Things Progressed Rather Rapidly From There

Dry, but not arid. Hot, but not sweltering. What is a desert without heat and thirst?

"An empty wasteland with nothing to look at," said Jerry, accurately describing his surroundings as he shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun and peered at the dusty horizon. He sighed and, bowing his head, continued trudging along the sandy road. Jerry sighed often. In truth, this could be said of anybody, but with Jerry, it's a bit different; understand that when you sigh, it's not written down for everyone to see. Jerry does not have this luxury and is in fact under constant scrutiny, although he is not aware of this.

"Yes, I am." Oh, he... Oh. Yeah.

Jerry is aware that he is under constant scrutiny and does his best to ignore it.

"Thank you," the bull proclaimed, exasperated yet slightly relieved. I suppose he should be allowed some slack, as he had been wandering the wilderness under the sun for some time.

All tangents aside, a sigh, though frequently used by everybody who is able to breathe and feel any sort of feelings, physical or psychological, is a tremendously versatile and effective tool for communicating one's state of being, somewhat like a Facebook status. Unfortunately, and also similar to a Facebook status, sighs are often ambiguous, and the context of the individual must be taken into account in order for them to be properly translated. This is yet another advantage characters such as you or I have over Jerry, since the context of another being is usually much easier analyzed in person, thus making the true meaning of a sigh investigated and deduced with facility when witnessed firsthand. Now, unless I'm quite mistaken and you are quite confused, none of you are actually near to Jerry; therefore, it becomes my job to contextualize the bull to you so that you might begin to understand why he sighs.

Jerry was alone. He was in the desert with nothing in sight save for clay, sandy dust, the cloudless sky, and the very faint outline of a mountain fence just above the horizon in every direction. It had been two full days since the bovine stumbled into the sand from the twisted wood in which he never seemed to spend much time. By the end of the first day, he was starting to wonder if he was even in the same valley anymore; by his current time, in particularly prevalent moments of delirium, he questioned whether or not he was still in a valley at all. In a rather intelligent attempt at maintaining his sanity in the midst of such desolate and empty scenery, he decided that when the sun set, as it was just beginning to do, he would try to keep it on his right so that he would have some idea in which direction he was headed. The road, although somewhat obscured by the terrain, remained straight as an arrow; regardless, he was often astounded to notice that the sun was suddenly setting behind him, or to his left, or even on the horizon before him. Trying to figure this out did not help with whole "sanity" idea, and so it wasn't long before he abandoned the endeavor and just resigned to follow the path and no longer look up. He watched his feet, the single, unaccompanied pair, as they traveled onward, one step at a time; blinked, and his shadow stretched in a different direction. He would be glad when the sun was gone. He didn't feel particularly tired or even worn out, but even so, he stopped walking when the last rays of the day had disappeared.

Jerry lay in solitude, his back to the earth and his eyes to the stars, although he did not see them. For all of their presence, the sky might as well have been completely dark; the distant points of light provided no comfort for the traveler. The dust and shadow, thus having no light to reflect, instead reflected the bull's mind as he mulled over the place in which he found himself.

He was alone. Dolores was nowhere to be found, and he hadn't seen her for days.

But that was his own fault.

Jerry raised his head. "What?"

He hadn't seen Dolores because she left, and she left because of Jerry himself.

He sat up fully, feeling a little hurt and indignant. "Why would you say something like that?" But I hadn't said a thing. Confusion crept over his face in the darkness. "But I didn't do anything. I don't know where Dolores went." 

Three and a half days prior, the two had rushed hand-in-hand into the forest after the orange cat. They had no idea where it was going, but for whatever reason, that cat brought happiness, goodness and light with it. Whenever they could keep it in sight, running didn't seem so difficult, and the weeds and branches didn't seem as convoluted and oppressive. They gave no thought to the road, but found themselves on a path that the feline followed quite closely, either remaining within sight of it or stalking on the trail itself. Though the bull and the sheep worked hard to keep up with the cat, they only felt more at ease as they went. And it was easy, right up until the path took a sharp turn, around which the furry creature vanished, and Jerry found himself face to face with yet another fork in the road. Dolores would have continued on down the righthand path, but she stopped when she saw that her friend had halted.

"Silly cow, come on! He's getting away!" she said, confused but exhilarated, tugging at his arm.

"But what if he didn't go that way?" Jerry asked, puzzled by their quarry's sudden disappearance and the new decision suddenly before them. 

"Well, where else would he go?" 

The bull looked down at his companion. "That way?" he pointed down the second branch. Dolores stared at where he pointed.

"Into the trees?"

"No, the path!"

The sheep looked up at him, then back to the forest. After a moment, she looked back at her friend and said, "Jerry, I don't see a path there."

"You can't see...?" Jerry didn't know what to say. There was clearly a path right in front of him; how could the sheep not see it? "But I'm pretty sure the cat went that way."

"I don't think we should go off the path," Dolores offered timidly. Jerry looked frustrated, and she could tell he was adamant about taking the road that did not seem to her to exist. But it had been so long since she had traveled on her own, she didn't want to keep going alone. "And I really think he actually went this way," she added, gently tugging him once more toward the continued direction of the path. Stubborn, the bull shook his head and stood firm. Tears began to fill the sheep's eyes. "Jerry," she said quietly, a touch of fear creeping into her throat, "I really, really don't want to go that way. I really don't see a path there, and I don't want to go this way by myself."

