EXILE
Right now I'm in exile. There's a very long way separating me from my friends and the road seems hard and treacherous. In short, I'm not sure I want to make the journey at all. I would rather stay here and accept my fate. I would rather the comfort of a bed made of sand and rocks than the scorching sun and a promise that seems unsure. My friends are not even waiting for me. They don't know I exist.
I'm about to make this decision, but there's still a "but" in my head. It's always there. It's calling me a coward and a traitor. I ignore it as I always do. Yet now my decision to give up seems further away and I have to begin the debate in my head all over again. And again...and again...and again. That "but" never leaves me alone. It provides me no lasting comfort. It doesn't take me any closer to my friends but refuses to let me take one more step away from them. I don't know what to do with it. All I know is that I want my friends. That feeling swallows me whole. I stand still until it releases me back to the desert, let free from the beast's stomach that is this paralysing feeling.
My friends don't know I exist. I'm the one who has to go to them. Still, I wait that perhaps they will come to find me instead. They don't. I have to accept the fact that I have to cross the desert in order to find them. What would happen if I took a single step towards their direction? Surely, a single step mustn't be that bad. If only my foot would move. I urge it to move forward. Days pass, then weeks, until I realise it's already been years that I've been standing here. At this point, standing still, taking a step back or forward seem all equally difficult. The most rewarding of all, though, is the one leading to my friends.
Let me tell you about them and the loneliness that consumes me without them. They smile and cry like we all do, only that their smiles are brighter and their tears sweet. Their voices never shriek and their eyes are too benign to lay on me yet. Without their strength, I don't feel like I can make it through the desert. Yet they're nowhere to be found in this abandoned place. There's still that decision to be made...
My knees give in and I kneel. I touch the sand with my hands and feel that, though it's not welcoming, it's not appalling either. Is the thought of my friends enough to satisfy me? So much so that I would give up sitting under the trees with them? The beautiful trees that embrace you with their shade and breeze. A single step is better than none. So move that foot. That foot MUST now move forward. And to my surprise...it does.

















