A Golden Slumber | fermata
I had informed Hadiyah and the others that this last trek to the oasis was to be done alone.
My skin is hurting; I cannot feel my sandals anymore. This is no path for mortal soles. I, a lone star trailing the night, dragging out ripples of burning slag and incandescence; at such a height above that everything below seems tranquil and slow. But I burn. Even without sun now, the sands beneath my aching feet shift like water. There glows a faint layer of violet haze, pooling around my ankles and rolling down the dunes and into the greyness of distant valleys of golden slumber. I wrap the fabrics tighter around me, feel the flax against capped lips bleeding. This solitude should comfort me.
But if I reach for the pulse at my chest there is only a faint burning. Of roughened nails against bruised and sand-worn skin. If I look into the depths of my mind there is only a faint burning. Of my own unworthiness, and the sadness of it all. It had been a civil parting at the last caravan. I had informed Hadiyah and the others that this last trek to the oasis was to be done alone. Usually I remember faces when I last see them, but her eyes and lips and brows and hands have long since been buried in the sands layered, and layered, and layered until all that was left was the mausoleum of a person — my sole confessor, my lover, my company, — which I now must carry on the wings of my mind. The wind rises. I brace myself for the sandstorm but it never arrived. Instead there is only the chill northeasterly wind, low to the ground, that fills the folds of my cloak.
Swelling now, the most strange elation expands from my chest and I tilt my head backward. Gust becomes gale. I let the storm take my hands. I rise to a tiptoe. I open my mouth to sing, to cry out into the firmament— I am — I am — I am!
All that gurgles in my throat is sand and bile. Choking. The wind dies and my legs give way. My knees sink deep into the loose grey sand. But it is burning no longer. This sand is cool, it runs softly down into hemlines, through straps and under tight folds now loosened from the fall. I must be at the oasis edge. My body slumps sideways but I do not resist. I fight the urge to close my eyes.
There something beyond this sand. There must be. Something rises from beyond the indigo night. It is Hadiyah, her hands running along my cheek and down my neck. I am certain of it. What else could be so gentle on the weary traveller? The haze washes over my eyes. Everything blurs as I submerge in marigolds and plunge into deep water. And Hadiyah is here too. I am certain of it. Her layered gown rustling, rustling, rustling all around me. Her golden ornaments nudging against my skin. I was a deathly cold.
Yes — and I remember her face now. I see her visage reflected in the expanse of indigo before me. I am certain of it. And she leans forward and I feel her breath. I feel breaths all around me. So I let my arms and eyes give way. I am no longer alone.