Jerry softened some when he saw her anxiety. "I really do see the path," he told her, a tad more gently than before. "And I don't want you to have to go by yourself either." He peered down the two branches, then returned to his friend.

"They seem to stay kind of close together and head in the same direction for a while," he said. "Maybe they join together again after a bit. Maybe if you took that side and I take this one, then we have a better chance of finding the cat again, and I would be within shouting distance the whole time."

"But how do you know all that for sure?" she asked, looking away down the trail into the wood.

"I don't," he admitted, "Not really. But if one of our paths starts to go away from the direction of the other, we could always yell and come back here, and everything will be fine, okay?" Dolores didn't feel okay, but she agreed. They hugged each other briefly, and then the sheep followed her path and the bull took to his. Jerry had not seen her since that time, nor the cat, and the trail he had chosen soon became choked with roots and underbrush, impassable. He tried to call out to his companion, but the trees swallowed up his cries, and when he turned to go back the way he had come, it seemed that the trees had swallowed that as well. He realized his mistake at the same time as the fact that he was lost. A day of stumbling without direction through the dense, shrouded yellow shrubbery followed before he managed to wander out into the bright morning of the desert.

"Why didn't-t you stop h-her?" Jerry asked the night, hugging his knees, fat tears rolling unbidden down his cheeks and his whole body shaking with suppressed sobs. "Why didn't you stop me? I let her go." If only he could understand: though I tell the story, I hold no sway over its progression; the paths is not mine, nor the valley, nor the decisions made within. I am only the story teller.

He made her go.

"I m-made her leave! W-what--?" he looked up towards the sky, eyes swimming with pain and deep bewilderment.

All of the decisions he makes are his, and his alone.

"Yes, but I--"

And he is truly alone, now. Alone, save for a voice in his head.

"No..."

You threw her away, and now you've lost your only friend in the world.

"Why are you saying that?!" He stood, crying out to the sky. "Why are you talking to me? Why are you telling these things to me?! If you're the storyteller, tell the story and stop torturing me!" With that, the distraught bull charged blindly off into the wilderness. He hadn't slept at all that night.

Meanwhile, the sky above the distant mountains grew grey with the first light of dawn. Jerry was unaware of it, but even as he ran, the slowly growing light revealed a small, round, black shape scurrying after him, creeping in the shadows of shallow dunes and yet still managing to keep pace with him. It watched and pursued him doggedly, and the whole time it followed, it whispered, and it never stopped whispering.

Respite Obscura

"I never want to leave this place," Jerry stated as he lay in the long, warm grass, arms and legs outstretched. "This is wonderful. It is the best. I'm building a house here and staying for ever."

"Me, too," Dolores agreed with a contented sigh. The two had exited the dark confines of the forest and found themselves in a sprawling meadow, full of lush, yellow grass and dotted here and there with multicolored patches of wildflowers. The sun was shining over the field, and compared to the oppressive and aloof wood and rain, the warmth, beauty, and openness of the expanse was moving and real. Dolores had slid off of Jerry's back upon their arrival at the clearing, and the two walked around dumbstruck, admiring the luscious scenery for several minutes before collapsing to the ground like a drowning man who has finally found himself on the shore. Jerry moaned in reverent comfort, rolling back and forth in the grass and effectively flattening a good patch of about eight feet. It felt amazing; the sun was warm, the ground was warm, the faint sound of birdsong was in the air, and although the bull knew they couldn't stay for great lengths, it very much appeared to be a place in which they might live for a very long time.

"Wait, what?" he asked the open air indignantly, his eyes snapping open and his head lifting from the earth. "What do you mean, we can't stay for a long time? You brought us here, and we deserve the rest. We've been walking for days. You can't just make us leave!"

"Who are you talking to, Jerry?" Dolores inquired without opening her eyes, her voice growing heavy and lethargic. He lay his head back down with a frustrated grunt.

"Nobody," he told her, frustrated.

"Okay," she yawned. "You should be quiet and sleep." Curling into a fluffy ball, she promptly followed her own advice. Jerry looked over at her, a small smile tickling the corner of his mouth. He determined that they would wait to keep going until the sun had really started to set. Folding his arms behind his head, he let out a breath and closed his eyes again, letting the sweet sound of the sun and the breeze in the grass lull him into slumber.

