A ghost white and sickly does roam along the desert sands. Its flowing black tendrils wave silently in the breeze. The glimmer of ethereal scales casts a glow of beauteous ruin from which the ghost cannot escape. Chains of a life too far removed from memory and yet evident in the invisible scars of dreams that were far too real for any ghost they mark its form as a warning to any who should cross the path and heaven forbid run in parallel for any length of time. It is bound by its beauty to remain in misery and grief forever wandering from dune to mountain river to ocean in search of an end to an existence too wonderful for any being to bear.
The sands do not shift nor do the scant skeletons of life move as the ghost passes over them in the place where all things live and burn brightly through into the end of time. They float in tormented happiness as fires that have burned from the ancient times of being and even now not understood but only complicated and mused about and yes even wished upon by the more foolish. The ghost passes the lights in its quest for an end which will not come. By the withered trees of forests past and only beneath slivers of shadow can the ghost wander forth in search of what it seeks that is to say that which it cannot find for it does not know it looks for it.
As it comes to the end of all things and beginning of others the ghost finds a stone pillar at the edge of a plateau. The stone sits silently seemingly staring out from the top of its rounded form into what it is possibly a canyon but too obviously a canyon so a canyon it cannot be. Howls and sounds of void do not deafen nor indeed make a sound in a place from which the origin of sound is within. Faint breezes simply resonate off canyon walls to create the ever-present drum of thought as it resonates in the bones of not those who are dead but those who are lost and unable to secure the path. The tree bones which littered the landscape’s ink are no longer present. The ghost dares to step out along the barren sands lurking carefully.
It is a rounded stone pillar unmarked in the middle of dark deserted sands. Such a thing is unheard of.
It begins by watching from afar. First from one side then the others in an attempt to understand the thing’s purpose or if it not be then what it could be. A decoration of some sort perhaps that was long ago erected as a means to mark the world in a special way. If not decorative then its purpose may have been functional used by ancient deserters as a pounding stone against which their meat could be placed and softened by mallet strike. Then perhaps it is an object of true chaos having been formed in a place and over a period of time unfathomable by thinking beings. Many possibilities for such a stone but none apparent enough to make it understood. There is a lack of differing colors save the smooth gray slightly lightened by the faint shine of the ghost’s streams of skin as it draws closer with each passing. Out beyond the canyon unlike a canyon there is a persistent thrum and the ghost’s ears learn to bear it for as long as it is able for the call of the stone is that alluring to it.
The passage draws it ever closer as the few shrubs and rocks are left behind the area around the stone forming something of a half circle of emptiness. The ghost’s thickly bound hair drags along the sand as the ghost itself stops and listens to the ground taking larger and bolder crawling steps towards the stone pillar listening for possibility of surprise yet nothing occurs. It is an encouraging sign that the ghost does not ignore digging its toes into the sand as it nears at last the base of the great pillar. Upon closer inspection the seemingly perfected form is shown to be comprised of a series of small cracks and holes that would not be visible to a ghost’s far-seeing eye. How strange that a stone exposed to corrosive winds and sands would be so minimally scarred and still stand tall. And upon nearly reaching the great elongated stone itself it is most surprising to feel unusual warmth emanating directly from it. The ghost is at first frightened back again to feel the unnatural presence of warmth in this coldest of neverending. It is impossibly inviting and unpleasant and altogether irresistible. Within a short distance of time it has crawled back to the base of the stone where its warmth is noticeable and yet not at its strongest. The point of heat would appear to be coming from the top of the stone where its rounded peak remains invisible against the black sky.
The ghost is wary of warmth still but the curiously strong draw of the great thing becomes impossible to ignore and so the ghost stands and begins to lightly examine the stone’s surface. Up and down and all around does it reach so far as extending its head out over the illusion of a canyon’s abyss in order to explore the side of the stone that faces out beyond nothing and much to its surprise finds two great round holes perfectly symmetrical and parallel whereby giving the impression that this great stone has two great eyes staring not at the familiar sands and shrubbery of the desert but out into the black and frightening beyond.
The ghost finds this interesting but is drawn to the heat atop the stone once again. Beginning with a palm it feels for the warmth of the stone and begins to remember the feeling of warmth. It is a feeling of familiarity from a time when a skin was not as scale but smooth and pleasant for lovers and children of lovers to touch out beyond the other end of the sands in the world of the living. Life was warmth and light as shields against overbearing darkness that some fought and some embraced but none so devotedly as the ghost. It remembers the child and the man and the older ones and younger ones. It feels a thing unfelt since life. The draw is strong and heartness fails when the touch of the minutely scarred surface grazes its long dead surface. Broken thing to broken thing it creeps closer and feels the warmth pierce the cracks. It presses itself against the stone with eyes that stare out across beyond the fathomless beyond of possibility and hope. Dry frigid breasts ebb and flow as it encircles the stone eyeing it hungrily and with great sadness as the memory of heat becomes stronger and its temptation too great for a ghost alone and without guidance to resist. With each press of scale on stone the ghost feels itself embolden and reach for cracks and holes with which to firmly grip its treasure at the edge of the sands. Its back and arms stretch wide and long as the ghost reverts from its hunched and pitiful form and muscles not since used begin to ache and groan yet find comfort in the strengthening heat radiating from within.
The desperation of the ghost allows it to find places in which it can hold with precision and so it begins its ascent drawn ever farther up the seemingly smooth but secretly and essentially scarred thing. The effort expended is lost forever as it nimbly reaches for holes in which to hold itself and climb ever higher where the warmth is hottest and the distance to the ground farthest. Withered toes and finger tips it digs and breaks fragile nails struggling to get higher and farther along a path that will not end. It feels more than is felt before. Its body is withered but will not fail. Every outstretched arm a snap of a tendon and every scrape a loss of fossil cells down into the empty air and the endless desert of the wastes. The heat’s slap across its gaunt face sizzles beneath the surface of the bones and into the empty rattling wearing away the loose connections and urging it to hurry as there is no going down or side to side but up to top where the surface begins to turn inward and the climbing continues in possibility until.
Then it is there and it is fire. The dome looms beneath its dusty thighs and try as it may to cry the moisture long since dissipated into the living dirt unlike the sands of the cursed world and fire consumes it enveloping like memories of mountains of blankets and warm flesh and pulse. It wants to fall in deeper in farther in and die again inside the fossil core the pulse is there it pulses up and in and it slides and slides across the stone and wants to dive into the being be one be it be the final point of existence rubbing its dried lips as mimic of kisses its hands as loving caresses its thighs and crotch as godless lust it rides the stone it flails wildly cat like in wild abandon losing flakes and then patches from its skin hair flying to the wind looking on into the void.
From atop the stone it sees into the world. The ghost has found a warmth unparalleled a warmth waiting. It needs the warmth to which it is unfamiliar. The stone’s being breaks through scales and callouses deep into the core and down along the hips of the ghost’s damned soul where it hides the secrets of happiness. Oh the sensation it wants to say but not for its mouth sealed in death’s memory. The stone’s heat rises and allows chained freedom bound to the earth via stone and the stone bound to the moon via ghost the endless roil at last is ended.
Unable to remain rooted against the assault the stone is loosened. The ghost places its bones onto it holding it close and pulling back in vain. Each pull a push forward closer into the chasm from which return is impossible. The ghost holds close. Its arms tremble as the stone begins to separate from it ever further ever consuming. Ever deeper into the unknown.