Running in the shadow of the wall. Running, running...
racing the river, the clouds, the wind... and still by the
wall. By the valley its curve can be seen, contrasted by the
distant mountains. Its top can be seen when the sun isn't
shining too bright... Its bottom - maybe if someone was to
dig deep enough it could be found, but you haven't the time
for that. The wall's end cannot be seen in the distance no
matter how hard you look. It seems to be running on forever.
Running, running with you by it.
Further and further away, maybe faster then before, maybe
slower - the wall gives no answer, and you keep running
alongside.
The sun has already set, and the wall casts no shadow
anymore for you to run by - and yet it's not as if it was
likely that you'll lose your way. The sheer immensity of the
wall casts a shadow of its own into the air around it, into
the earth from which it grows. Yes, it truly grows, like any
living thing. Maybe not living as we usually mean it, but
true none the less. How you came by this knowledge is
unknown to you, and yet it a certainty, something as real as
the reality of the wall itself, as the reality of the run.
It is not a dream, of that you are cerain. It is not a
metaphore, a vision, a sidekick of your subconcious. It
could've been a good metaphore if someone was to use it, but
I won't, and you know there's no one else around, no one who
can speak up now.
And you run on. Tiredness and physical exertion have no
meaning to you, have nothing to do with this race, and you
continue to run.
A moon dies and is reborn, and you celebrate its rebirth in
the rhythm of your moving muscles, in the pumping of the
blood in your veins. You do not notice how it ages and dies,
like anything else in the world. Anything but the wall. It
might have been born sometime in the remote past, but the
ancestor of the moon who has seen that birth has been
reflected and re-reflected by its reincarnations so many
times that its no more real than your physiche, your
humanity.
The curve of the wall continues - the mountains that have
crumbled down to broken hills have testified to that before
becoming empty, rocky wilderness. Maybe it was the sole
reason for their creation, their existance - to give that
one testimony. If so, the court may have accepted it.
You havent been as fortunate yet, but acceptance has nevr
been your goal, only an occasional tool or obstacle. There
have been many of those, including the very mountains and
the moon of which we thought. The death prayers of the
lonely travellers upon the path have long since stopped to
echo - of course they have, for the mountains are gone, and
they have taken the echoes away with them.
You run, seemingly alone, apparently with no purpose - but
who can judge purposes under such circumstances? Maybe the
echoes could, once, but their time is long since gone, the
opportunity lost.
Empty windows look at you, even stare at times, criticizing
that choise, but they are broken, their shards as dead as
the birthplaces of those whose memories they've reflected.
Only the water dripping from the jagged shards, crimson at
the hour of the sun's death, tells part of the story.
Eventually they, too, are gone, and you continue to run -
actually, you don't, for continuation implies limits... so
you simply run. Possibly your speed is greatly different,
for speed is the product of reality, whose shards have long
since scattered. It is not of the wall, and because of that
it is meaningless, transitory, another product of that which
you have forsaken, which we have forsaken.
The curve of the wall is still there, implied now by the
ocean through whose shores you now run. It might seem
endless, it might hint on circularity to those who do not
know the wall. But you are not such one, none of us is, and
thus you know the curve isn't limitless, isn't ultimate - it
has once started, and once it will end, for you know all
that which is limited by running along the wall.
The shadow is still on you, drawing your path ahead. Not the
fickle shadow of the sun, which has risen and set too many
times for it to hold much longer - although you are in its
shadow as well now for a while, for with its dwindling, the
darkness has encreased for this time, its shadow merged with
the shadow of the wall which looms above it, ready to
swallow it when the right moment comes, snatching it away.
That moment comes and passes, and many more like it, similar
in their endless attempts at futile variety. I laugh at them
and know you would too, where it not against your running.
And still you run, and I wonder at the impossibilities
swarming around you. Had you only the eyes to see them,
hands to touch them... And yet we both know the absurd in
that, and ignore it, united as we are...
The three of us could keep this up for... whatever... - and
maybe we even will, as you keep running on and on, and at
last I cannot help myself but laugh...