Stories from the Apocalypse - Sand

Some people say we're all descended from story. Story is all, and all is story. I think some people just don't read so much these days, and perhaps my eyes grow. Dim.

The biting wind is endless. A long, eternal stretch where sand is withered, whitened bone-rib, riding out the storm. Swirling.
Do you see, out there in the distance? Running down the molten wave, each step bleeds a glassy stare. We cannot avoid his eye.

Crow flies and we quicken down the sand. It stands before us, the skull, rictus grinning as wind whips in and out of the deep-set sockets. Motionless, grinning. We circle the wooden stake and return to face the skull. Bowing down we take our knife and carve out the eyes. For him to see.

Time passes and the sands snake silently down. A woman approaches the stake. Gold-ringed and bronze, she bears a purple scarf. Scraping the crusted blood to kiss his eyes. In rapture. The woman takes the scarf from her shoulders and wraps it tenderly around the skull - purple binding the coronal suture. She falls to the foot of the stake.

The words fly home. Crow bound and circling the stake, they lift the condyle voice as one. And so a story is borne on the winds. Story is all, and all is story. And somehow people just don't read so much these days.