A Shadow in the Plains

I crossed the bridge over the canal that started and ended at the ocean. It wasn't natural and it certainly wasn't man made. When the world became united, underneath one religious amalgamation, we stood in what they called 'The Holy Land'. It didn't make much sense to me why, of all places, this was where the 'roots of creation' lifted from the ground.

I am a gods-fearing man who fears the men of gods. We stretched our arms in unison and the heavens reached back. They did, I should say, our previous generation. Two times, the earth shook, a mix of dirt, wood, and mass. The god uprooted the roots of heaven and suspended it over our land. It stood blotting the sun in an eternal eclipse the shape of a spider. A thousand legs meeting at 'the gate' where the faces coagulated, disfigured and mortified.

To the faces we stare with, the faces that stare at us shrivel up with confusion. We're the one's who were confused, as to why of all places this became the holy land. Most of us blindly abide it.

Only up until two-hundred years before the unison did our first chapel get erected. This land bore no claim to such an occurrence. In truth, this place used to be a heretic conglomeration. The holy land's resting site, much as it was strange, was never questioned. To question it's creation would be to question the gods decisions.

Even then, our city was nothing more than bricks stacked upon bricks with ramshackle wood shelters plastered together by clay. We hadn't the coin to pay for a travelling merchant's second glance. Why did our flat, desolate abode become the resting ground for the heavens? The thought crossed my mind once or twice. I paid it no mind; it didn't matter, not really anyway.

Other than the eerie feeling I got from it, there wasn't much else this gargantuan structure did. The way the roots, thrice the size of our walls and quadrupling the length, lifted from the ground, still anchored, but raised to the sky, like a wooden, dirt spider. The abdomen was a hollow husk; they called it 'the gateway'. Some believed that if you could get up there, you'd go to the heavens. Around the gateway were the faces. True faces made of wood and dirt. They were called 'the angels'.

My day was filled with haste. The city was on it's way to being one of the largest in the world based on the sparse reports we received in our district. Work needed to be done. I tended the herd of sheep as they cascaded like lazy clouds resting on the land as if a dense fog had rolled in. They mulled about glaze-eyed and dumb. They never saw the roots and never would, is what the townsfolk would tell you.

Sunday's looming breathed on my neck as I sheared them. My wheat strained my back as it fought for me; they were the only reason I was alive. The Church's quotas were a strict affair. What could be done when the sun's rays demanded your sacrifice? I toiled over the land ducking in and out of shadow wondering when I would be able to dance with my brain in the daylight. There, formed a crack in a halo. Suddenly, the wooden spider appeared to be prison bars.

After the hours of my labor, I went to the library. There were few books in there, but there were plenty of journals. We rarely had literature imports, so providing written entertainment was our burden. I was most interested in the stories about the people who tried to climb the roots.

You found nothing on the topic.

I exited with dismay to the tree. For once, I acted on my curiosity, but to no avail. The only thing in this world where you could see any result from was work. So, that's what I'll continue to do. My savior was the wheat and sheep, as far as I was concerned.

The sheep herded through grey grass, through the root's shadows that cast stripes throughout the petrified grey plains and up the drab brown hills that choked the horizon. Like lost children the clouds clung to the roots.

Someone was running after you.

I turned to look over my shoulder hoping to see someone, but there wasn't. I felt shivers run down my spine. Someone was after me. Which was impossible, they were dead. I never knew what happened to my mother. One day she was there, the next, she wasn't. She'd prattled on and on about how the roots cover the grass and the animals had nothing to eat. She'd been saying that for much longer than I'd been alive. Days like those I wanted to go to her room and look through her stuff.

You cleared her room out merely days after she passed. All to the waste pit followed by the flame.

Later that day. I went to the waste pit. I went to where I remembered where I'd taken her things. The piles of ash and dust wafted over our small town's castle-like walls like thinly weaved linens. Acres and acres of land dedicated to the destruction and removal of things that once served a purpose. Vehicles, shelters, and people were the ashes.

You stepped on a rusty nail. You thought it might be wise to seek help.

I stayed. The pain rocked through me and everything in me told me to go see a physician. I saw a glint shard of light on the far side of the pit.

You thought it could've been a piece of a mirror, which seemed unimportant.

I felt silly walking into the smoldering ash. It looked like hell there. Foot blaring in pain as I stepped through smoke memories, heat rising.

Your hair and eyebrows fizzled off.

A strong breeze rolled in that felt cooler than usual. I waded through the charcoal and embers. The air was a furnace.

Your clothes burned and legs blackened.

I stood in my mother's room, then. The burning was left behind in the pit I was no longer in. I stood disoriented, I didn't know how I got here. Everything was there. I thought I had gotten rid of everything. I remembered the flames, the embers. They floated until they dimmed, fires extinguished. But, it was all there again. The rusty nail was no longer in my foot.

You felt like you were floating.

Like wilted yellow petals in the wind I moved towards my mother's nightstand where I found a journal. I opened it and, as if the pages were linked to it, so too did the mouths of the wooden spider. They were speaking the words I was reading.

"We are the followers of the gods and it is our gift to be given heaven. Our plan is beyond man, we give lights and gifts on Seven. We scratch gods and find truths in some guilt infested obsession.

I saw the gods with my own eyes, you can see them too. We walk around with blind eyes, they're looking down on you. Keep searching for the holy land." [Eugh.]

The room cracked like the splitting of a log, cut in half and it fell over. It formed underneath me like a bridge. I was on top of one of the roots, halfway up. Our town below, scattered like ants, townsfolk gathered at the bottom. Not a sound.

You saw the face of your mother scattered with the rest of hell. You climbed down with a free fall.

I reached a hand out as I lost my footing and grabbed a branch.

Your weight and momentum broke the branch.

No. That certainly didn't happen, I believed.

Were you certain?

I believed.

Did you climb back up?

I did.

Go ahead, then. "Don't say I didn't try to stop you."

I climbed back up. Did someone push me off? I wasn't one to lose my balance. I swore I heard a voice. But, now I see.

The face of my mother had disappeared. This root led straight to where the base of the tree would be. It wasn't a tangle of roots, but instead, as I had mentioned, was gate like. I walked up the rest of the root until I was underneath the gateway.

You looked down, and then back up.

I climbed through the gateway. I felt sand threaten to rip my skin clean off, the wind that carried it carried no mercy. I felt a stranger in this place. The sand settled as the wind weakened. Atmospheric occlusion gave me a sight a tenth of that of our home land. The sky, from what I could see was a deep blue, like the bottom of the ocean, but the sun still pushed through with a punishing ray. I was brightly lit.

I no longer saw where the gate was. It should've been right behind me, but there it was no longer. This place was nothing and had nothing. I walked for miles, then a few more.

You walked for miles, then a few more.

I looked that way, and this way. The air started to feel like the ocean. I waded in water that I could breathe. I drowned; my lungs filled with water. I saw a ghostly light appear. It was the sun, an uninterrupted sun. I looked that way, and this way. Nothing but sand and atmosphere.

You didn't find anything.

You are correct. I didn't.

I told you, I warned you.

You did. Did you think this is a bad thing?

I assumed it would've been.

Why?

It's what you chose.

Choices can change.

At what cost?

Everything, it seems like.

Why would that be a good thing?

It was exactly what I wanted.