The Exit
The sun greeted me in the desert with fire and music. A strong wind amplified the sound of my skin melting into a melody, entering me to seduce my essence out into its flowing ghostly voice. Thirst, hunger, and sunstroke took away my last breath.I was carried gently into the ether, where I saw white doves fly above me and ominous-looking dogs running on the ground. My five closest friends waited many years for my return, and like the lights in a big house their existence dimmed and they met me in the desert, one by one. I felt them all next to me without the shell of my body, bereft of restrictions from facial expressions to show them how much I missed them.
My sadness became someone’s tears; my anger became someone else’s anger when I looked back through memories of my short life. Perhaps I waited for it to end impatiently, leaving myself adrift in negative emotions and deprived of smiles. A force I recognised intuitively emanated light and warmth at the end of my journey and guided me into a new consciousness; I found peace at last.
© Text: Orlando Barahona
© Image: Guillermo A. Durán/Flickr
This work by Orlando Barahona is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Join my page on Facebook:
