But that was long ago and not the story of
this wanderer, just the last one. The wanderer had not always been different
but she learned it in small ways. When a traveling teacher had come and then
stayed for the winter that was when the village elders noticed it. Boys and
girls were taught whatever the teacher knew and that was as it should be. A
little learning is good for the soul but it stayed in the wanderer’s mind like mud
on a pair of boots. She wanted more. The teacher soon taught her everything he
knew and it was not enough. Soon she knew more than he did reading every book
he had with him and then she scoured the village for any books that she had
never seen before. At first it was smiled at because the village needed someone
who loved to learn all things but then it was frowned on because she was not
doing anything but reading and talking with those who had read whatever book
she had in her hand at the time. People began to talk about her behind her back
then to her face. Soon her village was no home for her anymore. So she did what
she had learned and went on a journey. She dressed in the robes of a wanderer
and shook off her name as all wanderers’ do. She walked from sun up to sundown
alone. No one bothered her because of her wanderers’ robes. All knew that only
those with the madness began to leave where they were born, against how it
should be, she was untouchable now to the greater beyond her small village
because of her robes. She learned new things like loneliness and hunger and
thirst but nothing could stop the thoughts and questions in her mind. Those
were the only things that really mattered anymore to the wanderer. Slowly, like
the first bub of spring, she learned how to feed herself from what was around
her and what water was safest to drink in the burning sands. She learned how
the stars danced in the sky and what dawn looked like on the ocean. But now she
walking in the desert alone but not lonely. She had learned to be company to
herself.
I personally love it but please tell me what you think.
Until next week be well.
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