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.