Doorways - A Fable

    As I traveled down the Path of Vitae, I got lost along the way.  The path was shrouded with deep bushes and wavering trees, layers and layers of them, each one intent on hiding the intricately woven trail.  Along the way, and through all the travels, I found only darkness.  When I would come to a fork in the path I took the one that seemed less threatening.  But, more often than not, this path would result in the most foreboding, haunting things.  When I came to another fork I took the path that seemed most terrifying, but then that path would lead me to horrors and macabre I never expected to find.  There is no rhyme, no reason, there is only a series of moments that lead to startling conclusions.  I am an aimless wanderer, never learning, only drifting.  

    During my travels I would collect coins, scraps of bread, or little bits of crystal, each item more meaningless than the last.  I was a peasant, a beggar; I had been on this road for over thirty years and my bag was littered with pounds and pounds of emptiness.

    When I slept, I dreamt of paths filled with flowers--flowers that bloomed three times their normal size.  I dreamt of bushes consumed by plump raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries.  I dreamt of sunlight shining down on me, bathing my face in warmth and reassurance; sunlight that would shine on the path I was meant to travel.  But when I woke the dreams seemed further and further from my grasp.

    Along the way I met many travelers, and these travelers seemed just as lost as I.  They wandered around, their bags filled with the same nothingness I carried.  But they did this in secret.

    And they told many lies...

    The Path of Vitae is filled with liars, waiting to steal your goods or lead you astray.  There is no room for followers on the trail; followers will be lost, forever forgotten.  “You remember that funny lookin’ fella with the cleft palette?”  “Nah, can’t say I do.”  “Maybe I’m thinkin’a someone else.”  “Yeah, maybe.”  These people blended into the shadows and became the darkness that followed me like soldiers.

    Nothing makes sense.  The days are filled with walking, the nights are filled with consumption.  I wake plagued by coughing fits, cotton tongue, bloody noses, raspy throat; it is all grating and horrific.  Days are never days; there are only nights and nights you don’t sleep.  And nights without sleep are nights filled with desperation, for the dreams are the only true luxuries on the path, devoid of any famine, disease, retribution, abandonment, and--worst of all--death.  There is no death in dreams, for when there is death you wake, and when you wake, you are riddled by reality.  And there is nothing quite as brutal as reality on the path.

    Upon my thirtieth year I met another traveler who showed me his bag of tricks.  In this bag he had a collection of stone, a few dead snails, a rock hammer the size of my palm, thirty-eight pennies, and a goat bladder where he claimed he was fermenting cheese.  I showed him my bag and he scoffed at its contents as if I was some naïve wanderer.

    I cursed him silently as he zipped up his pack.

    I offered him some of my water and he refused.  I took a drink, stowed the water away, and then he asked for some.  I found this peculiar, but I placed the canteen in his hand and he drank like a savage beast.  Water rushed down his chin and I saw his stomach expand.  He immediately began to cramp and double over, overwhelmed by his gluttonous hydration.  This man had not seen water in days, maybe even weeks.  When he handed the water back he grabbed at his stomach and fell to the ground.  He looked up at me with pleading, helpless eyes.  I watched as the whites flipped his irises away.  He began to shake uncontrollably.  The traveler opened his mouth and a cloud of smoke raced out from the depths of his throat.  The cloud circled my head and ran off into the darkness like a frightened animal.  The man’s body convulsed and his skin turned cold and grey.  It began to crack and peel.  And then, all at once, the traveler himself turned into a giant cloud of ash and vanished like dust.  

    His pack lay on the ground where he once had been.  A few of the coins had spilled out as had one of the stones.  I picked up the stone and inspected it.  It was bright green with a smooth, sheen coating.  There were no imperfections, only brilliance.  In all my travels, and down all those paths, I had never encountered such a stone.  It was immaculate.  I looked at the other stones and found they all shared the same purity.

    I folded up the traveler’s pack, stuffed it into my own, and took the fork to the right because this particular path had a glimmer of light.  It was distant and faint, like a diamond star miles off in space’s black; but it was there.  The fork to the right offered no deception or cruelty.  Of course this path would inevitably lead to many other tributaries and many other choices, but at least there was a glimmer of light.  And that was all I needed.

    I opened my bag and cast one final glance at the traveler’s pack.  There was a small bit of soot near one of the buckles.  I wiped it away with the edge of my finger and smudged the bit of ash on a nearby bush.  The bush sparked, burst into flame, and turned to ash just as the traveler had.  The diamond light down the fork grew and became brighter, calling to me.

    I fastened my pack and began walking again.