The Kingdom Key Forums: Charity - The Kingdom Key Forums

The desert sand is buffeted by a vicious wind. Writhing and contorting into constellations of broken glass, it shimmers its kaleidoscopic dewdrops of light across the landscape, illuminating the figure of the old man lying, wretched, in the middle of the desert. His lazy, heat-torn footprints mark heavy trails in the dusty road that winds through the wilderness, before meandering off-course and into the sand. He lies almost motionless, his breathing heavy and his voice strained.

A traveller approaches. Coming from the south, his destination is unknown. He is shrouded in cloths and bandages that cover his entire body, shielding it from the sand. At his hip is a flask of water and on his back a small cloth bag containing his food and resources. He is so absorbed in moving forward through the sandstorm that he almost misses the old man.

“What is wrong?” He exclaims, running to the man's side. He rolls the man over onto his back and holds him upright. “What happened to you?”

The man coughs, a sound almost inaudible due to the howling of the sand, a banshee formed by pop-culture preconceptions and metaphors. He whispers one thing;

“I...I am dying. Please...hel...llp me.”

The traveller looks at the man. His face is riddled with fresh scars, gemstones of sand fitted into the wounds like masochistic jewellery. His breath is stale- he has not drunk water for a very long time. The traveller equips a diagnosis to deal with the situation.

“Here. I will give you some water and food.” He does so, raising the flask to the man's ashtray lips, the water within seeming to glow red in the aura of the desert. He does not greedily consume the water as expected, though he does drink it with relish. Afterwards he manages to lift his arm and wipe his mouth, before sitting upright. The traveller takes off the sack on his back and reaches out a chunk of bread. Tearing it in two, he gives the bigger piece to the man, who eats it slowly. Maintaining the same expression as before, he turns to the traveller;

“Thank you.”

The traveller nods and tells the man to have faith, for the journey will soon be over and he will attain the goal he seeks. The man says nothing, turning his head from the traveller and staring into the limitless distance. The traveller rises and continues on his way, his image turning into crystal particles in the sandstorm. The man sits on the side of the road and stares in the direction the traveller came from, unmoving.

A short while later, another traveller appears. He is shrouded in a long, cream-coloured trench-coat, in which his hands are concealed, and trousers of the same colour. His face is obscured by an eyeless, mouthless balaclava, and on his head he wears a jet-black fedora. He walks beside the old man and for a second, it seems as though he is going to pass him by. However, as soon as he is perfectly parallel with the man, the traveller slowly turns his head to the right and gazes down. He observes the old man; he is staring into the distance, squinting his eyes as if to perceive a far-off object in a clearer viewpoint. Crouching down, the traveller speaks to him through an unseen mouth.

“Are you alright, sir? What are you doing out here?” The voice is assertive, yet carries with it a caring quality. The old man does not move, and speaks with lips that could be breathing their last at any moment.

“I am dying. Please...help me.” These are his only words, and with them the traveller's perception of him differs- the old man seems to be frozen in place, as if moving would cause him to crumble to ash, merged in with the sandstorm. The traveller rises to his feet and pulls his hands out of his pockets. The right one emerges with a hip-flask of water, and the left one with a small, spherical object; a pill.

The traveller kneels on the road, ignoring the rough surface grating on his knees, and offers first the pill, then the flask to the old man. As if by nature, the man first sips some water, then places the pill in his mouth. Both solid and liquid merge and wash down his throat into the abysses of his body. The traveller observes this, and nods.

“You will feel better shortly, I am certain. This cure is one I have learned from repetition, and polished to the point of perfection.” He stands upright once more, taking his flask back from the old man. His hands set once more in his pockets as if in concrete, and he begins to walk once more.

“Thank you.” The old man murmurs, turning his head in the traveller's direction for a moment, before returning to his default position. The traveller nods, before fading into the static of the sandstorm.

Soon enough, another traveller arrives. He is dressed in a long, magenta robe, a hood concealing much of his face. He travels at a much slower pace than the two previous travellers, using a stick to keep himself upright. He is not, however, crippled or physically unable. The old man, now standing and supported by his own stick, turns to look at the figure as he arrives. The traveller moves close to the old man and gazes down at him with compassionate yet dark eyes.

“Why are you in this terrain? Are you hurt?” The traveller asks. The old man continues to gaze into the eyes for a moment, unblinking, and returns to his former position, staring at the empty space in the desert.

“I am dying.” he says. “Please, help me.”

The traveller continues to gaze at the old man. He absorbs the impression of ages, wrinkles, mysteries, time and personality from the man's face. Within his mind the traveller preserves the man's history into a mythology- a fiction composed of ages and dimensions, geometries and universes, non-euclidean prose and papyrus typographies. Within the traveller's mind is a stone tablet; a Rosetta lithograph with an alphabet of aeons indecipherable and sealed.

After an unknown amount of time has passed, the traveller nods slowly. Raising his staff, he touches it gently against the old man's head. The old man closes his eyes upon impact, the expression as delicate as a young child's. Instantly, the traveller sees all of time in one, unbroken stream- the man's elderly years; his adulthood; his adolescence; his youth; his infancy; his birth; his gestation; the indecisive, bewildered period of fertilisation, where the egg the man was to become bathed in cosmic matter at the beginning of time; the very first instance of touch, feeling, the beginning of time, the beginning of the universe...at the moment of the old man's death, everything becomes as one. The two share a brief moment, a drop of sound in an hourglass, a point of utmost lucidity in the face of darkness. From uncertainty, into uncertainty.

The man's lips part gently as he returns to his former position, gazing into the desert fog.

“Thank you...” he murmurs, and is still. The traveller's expression maintains its neutrality as he nods, a momentary unbinding of the threads of darkness within his hood. The old man is unmoving as he fades into the desert, becoming one with its empty masses and chaotic debris. The traveller pauses for a moment, eyes glazed over in thought, and then begins to walk once more.

The sand flows through the air, as if guided by a spirit within the wind. Notes of an enigmatic tone flow, weaving themselves into eternal symphonies, marvellous sounds, concurrent melodies...