The Traveler

Prologue

            The woman opens her mouth and begins to sing.  She is one of three people standing with him on top of the bridge, a bridge he has never been to and may never actually see.  He is not himself, standing there in the broad daylight, looking off the bridge at a never ending road and an endless sea of forest.  He is a middle-aged man with wavy brown hair, his bangs hanging loosely in his eyes, the white shirt covering his slightly robust torso swaying like the bridge in the wind.  The wind is beginning to increase, and although the bridge is solid concrete, it does in fact seem to move beneath his feet.  He is reminded of standing on a ship’s dock as it moves through the ocean, and the increase of the wind fills his heart with fright.  Next to the woman are two other people he has never actually met, at least not in the physical sense, souls flowing as seamlessly as the trees beneath them.  There is the old man, standing there motionless, clutching his metallic cane and perhaps unaware of the presence of the woman.  He is wearing a long white tunic, and despite the glistening metal of the cane, exists out of time.   Next to the man stands the boy, young, barely even eight years old.  He is dressed in an all-blue jumpsuit, overall buttons going all the way down to his waist, his shaggy blonde hair becoming more and more rustled with the rising wind gusts.  He cannot actually hear the words the woman is singing, but he knows they are beautiful and important.

            He glances quickly down at his hands, opens his palms and sees many lines, wrinkles, and calluses.  He is an old soul, and he feels like himself, only older and far more knowledgeable—but his knowledge is of another life.  How desperately he wishes to hear the woman’s song, but it is far too late.  The bridge begins to sway more violently with the wind, rising like an approaching storm.  He catches one quick glance at the endless horizon of treetops and sees the trees swaying so hard they are nearly touching the deserted ground beneath them.  They dance chaotically in the wind, and his eyes turn once again to the three standing there with him—the woman, the old man, and the boy.  He knows they have the answers, but unfortunately, he also knows they cannot reveal them.  To do so at this point would bring an end far more terrible than the crumbling world around him.

            He braces himself against the edge of the bridge, desperately clutching the concrete beam once used to keep vehicles and traffics of people safely on.  His knuckles turn white and he feels his heels digging deeply into the concrete, but it is no use.  Like the world around him, the bridge itself begins to crumble; he looks down (someone long ago told him to never do that, never look down, but of course he cannot resist) and sees the concrete road splitting open, giant slabs of hard stone caving upward and inward.  Finally, the bridge gives way to the wind and shattering earth, and he falls.  He has no time to look back at his companions, he sees nothing but the approaching ground.

            Before he hits the dying world below, he has just enough time to glance up.  A thought as vital yet as fleeting as a child’s first memory is able to escape his lips.

            “And now it begins.”