10 June 2012
Dust swirled around his feet. His brown, leather trench coat skimmed the desert dirt. All around him, existed nothing. A barren wasteland of dry earth.
He walked slowly, following no path in particular, no destination set in mind. He simply walked.
As time passed, the man gained a thirst. A deep, quenching thirst. The sun's rays beat down on him relentlessly; heating his skin, vaporising the saliva within his mouth and boiling the brain within his skull.
He passed out.
He didn't know how long he was out. Maybe one hour, maybe two. He had no way of telling.
When at last he did awake, it was to the sound of trundling wheels. Through the haze of his delirious vision, he spotted a small wagon being pulled by two large oxen. It moved ever so slowly and by the time it reached him, he was on the verge of unconsciousness again.
On top of the wagon, sat an old man. He was very short in stature, around the height of a small child. A beard grew from his chin; bushy and grey - it covered the majority of his face, leaving only his eyes (Even these were shaded by thick, bristly eyebrows) and nose to be seen.
The old man peered down at the stranger from under his wide-brimmed ten gallon hat. His eyes furrowed in concern, clearly in deep thought.
He reached for a satchel beside him and pulled out a small, silver flask.
In a surprisingly adept move for such a small, old man, he leaped from his cart and onto the dust beside the dying stranger.
He lay on his knees and pulled the stranger's head onto his lap. "Here, drink this, kid." His voice was high pitched, yet croaky. It was a strange mix, but it still seemed to fit the old man. "What's your name?
The stranger stared at the him. He looked confused. "I... I don't know." Saying those simple words took too much energy from him, his voice dry and parched. He seized the flask from the old man's hands and guzzled it down.
"Wow, slow down there, kid. Take small sips, don't down the whole lot," The old man instructed. "Well, I'm not entirely sure how one forgets their name, but mine's Willard Norris. Everyone just calls me Norris," he smiled.
After the stranger had emptied the flask, Norris helped him into the back of his wagon. "Now you just sit down right there and rest, kid," he said, pointing at a pile of blankets nestled in the corner of the wagon. "I'm heading into town myself, how about I see to you getting a doctor, hmm?" With that, he pulled close the drape that covered the wagon and left the stranger to recover.
The man sat there. The fact he could not remember his own name bothered him greatly. Actually, he couldn't remember anything. Not a thing of his past. All he could remember, was stumbling through the desert. Not why he was there, or how.
The wagon bustled onwards, oxen doing their job in contented silence. Norris hummed a tune, but what it was, the man had no idea.
After a while, the man felt well enough to move around. He jumped out the back of the slow moving wagon and ran up to sit beside Norris at the front. "Feeling better are we?" he asked.
The man nodded. "Yes... Thank you."
"For what?"
"You saved my life."
"Just doing my duty," the old man said, "It's a dangerous world out there, we all gotta look out for one another."
The man said nothing, he simply stared ahead. Norris looked at him from the corner of his eyes, but chose not to disturb the silence.
"You mentioned something about a town?" The man asked.
Norris nodded and pointed ahead. For the first time, the stranger realised that they were on a road. It was only made up of flattened earth, but it was a road all the same. Ahead of them, lay a sign.
'Welcome to Dust Flats.'
Dust: Pt. 1 - The Stranger • Opuss № I