The Traveller - Week 1 - 646 Words

Okay.  Jumped the gun on starting the 2K-A-Week challenge.  Started it halfway through a week, on a whim, the week that followed we ran into some technical challenges and I was sick as a dog, and the week following that I was on vacation.  Bad time to try and kick this off.  We're going to start this all over again.  Ready?  Go!

The Traveller - Have you ever noticed that when you have been traveling for a long time, your perception begins to change.  Moving along a road, up and over hills, past trees and bushes, across bridges and past farm fields, eventually the senses begin to dull.


The Traveller
Have you ever noticed that when you have been traveling for a long time, your perception begins to change.  Moving along a road, up and over hills, past trees and bushes, across bridges and past farm fields, eventually the senses begin to dull.  A certain lag occurs between sensation and the response to that sensation.  One no longer feels the road beneath them.  You no longer see individual plants and shrubs, just fields of green and brown.  You become numb to the incline and decline of hills.  The smell of farms slides by unnoticed.  The heat of the sun and the bite of the wind disappear entirely.  When this occurs it no longer feels less as if you move through the world, and more that the world moves itself around you.  When you pass this point, when you have walked long enough that you can no longer hear the night bugs, you do not notice the chill of the night, the dampness of the dew, or the feeling of grass pressed against your cheek, you are in trouble. 

They found me lying on the road, unmoving, my clothes in tatters, and covered in blood.  It is surprising that they did not assume that I was dead and simply keep their distance.  My clothing was caked in dirt and mud from the several times I had fallen upon the road.  I should be thankful that heavy rains had washed most of the blood from me, or they surely would have thought I was a corpse.  In truth the only reason that I was not dead is because the majority of the blood I had worn was not my own.  My wounds were not mortal but exposure and infection would have killed me for certain had it not been for the kind people who found me and decided to take me in.

I awoke inside a small room, hardly large enough to hold the bed I found myself in.  A woman and unfamiliar woman removed a damp cloth from my forehead, she smiled at me as she wrung fresh water from the cloth.  It was the second time in my adult life that someone had looked upon me without fear.  I must have tried to move, because she placed her hand gently, but firmly, on my chest, “You are still very weak,” she pressed me back into the bed with maternal care, “Rest now.”  I didn’t have the strength to resist her, so I did so.  Sleep found me more easily than I would have liked.

They tell me that it was several days before the fever broke and I regained consciousness.  When I finally did so my eyes fell upon a man who stood watching me.  He was shilouetted against the light that poured in through the thin covering of the sliding door.  We regarded one another silently for a time.  I could hear the voices of children playing through the thin exterior wall.

"Who are you?"  His voice was calm, but tinged with concern. 
I considered my response for several beats. "I am no one." 
The man simply inclinded his head towards me slightly and raised one eyebrow.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath that was cut short short by the sharp pain it caused in my ribs, and let it out slowly.  Steeled, I opened my eyes and faced the man again, "Everything that was my life before now is dead and gone.  As far as anyone else knows, I died with it."
The man shifted this weight back and forth and remained silent for a moment, "Do you have a name?"
It took effort to shake my head, "It died with everything else."
Another silence passed between us, though filled with less tension.  "The kids have taken to calling you Jin."
I did not have the strength to nod, "That will do."