In The Light Of Memory

ARROWS

  And so we travelled on, short in the telling, long in the doing. We took turns to ride and sometimes the horse went unladen. The bird seemed to wait for us as we camped, as if it knew we were following so that we became curious and all the more intent on following, having no other clue to direct us. As we went the I told the boys things I remembered to pass the time.

  I have been travelling a long time. It has been so long, I don't know how long it has been. Maybe hundreds of years, maybe thousands. I can remember some things, and some things I can't. When I was a small boy, younger than you, I was a member of an organisation called the Order of Knights. Once a week we would meet and hold ceremonies. We would enter in procession and seat ourselves according to rank. I remember that I was mostly the archway. I don't remember what that meant, but I had a silver arch on my shoulder. I always wanted to be the boy with the two swords, but never got them. We would play games, then have our parting ceremony. There were all kinds of games. Games of strength, skill and intelligence. One night in particular we played everybody's favourite game. I don't remember it's name, but we divided up into two groups. One group went first with a piece of chalk. They would draw an arrow on the ground every so often showing which way they went, but every so often would leave an arrow pointing in two directions, perhaps dispatching someone with a piece of chalk to leave a false trail for a short distance before returning the rest of the group in the other direction. The aim of the second group, after waiting a little while to give them a head start, was to follow the arrows and catch up with the first group before they returned back to the base. When they reached an intersection, the group would split, to see which trail was the right one and which false, and those following the false trail would rejoin the others as soon as they realised.

  On the night when my journey began I was in the second group and we followed the chalk arrows as usual, splitting into two groups at intersections. But on this night, whenever we split into two group we found another intersection and split again and again, and no-one rejoined us, until finally, I was alone, following the arrows. But the arrows never came to an end. They just went on and on. Of course the person leaving the arrows eventually ran out of chalk, so began leaving arrows by other means, an arrangement of sticks, a carving in a tree or fence post, or scratches on a stone. And so I followed these. Sometimes because of the limited things available to make a mark, and because over time, things are disturbed and erased, it can be difficult to make out the arrows that have been left, but if you know what to look for, and look hard enough, you can always find them. I followed and followed. Minutes became hours, hours turned to days, days to weeks, weeks to months, months to years, and years to decades. Sometimes I wonder if the decades have become centuries, because I have seen and heard so much that there is not room for it all. Things go in and others things are forgotten. Some memories remain, some depart, sometimes they return. I wonder if I have always been here, wandering through forests, jungles, fields, mountains, icy wastes, oceans, rivers, deserts, caves, villages, towns and cities.

  There was once when it almost ended. I was in a desert, starving, thirsty, with no water remaining. I had followed into the desert, and not seen a sign for days, and I didn't know which way there was water. There was nothing I could do but keep walking. Vultures were above me, and when I fell they circled in closer. The sun blistered my skin and lips. My tongue was swollen and I thought I would die of suffocation. Everything in my vision, which was nothing but sun and sand and sky and vultures swam like a mirage. But I thought of the person leaving the arrows. There was someone out there, somewhere in the world ahead of me, leaving the arrows, for no other reason than that I was following. Why they lead me into one place and not another, why sometimes through sorrowful and hard places, and not through pleasant gardens I did not know. But it was for me. It was so that I would see what they saw. So that through all this, through everything in the world, there would be a person seeing what they saw, hearing what they heard. Without me there was no purpose, I was this persons purpose. Without me it would all be futile. Only absolute isolation. I was the purpose of these arrows. It was that thought alone that kept me alive, and is the reason I am still here today.

  With these thoughts in mind, I lay still and waited. It was the only way. I lay still and the vultures came down. I lay still and slowed my breathing. When the vultures finally ventured close enough to peck out my eyes I surprised them. I caught one with my hands and wrung it's neck. I drank it's blood and ate some of it's flesh. That was enough to keep me going. I stood and went on. Over the next dune I saw it, the last trace of an arrow, dug into the shifting sand, almost obliterated by the wind, and went on.