The desert began where the city ended no border, no gate, just a gradual bleaching of color until all that was left was the whisper of light itself.
Ayor walked for hours, maybe days; time lost its arithmetic. The sky hung low, swollen with stillness. His footprints vanished behind him as if the sand refused to remember anyone.
He carried only the blank canvas the blind painter had given him. Sometimes he thought it pulsed faintly in his hand as if it were breathing, or waiting for his surrender.
At dusk, he saw a flicker of movement a small figure crouched beside a crooked sign that read:
"SHADOWS FOR SALE – CHEAP."
It was a boy, no older than twelve, with eyes like wet coal and a voice too calm for childhood.
"You're late," the boy said.
"I wasn't aware of an appointment," Ayor replied.
"Everyone who seeks the Word passes here. Most turn back."
Ayor studied him. A small heap of shadows lay by his feet some short and trembling, others long as regret.
"What do you sell them for?" Ayor asked.
"For attention," said the boy. "Give me your gaze, and I'll lend you a new self."
Ayor frowned. "What would I do with another self?"
"You'd worship it," the boy said simply. "That's what everyone does."
The boy handed him a small shadow shaped vaguely like ambition. When Ayor held it, it wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak warm, intoxicating. Suddenly he felt powerful again, like the man he once was before ruin and smoke. The air tasted of possibility.
"You remember how it feels?" the boy asked.
"Yes… alive."
"That's the trap. Life whispers louder when you're chasing something that runs away."
The boy reached and tore the shadow from him. It disintegrated like burnt paper.
"Everything you desire owns you," the boy said. "Every coin of success is minted from the soul's silence."
Ayor knelt, feeling hollow and strangely grateful. "Who are you, really?"
The boy smiled faintly. "I'm what remains of your wanting."
And just like that, the boy vanished, leaving only the crooked sign half-buried in sand.
Night came slowly a heavy, golden silence. Ayor built a small fire and sat watching the stars rearrange themselves into symbols he almost recognized. He thought of Time, of the painter, of the boy selling shadows each one a syllable of a sentence he couldn't yet read.
He opened the blank canvas. Under the flicker of firelight, faint lines began to appear drawn by unseen hands. The image was incomplete, but he saw fragments: a river, a door, a spiral, an eye. Beneath it all, an inscription formed in shimmering script:
"You are the riddle you chase."
Ayor touched the words; they dissolved into light that sank into his palm. Pain bloomed there small, sharp, honest. It felt sacred, as if truth had teeth.
He whispered to himself:
"If success delays, perhaps it waits for the death of who I thought must earn it.
As he drifted to sleep, the desert spoke in dreams. He found himself walking on an invisible bridge made of memories. Below it flowed a river of forgotten days. On the far side stood a figure cloaked, faceless holding a key made of bone.
"What do you seek?" the figure asked.
"The Word Beneath Words."
"And what will you do when you find it?"
"Translate my pain."
"Then you must first unlearn your language."
When Ayor reached out for the key, it turned to dust. He awoke with tears drying on his face and the moon staring down like a watchful god.
The next morning, a strange calmness filled him the kind that follows deep loss or revelation. He began walking again, and with every step, the desert seemed to whisper fragments of wisdom disguised as wind:
"All striving is a prayer with teeth."
"The indifferent man is not numb; he is tuned to a deeper song."
"Patience is the art of dancing while the music is still being written."
By noon, he reached a stone pillar half-buried in sand. Carved into it were hundreds of names some crossed out, some glowing faintly as if alive. At its base, a small inscription read:
"Here lie those who mistook delay for denial."
Ayor touched the stone and felt a pulse the heartbeat of countless dreamers who had died waiting for success to arrive wearing gold. He knelt, whispering a vow to stay not waiting, not wanting, just being.
That night, the desert's horizon burned with a strange light a second sunrise in reverse. The stars dimmed. Ayor felt something awaken in his chest, like an ancient memory resurfacing. The blank canvas glowed softly, the unseen painting completing itself.
He saw, faintly, the face of the blind man smiling through the light.
"Now," his voice echoed, "walk without destination. The path itself will become the revelation."
And when Ayor turned to look back at his footprints they were gone.
The desert had erased him, or perhaps, remembered him differently.
He walked on, not knowing whether he sought or was being sought