Memories: The Poet of The Dunes

[Ashoka]

“Do you dream?” Ashoka inquired. “Tell me Lara when you look up upon the stars, do you feel your dreams dance inside you?”

He stopped at the very top of the sand dune and turned to his sister watching her follow the footsteps he had left in the sand. He gestured for her to continue her climb to the top. Here the sky was littered with stars like diamonds sparkling, left by the Gods of Althanas. It was a chilly night, but nothing like usual fierce temperature drop that the desert birthed each night after the sun went down.

“Of course I dream dear brother,” Lara had reached the top of the dune. She stood there next to her brother and placed her hand on his shoulder. “There is nothing wrong with being a dreamer. Grandfather always says that our father was a dreamer. He was a poet who dreamt words to honor the beauty of Suravani.”

Ashoka gently removed her hand from his shoulder and turned to her. “There is more in this world than Suravani. No doubt I have dreamt of Suravani, but I have dreamt of other things as well, other God’s and Goddesses. I have dreamt of other eternal beauties, other eternal ugliness, other deeds of sainthood and sins.”

Lara shook her head. She was use to this type of talk. She didn’t even tell him to hold his tongue. Ashoka never listened. He had always been one to question the world around him. It had been something that had always worried her family. He had been told time and time again to refrain from this sort of blasphemous talk lest Suravani curse him into eternal damnation. But it never stopped him, and it never would.

"The sands they shimmer
like a sea of jewels.
The darkest night
gives birth to the brightest of light.
Such is the desert,
such are our sins,
that they stain the clouds.
Swelling, bursting open
pouring rain down upon our heads.
Like the tears of our God's,
blessing us and cursing us as they weep."

Ashoka almost whispered it into the night. Lara listened to the words and shivered fiercely. His words always had that affect on her. Indeed one day he would be The Poet of the Dunes. She knew that it wasn’t written, but she also knew that it didn’t have to be. Ashoka would eventually chisel his place into history and eventually time itself.

“Come Ashoka. Let us return to the clan before something evil finds us amongst these dunes.” She turned and made her way down the dune. Ashoka stood for a few moments longer looking out into the desert, his eyes dancing with the moonlight that lit the seemingly endless sea of sand. Then he turned and followed Lara home.

He was jolted from his sleep as if he had been hit by a hammer upon his chest. Ashoka struggled trying to catch his breath. His clothes were soaked with sweat. He felt his pulse and concentrated on the heartbeat. It was racing like a desert stallion. He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth slowly, carefully until his heartbeat had slowed down. He opened his eyes and looked around at his makeshift camp. In the distance he heard the howl of a wild animal, and nearby he could here the chirping of some sort of insect.

His dreams were getting more vivid each time. They continued on like a story that simply kept repeating itself. It haunted him day in and day out. But, they had gotten much worse ever since he had arrived here. Ashoka glanced around at the darkened surroundings of the rainforest. He had been traveling for a week straight now with rarely any rest.

There was a crash and light trickled through in a series of intense flashes as the sky lit up above the trees as both lightening and thunder struck.

Great, he thought, this is no place to be during a rainstorm. But there was nothing he could do. He moved his possessions under the canopy of one of the many giant leaves that lay stretched out over the rainforest floor and sat quietly trying not to get wet while he listened to the rain dance all around him.