While It Laughs, It Dies

I am part of a cycle of generations. Before me, my mother took this
journey, and her mother years before that. It is a tradition I have not
been blessed to understand, but it has been given to me by the hands of
the God of Fate, and I accept it into these hands with a willingness
that seems also part of tradition.

I am on a journey. It must be complicated to another who does not have
the knowledge of our family, especially the air. Do you have knowledge,
air? Perhaps in your breath you carry more knowledge than a being like
me may ever hope to possess. In case. In case, and because the silence
sometimes terrifies me, I will endeavour to explain as best I
can.

I have no map, save the blue threads through my body in which my blood
runs. I have no destination, as far as I am aware, until I have arrived
there, that is. I know it is a physical journey which saps, and will
continue to sap, my strength and wisdom in equal parts. I have no
travelling companion, except you, air, which presses on my cheek and
burns in my lungs. Also, tradition. Heavy in my belly.

At present, I am walking, ever walking. There may be other ways of
travelling later, I do not know. The land around is barren and bare,
and unfamiliar to me. I have met no one. Food - I have none. That is
left to me I assume. I have come across nothing but sand, and plants
that look as dry and brittle as old bones. I do not, inexplicably, feel
hungry though - I glide on and on.

The ground stretches ahead and on, air currents rippling over its
chiselled curves and bumps. I try to imagine a town here, and cannot.
There are no foundations to hold life in this place.

My skin has burnt to a deep brown and I feel, through this, part of
this landscape; hidden, uninterrupted, blending in.

I look to my left to reassure myself with brown blank familiarity, and
see the next stage of my journey, maybe five hundred metres away, lying
on the floor. It is the thump of my heart and an ache in the tips of my
fingers that tells me so.

I travel smoothly towards the dot upon the horizon, breathing deeply,
with adrenaline beginning to tighten in all of my organs. When I arrive
at the object I am not disappointed. It is a book, lying on its back,
juddering and wheezing. It is dying. I gently kneel down by its side
and wait. For a few minutes there is silence, as it gathers its final
breaths. With my eye cast down, and apprehensive, I listen.
"Ask&;#8230; me."
I breathe in deeply once more, concentrating hard, and begin, the words
coming from my lips before I am aware even of their meaning - so fast,
I speak.
"What is this, this place, the world? And why?"
A pause. Seconds.
"You must be careful of it, for it balances precariously, and so seeks
to hurt you, to keep you in place. It is dangerous."
It is still, and I fear that it will die before it should do so. It
shakes again, drawing in its final breath.
"What is the next stage?"
It begins to laugh slowly, a terrible, cracking laugh, a last laugh.
While it laughs, it dies.