They awoke in a literal fog. Twilight was descending on the valley, and in the meadow, the long shadows of the surrounding mountains were stretching over the grass. In the grey-golden haze of predusk, the familiar can often take on an unnatural or weird aesthetic; add to that a rolling fog, and even your own home may seem uninviting and sinister. It's beautiful in a way, but also strange and a little bit sinister. In a word, it's either wonder- or awful; essentially, they're synonymous: whichever you use depends on which connotation you prefer.
"Jerry, I can't see anything," stated the groggy sheep, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and squinting into the cloudy air.
"Don't worry, Dolly," the bull reassured her. He pointed toward a faint, shadowy smear in the mist. "I think I can see the forest over there. I don't really want to go back there, but at least it's someplace to go. We just have to keep close together so we don't get lost."
"Okay," she hesitantly agreed, taking his hand. "I don't want to go back, either."
"Yeah."
They started in the direction of the smudge, trying to keep it in front of them but occasionally losing sight of it whilst wandering around or over a boulder, hill or wind-blown log that would loom suddenly out of the fog just ahead. All the while, the sun was sinking lower towards the horizon, and the shadows grew longer. It was getting more and more difficult to distinguish tricks of the mist from actual obstacles, and all the while, the forest never seemed to be any closer. The two companions' determination waned as their legs became weary, and their hope of reaching a the shelter of the trees began to set like the sun.
"Let's just stop here," Jerry sighed as they crested another hillock. Dolores let go of his hand and the two unceremoniously plopped to the grass. The bovine looked around them at the impenetrable wall of cloud. "We might as well just stay here for the night," he determined, "The fog hasn't gotten any thinner since earlier, and I doubt it will let up at all once the sun is completely gone, which should be any second now. I don't know if--"
"Jerry, look over there!" He halted in his musings and turned to where the sheep was pointing.
"Ooh..." he breathed. The setting sun had crossed behind a crag between two mountains, allowing its golden rays to illuminate a straight path in the fog which seemed to ignite in glory and then dissipate. The light stretched right up to the base of the mound on which Jerry and Dolores were resting and revealed another hill several yards away. All this was magnificent, but what had really captured the travelers' attention was the small, striped cat sitting atop the adjacent hill. It was a proper cat, with golden cream-colored fur on its belly and thick, orange strips painting the rest of its body, which seemed to glow in the light. Its amber eyes were keen and gleaming with the sun, and it was looking away off into the mist, its whiskers forward, ears pricked and tail twitching ever so slightly.
"Jerry," Dolores said, her voice soft and breathy in awe of the beautiful display, "Do you see him?"
"Yeah, I do," Jerry nodded. Neither could explain why, but just the sight of the cat stirred in them warm feelings of happiness; although it was inactive, watching it was somehow comforting and reassuring, almost profoundly so.
"Should we try and get closer?" wondered Jerry after a moment.
"No, let's keep watching and see if it does anything." And so the two continued to observe the pristine feline. Only a minute or so later, however, it tensed, raising itself slightly, and then darted from the sunbeam, which subsequently started to fade as the sun passed below the split in the mountains. Jerry and Dolores jumped up. They looked at each other and knew that they were both thinking the same. Once again the bull and sheep joined hands, together dashing off after the cat as the fog once again filled the space cleared by the light.

Metaphysical Observation: The Queen of Black Rabbits

Another funny thing about life; we're rarely the only ones watching our steps. That doesn't necessarily mean the whole world is watching to see what we'll do at any given moment, although it might feel that way for some; however, just because you may be alone doesn't make you the only set of eyes in a room, either. Do you ever feel like you're being watched?

The small, dark being hunkered broodingly on a thick, outstretched limb just beneath the true canopy of the forest, her wide, cold eyes following the creatures on the road beneath her perch. They were tired, and she could see it; stressed, and she could smell it; lost, and she could hear. Their fear she could almost taste. She opened her mouth and felt the air with her teeth, measuring the flow, testing the vibes and the texture of the emotion, the firmness in the timing. Her ears quivered and the breath hissed through her throat; it was ripe. Today was a day to reap.
Wisps of gossamer mist like the thoughts an feelings from a sea of bodies drifted and swirled around her black form as she made a motion, convulsing as though being wracked by a fit of sneezing. Dropping silently to the ground, the black rabbit hopped after the two travelers, pale eyes glinting like diamonds in the shadows of the trees. Although it was only midday and the tree cover was not terribly thick, the air seemed to grow darker, sinister and shaded. More eyes shone in the gloom, and other shapes began to emerge from the underbrush and trees, joining the first and approaching the figures on the road until a countless horde of rabbits hopped before, after and all around them, all black pelts, all pale eyes, all twitching ears and whispering teeth. A fog had fallen, thick, twisting and boiling and obscuring all but a few steps before the ones walking; the travelers didn't seem to notice.

Micky stumbled on the road. She was barely a mare, only just having grown from being a foal, and her footing wasn't always as sure as ponies' are expected to be; even so, it was embarrassing how clumsy she felt, especially beside David, who always seemed to know where to put his feet and always looked so sure of himself. She anxiously glanced over at the little dog, hoping he hadn't seen.
"It's okay," he told her without breaking step or turning from the road. "Everybody trips sometimes. It's not like we have anywhere to be that falling over will keep us from."
"Yeah," she sighed, trotting slightly to keep up with the quick-footed terrier. "I just feel like I fall all the time. I'm so clumsy."
David shrugged. "It happens. You could always blame it on the light, too." He halted and looked around at the dim forest. "It always seems to be night here."
"I've noticed that, too," Micky agreed, grateful for a breather. "It wasn't like that when we came in to the woods, but now it's like the sun doesn't even rise."
The dog nodded, still peering off into the gloom. "You getting tired?" he added after the silent gesture.
"I'm always tired," the young pony murmured. David sighed heavily and hung his head. He reflected the sentiment. They hadn't been traveling long, but this stumbling around the countryside without direction was starting to feel like a great burden to him. When once he had felt lighthearted, cracking jokes and walking with a spring in his step, now he only felt aged and weary; he was basically still a pup, but for the way he had been feeling, he wouldn't have been surprised to look into a pool and see the reflection of an old hound staring back at him.
"Let's stop, then," he said, sitting down on the road. "There's not much point to keep going anyway."
Micky followed suit. "Do you mean right now?" she asked him, "Or like, forever?" He looked at the young mare, unsure if she was serious or not. She stared back at him, feeling just as uncertain. The small dog shook his head and turned away as though to lay down. That was a question he just didn't know how to answer at the moment.
Something caught his eye then, an inconsistency of the light or coloration with a spot on the ground just ahead. The terrier squinted and was just able to make it out: branching off the road, only a couple of yards from where they had halted their journey, was another path.
"Hey, Micky," he pointed to the spot, "Do you see that path?" The pony scooted forward and stared.
"Yeah, I think so," she confirmed.
"That wasn't there before, was it?"
"I don't know, it's hard to tell anything about this woods for sure." By this time, they had both stood and walked over to the divergence and now waited in place where the two walkways met. They peered down the new path. Micky couldn't explain it, but just standing beside the path filled her with dread, and yet, it was almost welcome; after days of walking without direction, doubting whether or not a destination actually existed, at least this terrifying, weird path seemed to lead somewhere.
"Should we...?" David asked the question they were both entertaining in their minds.
"Okay," Micky said, and they stepped off of the main road.

