HE LOOKED OUT OVER THE PALE BLUE OCEAN and dug his feet into the hot sand.
Earlier in the day, he had picked up a single grain, just to see how small it would be in his hand and what it might feel like. He cast it aside. Utterly unremarkable, he thought disappointed. He listened to the sound of the waves breaking on the beach, methodically, one after another, as if the latter one were in pursuit of the earlier. It was a calm day – but he couldn’t stop himself from imagining that somewhere far off, on the very same ocean, a dark storm raged.
He had left in search for answers; or perhaps not – perhaps he had left, simply for the sake of leaving. But answers he sought nonetheless – just like you and me – and they had eluded him so far. Tomorrow he would return, and the thought of this also cast a shadow over his heart; though he wouldn’t have remained either, had he had the choice. It was not his homecoming that deterred him so much as the repetitiveness that came with it; and he was afraid that old routines would sap him of the imaginative powers he believed to have recently discovered. But in reality, he knew, it was not repetition he would be returning to so much as routine, and he also knew that routine brought with it a different kind of power.
Squinting, he glared up at the sun. She glared back at him angrily.
The fact of the matter was this: He felt lost and depleted. He’d been pushing, every day, but still, he did not know what it was he was pushing toward. The vision had become muddled and so, too often he felt like he was simply pushing for the sake of pushing. Without a goal, without a direction.
Where was his North Star? he would ask himself. Was he even pushing in the right direction? He did not know. Still, keep going, they would tell him. Even the soothsayer had said: He must keep going, he must endure, he must have faith – and there would be great rewards, glittering treasures, to be had over the course of the journey! Endure, and he would be crowned a king! This is what the soothsayer had said.
But he was tired of pushing and of putting his hopes in faith. He did not know what these rewards were, what these treasures the soothsayer spoke of, would be – if indeed there were any treasures to be had. He did not know if he was doing things right. And he did not know even, if he desired a crown.
As the pale blue ocean crept up ever closer, he let a handful of sand run through his fingers and drizzle to the ground. Utterly unremarkable, he thought, digging in his toes.
He imagined her sitting down next to him.
“What are you thinking about?” she would ask.
And he would flick away the final grain of sand and respond:
“Nothing.”
THE END
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