If he could walk, he’d get there, but instead he sat wondering where the sycamore trees would pop up, and where the anvil would hit the iron. The mercury rose like thick lava, boiling his skin under the merciless sun, the rivulets of sweat pooling in the crevice of his bent elbows. Nothing shifted in the distance, just the wavy illusions of mirages against the dry pale grass, still against the dry cracked hills.

The bugs stuck to his skin because they flew too close, the sweat burnt his eyes and his loud jagged breathing frightened nothing. He was alone, he had lost count of how many days he’d sat here, in this bald spot, the wheels of his chair grinding permanent grooves, as if he needed a reminder of his current state.

Silence never sounded so loud. His head always filled with too much, so much that it cancelled out thought and created a drought of words and imaginations, a sucking dryness that never let go. Is this what death is? He would welcome it if it came. He would reach towards it with dirty fingers and clutch at its bosom with all his strength, never letting go. The ever-pulsing vein in his neck was a deep reminder that death was still some distance away, standing hidden, watching him.

There is no salvation to be had. He had done the things he did, and he must live with it. Live with the sound of a pounding anvil against his tired temples, no pills could help, no sleep kept him safe. His eyes looked out at cloudless skies yet dark images jumped from slivers of doors and raged across his endless field of regrets. Trapped in a desolate wasteland he waits, not for the sound of soft voices saying tender things, not for the smell of blooming vines or the touch of a loving hand.

His was the wait of the damned; an endless stretch of time where no hands turned on the clock. This is where his suffering starts every day without pause and where the screams of a mother ricochets off his skull and echoes in his chest. Over and over and over again he hears the sound of metal on flesh. His hazy mind trying to make sense of where he was and what had happened, the child a bundle of purple in the distance. A simple tear mixes with his sweat…pools beneath his chin and loses itself.