The dark shapes still swarmed, whispering, surrounding, and always following. The first was excited; her nose twitched frantically and her ears were nearly shaking. She sneezed another signal, and the pack grouped tighter around the couple as they walked down the rabbit trail.

The trees seemed to part very quickly for the pony and the dog, and soon they found themselves stepping out of the forest and onto a flat, lifeless stretch of rock. Mountains stretched high before them, framing one side of the overcast and grey sky. A twilight glow was over everything, toning the air and stone a melodramatic sepia. There wasn't much to look at, so Micky and David kept their eyes on the road; neither truly wanted to keep going, and yet it felt like they had already come far enough that turning around would be pointless. Shortly they stopped, for they could not walk any further.
The path ended abruptly at the edge of a massive chasm. Its sheer sides dropped straight down into abysmal, empty darkness, and the far side, right up against the mountains, seemed like a mile away. There was complete silence in the place, profound, suffocating quiet. Both David and Micky knew without a doubt that this was The End; such a weight of finality hovered in the air that it could be described as nothing else.
"What do you think is down there?" asked David, breaking the silence and peering carefully over the precipice and into the depths of the gorge.
"I don't know," whispered Micky, so overcome with fear that speaking at a normal volume was impossible.
"Maybe there isn't anything," the terrier mused. "There isn't any noise coming out from it. Of course, there's no telling how deep it is."
"David," the pony said horsely. The little dog had edged closer to the drop. He didn't seem to hear her. "David," she said again, this time managing to raise her voice a little. David looked up, appearing almost surprised to find that she was still standing with him.
"I really want to see what's down there," he told her.
"No, David," Micky shook her head. "We have to go back. We have to keep traveling."
"Why?" Her friend seemed almost disconnected, like we wasn't fully present. "Travel where? We could go all over the whole valley and just end up back here. This is the end, the last place to go; can't you feel it?"
"But maybe it doesn't have to be the end yet," the pony suggested, tears beginning to form in her eyes. "I don't think we were supposed to come here yet. We have to go back and then when we're supposed to come back, we will, and then we can explore." David ignored her, or at least he couldn't hear her. He was lost in thought, staring down into the pit once again.
"We came here now, so maybe our journey in the valley is over, and whatever's down there is the next step," he mumbled. "Unless there's nothing down there."
"Please, no," the young mare pleaded. She became aware of a sound: soft, fading in and out, jumping like the sound of a stream, but less solid; it was like the sound of a multitude of creatures whispering all at once. She opened her mouth to say something of it to David, but stopped when he turned fully around to look at her.
"I'm going to see," he said. His voice was flat, and his eyes seemed pale, almost misty. "You can come with me, but I'm going."
She was too overcome to say anything, but she mouthed the word "No," eyes wide, heart pumping in her throat. He turned back to the cliff, and she turned as well, running as fast as her legs would take her back to the trees. The distance seemed so much further than when they had left the canopy. She glanced behind her just before he jumped, and for a split second she thought she caught a glimpse of a small black shape on his shoulder, round, with long ears. She couldn't bring herself to watch, so she squeezed her eyes shut and ran harder through her sobs.

The first rabbit was alone again as she watched the other traveler run away from the edge. She was satisfied; even for one, it was a successful reaping. Besides, the dark creature knew, the pony could run for now, but she would be back. She had seen the pit before her time, and now it was in her eyes, her head; she would be back soon enough.
The mist swirled around the black one's ears, and a sunbeam broke through the clouds just long enough to strike and illuminate the wisps, igniting for a brief moment an ethereal crown of light. Her eyes sparked with an unnatural fire. She was the Queen of Black Rabbits; she hadn't dug the Gulch, but she could always try to fill it again. There were always more travelers on the road, always weary wanderers. There would always be those willing to hear the whispering. It only took one rabbit at a time to watch another's steps, because after all, no one should walk alone.

Black Rabbit

Miserable Heavy

For as hackneyed a subject as rain is, it's still a pretty fascinating natural phenomenon. Rain is water literally falling from the sky. It rinses everything off, washing away dirt and filth; some places, it makes more filth. For some, rain is refreshing and beautiful; for others, a rainy day means a day of gloom and sadness. Rain is so many different things to so many different people in so many different contexts, and because of this, the literary, artistic and analogical worlds have run the aesthetic of rain into the ground. That doesn't stop the rain, though; the rain could care less how you feel. It will just pour and pour or sprinkle and drizzle without giving two cents what you think. This profound apathy can be quite poetic and a topic of much contemplation in some circles; on the other hand, it can also be utterly miserable, as Jerry and Dolores have been experiencing for several hours.

The two miserable creatures sat miserably beneath a miserable-looking tree, miserably damp and chilly, surrounded by a miserable forest underneath a miserable, grey sky in the miserable valley, being barraged by a deluge of blissfully uncaring precipitation.

