2025-12-07 Freewrite

Some alone time, I see, the man said. The flames of the fire danced along a sharp shadow. The evening wind was cold and no comfort to it. The man sat beside him. The boy kept his eyes firm on the sands blue-grey with moon.

Do you reckon the stars get lonely? He craned his neck and squinted his eyes. They must. From their vantage it all must look so small and pitiless, all their work to hold together their pocket of the universe. All the other stars see of them is such a faint shimmer.

You can’t find an answer, lad. Not if you keep looking for it in the shadows. Out here, the answer is clear enough. You are alone. I’m here, but you are alone. You won’t find your way out of that one.

I’ll lay it out this way. You’re trying to answer a question about out there by looking at it in there. He tapped the boys brow with the end of his pipe. And you’re trying to answer it in a way that makes sense, but it don’t make sense. There’s no sense in it all. The kicker, see, is that it don’t make sense to be sad about it neither. What you’re looking at out there, what you’re thinking will save you, it’s nothing. You’re alive, you’re here, you’ve got however many years you’ve got. Whatever happened already is out there in the sands, washed away. And whatever’s up ahead is whatever’s up ahead. No sense in bothering about the futures that don’t come.

So here’s what you gotta do, boy. Whatever demands this time of you, whatever keeps you hiding away, is no friend of yours. You wouldn’t let a man speaking in such a way into your home. No sense letting him into your head. Throw him overboard, toss him from your front poarch, leave him tied to the tracks behind you to be found by the next train. Wish him well if you must, but do not wish him upon another.

I’ve seen you before kid. I’ve seen you in the eyes of countless men lost to the world, lost to the words they concocted and took to the ends of the earth. For your kind, you’ll always find shelter out there, but you gotta have some shelter inside too.

The boys eyes never moved. The man shrugged. He lit his pipe once again, the tiny embers sinking through the desert air. The boy listened to the sound of footsteps fading behind the caravan and then a small plume of laughter arising from the fireplace.