Blistering sand was almost a relief from the frigid waste that just was. Amari turned around, the fog was heavy, and it was hard to see more than a few hundred meters out. Where had she been? She remembered but it couldn’t be right.

Her skin itched with frostbitten flesh now sweltering in the desert heat. But the pylons were there, that had to mean something, it just had to. But where was she to go, what was she to do. A traveler without a destination, a traveler without an origin. The pylons loomed above her, exact distances apart, as far as she could see. The square pattern turned into something more the further she looked out, but by the time she got there, the square pattern continued. And above it all, a blistering sun, scorching her. So, she walked.

Amari ran her palm against the rough stone of one of the pylons, and it broke away at her touch, however light it was. As if wiping away ash, the pylon crumbled beneath her stroke. The towering object cast upward into the sky some 40 meters, about the same size as her house in…, she couldn’t remember. But this was the same height, she knew that.

She pushed her palm into the ash material submerging into the object. The coolness of the insulated interior washed over her arm, providing some relief from the heat. Could she go inside entirely? Would she not drown?

Amari pushed her body into the pylon, the cool ash coating every inch of her skin, and it felt good.

The forest seemed to push on for eternity, plants rising up, entangling her feet after every step that Sri took. How long had it been? Moments, or perhaps an eternity. Nothing made sense, but even logic seemed illogical. As things that held permanence didn’t exist for more than a few moments, and even moments themselves were a fleeting thought. But Sri knew that she was her and that previously she was not, and she clung to that thought, it was all she had

Cutting through the dense jungle was exhausting, but her body recovered quickly, healing the scrapes and bruises of the assaulting foliage, invalidating the pain they had caused. Sometimes she floated upward with every step, ascending an invisible road high above the treetops. Other times she walked down into the earth, where her body could not possibly be. She was here, but not in a way that mattered to the rest of the universe. She had her own rules, different than the ones that applied to the world around her.

Until a single structure appeared, far ahead but unmistakable. As she turned the structure turned with her and as she moved up and down within the world, the structure stayed relative to her. Sri was surprised, this world was made of inconsistencies, but this inconsistency was unique and bonded to her. And she inevitably approached the tower, it was impossible not to.

The stone structure rose from the earth and was about the size of her childhood home. She remembered that she had one, but not much else about it. And it was about the same size as this. Pushing her palm against the structure, the cool ash like material wiped away almost weightlessly as her hand brushed over it. It felt rough, it felt real, unlike the rest of this world that she walked through. She pushed her arm into the structure and was relieved by the coolness of the soft material within. She pushed her foot in, then her hips, her chest, and finally she plunged the entirety of her body into this structure.

Sri and Amari sat on a bench beside their home, it had walls and a roof, and reminded them of their childhood. But this world was lacking, and the lack of consistency and rules frustrated them both. Any structure they built eventually vanished. Neither of them could ever get to the other side of the river, no matter how far they swam, it moved with them. And no matter where they went, they always arrived back home.

Occasionally the sun would set, and night would come, the wind would whisper of distant things, things they could never reach. A man snoring in the room upstairs. Children playing in the field outside. But these were all things that could not be.

The pylon appeared eventually, and the house was gone. Replaced, by this gigantic stone structure, looming over the world. And the whispers amplified, the kids laughing in the field. The man telling a story from within the structure. Sri and Amari were now surrounded in the lives of these whispers yet could never be a part of them. They raised their hand against the stone structure and felt the cool ash wash over them as they stepped into it.

Sri sat in her living room, her father talking about the deer he saw when he was driving home today. Her sister and brother outside playing in the yard. She remembered when she was young, how much time she had, how busy her life was now. Tomorrow she would travel to town for work, the first day of the month, she would not have another day like this for another two weeks. So, she sat and listened to all the sounds that made up her home.

Amari walked along the squelching desert sand, pylons rising in consistent patterns as far as the eye could see. She was exhausted, the flat landscape had beaten her, but there was nowhere to rest, everything moved with her. She kept moving to the pylon, placed her hand against it and felt the cool ash wash over her.

Written by Paul Lovy