"I feel so miserable," said Dolores, miserably trying and failing to rub some of the damp off of her miserable, woolly coat. 

"Yes," agreed Jerry, sighing miserably. "That seems to be a theme right about now." The miserable young bull and sheep settled a little closer together under the miserable tree and sighed, the rain splattering cheerfully through the leaves and all around them on the miserable ground. The misery was so thick, you could scoop it with a spoon and serve it as some sort of miserable pudding. It was pretty miserable.

"Enough with the 'miserable's already!!" shouted Jerry towards the wet, leafy canopy that was hardly protecting he and Dolores from the apathetic cloud-spit. Dolores started at her friend's unexpected outburst, and the tree felt a little hurt that the branches with which it was trying to shelter the two would receive such an undue berating; otherwise, nothing changed, and the rain continued to fall. Honestly, he didn't have to yell.

The bull pushed himself to his feet, saying, "Come on, Dolly," to Dolores ("Dolly" being the nickname he had taken to calling her), and helping her up as well. "Let's keep going. I'm sure the wood gets thicker deeper in, and if we're going to get rained on anyway, we might as well be making progress while we do."

"Okay," Dolores sighed again, "It's just hard, because it doesn't seem like we ever make any progress.

And the rain is so wet and yuck," she added as an afterthought, wrinkling her nose at the clingy curls in her wool. Jerry let out a soft chuckle as they once again began to walk. The packed dirt road from before had given way to a sort of natural pathway once the duo found themselves approaching the fringes of the wood earlier that morning; it wound its way through the trees, occasionally branching off in random directions, sometimes doubling back on itself, and generally making it very difficult to maintain the illusion of progress indeed.

"Well, at least we're in a forest now and not the hills," Jerry pointed out.

"True," Dolores agreed absently, looking up at the steadily thickening canopy. "I can't see the sky anymore, though," she said to herself.

The two meandered down the path in relative silence for a while, save for the occasional, "Watch your step up here," or "Be careful of that branch." Just as Jerry had predicted, the trees began to grow larger and closer together, the overhanging leaves layered thicker, and even the air itself seemed to gain density. The sky continued to shed its liquid burden onto the treetops, but no precipitation made its way to the ground through the canopy aside from tree trunk runoff every so often. Dolores, who had been walking slightly behind Jerry, peered around his bovine bulk to look down the path into the gloom.

"Jerry," she said uneasily, sheepishly patting his arm. The bull, who had been lost in thought staring off just to the right of the path, shook his head and looked down at the sheep. 

"Yes, what is it?" he asked, concerned for detecting the touch of anxiety in her voice. The sheep pointed in the direction they traveled.

"Do you see the fork in the road up there?" she asked. He turned back and squinted ahead.

"Yeah, I do."

Soon, they stood before the junction: the fork to the left twisted away and disappeared behind several larger trees, their trunks barely discernable in the sylvan half-light; contrarily, the right branch seemed to dip down and curve slowly, gradually rising up some kind of ridge. 

"Which way do we go?" asked Dolores, distress coloring her voice. She stood in the center of the intersection, looking back and forth between the two choices before them.

"Dolly, we've come to splits in the road before," Jerry said, placing a hooved hand on the sheep's shoulder. She turned to look up at him, her eyes worried.

"But this time it feels different," she said. "Like we have to make the right decision or bad things will happen."

"What kind of bad things?" the bull was getting more concerned for his friend. Despite having journeyed together only a short while, Jerry had seen that the sheep would normally shrug off potential frustrations and worries, always ready to smile or sing or skip away down the road. Ever since entering the forest and the rain, however, she had been showing greater signs of fatigue and uncertainty, making small clumsy blunders where she wouldn't before and second guessing decisions such as which tree to rest under. Never before when they had come to a split in the path had she talked about a "right" way, though. 

"I don't know," she said, becoming quiet and turning to again look at the two possibilities. "I don't know what's down there."

Jerry looked at her, then the paths. He tried to think carefully. It wasn't as though they had any clear direction or destination; as such, choosing one way or the other wouldn't set them off course.

"How do we know which way is the right way?" he asked.

"I don't know!" bleated Dolores anxiously. She sat on the ground and hung her head, squeezing her eyes shut, and whimpered softly. The bull sat down beside her and put his arm around her fluffy back.

"Hey, Dolly," he said gently, "It's all right. You don't have to cry."

"But now we're stopped," she sniffled without raising her head, "And it's all my fault because I got scared for no reason. And I don't even know which way is the right or wrong way, and now I'm crying because I don't want to decide. We went through all those other forks without having a problem and now I'm making a problem at this one. I'm being stupid."

"You're not being stupid," Jerry told her. "Don't say that. You can't just ignore your feelings if it's different than the other times. Maybe there really is a right and a wrong way this time, but since we don't know which is which, we just have to pick one and hope for the best. We have to trust we picked the right one, or else there would be no point to keep going."

"Yeah," she mumbled. "I wish we didn't have to walk on the path at all."

The bull gave her a comforting squeeze. "Maybe later, but for now, let's just stick to the road, okay?" Dolores sniffed and nodded, wiping her nose on a large leaf by her hand. "Okay," Jerry said finally, and then he stood and picked up his friend, carefully setting her on his shoulders. "I say we go left."

"Okay," Dolores agreed after a moment. And so Jerry stepped forward onto the left branch, and once they had passed out of the small clearing in which the paths converged, the sheep let out a breath she had been holding. She gently patted the space between his ears.

