Quiet Tears

In the land where all is shadows and mist, where a bird's song is ne'er heard, and where there are no rainbows when a storm passes. In this land, the Heartland it was called, journeyed a wanderer across the barrenness of the frigid plains. The moon is always shining there and sunlight stays hidden behind great mountains. In order to survive the nomad killed all creatures he encountered and hastily ate them. It was always best to keep moving, to ever be escaping unperceived danger.

A frosty wind cut along the vales and dales penetrating all defense against its slow death. Shelter was nearly impossible to find and nearly as hard to make, for every cave was constantly filled and guarded by ferocious beasts. The landscape itself was full of treacherous pitfalls as well as thin ice over water. It was constantly precipitating, snow, rain, sleet, hail all would fall on a normal day and seemingly hail would fall the most often of all.

The wild and savage wilderness was dangerous beyond all compare yet it held a beauty for the traveler. The moonlight was as many silver threads glistening pale upon the ice capped fields. It was as cold and pale as a dead man yet enchanting despite all association with the grave. The man journeyed away from sunlight, ever to the north and away from other men. Somehow he survived alone, at least for then.

He could not be any more alone in the void and the night than he was in a city of men in the southern latitudes. Each of them was consumed with their own quests and would not deign to share bread with a friend. The pariah had embraced the hinter lands and could better endure the frozen tundra than the frozen smiles of so many men. He adored the places none had been for no where else had he found a place he identified with.

It was there, on the day of unceasing sleet, on the day when the wind howled louder than any train, when no shelter could endure nor comfort made. It was then he made it to the center of the wasteland, the north most point of all the earth. At the core of cold he pitched his tent and waited. He waited for the equinox, the time when sun would overtake moon. He sat for the time when the rim of the earth no longer swam away from the celestial body of heat and light. He waited for two months and ten days but who can tell time in the shadow of the moon? It seemed to be eternity and a lifetime he held his ground.

Yet the sun did rise and when the sun rose it stayed. The athlete no longer would remain only in shadows and moonlight but to be made warm in the full light of day. The wanderer had found a place to be home at, at least while the sun shone. He would now journey only west to remain in sunlight all the longer. For he had enough of being full of an icy soul and now that the thaw had come he yearned for warmth to be his only lot; never more to weep frozen tears in silence, but to run his course with joy.

Dt