by Dan O'Brien
The Lonely felt tightness in his chest, a cold shiver down his spine.
“I do not want to be alone,” he spoke sadly.
The space raced forward, revealing a dark red sphere.
Black lines crawled over its surface, deeper yellows burst to life from its surface.
“We are all alone. We are brought into a world and taken away as easily. Though bonds form and lives intersect, we are beings of a singular mind, not a collective. Inevitably, we are all alone.”
The Lonely hung his head, he felt like such a child.
Tears welled.
He felt sorrow build within him.
“Each night we fall asleep and dream, and every day we wake again. Though, as you have experienced, it may not be the familiar place that you had known. All that we can do is make the best of that life and to never stop searching for that which we wish to find.”
“Purpose….”
The Crossroads nodded, but he no longer faced the Lonely.
“I will miss these conversations very much.”
“As will I,” replied the Lonely with his head bowed.
“I wish you luck in your journey and hope that you find those answers that you seek. To live a life fulfilled, to travel to the distant star for which you have been searching, would be a gift to all beings,” spoke the Crossroads, his voice deep and resonating.
“I….”
The Lonely searched words, but could not find them.
There was finality in the words of the Crossroads.
“My time grows short, continue your journey.”
The Lonely nodded and turned, the bright white outline of a door emerged from the East. Stepping over the shadowed space that catapulted around them, he gripped the near-transparent door handle.
Pulling it toward him, he was bathed in a cold white light.
He did not turn back.
The Eastern Pass and the Seas
Beneath
The North had been cold and the South hot.
The West had possessed a feeling of warmth and coolness, and so did the East. Although, where the West had been lined with dew-laden trees that shimmered in the sun, the East was filled with a labyrinth of jagged cliffs that collided with the lulling ocean below them.
The Lonely navigated the slippery path that wound through the cliffs, taking great care to avoid the sharp protrusions of its rocky walls. The way occasionally stopped like a gargantuan beast as the path bifurcated into rocky caverns that howled with the sound of waves crashing upon rocks.
The Lonely had come to expect nothing and suspect everything. Something about his surroundings was uniquely foreign; yet, they seemed familiar as every turn of his journey had been.
The Lonely thought of what the Crossroads had said.
What if he did not find his answers here?
He could go nowhere else.
The cliffs grew smaller and smaller, drawing closer and closer to the earth. Soon, a beach stretched out before him. The Lonely stepped from the dark rocks onto the beige sand and was struck immediately by the lack of imperfections upon the sand. It was a flawless stretch of beach, a piece of living art untouched by any being.
He stepped carefully, his feet creating indentions in the soft sand. Looking upon the horizon, he saw nothing except the vitality of the ocean around him. The beach stretched beyond sight, beyond understanding.
There is a path to the Translucent Man, the Lonely reminded himself.
But where had it been placed?
He turned his head one way and then the other, scanning the beach for the cavern or hut that he sought. No guide had approached him, nor had any being shown him the path.
The beach, though expansive, possessed no landmark that would separate distance. He had walked for some time, but it seemed as if he had not moved. The only indication of his progress was his lonely stretch of footprints that led back to the cliffs.
The farther he walked, the more he felt as if there would be no indication of the Translucent Man. The Crossroads had tried to warn him of the final leg of his journey. He had not heeded the words of his guide very well.
Looking upon the ocean, he saw a twinkle.
He moved closer to the crashing waves, felt the cold water upon his feet, and saw the light better now. It was not an ordinary light, but appeared instead like a candle dancing in the wind.
The Lonely surged forward, his head buried deep into the crashing wave. Water sluiced from his face and he breathed out, drawing deep of the air as he felt his lungs burn from holding his breath.
“What is this madness?” he whispered as he took another step forward, his feet touching the ocean bottom. And then another step, but each new step seemed to push him from the sea floor.
He rose upon the water––his feet first dragging in the water until he was completely on top of it and far from shore.
Looking down through the tumultuous seas, he saw the ocean life move about. Dark shadows of creatures scurried about as if the Lonely did not exist.
“This is peculiar,” he commented as he stood quite still.
The water seemed to have grown calm beneath his feet, becoming one mammoth sheet of glass that extended far off into the distance. And there, off in the distance, he saw the home of the Translucent Man.
“Very peculiar.”