"Thank you, nice cow," she said. 

He smiled. "Don't mention it."

Jerry with Dolores made his way around the bends until he reached the place where the path had disappeared. Rounding the stand of trees, the two were blinded by sunlight as the bull stumbled out of the wood and into a meadow.

More or Less Up and Down So Far

"I don't know what I'm doing!!" Jerry screamed at a small yellow shrub unfortunate enough to be near at hand when he finally snapped. "I hate this place! I don't know where I am! I don't know where I'm going and I don't know how to get there! I don't know anything!!" the frustrated and distressed young bull stomped in a small circle while making distressed and frustrated sounds and waving his arms in aggravation.
Seed rot, the shrub sighed mournfully to itself. This always happens to me. I wish I were somewhere else.
Jerry had been traveling for roughly three days and had made virtually no progress. He was in an extremely hilly area; he had passed the first rolling slopes two and a half days ago, several hours after leaving the waterfall. Before too long, he was surrounded by hillocks and knolls, and the road he traveled sometimes climbed and spanned them, other times meander around with little apparent reason or preference to either method. On some of the higher hills, Jerry could spot a forest in the distance, and there were times when it seemed he was getting quite near to it, but on the very next hill it appeared that he had turned completely around and was moving back toward the waterfall. Mostly though, upon cresting a ridge, all he could see was an ocean of grassy mounds. For a day, this is expected and normal, except of course for the oddly confusing way the road would about-face without changing direction. Even after a couple days of walking, although unusual, it might make sense to perceive consistent topography. But after three whole days of journey on foot, surely there had to be some sign of a change, and without it one might become severely discouraged and burdened with thoughts of returning home.
"I wish I could go home," grumbled the bull, "If I only knew which way it was." With a profound sense of defeat, Jerry crumpled to the ground, his legs sprawled out and his back slumped against a steeper rise just off the road. "I didn't even want to leave the waterfall in the first place," he said, letting his head fall heavily onto the grass. "And I don't even have anything to eat. The only thing around here I've seen is bushes." Hearing this, the shrub fervently began to pray for itself and its family. Jerry sighed and let his eyes wander around. Clouds lazily crawled along the bright blue sky. A light breeze sent a ripple through the grass and Jerry's floppy ears. A small but brightly colored butterfly danced past. It was a nice day.
"Yeah, but I'm still lost," Jerry said, continuing that annoying habit of talking to nobody and being negative instead of just appreciating the wonderful weather. He snorted and slouched deeper into the grass, looking grumpy. The butterfly floated by again, and Jerry watched it go. It was a petite thing; the insides of its wings were a soft pink color, while the performance sides were bright blue and glossy emerald green that glittered in the sunlight; Jerry felt inexplicably content while he was observing it. The little insect twirled and fluttered on the breeze, alighting on the road or some blade of grass or the shrub.
Please go away, thought the shrub desperately. Don't draw more attention to me. I'm just a shrub, I'm not doing anything.
After a while, the butterfly decided it was time to move on from that place and flitted off down the road, disappearing over a hill. Jerry watched it go, slightly more peaceful than he had been minutes before. His eyes lingered on the ridge while his mind wandered, and he began to feel lethargic from the warm sun. He decided that he would take a quick nap. No sooner had his eyelids begun to droop, however, than a movement on the road snapped him back to the present.
It was a greyish-white something that was moving down the hill, smaller than the bovine but similar in shape; as it came closer, he saw that it was a young female sheep, not quite old enough to be a ewe, but mature enough that she would no longer qualify as a lamb. She was skipping rather than walking, staring up at the clouds and singing in time with her skips as she moved down the path. Jerry listened to her song as she approached, which she appeared to be making up as she went along:

"From the top of this hill,
From the dirt on the road,
I look up,
And the sky is the same.

It won't move like the grass,
It stands still behind trees;
It is calm like the sea without rain.

It won't care if I'm smart,
It won't care if I'm cute,
And it won't even ask for my name.

If I walk for an hour,
If I frolic all day,
I'll look up,
And the sky is the same!"

