I am Standing on a Road

I am standing on a road. I don't know how long it has been here, but I can tell from the natural wear and neglect that it hasn't been used in some time. The overgrowth on the sides of the desperately cracked asphalt reaches my knees, and I fear stepping in it to meet with snakes. The general terrain of my surroundings is not much different, and I doubt that much sustenance could be found, if one were desperate enough to need it.

I’ve been walking since thirty minutes after the sun came up and my mouth is dry with exhaustion and thirst. My dehydration has caused me to have strange thoughts, the strangest of which being that I was sure I saw a parrot with amazing exotic colors about 20 paces ahead of me, but the thirst had not completely clouded my mind and I knew the image to be false.

I know enough basic survival skills to know to follow the sun to the west, but at the moment, I am unable to recall where west leads. My only hope for refuge from the steady radiation of the afternoon blaze is a pleasantly misplaced oak that stands about ten men high, and has branches that reach out about six men in either direction. I know I can’t return from where I came, but the later path is so unsure, so I decided to take a rest beneath the shelter of the large, obviously lost, oak. This oak is like me. Lost. An outlier. Proof that everything does not have a rightful place. This oak and I understand each other, and I allow it to keep me company.

The strong grip of exhaustion takes hold of me, and I find my dry lids uncharacteristically weighted. I am sure that I must listen to my body and give it the rest it craves if I want to it continue to fulfill my meager request of keep going, keep going. The sleep is quick.

I am unable to decide if I have woken from under the oak, but I have taken note that my surroundings have changed. My clothes seem better kempt than when I was walking, and my thirst has been satisfied. The large oak is still standing, but the scenery is something entirely different. The road, freshly paved. The overgrowth, no more. Where I once feared stepping I would feel safe laying down for a nap, as it is home only to red clover and several types of poppies. Although I know I should fear the change, as even in my state I know surroundings do not simply evolve with the celerity of an afternoon nap, a whisper from the back of my mind tells me to pay no attention to useless details of logic.

I still have not decided if I am going to continue along the road, but I certainly cannot return from where I came.