The Lonely took a step forward and then another, quickening his pace until he was sprinting across the ocean. Each footfall dimpled the great ocean, but he neither sunk nor slipped.
The water soon gave way to a bamboo road.
Each footfall elicited a hollow echo.
Soon, he saw a simple hut and the light that had caught his attention upon the beach––the lantern that had twinkled from such a distance.
Looking back, he could no longer see the shore. There was no real light. The clouds overhead appeared dark and stormy, but birthed no rain––nor thunder, nor lightning.
He was at the end of his journey.
Inside that hut dwelled the Translucent Man.
He crept forward slowly and approached the hut with caution. What was within might be the answer to all that he had sought.
It could be a conclusion to the epic tale that was his life.
The hut was silent and smoke carried lightly into the air just above the roof. Reaching out, the Lonely knocked on the door; lightly at first, and then progressively harder until he was pounding on the door.
Yet, there remained no answer.
He pushed on the door and it opened with a resounding creak; the interior swum in a surreal darkness. As he stepped inside, the door swung shut behind him, sealing him in the shadow.
There in the darkness he stumbled, reaching out with his hands for something to guide him. He found nothing and when he fell, no one was there to pick him up.
He was alone.
Time passed and still he stumbled in the darkness.
He reached and reached, but could not find any end.
His logical mind knew that he had walked farther than the hut was long. But he was not surprised, as he had often found himself puzzled by the things he saw on his journey.
The sound of the ocean, the crash of a wave: soon, these sounds echoed in his ears.
Was he hallucinating?
The darkness parted and he was upon the ocean as he opened his eyes. The fish swam beneath him and the sun beat down upon his back as he rested face down upon the ocean surface, away from the sun. He could smell the sea, its rich saltiness permeating his nostrils.
The Lonely lifted his eyes from the seas and saw that in front of him a wave was forming: a strange amorphous form that seemed to rise from the ocean itself, shifting to the silhouette of a man.
Reflections of the Translucent Man
The ocean pulled away as the form fought against the sheet-like nature of the sea that had been revealed for the Lonely. Drawn like viscous plasma that seemed to contort and writhe as if it was battling the ocean for breath.
The Lonely stared, h
is body suspended atop the ocean.
He could not believe his eyes.
The form subsided to reveal a being defined by wild shards of shimmering prisms. Its bright white eyes seemed to trace far behind its head as they watched the Lonely with a passing indifference.
“The Translucent Man,” whispered the Lonely.
The Translucent Man stepped forward jaggedly, as if each movement catapulted him several steps compared to that of a normal man.
“I fear that you are the Lonely,” responded the Translucent Man.
Its voice was soothing, though unmistakably hollow.
The Lonely took a few more steps forward, realizing once again that he was atop thousands of feet of ocean. “This, the end of my journey, has found me upon your doorstep. I have come…”
The Translucent Man sighed and his hands shifted.
“I know why you have come. It is for the same reason that you have come before and why another will yet come. You have come for purpose, a reason for your life, your journey.”
The Lonely nodded.
“I have come before?”
“How could you have come this far and not understand that. I know the Crossroads spoke to you of this and, no doubt, the Wicker Man spoke of it as well. Whether we are conscious of them or not, the many lives we have lived are such that they happened regardless of our understanding.”
“I do remember that the Crossroads as well as the Wicker Man spoke of this. I am mistaken by making that the focal point of our discussion. As it has already been told to me, never again will it be explained again. The chance fulfilled and lost concurrently.”
The Lonely sighed.
He had begun to grow accustomed to the strange manner with which the totems conducted themselves.
“I have been told of the coldness of thought, the fire of emotion, and the soundness of reason. Why have I come here?”
At times, his words did not feel as if they were his own.
“A wise question. You have seen to their core, the basis of what they were. North, South, West. Cold Thought, Emotion, Reason. They were thrice understandings that you were led to. This is perhaps to be the final step of your journey.”
The Lonely nodded.
The Translucent Man turned away from the Lonely.
“What do you see when you look out upon the ocean?”
The sky was crimson, and the water was a deep shade of haunting blue. As they blended on the horizon, they became the epitome of an artist’s easel, colors mixing with one another to change their density and power.
“Peace, harmony of the natural things,” spoke the Lonely softly.
The Translucent Man seemed content with the answer.
“Indeed, there is a serenity about such a landscape that speaks vastly of this world and all those ideas bound by imagination.”