The sheep hadn't yet seen Jerry when she was nearly to the spot where he lounged in the grass due to her focus on the words of her song and the sky. Not wanting to interrupt her musical bleats with his much lower and less pleasant voice, Jerry stood as she passed; to the sheep, her vision of the sky was suddenly invaded by a large, rusty head with a fat nose and big ears. "Oh!" she exclaimed, halting both song and skip, and turned to stare fully at the Bovinae bystander.
"Hello!" she said.
"Hi," said Jerry warily, having not yet encountered another speaking creature besides himself. Not that he was uneasy about the sheep; honestly, even the notion is ridiculous, as anyone who has seen a sheep stand near a bull would know. What he was feeling was a general sort of anxiety at a brand new situation.
"Are you a cow?" asked the sheep, looking Jerry up and down.
"Uh," said the bull, caught off guard by the question and, actually, pretty much everything else about life. "No, I'm a bull." He pointlessly shot a spiteful glance at the sky. "My name is Jerry, what's yours?
"I'm Dolores," said the sheep. "We don't have bulls where I come from. We don't have cows either, but I know what those are anyway, and you kind of look like one." Jerry wasn't sure whether or not to be offended by the notion that he looked like a girl, but he decided it wasn't important. And anyway, sometimes it really is hard to tell when looking at cows which gender they are.
"Where is it that you come from?" asked Jerry, shifting his footing and looking the slightest bit miffed all of a sudden. Dolores, who hadn't yet noticed that Jerry was crazy, looked back down the road from whence she came and shrugged.
"I don't know, really." Jerry noticed something in her eyes then; was it longing? A bit of loneliness, perhaps, and a hint of sadness? But only for a moment; the sheep looked back up at the bull and smiled, and all traces of negativity disappeared from her face. "I just know about cows for some reason. And how we don't have them. I'm a sheep, by the way!" She flapped her arms against her neat, wooly sides as if to emphasize the fact that she was fluffy and not like other things that weren't so.
"Yes, I see that," agreed Jerry, although he realized that he wasn't quite sure why he knew that, either.
"Do you have sheep where you come from?" Dolores asked, a touch of hope leaking into her question. Jerry shook his head, and for another second the sheep looked vaguely disappointed, but that, too, disappeared after a beat.
"I've never seen a sheep before," the larger animal explained. "And I don't know where I come from, too. I came from the waterfall three days ago," Dolores's face brightened up, "And I've been in this hilly place ever since."
"Oh, the waterfall!" Dolores bleated happily. "I came from there. I don't know when, but it was before now. It was wet, but then I came into the sun and I got all dry! And then it was kind of lonely but I made up songs and it wasn't so bad anymore."
"I heard you singing as you came down the road," said Jerry. "I thought it was really nice. It was about the sky?"
"Yes," the sheep smiled again, more shyly than before. "I like the sky. It's like, even when I move and the ground around me moves, the sky is always the same. It just sits there like a reminder that even when things change, some bigger things don't. That's what my song was about."
Jerry was about to respond when he was interrupted by a thought that maybe he ought to suggest talking while they walked, because stationary dialogue can get a little monotonous after awhile.
"Hey, since we're both traveling, why don't we keep walking while we're still getting to know one another?" suggested the bull, openly glaring at the sky.
"Okay!" agreed the sheep, who still didn't seem to notice the bulls apparent madness. "Which way are we going?" Jerry looked up and down the road. Thinking back on his journey so far, he figured it probably didn't matter in what direction they walked.
"Lets go this way," he gestured back the way he had come and the direction Dolores had been traveling. She nodded happily, and together they stepped off. After they had gone, the shrub heaved a sigh of relief.
"Do you ever hear... voices?" asked the bull after a bit, continuing to stare ahead at the road. "Like, from the sky or anything?"
"No," answered the sheep, looking up at him inquisitively. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason." said Jerry uncomfortably. "Sometimes, I just think I can hear someone talking about stuff that's happening."
"Like a narrator or something?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Hm," Dolores put her head to the side, thinking. "Nope! I've never heard anything like that!"
"Okay," Jerry sighed to himself and put the matter aside. The two moved on without a word for another minute or so, and then it was Dolores's turn to break the silence.
"Jerry, are we friends?" she asked, stopping to looking up at the bull. She would be okay if he said no; after all, they had just met, and when you are one who wanders, others may stumble in and out of your life without thought to any real connection. She didn't know how long she might wander with Jerry, but she hoped he would say yes anyway. It was always very nice to have a friend, even for a brief season. Jerry looked down at the little sheep. He saw something in her eyes, something he could feel and appreciate, because it was a sentiment he shared, although he didn't truly understand it yet. He smiled, possibly for the first time since entering the valley.
"Of course we're friends," he told her. She smiled back up at him.
"Good," she said, contentedly turning back to the road with a little bit more of a spring in her step. "You're a nice cow." Jerry didn't correct her. It didn't really mean much whether or not she knew the difference between a cow and a bull, after all. Jerry was happy, and it was always nice to have a friend.

Befuddlement and The Beginning of Things

Jerry sat beside the pool into which the tower of cascading water fell and watched its perpetual flow. The bull absently rubbed his arm, damp from his tumble into the valley; though the sun was nearing its zenith and it had been a while since Jerry arrived, the mountainous ridge from whence the water issued still cast a long shadow over the pool and several yards past, and Jerry still wasn't quite dry.
"Well," said Jerry aloud to nobody, "I didn't want to go out into the sun right away. It would probably be really hot after my being in the cool water. And anyway, it's nice to take a minute to relax and just think about life, you know?" Nobody answered him. Silence reigned, but for the sound of the gushing water. Sighing after a moment, he swiped his nose with the back of a cloven hoof and then pushed himself to his feet. Taking one more look at the waterfall, Jerry turned away from the ridge and towards the open valley. "I guess I might as well leave, then," he mumbled, presumably to himself. "Maybe the sun won't be too hot after all. I could always just come back here later."
A small ways past the shadow of the mountains, Jerry found the beginnings of a packed-earth road. Planted in the yellow grass beside was a small wooden sign, reading, "Welcome to Pretzel Valley! Walk here," with an arrow pointing to the road itself. Jerry snorted and looked up at the sky.
"Really? That seems kind of obvious, doesn't it?" Whether he meant that roads are meant to be walked on or that the name of the land on which he traveled was Pretzel Valley, I'm not sure; nevertheless, he still received no answer, because he's not actually talking to anyone. He was alone. "No I'm not!" he shouted, "I'm talking to you! How can I be alone when I hear you talking all the time?" I guess he's trying to assert that the sky is sentient. He's also hearing things. Evidently, I picked a defective protagonist. Snorting again, Jerry shook his head and stepped onto the road. He hadn't taken more than five strides when another sign, identical in shape and size to the first, sprang from the ground like a stop-motion, time-lapse video of the growth of a corn stalk, which greatly startled the bull. "Where you are headed may not be where you arrive," it read. Jerry blinked in confusion from his place in the dirt where he had stumbled and fallen in surprise at the sign's appearance.
"What does that mean?" Jerry asked the sign. "Where am I headed?" The sign gave no response. After all, signs cannot speak.

But what if they could? Now, that would be something. What if, when in need of directions, all we had to do was walk up to any street sign? "Where's the nearest bookstore?" we might ask, and the sign would reply, "Oh, there's a Half-price Books just a few blocks over from here!" That would be pretty neat. Jerry certainly wouldn't be so bewildered.
On second thought, that would also kind of be just like the Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface, and that's on smart phones so you could keep it in your pocket, and it's actually way more convenient than asking a sign would be. But I digress.

By this time, Jerry had once again taken to his feet and continued on his journey. No new signage had appeared, although Jerry would tense and look to the side of the road whenever he passed a suspicious clump of grass. He still had no idea where he was going, but at least he was getting closer.
"A little direction would still be nice," he grumbled with a significant glance at his friend, the sky. What our Bovinae hero didn't realize, and what could not truly be explained to him or any new journeyman, was that he had entered Pretzel Valley. Pretzel Valley is a directionless land. Neither left nor right mattered. As any seasoned traveler could tell you, just as the sign had tried: just because you have a destination does not mean that is where you will end up, at least not right away. Life on the road is unpredictable and strange and confusing, sometimes incredibly worth it, often disappointing, and generally flat-out difficult. It's the rest of your life, and I think we can all agree that it would be far easier to spend it all inside, where safety is guaranteed and comfort almost goes without saying; and yet, with such a remarkable volume of adventure and magic in the land just itching to be experienced, can one truly justify living without ever leaving the house?

For The Rest Of Your Life

How does one begin a story?
Once upon a time seems so cliché. Of course, every era past was once upon a time. Every place and every story is stuck in a moment, but is it truly necessary to point that out whenever a moment is recalled? Maybe. Probably not. But then again, these days it is much more common to just jump into a moment without really appreciating it's position in time, aside from its convenient time-stamp. Perhaps then, for the sake of what we lose as a toll for the freeway speeds of technology and development, I shall take a second to recall that moment after all; such moments can be quite profound, and God only knows when we'll find a second to take a moment again.

Once upon a time...
Pretzel Valley was not a prime vacation spot. It never had been, and I daresay it never will be, although not for lack of scenery or pleasant weather, nor due to poor relations with the native population; in actuality, Pretzel Valley was not a place one would ever visit, simply because, as far as anyone knew, there was no one outside of Pretzel Valley. It was a vast and varied swatch of land, crisscrossed with twisting pathways, roads and rabbit trails, the origin of its name. It was surrounded on all sides by high mountain passes, and the Valley itself possessed a variety of habitats: forest, desert, marshland and others. Also, most of the flora in the area was colored many shades of yellow.
Now, the roads themselves were described by a quite befuddling and inexplicable phenomenon: literally any path taken could lead to literally any other place in the Valley, and never twice in a row. All attempts to effectively map out the intersections and connections between landmarks failed before any cartographers had reached the end of their journey, and anyway, even a successful map from one would immediately be rendered obsolete, for the entire road experience would be degrees of different for those who might come after. And yet, despite this overwhelming evidence that it would probably be better to just stay at home all day, every day, everyone in Pretzel Valley was some sort of explorer, adventurer or wanderer. Each one's journey was unique to the individual aside from two key points: all journeys began with tumbling into the Valley via waterfall on the Eastern side, and all journeys came to an end at a gigantic chasm in the West known simply as "The Gulch". Everybody came out of the water; nobody was born in the Valley.
How is that logical? A waterfall that dumps people from nowhere into a valley in the middle of mountains? From where does the water come? How did the travelers get into the water, and from whence did they originate? Surely they must have other homes? And yet, in the Valley, everyone simply is. There was never any "was", no recollection of pre-Valley life, only vague feelings of warmth and safety from which all were violently expelled, pulled into the rushing whatever that eventually spills into Pretzel Valley. None can explain it; I certainly can't. I told you about the paths, did I not? The roads and the waterfall are related. Some kind of magic works in the Valley, and it doesn't appear to make any sense. All is not in vain, however, for in this we find the true nature of the journey: not simply to follow or experience and become confused by the magic, but to learn from it, learn about it, to increase in wisdom, and maybe, after all is said and done, to know the secret behind it all.

Now we have found our purpose, and the moment is over. This is the waterfall; now, here is the Valley. There's no turning back, so good luck! Should you find yourself wanting for anything, I will be right here in the sky, my ethereal authorship always observing, narrating, and otherwise orchestrating this grand adventure, this Master Quest, for you. Are you ready? Then let the magic begin.

Twisting Paths

I walk the Pretzel Valley and I never see the end.

The Gulch my destination, the Heights my restoration; 

Yellow roads will taunt and goad until I lose salvation.

Directionless and drained and stressed, I cry for rain to save me 

From the Salty Sea of desert sand as sun and heat erase me.

One foot before another 'til my legs are ankle deep,

A Sugared Swamp is sweet temptation for eternal sleep.

O'er cliff and hill I stumble on, and though my eyes betray me,

Through creek and Short Wood I press on; this journey will not slay me.

The Depressed Gully, shadowed land, defies and blinds the clever.

I rest for now in Ditches, but I will not stay forever.

I've walked the Pretzel Valley; my boots and feet are rent.

Press onward for the life of me until I see the end.