“I can see stillness in my mind when I look upon it.”
Nodding, the Translucent Man took a step toward the distant horizon. “That is the failing of many men. They see the way of the world in the dullest of colors. Life is this way or that, fact of fiction, truth or falsity. There is, of course, power in that. Fantastic power the likes of which many are unfit to wield.”
The Lonely stared out at the horizon, listening to the words of the Translucent Man.
“Men find validity in their lives from histories and proofs, ignoring the mysterious beauty that surrounds them and the thrall of those things unexplained. Babies grow into children and then into adults. First, they are cared for in order to be able to care for the generation next and so on, as needed. However, in youth there is a time during which we learn of something that we often too easily let go of.”
“Imagination.”
The Translucent Man nodded, an action marked by the intersection of a thousand prisms and colors.
“Although we play and see things that do not exist in reality, we find happiness in them. We live in fiction for a time and we shall never again be as happy as we are when we look upon the world with the eyes of a child. We let it go easily for those things that are more tangible, more plausible. We forget that it was in these places of fantasy that we found our way to adulthood. Many of the great tales that could be told would be true no matter if they were a tall tale filled with dragons or those closest to you.”
The Lonely felt a chill run over him, coldness in his body even though the sun glowed brilliantly on the horizon.
“But we must grow up and let go of childish endeavors.”
“Perhaps. Is it necessary that we forget them?”
The Lonely did not respond.
“When you look upon the sun you cannot help but see its strength, its power that resonates so absolutely. We feel its heat when it beats down upon us and the cold that comes when it is away. This is outer strength, the most literal and physical characteristic that we can attribute something. But something else lurks inside, a confluence of particles moving at startling speeds.”
“I do not understand the relevance…”
A swipe of the Translucent Man’s hand silenced the Lonely.
“That is because here you will listen and comprehend something that you have not before given much thought to.”
The Lonely nodded soberly, as if he were a scolded child.
The Translucent Man continued.
“There is more to a being than the flesh and bones to which we attribute ourselves. Another dynamic is at work when we find things that require more than what we thought ourselves capable. Like the athlete who is powerful beyond perceived muscular strength or the smallest insect that defies strength despite its size. A difference stands between outer strength, the ability to lift and throw about with our physical bodies, and inner strength that is derived from force of will and not physicality alone.”
“A person can only lift so much, only so much leverage can be applied with weight before there is no more that is physically capable,” argued the Lonely with a shake of his head.
“You are ignoring the possibility of imagination. A great many beings have proven that there is the capacity for strength beyond common perception. We have a name for a finite amount of things. But to those unknowns, the possibilities that can count endless, there is a reason and a pattern that we cannot see. These qualities are within.”
“I do not agree.”
“That is why you search. A being without imagination would see the facts lying in front of them and accept them as the truth, even if they doubted them. There is no fault in doubt or hesitation with something on which lives are dependent. Had you been content with a single explanation, any of the totems before me would have provided an answer for you. But, you have as of yet not found one that satisfies your curiosity, an extension of your imagination.”
“That does not mean I agree with what you have said. Just because I search, does not necessitate compliance.”
“Nor would I have you believe that it would. I am simply saying that by searching you are allowing for the possibility of something else. There are a great many minds who believe they have imagination because they believe something that others do not. That is not imagination, for they do not as well believe that their perceptions could be wrong. Blindness to such possibilities is the core of unimaginative behavior.”
The Lonely scoffed, for the Translucent Man’s words were once again as cryptic as they was revealing.
“I can see where you wish to take this. The possibility of something, whether recognized or perceived and the subsequent pursuit of that, is an affirmation of options.”
“Indeed. The roads that we walk are such that we will always analyze them, doubt the validity and the very purpose of them; yet, we will walk them until the end of our days.”
The Translucent Man looked out toward the ocean.
“And then sometimes long beyond our time.”
“So if this is the last stage of my journey, what summation am I to find? What great truth will overwhelm me?”
“That there is no greater trut
h.”
The Lonely chuckled.
The Translucent Man turned.
His face, though incapable of emotion of any kind, seemed to smile slightly.
“You chuckle, is it as you expected?”
“It is in a way. The answers I seek, and the questions for which I search far and wide, are such that if they were to be so simple, to iterate them would lose their meaning entirely. More importantly, if you had given some simple truth on which to live my life, I would have not believed it: a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.”